Announcement from Ferguson Missouri
- Thread starter hedgehog
- Start date
WOW...Convoluted thinking like this is the reason Obama is in the White House today & (GOD FORBID) Hillary will be in 2016. :facepalm:
No need too response sir as I refuse too engage in a "Battle of Wits" with a man who is "Un-Armed".
Which is why you didn't respond. I love how you veil any attempt to defend your ignorance with a completely senseless post tangent to anything that may include an explanation of your obfuscating the facts with rhetoric.WOW...Convoluted thinking like this is the reason Obama is in the White House today & (GOD FORBID) Hillary will be in 2016. :facepalm:
No need too response sir as I refuse too engage in a "Battle of Wits" with a man who is "Un-Armed".
What does height have to do with anything, I met Mr T. many years ago, I am 5-6"taller than him, No Way I kick his ass..........................:0corn:jerkit:
"Then you seem to think that ten fucking rounds into a person only one inch taller than you is justified as long as a cop days he was in fear of his life."
"Then you seem to think that ten fucking rounds into a person only one inch taller than you is justified as long as a cop days he was in fear of his life."
Cross examinations are almost never done in grand jury proceedings.
But McCullough did ask many "pointed questions" to the witnesses, as the transcripts show, but he only directed very soft and sometimes helpful questions to Officer Wilson.
the link "no pepper" had in his posting (#66 in this thread) shows the bruise and swelling on Officer Wilson's face, in pictures taken by the medical examiner (who prescribed some NSAIDs for the officer), resulting from his encounter that took place quite a while earlier.
The transcript also reports more photographs of injuries to Officer Wilson's head taken by a local detective at the Fraternal Order of Police building, not long after the encounter. The transcript reveals no photographs were taken at police HQ, of the injuries, or the blood on Officer Wilson's hands (before he washed them off there) because ?there was no photographer available.?
Officer Wilson was also allowed to drive himself to police HQ after the shooting and place his gun himself in the evidence bag. And the investigator's first interviews with him were not recorded because "we don't do that", reports the transcript.
not to mention the medical examiner did not take any measurements at the crime scene because what went down there he said was ?self-explanatory.??
In this recent rioting, the protestors did mostly "destroy their own neighborhoods", but it seemed a second choice. In Ferguson, the blacks generally hang on W.Florissant, where most of the destruction took place in previous riots. The more quaint and upscale S. Florissant, which runs parallel to W. Florissant a few blocks over (and includes the excellent and very tasty Cose Dolci bakery!) is where the white folks are and rioters seemed intent on hitting more of these businesses this time (some who benefited recently from shopping trips "BUYcotts" the Tea Party sponsored). But the limited forces at hand Monday night (tho not the forces available) were deployed, it appears from news reports, to save the businesses on S. Florissant - the ones on W. Florissant were left to the tender mercies of "the wicked", as it is said.
But McCullough did ask many "pointed questions" to the witnesses, as the transcripts show, but he only directed very soft and sometimes helpful questions to Officer Wilson.
the link "no pepper" had in his posting (#66 in this thread) shows the bruise and swelling on Officer Wilson's face, in pictures taken by the medical examiner (who prescribed some NSAIDs for the officer), resulting from his encounter that took place quite a while earlier.
The transcript also reports more photographs of injuries to Officer Wilson's head taken by a local detective at the Fraternal Order of Police building, not long after the encounter. The transcript reveals no photographs were taken at police HQ, of the injuries, or the blood on Officer Wilson's hands (before he washed them off there) because ?there was no photographer available.?
Officer Wilson was also allowed to drive himself to police HQ after the shooting and place his gun himself in the evidence bag. And the investigator's first interviews with him were not recorded because "we don't do that", reports the transcript.
not to mention the medical examiner did not take any measurements at the crime scene because what went down there he said was ?self-explanatory.??
In this recent rioting, the protestors did mostly "destroy their own neighborhoods", but it seemed a second choice. In Ferguson, the blacks generally hang on W.Florissant, where most of the destruction took place in previous riots. The more quaint and upscale S. Florissant, which runs parallel to W. Florissant a few blocks over (and includes the excellent and very tasty Cose Dolci bakery!) is where the white folks are and rioters seemed intent on hitting more of these businesses this time (some who benefited recently from shopping trips "BUYcotts" the Tea Party sponsored). But the limited forces at hand Monday night (tho not the forces available) were deployed, it appears from news reports, to save the businesses on S. Florissant - the ones on W. Florissant were left to the tender mercies of "the wicked", as it is said.
another opinion:
Telling My Son About Ferguson
By MICHELLE ALEXANDER, NOV. 26, 2014
COLUMBUS, Ohio ? MY son wants an answer. He is 10 years old, and he wants me to tell him that he doesn?t need to worry. He is a black boy, rather sheltered, and knows little of the world beyond our safe, quiet neighborhood. His eyes are wide and holding my gaze, silently begging me to say: No, sweetheart, you have no need to worry. Most officers are nothing like Officer Wilson. They would not shoot you ? or anyone ? while you?re unarmed, running away or even toward them.
I am stammering.
For the past few years, I have traveled from coast to coast speaking to just about anyone who will listen about the horrors of our criminal injustice system. I have written and lectured extensively about the wars that have been declared on poor communities of color ? the ?war on crime? and the ?war on drugs? ? the militarization of our police forces, the school-to-prison pipeline, the millions stripped of basic civil and human rights, a penal system unprecedented in world history. Yet here I am, on Monday evening, before the announcement about the grand jury?s decision has been made, speechless.
My son wants me to reassure him, and tell him that of course Darren Wilson will go to jail. At 10 years old, he can feel deep in his bones how wrong it was for the police to kill Michael Brown. ?There will be a trial, at least ? right, Mom?? My son is asking me a simple question, and I know the answer.
As a civil rights lawyer, I know all too well that Officer Wilson will not be going to trial or to jail. The system is legally rigged so that poor people guilty of relatively minor crimes are regularly sentenced to decades behind bars while police officers who kill unarmed black men almost never get charged, much less serve time in prison.
I open my mouth to speak, look into my son?s eyes, and hear myself begin to lie: ?Don?t worry, honey, you have nothing to worry about. Nothing like this could ever happen to you.? His face brightens as he tells me that he likes the police, and that he always waves at the cops in our neighborhood and they always wave back. His innocence is radiating from him now; he?s all lit up with relief and gladness that he lives in a world where he can take for granted that the police can be trusted to serve and protect him with a wave and a smile.
My face is flushing red. I am embarrassed that I have lied. And I am angry. I am angry that I have to tell my son that he has reason to worry. I am angry that I have to tell him that I already know Darren Wilson won?t be indicted, because police officers are almost never indicted when they kill unarmed black men. I must tell him now, before he hears it on the school bus or sees it in the news, that many people in Michael Brown?s town will be very angry too ? so filled with pain, sadness and rage ? that they may react by doing things they shouldn?t, like setting fires or breaking windows or starting fights.
I know I must explain this violence, but not condone it. I must help him see that adults often have trouble managing their pain just like he does. Doesn?t he sometimes lash out and yell at friends or family when he?s hurt or angry? When people have been hurt over and over, and rather than compassion or understanding you?re given lectures about how it?s really all your fault, and that no one needs to make amends, you can lose your mind. We can wind up harming people we care about with words or deeds, people who have done no harm to us.
I begin telling him the truth and his face contorts. The glowing innocence is wiped away as his eyes flash first with fear, then anger. ?No!,? he erupts. ?There has to be a trial! If you kill an unarmed man, don?t you at least have a trial??
My son is telling me now that the people in Ferguson should fight back. A minute ago, he was reminiscing about waving to Officer Friendly. Now he wants to riot.
I tell him that sometimes I have those feelings too. But now I feel something greater. I am proud of the thousands of people of all colors who have taken to the streets in nonviolent protest, raising their voices with boldness and courage, capturing the attention and the imagination of the world. They?re building a radical movement for justice, one that would make the freedom fighters who came before them sing from the heavens with joy.
I tell my son, as well as my daughters, as we sit around the dinner table, stories of young activists organizing in Ferguson, some of them not much older than they are. I tell them about the hip-hop artist Tef Poe, who traveled with Michael Brown?s parents to Geneva to testify before a United Nations subcommittee about police militarization and violence. I tell them about activists like Phillip B. Agnew, Tory Russell, Brittany Ferrell and Alexis Templeton, who marched in the streets and endured tear gas while waving signs bearing three words: ?Black Lives Matter.?
I?ve met some of these activists, I say. They believe, like you do, that we should be able to live in a world where we trust the police and where all people and all children, no matter what their color or where they came from, are treated with dignity, care, compassion and concern. These courageous young people know the tools of war, violence and revenge will never build a nation of justice. They told me they?re willing to risk their lives, if necessary, so that kids like you can live in a better world.
My son is stirring his mashed potatoes around on his plate. He looks up and says, ?Right now, I?m just thinking I don?t want anything like this ever to happen again.?
I?m tempted to tell him that it will happen; in fact, it already has. Several unarmed black men have been shot by the police since Aug. 9, when Michael Brown was killed. But I don?t say another word. It?s much easier telling the truth about race and justice in America to strangers than to my son, who will soon be forced to live it.
(Michelle Alexander is the author of ?The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness.?)
Telling My Son About Ferguson
By MICHELLE ALEXANDER, NOV. 26, 2014
COLUMBUS, Ohio ? MY son wants an answer. He is 10 years old, and he wants me to tell him that he doesn?t need to worry. He is a black boy, rather sheltered, and knows little of the world beyond our safe, quiet neighborhood. His eyes are wide and holding my gaze, silently begging me to say: No, sweetheart, you have no need to worry. Most officers are nothing like Officer Wilson. They would not shoot you ? or anyone ? while you?re unarmed, running away or even toward them.
I am stammering.
For the past few years, I have traveled from coast to coast speaking to just about anyone who will listen about the horrors of our criminal injustice system. I have written and lectured extensively about the wars that have been declared on poor communities of color ? the ?war on crime? and the ?war on drugs? ? the militarization of our police forces, the school-to-prison pipeline, the millions stripped of basic civil and human rights, a penal system unprecedented in world history. Yet here I am, on Monday evening, before the announcement about the grand jury?s decision has been made, speechless.
My son wants me to reassure him, and tell him that of course Darren Wilson will go to jail. At 10 years old, he can feel deep in his bones how wrong it was for the police to kill Michael Brown. ?There will be a trial, at least ? right, Mom?? My son is asking me a simple question, and I know the answer.
As a civil rights lawyer, I know all too well that Officer Wilson will not be going to trial or to jail. The system is legally rigged so that poor people guilty of relatively minor crimes are regularly sentenced to decades behind bars while police officers who kill unarmed black men almost never get charged, much less serve time in prison.
I open my mouth to speak, look into my son?s eyes, and hear myself begin to lie: ?Don?t worry, honey, you have nothing to worry about. Nothing like this could ever happen to you.? His face brightens as he tells me that he likes the police, and that he always waves at the cops in our neighborhood and they always wave back. His innocence is radiating from him now; he?s all lit up with relief and gladness that he lives in a world where he can take for granted that the police can be trusted to serve and protect him with a wave and a smile.
My face is flushing red. I am embarrassed that I have lied. And I am angry. I am angry that I have to tell my son that he has reason to worry. I am angry that I have to tell him that I already know Darren Wilson won?t be indicted, because police officers are almost never indicted when they kill unarmed black men. I must tell him now, before he hears it on the school bus or sees it in the news, that many people in Michael Brown?s town will be very angry too ? so filled with pain, sadness and rage ? that they may react by doing things they shouldn?t, like setting fires or breaking windows or starting fights.
I know I must explain this violence, but not condone it. I must help him see that adults often have trouble managing their pain just like he does. Doesn?t he sometimes lash out and yell at friends or family when he?s hurt or angry? When people have been hurt over and over, and rather than compassion or understanding you?re given lectures about how it?s really all your fault, and that no one needs to make amends, you can lose your mind. We can wind up harming people we care about with words or deeds, people who have done no harm to us.
I begin telling him the truth and his face contorts. The glowing innocence is wiped away as his eyes flash first with fear, then anger. ?No!,? he erupts. ?There has to be a trial! If you kill an unarmed man, don?t you at least have a trial??
My son is telling me now that the people in Ferguson should fight back. A minute ago, he was reminiscing about waving to Officer Friendly. Now he wants to riot.
I tell him that sometimes I have those feelings too. But now I feel something greater. I am proud of the thousands of people of all colors who have taken to the streets in nonviolent protest, raising their voices with boldness and courage, capturing the attention and the imagination of the world. They?re building a radical movement for justice, one that would make the freedom fighters who came before them sing from the heavens with joy.
I tell my son, as well as my daughters, as we sit around the dinner table, stories of young activists organizing in Ferguson, some of them not much older than they are. I tell them about the hip-hop artist Tef Poe, who traveled with Michael Brown?s parents to Geneva to testify before a United Nations subcommittee about police militarization and violence. I tell them about activists like Phillip B. Agnew, Tory Russell, Brittany Ferrell and Alexis Templeton, who marched in the streets and endured tear gas while waving signs bearing three words: ?Black Lives Matter.?
I?ve met some of these activists, I say. They believe, like you do, that we should be able to live in a world where we trust the police and where all people and all children, no matter what their color or where they came from, are treated with dignity, care, compassion and concern. These courageous young people know the tools of war, violence and revenge will never build a nation of justice. They told me they?re willing to risk their lives, if necessary, so that kids like you can live in a better world.
My son is stirring his mashed potatoes around on his plate. He looks up and says, ?Right now, I?m just thinking I don?t want anything like this ever to happen again.?
I?m tempted to tell him that it will happen; in fact, it already has. Several unarmed black men have been shot by the police since Aug. 9, when Michael Brown was killed. But I don?t say another word. It?s much easier telling the truth about race and justice in America to strangers than to my son, who will soon be forced to live it.
(Michelle Alexander is the author of ?The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness.?)
yeah probably not. mainly because it isnt him. but hey if its on facebook it must be true.
http://www.kptv.com/story/26316705/...f-oregon-murder-suspect-in-michael-brown-rant
- Apr 10, 2014
- 1,769
- 29
- 0
whats up guys? who needs an ass whooping from hank's man sized brain.
look the guy got what he deserved....case closed!
:toast:
look the guy got what he deserved....case closed!
:toast:
Now the Upstanding family wants to get paid for their EXCELLENT PARENTING SKILLS.
:mj07:
Yes, that's the compassionate viewpoint to blame the parents you know nothing about for the actions of their son who was unarmed and killed in an unfortunate conflict with police. A fine way to value the lives of people you know nothing about. So did it hurt when they nailed you to the cross Jesus? I guess you figure that Jews are historically bad parents? How about those selfish good for shit Indians? Their parents truly had no clue, are ya with me. Can you imagine how great the world would be if we could only allow the really good white parents of say George Zimmerman, or maybe the solid parenting of the Menendez bruges is more to your liking. Please impart more of this groundbreaking study you've done to put American conscience at ease that proves those fucking colored good for shit at raising their little negro kids are at fault for the actions of their little tupac?
Hope this helps,
FDC
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That bullshit really tugs at the ol heart strings.
Unless that "10 year old" is in high school already, he doesn't give two shits about Ferguson! He wants to play with his friends, and watch tv, like every other kid.
Why if this is what we know of Brown, did he steal and strong arm a man at the store? Why was he aggressive just a short time before. Don't portray the kid as saving kitty cats shorty before the altercation.
That was Brown in the store, can't believe anyone would deny that. Wilson was struck by Brown, Brown's DNA in police car, and Brown refuses orders, Brown dead. Seems to me Brown was at fault here.
And if Brown had got ahold of the gun and started shooting up the neighborhood everyone would be saying why didn't the Officer just shoot him......:facepalm:
A one-chart summary of every Ferguson eyewitness's grand jury testimony
This great PBS NewsHour chart shows an analysis of the eyewitness testimony provided to the grand jury that investigated the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri.
The chart shows many contradictions between some eyewitnesses ? and lots of questions that went unanswered in different interviews.
There are two key points of near agreement: Brown was facing Ferguson Police officer Darren Wilson as he was fired upon, and Brown did have his hands up during his final moments.
St. Louis County Attorney Robert McCulloch has questioned the validity of the eyewitness testimony. During a Monday night press conference, McCulloch said some of the witnesses changed their stories, and that the physical evidence disproved some of their claims.
Vox's Amanda Taub explained why this was so unusual for a prosecutor who has full control of the evidence presented to a grand jury:
If McCulloch believed that this evidence was not credible, then why did he present it to the grand jury? It is perhaps understandable that he would have presented evidence with only minor credibility issues, in order to let the grand jury evaluate it. But McCulloch referenced "witnesses" who had only heard about the shooting from their neighbors, or from the media. It is hard to imagine a reason why it would have been reasonable to present that evidence to the grand jury.
And if McCulloch didn't present that testimony to the grand jury, then why discuss it during the press conference? What would be the purpose of bringing it up at all? By attacking the credibility of the eyewitnesses to the shooting, most, if not all, of whom had been publicly critical of Wilson, McCulloch gave the impression that he was acting as an advocate for Wilson.
Whatever the case, the grand jury also didn't appear to buy into the testimony of the eyewitnesses ? and they ultimately decided to let Wilson go without a trial.
To summarize:
Of the 29 eyewitnesses: 7 saw him "hit the police car", 12 "saw an altercation in the police car from a "Hulk", 6 people saw "overkill", 5 people saw a young man "grab basketball shorts", 17 people including the OFFICER say "he was shot in his chest", 15 people saw "him running away from the police car after already being shot", 7 people saw "him on his knees", 17 people saw him "pleading for his life".....
17 people agree that he was shot facing the officer. 17 people saw him surrender.
Peace!
http://www.vox.com/xpress/2014/11/26/7295595/eyewitnesses-ferguson-grand-jury/in/7041840
This great PBS NewsHour chart shows an analysis of the eyewitness testimony provided to the grand jury that investigated the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri.
The chart shows many contradictions between some eyewitnesses ? and lots of questions that went unanswered in different interviews.
There are two key points of near agreement: Brown was facing Ferguson Police officer Darren Wilson as he was fired upon, and Brown did have his hands up during his final moments.
St. Louis County Attorney Robert McCulloch has questioned the validity of the eyewitness testimony. During a Monday night press conference, McCulloch said some of the witnesses changed their stories, and that the physical evidence disproved some of their claims.
Vox's Amanda Taub explained why this was so unusual for a prosecutor who has full control of the evidence presented to a grand jury:
If McCulloch believed that this evidence was not credible, then why did he present it to the grand jury? It is perhaps understandable that he would have presented evidence with only minor credibility issues, in order to let the grand jury evaluate it. But McCulloch referenced "witnesses" who had only heard about the shooting from their neighbors, or from the media. It is hard to imagine a reason why it would have been reasonable to present that evidence to the grand jury.
And if McCulloch didn't present that testimony to the grand jury, then why discuss it during the press conference? What would be the purpose of bringing it up at all? By attacking the credibility of the eyewitnesses to the shooting, most, if not all, of whom had been publicly critical of Wilson, McCulloch gave the impression that he was acting as an advocate for Wilson.
Whatever the case, the grand jury also didn't appear to buy into the testimony of the eyewitnesses ? and they ultimately decided to let Wilson go without a trial.
To summarize:
Of the 29 eyewitnesses: 7 saw him "hit the police car", 12 "saw an altercation in the police car from a "Hulk", 6 people saw "overkill", 5 people saw a young man "grab basketball shorts", 17 people including the OFFICER say "he was shot in his chest", 15 people saw "him running away from the police car after already being shot", 7 people saw "him on his knees", 17 people saw him "pleading for his life".....
17 people agree that he was shot facing the officer. 17 people saw him surrender.
Peace!
http://www.vox.com/xpress/2014/11/26/7295595/eyewitnesses-ferguson-grand-jury/in/7041840
On Ferguson Protests, the Destruction of Things, & What Violence Really Is And Isn't
On Ferguson Protests, the Destruction of Things, & What Violence Really Is And Isn't
11/26/14
by Mia McKenzie
Since the announcement on Monday that Darren Wilson, the police officer who shot and killed unarmed teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, wouldn?t be brought to trial, huge protests have broken out all over the country, from Ferguson (where the community had already been protesting for over a hundred days, since the day Michael Brown was killed) to Philadelphia, Denver, Oakland and D.C., to name just a few places. Most of these protests have been peaceful, though in some places there?s been looting and property damage.
The killing of Michael Brown is one in a long line of murders of Black people, including women, children, and men, by police. In the past few months alone, Eric Garner, Darrien Hunt , John Crawford, Ezell Ford, Vonderrit Myers, Akai Gurley, Tanisha Anderson, Michelle Cusseaux and Tamir Rice have been killed. Most of them were unarmed. None of them had guns. Unless they were pellet guns, as in the cases of John Crawford and Tamir Rice. Rice was playing with a pellet gun on a playground when someone called the police. Even though the caller told the 911 operator that the gun was ?probably fake,? Tamir was shot by police in the stomach and killed. He was 12.
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This piece isn?t about the narratives surrounding the murders of Black people by police, which I wrote about back in August when Michael Brown was first killed. This is specifically about narratives around violence.
In the wake of the Darren Wilson decision and the ensuing protests, I?ve been hearing the word ?violence? thrown around by journalists and social media commentators alike. It?s strange to me, because when these people use the term violence, they?re not talking about what happened to any of the people named above. The brutal and unnecessary killing of unarmed Black women, children and men by police officers isn?t called ?violence? by any of these people. They?re also not talking about protestors of this police violence being tear-gassed or shot with rubber bullets by police for exercising their right to peaceably assemble. That, to these journalists and Twitter trolls, isn?t ?violence,? either. What is ?violence? to these people? Property damage. Looting. The destruction of things.
Let me say that again, louder, for the people in the cheap seats:
The killing of unarmed Black people, including children, by police: not violence.
The destruction of white people?s things: violence.
I don?t think that word means what you think it means.
To help you get un-confused (because some of you are hella confused), here?s a list of some things that are violence, and one thing that isn?t.
Things that are not violence:
1. Looting
There?s lots to be said about looting and the way it?s characterized depending on who?s doing it. The way it?s lauded and made the stuff of heroic patriotism when it?s white men in Boston in 1773 resisting the power of the state, as in, you know, the Boston Tea Party (which John Adams originally called ?the Destruction of the Tea in Boston?) and when it?s Black people resisting the power of the state, a state that allows police officers to murder them and their children with impunity, in Ferguson or Philadelphia or Chicago or anywhere else. Looting by white people, which, along with brutal mass murder of Native Americans, is how they got this country, is worth waving a flag about. Looting by Black people, even without the accompanying genocide?not so heroic for some reason. I could go deep into the reasons, and maybe I will another time, but that?s not even what I want to say right here right now. What I want to say is this: whatever you think of looting, it isn?t violence. Because violence against property isn?t a thing.
Violence is something that living beings experience. People and animals experience and inflict violence against other people and animals. The violence that?s inflicted on us has an impact on our bodies, minds, spirits. Buildings don?t have bodies, minds, or spirits. Buildings can neither inflict nor experience violence. That?s why stealing a TV from a Walmart isn?t the same as taking a human life. Whatever it is, it isn?t violence. And if you really believed that Black people are fully human, you wouldn?t be equating our lives with your things.
Things that are violence:
1. Cops Killing Unarmed Black People
I know it?s difficult for non-Black people to see Black people as fully human. Part of the reason for this is that for hundreds of years Black people were considered property. And just as property doesn?t have a mind or spirit, enslaved Black people were portrayed as not having those things, either. That legacy of non-humanness still exists in the way Black people are viewed. White people think we have a higher tolerance for pain than they do, for example.
Despite what white and other non-Black people think, though, we are fully human. We really, really, are. We feel just as much pain as everyone else. Being shot by police officers is very, very painful for us. It?s painful for our families. For our friends. For our communities. It?s violence, and we feel it. It has a tremendous impact on our bodies, our minds, our spirits. Which we have. Because we?re not buildings. We?re people. And we are victimized by police violence at higher rates than anyone else.
Narratives of anti-blackness, however, tell us that Black people are never victimized. We are only the perpetrators of violence. That means that even when we are the ones being victimized by the state, or by individual white people wielding the power of the state (which they do, often), we are still seen as the villains, the criminals, the animals, the violent perpetrators. There is no space in the narrative for our innocence, even our children?s innocence, ever. So we can be brutalized by the state with impunity. This is violence.
2. Revisionist History
Your revisionist history is violence. It inflicts harm on the individual Black people onto whom you vomit it and on our communities and movements as a whole. Translation: Keep Martin Luther King, Jr.?s name out of your mouth. You obviously haven?t bothered to read anything the man wrote or study anything he did. If you had, you wouldn?t be invoking his name simply to tone-police and silence Black people who refuse to be ?nice? to you about racism and police violence. ?MLK wouldn?t approve of rioting!? Really? Hmm. Let?s ask him. Oh, wait, we can?t because white people shot him in the face. And, seriously, where?d you read that, anyway? I?m guessing absolutely nowhere, since he never said it. And, in fact, he said:
And I must say tonight that a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the negro poor has worsened over the last twelve or fifteen years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice and humanity.
Martin Luther King said that. But you wouldn?t know that. Because reading history isn?t even required before revising it to suit your half-assed, oppressive arguments.
Further, any and all assertions that the Civil Rights Movement was exclusively non-violent are revisionist nonsense. The Civil Rights Movement was both non-violent and violent. Violent uprisings, such as the Watts Rebellion of 1965, as well as uprisings all across the country, were just as instrumental in bringing about change as were non-violent protests. In fact, the attention garnered by violent protest was often what forced the hands of those in power to finally yield to demands. Revising history so that it suits your oppressive agenda is an insult to everyone who fought in the Civil Rights Movement, in all the different ways they fought, and it?s harmful to the people fighting for justice now in Ferguson and all over the country. It is emotional and psychological violence.
3. Your Ignorance of the Above Points and Of So Many Other Things
Despite what you?ve been led to believe by the coddling narratives of privilege that assure you that you is kind, you is smart, you is important, and that you get a gold star and a box of cookies just for trying to be anti-racist, even if you?re failing miserably at it, your ignorance actually isn?t benign.
Your ignorance is why your irrational fear of Black people means we might be shot in the head if we knock on your door to ask for help. Your ignorance is part of the reason police officers can kill unarmed Black people and call it justified every time and have you believe it, even when the story is unbelievable. Your ignorance is why a Prosecutor can get on TV and sound like he?s working for the defense and call it ?fair? because he knows you won?t think hard enough or read enough to know it isn?t. Your ignorance, when you have plenty of resources for learning, for understanding, for seeing, isn?t harmless. It?s violence. Real violence. Not a smashed store window or a car on fire or a stolen Xbox. But violence that impacts the bodies, minds and spirits of human beings who have been crushed under the weight of your ignorance, and the ignorance of others like you, for centuries.
So. There you have it. One thing that?s not violence and a few things that are.
I just needed to clear that up.
Peace!
http://www.blackgirldangerous.org/2014/11/ferguson-destruction-violence-really-isnt/
On Ferguson Protests, the Destruction of Things, & What Violence Really Is And Isn't
11/26/14
by Mia McKenzie
Since the announcement on Monday that Darren Wilson, the police officer who shot and killed unarmed teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, wouldn?t be brought to trial, huge protests have broken out all over the country, from Ferguson (where the community had already been protesting for over a hundred days, since the day Michael Brown was killed) to Philadelphia, Denver, Oakland and D.C., to name just a few places. Most of these protests have been peaceful, though in some places there?s been looting and property damage.
The killing of Michael Brown is one in a long line of murders of Black people, including women, children, and men, by police. In the past few months alone, Eric Garner, Darrien Hunt , John Crawford, Ezell Ford, Vonderrit Myers, Akai Gurley, Tanisha Anderson, Michelle Cusseaux and Tamir Rice have been killed. Most of them were unarmed. None of them had guns. Unless they were pellet guns, as in the cases of John Crawford and Tamir Rice. Rice was playing with a pellet gun on a playground when someone called the police. Even though the caller told the 911 operator that the gun was ?probably fake,? Tamir was shot by police in the stomach and killed. He was 12.
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This piece isn?t about the narratives surrounding the murders of Black people by police, which I wrote about back in August when Michael Brown was first killed. This is specifically about narratives around violence.
In the wake of the Darren Wilson decision and the ensuing protests, I?ve been hearing the word ?violence? thrown around by journalists and social media commentators alike. It?s strange to me, because when these people use the term violence, they?re not talking about what happened to any of the people named above. The brutal and unnecessary killing of unarmed Black women, children and men by police officers isn?t called ?violence? by any of these people. They?re also not talking about protestors of this police violence being tear-gassed or shot with rubber bullets by police for exercising their right to peaceably assemble. That, to these journalists and Twitter trolls, isn?t ?violence,? either. What is ?violence? to these people? Property damage. Looting. The destruction of things.
Let me say that again, louder, for the people in the cheap seats:
The killing of unarmed Black people, including children, by police: not violence.
The destruction of white people?s things: violence.
I don?t think that word means what you think it means.
To help you get un-confused (because some of you are hella confused), here?s a list of some things that are violence, and one thing that isn?t.
Things that are not violence:
1. Looting
There?s lots to be said about looting and the way it?s characterized depending on who?s doing it. The way it?s lauded and made the stuff of heroic patriotism when it?s white men in Boston in 1773 resisting the power of the state, as in, you know, the Boston Tea Party (which John Adams originally called ?the Destruction of the Tea in Boston?) and when it?s Black people resisting the power of the state, a state that allows police officers to murder them and their children with impunity, in Ferguson or Philadelphia or Chicago or anywhere else. Looting by white people, which, along with brutal mass murder of Native Americans, is how they got this country, is worth waving a flag about. Looting by Black people, even without the accompanying genocide?not so heroic for some reason. I could go deep into the reasons, and maybe I will another time, but that?s not even what I want to say right here right now. What I want to say is this: whatever you think of looting, it isn?t violence. Because violence against property isn?t a thing.
Violence is something that living beings experience. People and animals experience and inflict violence against other people and animals. The violence that?s inflicted on us has an impact on our bodies, minds, spirits. Buildings don?t have bodies, minds, or spirits. Buildings can neither inflict nor experience violence. That?s why stealing a TV from a Walmart isn?t the same as taking a human life. Whatever it is, it isn?t violence. And if you really believed that Black people are fully human, you wouldn?t be equating our lives with your things.
Things that are violence:
1. Cops Killing Unarmed Black People
I know it?s difficult for non-Black people to see Black people as fully human. Part of the reason for this is that for hundreds of years Black people were considered property. And just as property doesn?t have a mind or spirit, enslaved Black people were portrayed as not having those things, either. That legacy of non-humanness still exists in the way Black people are viewed. White people think we have a higher tolerance for pain than they do, for example.
Despite what white and other non-Black people think, though, we are fully human. We really, really, are. We feel just as much pain as everyone else. Being shot by police officers is very, very painful for us. It?s painful for our families. For our friends. For our communities. It?s violence, and we feel it. It has a tremendous impact on our bodies, our minds, our spirits. Which we have. Because we?re not buildings. We?re people. And we are victimized by police violence at higher rates than anyone else.
Narratives of anti-blackness, however, tell us that Black people are never victimized. We are only the perpetrators of violence. That means that even when we are the ones being victimized by the state, or by individual white people wielding the power of the state (which they do, often), we are still seen as the villains, the criminals, the animals, the violent perpetrators. There is no space in the narrative for our innocence, even our children?s innocence, ever. So we can be brutalized by the state with impunity. This is violence.
2. Revisionist History
Your revisionist history is violence. It inflicts harm on the individual Black people onto whom you vomit it and on our communities and movements as a whole. Translation: Keep Martin Luther King, Jr.?s name out of your mouth. You obviously haven?t bothered to read anything the man wrote or study anything he did. If you had, you wouldn?t be invoking his name simply to tone-police and silence Black people who refuse to be ?nice? to you about racism and police violence. ?MLK wouldn?t approve of rioting!? Really? Hmm. Let?s ask him. Oh, wait, we can?t because white people shot him in the face. And, seriously, where?d you read that, anyway? I?m guessing absolutely nowhere, since he never said it. And, in fact, he said:
And I must say tonight that a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the negro poor has worsened over the last twelve or fifteen years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice and humanity.
Martin Luther King said that. But you wouldn?t know that. Because reading history isn?t even required before revising it to suit your half-assed, oppressive arguments.
Further, any and all assertions that the Civil Rights Movement was exclusively non-violent are revisionist nonsense. The Civil Rights Movement was both non-violent and violent. Violent uprisings, such as the Watts Rebellion of 1965, as well as uprisings all across the country, were just as instrumental in bringing about change as were non-violent protests. In fact, the attention garnered by violent protest was often what forced the hands of those in power to finally yield to demands. Revising history so that it suits your oppressive agenda is an insult to everyone who fought in the Civil Rights Movement, in all the different ways they fought, and it?s harmful to the people fighting for justice now in Ferguson and all over the country. It is emotional and psychological violence.
3. Your Ignorance of the Above Points and Of So Many Other Things
Despite what you?ve been led to believe by the coddling narratives of privilege that assure you that you is kind, you is smart, you is important, and that you get a gold star and a box of cookies just for trying to be anti-racist, even if you?re failing miserably at it, your ignorance actually isn?t benign.
Your ignorance is why your irrational fear of Black people means we might be shot in the head if we knock on your door to ask for help. Your ignorance is part of the reason police officers can kill unarmed Black people and call it justified every time and have you believe it, even when the story is unbelievable. Your ignorance is why a Prosecutor can get on TV and sound like he?s working for the defense and call it ?fair? because he knows you won?t think hard enough or read enough to know it isn?t. Your ignorance, when you have plenty of resources for learning, for understanding, for seeing, isn?t harmless. It?s violence. Real violence. Not a smashed store window or a car on fire or a stolen Xbox. But violence that impacts the bodies, minds and spirits of human beings who have been crushed under the weight of your ignorance, and the ignorance of others like you, for centuries.
So. There you have it. One thing that?s not violence and a few things that are.
I just needed to clear that up.
Peace!
http://www.blackgirldangerous.org/2014/11/ferguson-destruction-violence-really-isnt/
