A harrowing story. I especially appreciate his explicit recognition of Black Lives Matter. Privilege is extremely hard to notice when you're in the middle of it. But when you get up close to its edges, it can be much easier to see.
His statement "[if] I was black, or young, or long-haired, or tattooed, or didn't speak English - I believe he might have pulled the trigger" was entirely speculation.
He, and you, are projecting your opinions on this situation without relevant evidence.
You are quite the mindreader, aren't you? To know the entirety of his thoughts and mine, and our two lives of experience, without having met either of us. Impressive.
I'm not trying to read anyone's mind, only the words you've written. If you're holding back evidence that this cop is racist, please share it and I'll happily admit I was wrong.
OTOH, if you can't provide any evidence, I would ask you to withdraw your statement connecting a white man being held at gunpoint by an aggressive officer to white privilege.
Then, you might want to peruse The Counted, the BBC's database of people killed by police in America, and see people of all races who were killed by police while unarmed.
It is not my job to educate you in the history and mechanics of privilege and power, and I certainly won't try to do it through a comment box. I also have no idea why you think yourself entitled to ask me to withdraw anything.
And yes, of course, you aren't trying to read anyone's mind. That's the problem. You appoint yourself vigilante of any statement offered without a dissertation's worth of evidence. But then you immediately make unsupported statements about what we know, about exactly how we think. You took not a moment to understand, you asked not one question.
The only difference I see is that our statements question the status quo, while yours defend it. That is a depressingly common double standard when the police come up. It's also common from white people on the topic of race, and there when I dig into it it normally is rooted in white fragility[1].
Either way, I stand by my statements. I'm sure that Ken Walton stands by his. That you don't understand is not my problem. Stomp your feet all you like, but your ignorance is your problem to fix.
The author publicly made a serious allegation of racism against an officer of the law, based solely on his own preconceived notions, which you supported, and apparently neither of you have any evidence to back up those allegations. Ironically, it's actually YOU pre-judging the officer.
Then you mischaracterized my statements entirely. I'm not defending the status quo - I'm pointing out that you and BLM are wrong to assume this is only a problem for black people.
Police brutality can happen to anyone.
Like Chase Sherman, a 32 year old white male.
> Sherman's mother called 911 after he had a bad reaction to a substance she believed to be the drug 'spice'. According to authorities, Sherman and the responding deputies ended up in an struggle and a Taser was used. Sherman became unresponsive shortly after. Body camera footage shows Sherman being shocked repeatedly while handcuffed in the back of his fiancee's car. Sherman was shocked at least 15 times, according to deputies' Taser logs.
Or Eric Tompkins, a 41 year old white male.
> Tompkins allegedly refused to keep his hands out of his pockets while talking to officers who had been dispatched to respond to reports of a suicidal man. Two officers fatally shot Tompkins when he pulled a cellphone out of his pocket, which the officers said they believed was a gun.
Or William Bowers, a 51 year old white male.
> A deputy shot and killed Bowers, who was homeless, after he ran from police, authorities said. Deputies reportedly tried to stop Bowers while he was riding his bicycle because they recognized him and knew he was on probation.
But by all means, continue to attack anyone who asks for evidence if you wish.
You did not "ask for evidence". You made judgments about the OP and me.
Your "racism is not a problem" agenda also blinds you to what was actually said. Neither I nor he "assume this is only a problem for black people". That's something you made up to argue with.
Again, it's not my job to educate you on this stuff. If you would like to understand the racial component to state violence in America, there's been plenty written on it, from before America's independence up to the present day.
If you won't bother to do that, I'm entirely ok with that. American opinions on race get saner at a rate very close to the birth/death rate:
Planck said that "Science advances one funeral at a time;" society is, if anything, worse. Thanks to white fragility, you may be one of the many white people that takes your ignorance to the grave, just like all those now-dead opponents of black/white marriages.
I'd rather spend my time on people young or curious enough to learn something.
I pointed out the lack of relevant evidence in my very first post, and the second, and third. And again as the first sentence in this post.
Once again you've missed the point, because your agenda about society has led you to ignore the facts of this case.
The author made allegations of racism against a specific officer based solely on his belief that such officers are common in society.
And you refuse to acknowledge that you have no evidence this officer is racist. No matter how common you may believe racism is, you should not publicly accuse people of racism without evidence.
And about society, you're also ignoring two simple facts: 1) more white people are killed by police than black people, 2) the number of people killed by police, by race, is roughly proportional to the violent crime rate, by race, as well as the murder rate, by race (which is what one would expect if police were not racist, but rather simply targeting criminals).
My only agenda here is to find the truth. Your agenda is to ignore the truth and simply accuse people of racism without evidence.
On a happier note, I'm encouraged to see some people have put aside a racial agenda in favor of protesting deaths at the hands of police regardless of race:
> But one group of mostly African-American civil rights leaders is stepping up to question a deputy's shooting of an unarmed, white, homeless man in Castaic — because it just might be the right thing to do.
> "We can't only be advocates when black people are killed by police unjustly," says Najee Ali, founder of Project Islamic Hope.
> "They shot this homeless man for nothing," Ali said of how witnesses have described the shooting. "He was unarmed and they killed him. I found out he was white later on. It doesn't matter to me."
Yes, you caught me. Ignoring the truth is my agenda. Truth is dumb. Truth bad! How smart, how perceptive you are to see so deeply into my character. You are indeed a mind reader.
Again, I have no idea why you think you're entitled to infinite time spent spoon-feeding you explanations, spent arguing you out of your ignorance. The ignorance of random anonymous internet commenters is not my problem. Especially when it's so willful and entrenched as here.
50 years ago there were people like you just wanting to get at the "truth" of miscegenation. 150 years ago, it was just wanting to get at the "truth" of the essential, natural inferiority of black people. [1] They saw themselves as having no agenda. They saw themselves as having perfect understanding of a deeply complicated topic.
But when there's an infinite amount truth and you choose a very particular patch of "truth" to defend, your agenda isn't just truth. You may not know what your agenda is, but the rest of us don't have much trouble telling.
And once again you're accusing people of racism without evidence.
Merely for questioning your agenda you've compared me to people who were against interracial marriage, and now to people who believed in racial inferiority.
I don't think I'm entitled to your time, but I do think I, and this officer, are entitled not to be the target of baseless insults.
But calling people racist merely for questioning the BLM agenda has become such a cliche, I'm not surprised at all.
Personally, I believe all victims of police brutality deserve justice, regardless of race, even the white victims.
And I think it's disgusting that BLM doesn't care (or at least, doesn't protest) unless the victim meets their racial requirements.
They ignore nearly 75% of all people killed by police simply because of their racial agenda. [1]
> And I think it's disgusting that BLM doesn't care (or at least, doesn't protest) unless the victim meets their racial requirements.
BLM isn't about police killings, its about the neglect of the value of black lives throughout society (especially, but not exclusively, in the lack of accountability for killing blacks.) The killing that crystallized things and triggered the formation of BLM wasn't even a police killing (it was the killing of Trayvon Martin.)
The fact that the problem BLM exists to deal with overlaps with the problem of police violence doesn't make it "disgusting" that they focus on the distinct problem that the organization was created to address, anymore than it would be "disgusting" that a hypothetical organization founded to address the problem of the lack of accountability in police-on-civilian killings didn't address white-on-black killings where the killer isn't a police officer, even though "white-on-black" killings overlaps with police killings.
Then we need another organization to address the neglect for the lives of the poor of all races, and another to address the lack of police accountability for killing civilians in general.
Two problems that are rarely reported when the victims are white, and I sometimes wonder if wealthy liberals in SV are even aware of the white victims.
> Then we need another organization to address the neglect for the lives of the poor of all races, and another to address the lack of police accountability for killing civilians in general.
There are a number of each (including, in the latter case, the National Police Accountability Project.)
BLM happens to, at the moment, be more successful in gathering media attention. And, insofar as it is building support for specific policies, most of them are not specific to its narrow problem focus (e.g., universal police body cameras and attention to how those cameras are used are ideas that have become more broadly focused on due to BLM advocacy -- but don't do anything less to protect non-black victims than black victims.)
Indeed, the media focuses almost exclusively on BLM, and that's not entirely thanks to media savvy on the part of BLM.
And while some of the policies BLM advocates will be good for everyone, many responses to structural racism specifically exclude poor whites trapped in structural poverty.
I will continue to advocate non-race-based solutions that benefit all struggling people, and argue against race-based solutions that help some and exclude others.
I'm not accusing you of racial bias. I wouldn't know.
I am happy to say that the "all lives matter" brigade are supporting structural racism, though. And I'm happy to say that you're displaying typical white fragility on the topic of race. Until you get over that, I don't see any point in me trying to fix your ignorance. Educating you is not my job. It's yours.
But I can simultaneously recognize that America's racism runs so deep that it was part of our constitution. That our one civil war was a fight to preserve it. That it continues, somewhat reduced, to the present day. That Black Lives Matter is our era's civil rights movement.
Your turn. Can you recognize those things? Do you care about them?
No, I don't recognize riots and killing cops as a "civil rights movement". I just saw a video in which the sister of the man shot in Milwaukee called for rioters to "take that shit to the surburbs. Burn that shit down."
Perhaps BLM's problem is that they have no official spokespeople, so they get the best and the worst.
Are there racists in America? Yes. Too many.
But this is a story about a white cop acting aggressively toward a white man.
If we both care about all victims of police brutality, once in a while we should actually discuss (gasp) some of the 75% of victims who aren't black.
As MLK says, "riot is the language of the unheard". And as you should know, BLM supports neither riots nor police killing. It's explicitly a non-violent protest movement.
If you really cared about limiting police brutality, you'd be spending your time working on police brutality. But instead, you're busily arguing that people should stop talking about white suppression of black Americans. Your refusal to acknowledge black grievances is part of the white supremacist structure that goes back to our country's founding, a structure that riots are a natural reaction against. You are part of the problem.
Whatever you say you care about, I'll believe how you spend your time over your words.
How can you claim BLM supports this, or doesn't support that? Who speaks for BLM officially?
Whoever writes the website blacklivesmatter.com did support the Ferguson riots. [1] As did Simone Sebastian in the Washington Post. [2] DeRay Mckesson called In Defense of Looting "absolute required reading". [3] The list goes on and on.
And you yourself just defended riots. In one sentence you defend riots and in the very next falsely claim BLM doesn't support riots.
And speaking of how you spend your time, you could offer some evidence for your claims. How many words have you written now? How much time have you spent trying to persuade me, yet offering no evidence. Do you have any evidence, or just prejudice and insults?
Your biased reading of these things is exactly why there's no point to give you evidence on anything. Your goal is not to understand; it's to "win".
I'm not trying to persuade you of anything. As I said, I think you are in the same sort of laggard [1] category as other people were on other opinions about race. Although I hope otherwise, I expect you'll take your hate for Black Lives Matter to your grave.
If you were serious about ending police violence, you'd be out there trying to end police violence. Instead, you spend your time trying to shut up anti-racist people. Why? Try taking a look at who else spends their time objecting to Black Lives Matter:
It's weird! I have a life where I go do things that are not always compatible with replying to internet randos.
And seriously, I am doing a terrible job at persuading you because I'm really not trying to persuade you of anything. As I've said, I don't believe you're persuadable.
People who vigorously mount a defense of a biased status quo rarely are persuadable because their motivation isn't rational; they're the sort of person who will defend whatever status quo they happen to be born into. That they have convinced themselves that they're the only truly rational people is also not a new phenomenon. The people who argued against the anti-slavery movement felt exactly the same way.
It's weird! I have a life where I go do things that are not always compatible with replying to internet randos.
And seriously, I am doing a terrible job at persuading you because I'm really not trying to persuade you of anything. As I've said, I don't believe you're persuadable.
People who vigorously mount a defense of a biased status quo rarely are persuadable because their motivation isn't rational; they're the sort of person who will defend whatever status quo they happen to be born into. That they have convinced themselves that they're the only truly rational people is also not a new phenomenon. The people who argued against the anti-slavery movement felt exactly the same way.
