iNow

Your friend is lucky. He’s still alive and got a settlement. These things happen every day. Most get nothing or get dead.

The authenticity and passion is notable. People we love all across the world are feeling this way

Protests help with that, too. Millions of pissed off people tend to have more power than hundreds of armed authoritarian ones. Protest and social unrest is at the heart of essentially every single civil liberty we enjoy and celebrate today

You don’t think they’ll be next? Focus first on the ones putting knees on throats. Focus next on the ones looking away when they do, then those who lock up for life the ones lucky enough to survive

I’m opposed to 100% of the force using it. The beat cops. The guys who drive around in patrol cars. The ones interacting with neighborhood kids or helping abused women transition to safety. The ones issue it traffic citations. They don’t need guns or vests. They don’t need equipment from the Pentagon that was used in Iraq or Afghanistan to go chat with a guy who MIGHT have used a fake $20 bill. But a handful of “last resort” special ops team members? That’s justified. It should be a last resort, though... Not option 1 for initial engagement as they’re so often used today. My read on this as of today is he’s running on the deepest core of his base right now: racism. His first campaign rally is in Tulsa Oklahoma where hundreds of innocent black men, women, and children were brutalized and massacred by the police themselves. He’s doing this amidst the current protests against police violence, he’s dog whistling himself as the “law and order” candidate, and he’s chosen to schedule this first rally on June 19th... aka Juneteenth... the day the black community celebrates slavery’s end across the US south. He’s speaking the quiet parts out loud and too many people STILL can’t seem to hear him (or simply don’t care). But this isn’t a thread about Cheeto Mussolini. Let’s not let his blackhole of “mommy and daddy didn’t love me enough” derail yet another thread or interesting conversation.

Why couldn’t the bulk of the force be social services and de-escalation teams and rehabilitation specialists with a separate SWAT style tactical unit of 10-20 for those special more “kinetic” circumstances?

“Demilitarize the police” might be more effective at achieving the end we equally desire, but let’s please remain focused on the end and not the various paths people pursue to achieve it.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/06/08/shutdowns-prevented-60-million-coronavirus-infections-us-study-finds/

Just to clarify, is it possible you’re thinking about this in terms of abolishing the police instead of defunding them / reducing the funding they receive? One of the things I do like about the current rhetorical framing is how it shocks the system a bit. Most often, those with privilege think of the police as an inarguable good... fine servants making us safe and keeping our families protected. However, for non-whites the police are too often a source of danger and commonly increase their likelihood of death. When I get pulled over, I think, “oh man. This sucks. I don’t want to get a ticket. This is super inconvenient. I hope this dude hurries up so I can get on with my day and that I can mail in the fine instead of showing up in person.” When my black friends and family get pulled over, they think, “oh shit. This is how I’m gonna die.” Then they call their wife or mom to listen in on the interaction in case things go sideways and they wind up with a bullet in them. By framing the conversation as “defund the police,” it jars the system a bit... it’s not something we normally even conceive of... we think, “wait, wtf?!?” and reframes the normally implicit framing of police as an inarguable good. It’s not a policy proposing we abolish the police (tho in sure those calls are out there, too). It’s a conversation starter. Finally, I tend to agree with you that it distracts from the issue. I’m just trying to lead by example here and keep us focused on the WHY. I’m clearly failing at that.

Unfortunately, you’ve just slipped us back into a conversation about HOW they’re protesting instead of WHY. When you find yourself leading a social movement or advocating for one trying to gain traction, then you can choose any techniques and strategies you want to operationalize it and maximize your chances of success. Until then, despite your good intentions, every time you speak of HOW they’re conveying their message, you’re doing little more than distracting us from it... or reaching that next step of doing anything to address it or improve the situation underlying it.

I guess when all you have is a hammer everything looks like a nail. Protests grow MORE violent when the police intervene “armed to the teeth.” It makes things worse. People are protesting police violence. More police violence isn’t going to solve it.

Of course if one focuses solely on the bumper sticker version of this point it’s hard to disagree. But there’s a deeper meaning to this simplistic chant and a far more rational desire. Summarized: Like the US military, funding for police departments bloated and excessive. Money is used to buy former combat and heavy equipment from the department of defense and to continue the “dominate the streets” mentality. The ROI would be higher, however, if we focused those same tax dollars k stead into public schools and mental health clinics, and even increasing availability of social workers dealing with the mental health problems police seem so often to be on the front lines of. Putting a person with mental health issues into jail (or into a grave as so often happens after interactions with police) wastes money and that money can be spent far more intelligently... but that doesn’t package itself well when walking among crowds in the streets to improve justice so it gets distilled to “defund the police.” Cory Booker was on Meet the Press this morning and laid it out well (the entire 8 minute interview is worth the watch, the defund the police comments begin at 4:50):

Can we please acknowledge that increased availability of guns in the US does add risk to officers during every police interaction, but that being black also adds risk to ones life during every police interaction, and that neither of these things justify the way police are treating suspects after they’re already in custody or the way they’re marching on and being violent with peaceful protesters exercising their constitutionally protected rights? Surely, we can move on now... Please don’t make me write another horrible run-on sentence one that

Cute. Now, as the for the actual question...?

So, like Soros wrote a check to the cop telling him to put his knee on this random guys throat for 9 minutes, and then another check to the people with cell phone cameras to walk down the street and that exact moment recording it and then upload and share it, and then another check to get their social network to help it go viral, and then another check to all of the millions of protesters around the planet. And before that, they had a global cabal of doctors and nurses fake the reports of 40,000 deaths in Italy and Spain, and thousands of others across Europe and Asia, and a hundred thousand across the US, and now in Brazil... and put fake bodies into all the morgues and mass graves they dug. And they did all this because they like communism more than freedom. You’re totally right. That’s the ONLY explanation that makes any sense to reasonable people. Thank you for your bravery in speaking up knowing the risks of personal harm to you for sharing the real truth. You’re a true hero.

Just drop it, dim. Your reply was an unnecessary needling and distraction from the topic. Can’t believe it’s continued this long

There’s also the important question of how much changes... what is the magnitude of the improvement

Both, but the part which stands out to me is how many are incited by the police themselves or how many have been false flag operations from white suorenacist groups and agitated by foreign actors

Of course he’s not. I’ve known that for weeks

Dude. One of the cops from last weeks Floyd killing was Asian. Are you just blind?

The issue is police killing blacks, not specific colors or ethnicities of police killing blacks. You’re either trying very hard to intentionally miss a painfully obvious point (basically trolling), you’re extremely ignorant, or a depressingly common mixture of both. Which of these would you prefer we consider you to be?

Definitely yes. Racism is increasing. It’s just getting recorded.

You mean where a compliant suspect of using a fake $20 bill was handcuffed, forced to the ground, and had a knee stuck into his throat for almost 9 minutes, nearly 3 minutes of which the suspect was already unconscious? You mean that side of the story?