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silveradeptThe stratification of wealth in the United States is one way powerful white men hate you.
The deliberate shutting-off of water to residences behind only a little while corporations who are behind so much more are allowed to stay in arrears is another way powerful white men hate you. And if you protest this barbaric act, powerful white men will put you in a mass jail, refuse to give you your rights, and then attempt to intimidate you into pleading guilty for having done nothing wrong but oppose powerful white men.
Police officers will shoot unarmed black men, create a story to justify it, and then respond to peaceful assembly for redress with Special Weapons And Tactics teams, heavily-armored vehicles, and attacks on journalists and the assembled crowds. And repeated threats against the media. Also, an officer of the local police referred to the protesters that are seeking justice as animals. This set of attacks are something police have done because police departments country-wide have been bulking themselves up with military-style hardware and looking for excuses to use them. The police have also been trying to conflate the peaceful assemblies with violent looters. The response is such that those with more experience send their advice along on how to beat tear gas attacks. All of this police response is because powerful white men hate you and think that you are not with enough of a damn for them to investigate their own racism. This is nothing new for people of color, but this, like the Trayvon Martin case, appears to have been the linchpin for all the rest that has gone on without the television cameras or the protests.
Those who have done military scenarios in foreign countries look at this response and shake their heads in disbelief.
The response was so obviously awful that the local police were relieved of crowd control and working with protestors. The State Highway Patrol captain assigned to Ferguson, a black man himself, marched with and provided an excellent escort to the protests, which looked like it would defuse most of the tension between police and protest, which would put the focus back on the issue of the officer that shot the unarmed black man. So the police that had been taken off the case sabotaged the chances of good relations by accusing Michael Brown of having shoplifted cigars from a store, an allegation later walked back after it had achieved the necessary effect of inflaming the protests, so that the issue of the unarmed black kid being shot by a white police officer could be muddled or dropped.
The official reports so far have had redactions to the point of uselessness. That is, when they aren't actively trying to paint the young man as some sort of criminal, claiming he had marijuana in his system when police officers shot him, for example, in addition to the spurious rubbery claim from earlier.
Lies are also nothing new for the police department in Ferguson.
For those reasons and others, United States Attorney General Eric Holder and federal investigators are on scene, and may or may not file a federal claim for violation of civil rights, depending on how the question of whether criminal charges will be filed against the officer that shot Michael Brown.
If you want an easy sign of how bad things still are, more money had been raised on GoFundMe for the officer that shot Michael Brown than for the family of Michael Brown.
It gets to the point where it seems like any black child wanting to grow up and live as an adult is on a fool's errand. To help that, white people can help by being true allies. Because living in denial doesn't help fix the racism problem.
A different incident that ended in the death of a black man shows police choosing lethal force as their first option when responding to a call about an erratically-behaving man. No attempt to use stun weapons as the man approached them aggressively, appearing to request his own death from the police officers.
What does it mean to be anti-racist? And how can privileged people do better?
shenalia provides the capstone - a minority man can be doing nothing wrong at all and be harassed and assaulted by police. And tree way the article was written, if it hadn't been for the White woman witnessing what happened to corroborate the video evidence the black man had, the black man might have still gone to jail or been convicted of something.
Finally, while they have been more than willing to let all the other clinics be shut down through dishonest means, an appeals court finally said that Mississippi cannot have zero clinics in the state that perform abortions. In doing so, though, they are still contending that the idea of having to cross state lines to get constitutionally protected services was not an undue burden to women.
Powerful White Men hate you. Even more so if you're not white and a man.
The deliberate shutting-off of water to residences behind only a little while corporations who are behind so much more are allowed to stay in arrears is another way powerful white men hate you. And if you protest this barbaric act, powerful white men will put you in a mass jail, refuse to give you your rights, and then attempt to intimidate you into pleading guilty for having done nothing wrong but oppose powerful white men.
Police officers will shoot unarmed black men, create a story to justify it, and then respond to peaceful assembly for redress with Special Weapons And Tactics teams, heavily-armored vehicles, and attacks on journalists and the assembled crowds. And repeated threats against the media. Also, an officer of the local police referred to the protesters that are seeking justice as animals. This set of attacks are something police have done because police departments country-wide have been bulking themselves up with military-style hardware and looking for excuses to use them. The police have also been trying to conflate the peaceful assemblies with violent looters. The response is such that those with more experience send their advice along on how to beat tear gas attacks. All of this police response is because powerful white men hate you and think that you are not with enough of a damn for them to investigate their own racism. This is nothing new for people of color, but this, like the Trayvon Martin case, appears to have been the linchpin for all the rest that has gone on without the television cameras or the protests.
Those who have done military scenarios in foreign countries look at this response and shake their heads in disbelief.
The response was so obviously awful that the local police were relieved of crowd control and working with protestors. The State Highway Patrol captain assigned to Ferguson, a black man himself, marched with and provided an excellent escort to the protests, which looked like it would defuse most of the tension between police and protest, which would put the focus back on the issue of the officer that shot the unarmed black man. So the police that had been taken off the case sabotaged the chances of good relations by accusing Michael Brown of having shoplifted cigars from a store, an allegation later walked back after it had achieved the necessary effect of inflaming the protests, so that the issue of the unarmed black kid being shot by a white police officer could be muddled or dropped.
The official reports so far have had redactions to the point of uselessness. That is, when they aren't actively trying to paint the young man as some sort of criminal, claiming he had marijuana in his system when police officers shot him, for example, in addition to the spurious rubbery claim from earlier.
Lies are also nothing new for the police department in Ferguson.
For those reasons and others, United States Attorney General Eric Holder and federal investigators are on scene, and may or may not file a federal claim for violation of civil rights, depending on how the question of whether criminal charges will be filed against the officer that shot Michael Brown.
If you want an easy sign of how bad things still are, more money had been raised on GoFundMe for the officer that shot Michael Brown than for the family of Michael Brown.
It gets to the point where it seems like any black child wanting to grow up and live as an adult is on a fool's errand. To help that, white people can help by being true allies. Because living in denial doesn't help fix the racism problem.
A different incident that ended in the death of a black man shows police choosing lethal force as their first option when responding to a call about an erratically-behaving man. No attempt to use stun weapons as the man approached them aggressively, appearing to request his own death from the police officers.
What does it mean to be anti-racist? And how can privileged people do better?
shenalia provides the capstone - a minority man can be doing nothing wrong at all and be harassed and assaulted by police. And tree way the article was written, if it hadn't been for the White woman witnessing what happened to corroborate the video evidence the black man had, the black man might have still gone to jail or been convicted of something.Finally, while they have been more than willing to let all the other clinics be shut down through dishonest means, an appeals court finally said that Mississippi cannot have zero clinics in the state that perform abortions. In doing so, though, they are still contending that the idea of having to cross state lines to get constitutionally protected services was not an undue burden to women.
Powerful White Men hate you. Even more so if you're not white and a man.
no subject
Date: 2014-08-23 07:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-08-23 07:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-08-24 12:44 am (UTC)Thank you for putting it together.
no subject
Date: 2014-08-24 04:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-08-24 05:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-08-24 03:34 pm (UTC)It also doesn't help that, at least according to some headlines I saw, white supremacist groups will be happy to kick in money to help the officer as well.
no subject
Date: 2014-08-25 12:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-08-24 04:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-08-27 02:33 pm (UTC)DawnM
no subject
Date: 2014-08-29 10:31 pm (UTC)I wanted to share one more back your way. It doesn't even matter if a minority is doing everything right in a situation, they will still be targeted.
no subject
Date: 2014-08-30 12:11 am (UTC)