[RD] George Floyd and protesting while black

[Sommerswerd]

Mississippi has passed a bill to take the Confederate battle emblem off their flag.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nati...7df152-baed-11ea-8cf5-9c1b8d7f84c6_story.html

Pressure from the SEC, the NCAA, NASCAR and even the Mississippi State running back is being cited as helping push the change over the finish line.

 

[Lemon Merchant]

Georgia man slammed to the ground, wrist broken by police officer in a mistaken identity arrest.

Absolutely disgraceful. And of course no accountability whatsoever.

No wonder people are rioting.

 

[Commodore]

You made your career noticing how useless asymmetric warfare was in enacting political change, so I'm not really sure what your motivation is here other than bloodlust

My motivation is to get people to stand up for themselves. Governments do what they do because people just sit back and take it. Yeah they hem and haw in the streets every now and again, but as soon as they take a beanbag round to the chest or the tear gas canisters start raining down they give up, go back home and just continue to whine on their chosen social media platform. That sends a message to the government that all they have to do is apply a little bit of pressure and any real dissent will just melt away and they can carry on treating us like garbage.

It's not so much that I'm calling for warfare, but more that people need to find their courage and grow a damn backbone. If you're gonna fight back, then fight back. Cops launch tear gas, throw the canister back. They shoot you with a beanbag round, chuck a molotov at them. Want to block a street? Build a barricade that doesn't get pushed over by a stiff breeze.

Also asymmetrical warfare can be very effective at enacting political change. Governments facing a serious insurgency have always been forced to make some type of change. Iraq and Afghanistan are two recent examples of that.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Absolutely disgraceful. And of course no accountability whatsoever.

No wonder people are rioting.

And not only are cops accustomed to being able to manhandle whomever they want with impunity, they're also accustomed to being able to lie about it afterwards. I mean, ffs, the guy was being recorded by body cameras the cops themselves were wearing - this wasn't one of those situations where a civilian with a cellphone recorded them surreptitiously - and he still figured he could just make up any story he wanted.

From the linked article:

The city's statement says that an officer, identified in the lawsuit as Sgt. Billy Wheeler, approached Smith mistakenly believing he was the wanted man, and “advised him to place his hands behind his back.” Smith “began to resist by pulling his arms forward and tensing his body,” prompting Wheeler to take him to the ground, the city said.

This is not an accurate description of what the officers' body cameras recorded.

The video shows Wheeler walk up silently behind Smith, grab his right wrist and pin both of his arms to his sides in a bear hug. Only then does he order Smith to put his pinned hands behind his back, and Wheeler slams him to the ground almost immediately thereafter.

Asked about this discrepancy, a city spokeswoman, Ashlyn Johnson, said the city had no further comment.

 

[Lexicus]

I wonder how it compares to exactly the same area at any other typical 3 week period prior to this?

So what? Can you demonstrate that it's the absence of police that caused the shootings as opposed to the area being a magnet for heavily armed far-right terrorists because of its treatment on Fox News and other right-wing media outlets?

@EgonSpengler also just want to point out even if the cop's story is taken at face value "began to resist by pulling his arms forward and tensing his body" is such complete utter nonsense...cops will show up out of nowhere suddenly, start screaming at you, and take your instinctual reaction of flinching away as "resistance".

Absolutely disgraceful.

about covers it.

 

[Crezth]

My motivation is to get people to stand up for themselves. Governments do what they do because people just sit back and take it. Yeah they hem and haw in the streets every now and again, but as soon as they take a beanbag round to the chest or the tear gas canisters start raining down they give up, go back home and just continue to whine on their chosen social media platform. That sends a message to the government that all they have to do is apply a little bit of pressure and any real dissent will just melt away and they can carry on treating us like garbage.

It's not so much that I'm calling for warfare, but more that people need to find their courage and grow a damn backbone. If you're gonna fight back, then fight back. Cops launch tear gas, throw the canister back. They shoot you with a beanbag round, chuck a molotov at them. Want to block a street? Build a barricade that doesn't get pushed over by a stiff breeze.

Also asymmetrical warfare can be very effective at enacting political change. Governments facing a serious insurgency have always been forced to make some type of change. Iraq and Afghanistan are two recent examples of that.

It’ll please you to know that most of the protesters across the nation do fight back let alone defend themselves and hold barricades, torch police precincts, organize and march and have been keeping at it for 30 days despite getting beaten, gassed, arrested, killed, and their eyes shot out.

The flower children of CHOP are not representative of BLM. As I said before they actively marginalized the black voices in their movement for being too “radical.” Their plan was to sit on their “conquest” and be peaceful. And they got taken to the cleaners and everyone in the nation saw it happen.

Your brave people conscious of their own power are out there. They have more grit and more resolve than you think and they’re putting it all on the line. Maybe you know or follow some white protesters who treat it as a hobby and are easily cowed, but BLM has been getting beaten up for six years (and black communities for much longer) and they’re still organizing and marching. And yes, fighting back, now more than ever before.

Patience, Iago, patience.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Absolutely disgraceful. And of course no accountability whatsoever.

No wonder people are rioting.

Yes, this is a much more valid basis for protest than the taser case, because in this case someone was unjustly assaulted. This is also why at least rolling back qualified immunity has serious merit and also a good example of why body cams are important (if police lie the footage will be inconsistent).

Democrats and Republicans have each pushed police reform bills and are stonewalling the others' version. Oddly, they both have significant restrictions on police conduct that the other one lacks too. I guess even now winning politically is more important than winning policy, sadly.

None of this justifies riots that damage people completely unrelated to the police though. Rioters that do this are also criminals and many of them are getting away just like the cops that do crap like this. Perhaps they should spend a little time together where they belong...in jail for committing felonies.

 

[Crezth]

“We have space in our prisons for all of you,” the slogan of the freest country in the world.

 

[gay_Aleks]

My friend, you are inviting the whirlwind in your own home.

 

[r16]

by chance ı have come across some posts of a Jandarma officer , by the looks of it but ı would say he surely isn't in country these days , harsh commentaries and having an half Polish daughter . Anyhow , he has been in NATO missions and chatted with all sorts of people , from him the claim that the motto of Baltimore Police Department is that they carry corpses . Also a couple of remarks on the dirty tricks . A general (before he was assassinated , helped by the State according to claims) talked with a would be bandit-in-the-mountains . His testesteron filled arguments with seperatists led to his brother being murdered in a week and a spree of daily murders in revenge . A better example was a 57 year old hunter . He wanted a G-3 , in the 1980s that would be out of the law , so the Jandarma commander of the area gave him a Mauser 98 with 150 rounds and a wireless set , talkie walkie style . He then went onto ruin the actually communist affair around Tunceli , there being two distinct set of troubles in the East . (Because the guy's previous weapon was a 1907 model something .) Peaceful works and however hurtful that it might have been for so many opponents of the regime in D.C. , it was this 75 years old who brought it this far . Oh , yeah , his was a rather nasty and tasty trolling , too . Translation , being a professional would you believe you ?

 

[Manfred Belheim]

Well some neighborhoods in some cities experience double digit number of shootings in a single weekend quite frequently. Those are usually high crime neighborhoods with heavy police presence. So at the very least this would seem to indicate police presence doesn't deter people from committing crimes. And if the police can't prevent crime, then why do we give them so much money and military equipment? Seems like we could slash their budgets bigly and still get along just fine.

There's a lot of things in that paragraph that don't necessarily follow the way you present them, but the main point/question is how 3 (or more, not sure) deaths in 3 weeks in this particular 6 block area is just the typical death rate in that area and has nothing to do with it turning into a lawless commune, or has turning into a lawless commune led to these constant shootings? It seems that the former is being very strongly claimed in this thread. I'm willing to be convinced, but on face value that doesn't seem likely.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

So what? Can you demonstrate that it's the absence of police that caused the shootings as opposed to the area being a magnet for heavily armed far-right terrorists because of its treatment on Fox News and other right-wing media outlets?

I just find it weird so many people are acting like this is some sort of success story that is "largely peaceful", when it has totally failed and a bunch of teenagers are now lying dead. I'm just trying to imagine what the reaction would have been if a bunch of nationalists, or whatever "evil group" you care to name, had just spontaneously taken over a section of a city, declared themselves independent, and had proceeded to have a bunch of shootings and deaths. Just boggles the mind that you're finding any of this praiseworthy or defending it.

 

[gay_Aleks]

Honestly, the 'lawless' commune sounds like a reduction in murder rates, compared to the deaths that the cops have sown in the same period. Not to be an incrementalist, of course, but really think about it.

 

[Cloud_Strife]

I just find it weird so many people are acting like this is some sort of success story that is "largely peaceful", when it has totally failed and a bunch of teenagers are now lying dead. I'm just trying to imagine what the reaction would have been if a bunch of nationalists, or whatever "evil group" you care to name, had just spontaneously taken over a section of a city, declared themselves independent, and had proceeded to have a bunch of shootings and deaths. Just boggles the mind that you're finding any of this praiseworthy or defending it.

If only you were as motivated and focused on the failings of the state that preceeded it, but that would require actually believing or caring in something.

 

[Crezth]

I just find it weird so many people are acting like this is some sort of success story that is "largely peaceful", when it has totally failed and a bunch of teenagers are now lying dead. I'm just trying to imagine what the reaction would have been if a bunch of nationalists, or whatever "evil group" you care to name, had just spontaneously taken over a section of a city, declared themselves independent, and had proceeded to have a bunch of shootings and deaths. Just boggles the mind that you're finding any of this praiseworthy or defending it.

Dude, the community itself banded together, rose up, and barricaded its streets. It wasn't like some gang came in and declared themselves sovereign. And nobody is describing this as successful. I called it largely peaceful because pretty self-evidently it was. If your criteria for violent is that people are getting shot, well, welcome to America. It's a pretty violent place.

 

[Zardnaar]

If the protesters shot someone that's one thing.

If it's just another shooting in America it's business as usual. How many people get shot in Seattle each year.

 

[Socrates99]

There's a lot of things in that paragraph that don't necessarily follow the way you present them, but the main point/question is how 3 (or more, not sure) deaths in 3 weeks in this particular 6 block area is just the typical death rate in that area and has nothing to do with it turning into a lawless commune, or has turning into a lawless commune led to these constant shootings? It seems that the former is being very strongly claimed in this thread. I'm willing to be convinced, but on face value that doesn't seem likely.

As others point out, prove that it was caused by absence of police. It's as easy as what you're asking us to do.

In 2019 there were a total of 332 shooting incidents in Seattle alone. It doesn't sound way out of the ordinary for a few shootings to occur over the course of three weeks. It sucks but it doesn't exactly prove a case one way or the other to say "Look! Look! Shootings!"

Honestly it's just preaching to the choir. Theres another thread about gun violence if you want to tell us cops are all we need. See how it works over there.

 

[innonimatu]

A piece on the subject worth reading:

[...] Indeed the minute we individualize what are structural problems of police violence and focus upon rooting out “wrong thought” as if a new global war on terror, we necessarily default to witch hunts of individuals through McCarthyesque callouts instead of understanding racism as a byproduct of structural inequalities. [...]
It has been troubling for me to witness how the liberal soft left has almost entirely capitulated to combating racism as a a moral problem in recent years. [...]
Nathaniel Lewis demonstrates that after controlling for class, race is not “statistically significant” and that “class appears to be a larger factor than usually reported when studying racial disparities.” And from this query, other questions must necessarily emerge to include our involvement in having asked certain questions and not others and in having kowtowed to what Adolph Reed calls “race reductionism” at the heart of this issue. In short, why is the left seemingly unable to move towards a material analysis of how racism is one of many arms of oppression produced by capitalism?
[...]
It is in capitalism’s interest that we are all standing about the public square screaming about statues we don’t like rather than clamor for real reform of our governments. Indeed, much of the theory emanating from American higher education of the last thirty years has obtusely avoided discussing class while instead addressing representation, not participation. Just as the left has abandoned discussing class in favor of focussing upon symbolism and representation, political action of recent years has centered on the most superficial changes from language to public imagery.
[...]
In the end, the racism being fought by both DiAngelo and BLM is precisely a narcissistic and neoliberal form of whitewashing structural inequalities through the name-and-blame game whereby the more woke points scored, the least racist the subject is. Hence this is the best game in town for corporations and politicians looking to win over hearts and minds where the white subject controls all. Just look at how many percentage points black salaries have moved in the past month.

As protestors topple statues of Civil War generals and abolitionists alike, this might be a good moment for us to pause and think that perhaps the first problem in naming racism might begin with reflecting upon our embrace of “race” as a signifying real. Moreover, we need to deeply ponder if race might just be the side-show which is keeping us from addressing what are primarily class issues.

 

[El_Machinae]

It's not caused by a lack of police, but the counter-point is that it's pretty obvious that it wasn't prevented by a lack of police.

 

[Seon]

Personally speaking, recognizing that racism is one of many ways to oppress the underclass and then deciding that the issue of racism can be ignored appears to be a self-defeating proposition. As long as society remains divided, there can be no hope for solidarity needed to defend progress made from the forces of reaction. This necessitates an anti-racist stance, as submitting to its continued existence only causes further division that weaken solidarity and reform resolve.

Considering BLM appears to have done more to weaken police power—another arm of capitalist oppression—in a course of three months than the DSA or whatever in anything for the past three decades I know which way I should be standing for leftist solidarity too.