Our president said that the reaction in Ferguson was “understandable.” That implies that the reaction was a necessary or likely consequence of this particular white cop unfortunately having to shoot this black criminal.
I think our leader meant by “understandable” some form of “justifiable.” That’s certainly the legacy media’s, academia’s, and the everyday activist’s take. To these curious people, arson and looting and mayhem are a sort of natural phenomenon, like a hurricane or tsunami: somewhat predictable and of known characteristics. And fun to watch. The media tell themselves they are brave for standing close to the flames.
Now it is indisputable, for whatever the reasons, blacks have a higher murder rate than whites (about 8 times more), and commit far more crimes. It’s also true that much crime occurs in areas in which government beneficence is largest: the two go together like politicians and corruption.
There aren’t any data which show cops preferentially target blacks in disproportion to their criminality. Even so nanny-like a figure of Mayor Bloomberg was right when he said that, if anything, blacks were targeted at rates far less than those rates implied by crime statistics. Whites are targeted more.
In any case, the blacks that complain that cops are after them more than whites are right about that observation. But they are wrong about the causes. Cops go to crimes, not the other way around.
Update The Microaggression Farce Insanity.
Question one: what sort of executive order might flow from this?
Question two: if a president gives a wink to violence, will that encourage or dissuade future violence?
Question three: what do you think?
Update Retaliation in St Louis. Black “juveniles” attack whites, kill one with hammer.
Last night’s ruling reaffirmed what we already knew: America is a white supremacist state.
All,
If you know Luis, you know he is being purposely confrontational.
No, I was just trolling, by direct quoting the Salon latest headline.
I disagree with you on some things, but not on the essential. By “understandable” I understood a different thing (as in, not “justifiable”, but not “random” as well. From a place of frustration, most likely).
I do agree that the “riling it up” technique that the mass media is producing is only exacerbating by huge proportions what small racisms and differences do in fact exist, which in turn will provoke reactions that will retroactively prove the racist accusations in the first place.
What surprises me is how this phenomenon is getting wider and wider in scope and in thematics, gone so far as within gaming itself. More and more people are recognizing this kind of weird mob mentality delusional insanity, but will they be enough?
I fervently believe this is mostly a media phenomenon, and the wider scope I referred to in the last paragraph might be solely due to the increasing (amazing) reach of the new social media forms that fasten in several orders of magnitude this kind of phenomenons. What is the cure? I have no idea.
Also, if you dare criticize me, you are harrassing me and being a mysoginistic homophobic racist dudebro and I’ll have you sent to the nearest gulag, so check your privilege.
Luis,
Right. Here’s the link.
Luis–Really. How adorable.
This proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that Obama is a failure. He can’t even get his own race to play nicely, let alone the world.
How is it that burning buildings, stealing and shooting are supposed to make people like you? This is some form of insanity–or complete stupidity. I really can’t tell which. If I burn your house down, steal your car and do it to prove you’re discriminating against me and I demand your respect? THINK about that.
This entire situation can be avoided by hiring all black officers for black areas. It was stated yesterday on a talk show that “blacks who kill blacks” go to jail. There is no “unjustified or unpunished” black on black crimes. So only use black officers. Don’t have enough? Call Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson–they can help.
(1) Impossible to predict. The executive is too narcissistic and unstable to allow for prediction.
(2) What do you mean “If he gives a wink”?
(3) Depends on what you mean by appeasement. The protestors already are subsidized by the victim-status believers, the blacks may well have an Obama phone, rent and food payments, disability. I suppose we could send the news to wail and moan about how bad things are–they seem to like that.
(4) I think people are incapable of learning much of the time. (JH–This is an opinion–please do not ask for evidence. An opinion was asked for.)
JH—ignore my comment. I had not read your response in the previous thread. I will endeavor to remember GOTCHA means “I understand you”. I have always heard it used to mean that “I caught you in an error”.
But Sheri dontcha know that Racism is equal to bigotry plus power, therefore a black being bigoted against a whitey isn’t racist! Oppression only occurs in one direc…. What? You say I got ma maths wrong? You whitesplainer, that’s why I always conceived algebra as such a supremacist patriarchal tool, especially since I flunk… I mean since the white supremacist teacher I had totally oppressed my grades.
racism is bigotry plus power—there’s black guy in the White House. I’d call that power. Wait, maybe not….
“Also, if you dare criticize me, you are harrassing me and being a mysoginistic homophobic racist dudebro and I’ll have you sent to the nearest gulag, so check your privilege.” Only if we are not the same race as you. And if we’re using the political defination of race. And…..ARGGGH! This is just so complicated. 🙂
No, it’s very simple. If you are a white, shut up. Unless you are trying to shut up other whiteys. Then by all means shut them up with incredible flaming rethoric. If a black person is off-narrative, then you have *some* permission to declare that person an idiot who has internalized white oppression, but much better to nod to some black “friend” you might have collected with all your privilege checking in the internet so that this friend of yours can do the hit jo- I mean, the correction that is warranted.
Do not doubt the narrative. Do not ask what the narrative is, it’s obviously about egalitarianism and that’s why your opinions don’t matter in relation to other much more equal people than you. If you see someone stepping off a bit, threaten- I MEAN tell them that they are probably being racist, mysoginist. If they continue with “questions”, call them out as the harrassers they obviously are. Block them, place them on blocklists so we can blacklist them forever and ever.
Do all this and we just might start to see a true utopia on our futures. It might not include you, staring at all this paradise from the gulag we will most probably send you no matter how hard you try (after all, you are white aren’t you), perhaps questioning if it’s a paradise at all, but that will become irrelevant because as we have already demonstrated, we do not tolerate whitesplaining.
Luis: I just have a couple of questions. Are you using the biological or political definition of white. Yes, it matters as to the accuracy of my answer.
What path should I follow concerning my sister-in-law who is black and my niece who is black like Obama is? I mean if I’m white (politically and/or biologically), what should I make of this? How can I avoid an embarrassing moment? If I’m overly nice, will that look racist? Or should I get my niece to correct those who “step off a bit”? Wow, I still find this very tricky. You’re so lucky to be a minority.
Let’s review the bidding.
We had sanctioned slavery, an economic barbarism. Then emancipation (free at last), reconstruction (North oppresses South), separate-but-equal (sanctioned racism), discrimination (closet racism), riots, The Equal Rights Amendment, busing, quotas and more (chronological recollection – not researched). What has changed?
We don’t have slavery. Attitudes have not changed.
In 1972, four Army Corps of Engineers newly minted Second Lieutenants reported in to Ft. Benning for Airborne Training. One was black, a graduate from RPI. We tried to eat at three establishments in downtown Columbus, GA (in uniform) and it was abundantly clear the black officer was not welcome. Have attitudes changed? Having served in combat with many fine black soldiers, what is my first mental response when I see coverage of Ferguson looting? It might be “understandable.”
Luis: I just have a couple of questions. Are you using the biological or political definition of white. Yes, it matters as to the accuracy of my answer.
What path should I follow concerning my sister-in-law who is black and my niece who is black like Obama is? I mean if I’m white (politically and/or biologically), what should I make of this? How can I avoid an embarrassing moment? If I’m overly nice, will that look racist? Or should I get my niece to correct those who “step off a bit”? Wow, I still find this very tricky. You’re so lucky to be a minority (if we use the political definition of race, of course).
Engineer: No surprise. You can pass laws but that does not change people’s beliefs or feelings. It was one of my objections to the way the civil rights movement went. There were some gains, yes. But people’s actual feelings were not effected. My neighbor is one of the most bigoted people I know. I can’t type here what he calls Obama. He doesn’t do it in public, of course, but he still is a bigot and always will be. Not voicing a feeling does not mean it’s gone.
“I wonder how many in the media and academia realize that many of us feel absolutely no racial guilt.”
Your tweet is not inflammatory, but do define what racism is.
Racism is not necessarily in the fact that the shooter is white but in the fact that the victims is black. And blacks victim in the USA are less likely to see their killer face justice or found guilty. While over 80% of people accuse of killing whites will be found guilty, and less than 50% if the victim is black.
“… likely consequence of this particular white cop unfortunately having to shoot this black criminal”
Isn’t there a presumption of innocence in the US.
How come Cliven Bundy still has his cow grazing on federal land. How come cops didn’t shoot a bunch of white who were targeting them, they were more than justified to do so.
Sylvain’s solution: Vigilante law. Go for it people. Remember, Sylvain, we have guns. But no matter—don’t trust the police. Vigilante justice for all.
“racism is bigotry plus power”
So Hitler wasn’t a racist until he attained power?
These are all very triggering questions and you should feel ashamed for asking them. The temerity. But I do understand, after all the patriarchy has taught you badly, so it’s not entirely your fault despite you being male. And white. There is simply no salvation for you. Now regarding your sister-in-law, it’s obviously a fact that you haven’t checked your privilege enough with her. She’s black, she’s a woman, there’s no more oppressed living being in the universe and there you are, a daily reminder for her of the supremacist state that harrasses her every second of her life. Your existence is definitely triggering her PTSD.
And then, omg, then you even confess that your niece is already less black than her mother. So this is what your family has come to. You are hereby confessing that your white brother deblackened your “sister’s” heritage – how do you even dare call her a “sister”? Are you part of the brotherhood now? So racist, jesus – which is an insiduous crime of obvious racist hatred. It’s also a crime of Cultural Apropriation, one of the most horrendous things you can ever pull off, next to wear a mysoginist shirt on your workplace (a well known tactic of subtly killing women in STEM field jobs while no one is looking).
Last, but not least, you dare tell me how well off I am for being oppressed. Typical racist. White males are always like this, being racist sexists and so on.
Luis: Last time I checked, I wasn’t male. I didn’t even declare myself to be gender challenged or that I’m a male in a female’s body. Actually, my sister-in-law has traumatic brain injury, not PTSD, and it was hereditary. Blame her black parents.
OMG–my niece never went to school with black children until she lived with us. Her father lived in a white neighborhood, white school, etc. He’s the one who messed her up. It’s shameful, actually. I don’t call my sister-in-law a sister. Only blood relatives get that designation. I suppose that part of the name is sister might be misinterpreted, but I didn’t create the term. Actually, I like her better than my white ex-sister-in-law……
Well, since I’m female and my race is still undetermined (I’m waiting for which term to go by), I could be a white female. I guess I could be racist. Actually, maybe even sexist, since I blame women for a lot of the bad in society (can I be sexist against my own gender? Probably not, since one cannot be racists against their own race). As for telling you are lucky for being oppressed, they say oppression builds character, so it’s actually a compliment. Maybe.
Of course you can be sexist against your gender, just look at horrendous people like Christinna Hoff Sommers, or Ayaan Irsi Ali, etc. These abhorrent anti-femini…. I mean anti-women keep spouting terrible lies and pander to the wider status quo of mysoginistic patriarchal structures, probably out of their ingrained brainwashing by the evil white male people.
You claim you are a woman, but that’s on trial, obviously. We all know sockpuppets thrive on the internet with false identities, especially concerning race and gender. Just look at the amounts of sockpuppetry inside #notyourshield, for instance. Perhaps you are a woman, “empirically” speaking, but clearly you are out of the line, so you might as well be a man, ideologically, which is, as you clearly suspect, the only true source of truth anyway, so there you have it.
And yes, your brother is terrible and he should be incarcerated for giving his child education and a good standard of li..- I mean, for whitecasting his daughter, nullifying her ethnical heritage, destroying her culture, oppressing her life within a supremacistic white privileged world. Shameful indeed.
I wonder how many in the media and academia realize that many of us feel absolutely no racial guilt.
I don’t know the answer, but I wonder how many racists feel racial guilt. My guess is ZERO.
I don’t really care whether white people feel guilty for having been born into privilege. However, it doesn’t hurt to show just a bit of understanding what it is like to be a minority.
JH,
To say someone is “born into privilege” based on the color of their skin is racism. You racist.
Update You’ll love this: Student mugged, says he deserved it because of his ‘privilege’.
There’s nothing I can say about this situation that isn’t racist. (Including that I guess.)
Luis: I could indeed be a sock-puppet. Good point! It’s hard to argue with your logic here. You have made so much clear to me!
JH—I thought one had to be a minority to understand what it’s like to be a minority. Those in the majority can never, ever understand. All we can do is beg forgiveness and muddle on.
http://www.bbc.com/news/education-28937660 states that in US schools this school year, whites are no longer the majority. Wonder what that will mean for the “victimization” claims and will whites then gain “minority” status?
After Martin Luther (Mike) King was killed much of Washington DC burned. Small and large businesses moved out. The 14th street corridor remained desolate for at least 20 years. When finally rebuilt it was stone and glass. Not people friendly, but resistant to rioters. Wait for the Ferguson revival. First liquor stores selling booze, some bread and maybe milk. Then even those closing because of local crime. The government moves in and builds riot proof stone and glass offices. Then neighborhood succumbs to crime and becomes the new Detroit.
I feel absolutely no racial guilt. Could someone explain why I should?
After months of deliberation and a complete review of the evidence the grand jury has spoken. Their decision should be respected just like it was for OJ Simpson.
The President made it worse with his comments, essentially condoning the riots, but it’s understandable since he too flouts the law.
This does not bode well for the future of Ferguson. I see businesses pulling out, not wanting to risk their lives and livelihoods.
Sheri,
You thought wrong. But then, you might be right that you cannot understand what it’s like to be a minority because you are not a minority. I am not you.
Briggs,
Yep, I am a racist. I have always believed that my race is the smartest in US. Going to graduate school has confirmed my belief! Not gonna deny it. However, I like people of all colors!
“To these curious people, arson and looting and mayhem are a sort of natural phenomenon, like a hurricane or tsunami: somewhat predictable and of known characteristics.”
You mean like the Boston tea party, a riot against a corporation, destroying its property?
Person of Choler wrote:
“I feel absolutely no racial guilt. Could someone explain why I should?”
Depends on your past actions. In any case, you might want to think for a moment on the long line of crimes and abuses inflicted on black people in the US, and realize they may have a different view of it than you do. For a moment.
David,
Putting himself in another’s shoes is not exactly Briggs’ forte. Yet, reading Obama’s mind and translating for us is no problem. I’ve not yet been able to figure out how that is logically possible, but there it is.
A theocrat AND a Social Darwinist who blames all bad things on the Left. Briggs, you aren’t very smart.
JMJ
Sheri,
Perhaps it’s because black Americans are only half his people. Or is it that he’s only half their race? According to the Census Bureau he’s full-on “black, African Am., or Negro”. This proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that the African race is genetically superior.
Aside from the fact that he can’t whip his fellow Muslims into line by dropping high explosive care packages on them I think his major failing has been allowing his fellow Democrats to use him as a doormat. But there I go again being pertinent.
Briggs wrote:
“If you know Luis, you know he is being purposely confrontational.”
Not surprised you would know that best of all.
Sheri wrote:
“This proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that Obama is a failure. He can’t even get his own race to play nicely, let alone the world.”
Wow. I doubt you would *ever* say that about a white president.
Every once in awhile the quiet racists slip up and let a repugnant, racist thought come out of their mouth. Not surprised it comes from someone who is also anti-science.
JMJ,
Just for fun, could you describe, in your own words, “theocrat” and “Social Darwinist.” I don’t know whether I should be proud to be these things or not.
Briggs,
If not racist, is it possible you’re a rabid anti-dentite?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ythrdCsOFJU
JH: I was going by the statements of people in the news and those of other races that I have known. There is a claim frequently made that whites cannot understand what it is like to be black, etc. Personally, I don’t believe the argument. Requiring one to have experienced something to understand it would be very limiting. I have no doubt you can imagine what it’s like to be a minority.
Brandon: Putting one’s self in another’s shoes is very different from interpreting Obama’s actions (which is not mind reading, but instead interpretation of past actions, body language, current actions, etc.) You are making a huge generalization with Briggs. Plus, not everyone reacts the same to things–some people would never declare themselves victims or whine, others seem to thrive on it. You are correct that the non-whiner is unlikely to understand the whiner and vice versa. There are studies (probably with bad statistics?) that show this may be innate. People who view themselves as victims often do so from childhood on. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Actually, for decades Obama would have been white on a census, because they went by mother’s race. Now they’re busy making up all kinds of designations. (http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/03/14/u-s-census-looking-at-big-changes-in-how-it-asks-about-race-and-ethnicity/). I’ll just ignore the genetically superior comment. Better that way–I will assume you’re being facetious.
I won’t argue that Democrats used Obama as a doormat. However, being used as a doormat is a choice and he went with the treatment. I see this as a personal failing on his part for which he needs to take responsibility.
JMJ: A liberal radical who is clueless, aren’t you? You blame everything on religion and the right. What’s the difference, unless you care to simply confess to the activity. That might one-up Briggs. I’m not sure. I, too, would love to see how you define these terms.
“Depends on your past actions. In any case, you might want to think for a moment on the long line of crimes and abuses inflicted on black people in the US, and realize they may have a different view of it than you do.”
You need to think of it as “the long line of crimes and abuses inflicted on people“. As soon as you insert that word “black” in there, you’re doing exactly what you’re criticising other people of doing: grouping people into categories based on skin colour and thinking of them as ‘us’ and ‘them’. Doing it from the other side doesn’t make it any better.
There’s a long list of crimes and abuses heaped on white people too. There are crimes heaped on men, women, teenagers, old people, people wearing the wrong clothes, people wearing all the right clothes, shopkeepers, cyclists, Muslims, Christians, Yazidi, rich people, poor people, Jews, Israelis, Greeks, Turks, Pakistanis, clever people, stupid people, people in the wrong gang, people who like the wrong music, people who like the wrong football team, gays, homophobes, uncoordinated weaklings who are no good at sport, people with dyed hair, tattoos, and piercings, aristocrats, communists, capitalists, left, right, libertarian, authoritarian, egalitarian, soldiers, environmentalists, vegetarians, policemen, politicians, tax collectors, traffic wardens, and so on.
You need to think of yourself as a person first. Human. Whoever you are, there are people who don’t like you – you’re bound to fall into some disliked category – but as soon as you start defining yourself as a member of a victim class you’re soon lost in a Manichean world of ‘us’ and ‘them’ where eventually any atrocity is justified as revenge for the last round of crime and abuse. The more you fight it, the more you get a reputation for violence that leads to more dislike and prejudice. It’s a trap you’ll never get out of.
The shopkeeper who got beaten up and robbed by Brown was a victim of crime and abuse, too. All the shopkeepers who got their stores torched are victims of crime and abuse. The skin colour of the people doing it being black does NOT justify it. Thinking it does is what got them into the trap in the first place, and is what keeps them there, and keeps the race war going. Their “different view” is the cause of a lot of their problems. It’s not because they’re black; it’s because they think of themselves as such, and act as if that justifies becoming a criminal and abuser themselves.
It’s simple. Skin colour is irrelevant. All people suffer from crime and abuse. Beating up and robbing shopkeepers makes you one of the criminal abusers. Rioting and burning down shops makes you one of the criminal abusers. Don’t let the colour of anybody’s skin get in the way of clearly seeing that.
So don’t make (racist) excuses for it; you only further trap the people you’re trying to save.
In the US there *IS* a long line of abuses directed at blacks — directly at them, simply for being black — starting with being brought here as slaves. It doesn’t compare to anything whites have gone through in the US, or Hispanics or Asian-Americans. Individuals in those groups may well have suffered abuses, but that directed at American blacks, simply for being black, is a wholly different category of evil.
N in V: Excellent comment.
David Appell,
You used to have slaves because they were black? Naughty boy.
Moron David none of the folks protesting were brought here as slaves, it is public ally preening self loathers like you that can fathom the immense separation of time. Go away
The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” Mk 12:31
“In the US there *IS* a long line of abuses directed at blacks — directly at them, simply for being black — starting with being brought here as slaves.”
1. Those guys are all dead by now. None of the current crop of Americans can say that.
2. They weren’t enslaved for being black – they were actually enslaved for being non-Muslim. The slave markets in North Africa where they were bought were run by Muslims who under sharia law are permitted to enslave the unbeliever (kuffar) tribes. It’s coincidence that they were mostly black – so were the slavers. (And still are.) Westerners bought them originally because they were the cheapest, and attitudes to skin colour developed later as a consequence. Slavery is indeed a different category of evil – but because it is slavery, not because of the skin colour of the perpetrators/victims.
3. Any Black Americans today are far better off than most Africans – and the opportunities available to them in America are even better. Yes, it was unjust on their ancestors, but they themselves did quite well out of it. Stop whining about it.
The majority of white Europeans are the descendents of serfs in feudal times, which was hardly any different. There were plenty of white slaves too – the Romans and later the Vikings were big slave traders. We’re all descendents of the oppressed. But we are not to be judged for our ancestors or our ancestry, but what we do and achieve, today.
And as I just said, there’s a long line of abuses directed against every category of people. People have been robbing shopkeepers (for example) probably since trading first started in prehistoric times. People who think black/white is an important distinction while shopkeeper/non-shopkeeper or victim/criminal is not are simply being racist. Stop doing it.
People should be condemned for their crimes – what they themselves actually did or did not do. What their ancestors did, or what other people of the same skin colour did, is irrelevant. The colour of your skin is NOT an excuse.
My take away here is that the civil rights movement needs to choose their fights a lot more carefully. If you are going to highlight an alleged crime by a police officer for its racial motivation, then at least make sure there is a compelling case that such a crime actually occurred before making it a national showcase.
This episode affirms the worst aspects of the civil rights movement in my opinion. There was undoubtedly a rush to judgment and as more facts became available, the case that this shooting was both unjustified and racially motivated became weaker and weaker. The convenience story video was very damaging in the court of public opinion. The response to this weakening of the story line can be summed up in a single word, denial. The race card had been overtly played, and there was no taking that card back off the table. One could ask, why not?
At this point most of the commentary is a meek screaming about process, and hardly anyone is still taking a position that this case was an unjustified racial shooting that would result in a guilty verdict on any charge. A very poor case to highlight police racial discrimination. Credibility suffers.
So what is the “justice” that people want here? This specific police officer should be sacrificed for the alleged discrimination of all police officers and past racial injustices? When people get upset that this weak case resulted in a non-verdict to the tune of looting and burning down their own community, it is quite frankly perplexing on multiple levels.
Gary: But if your neighbor is evil, isn’t God commanding you to love evil? Are you sure that’s a stand-alone message there?
Lawrence O’Donnel presented very interesting discrepencies in the testimony of witness #10 the only one that was mention by the DA yesterday has being constant.
In the police report, he said that Brown and his friend were walking toward him on the same sidewalk, and that he was 100 yards away.
In front if the jury he said that they were walking on the curb opposite him and that he was 50 yards away. He also spoke that he saw Brown charging the officer in about the same word than the officer used. Something that he never said in is initial police report.
The DA got the decision he wanted and made a mockery of the U.S. court system.
DEEBEE wrote:
“…none of the folks protesting were brought here as slaves.”
Do you really think racism ended with the abolition of slavery? How naive….
Briggs wrote:
“You used to have slaves because they were black? Naughty boy.”
Why do you find it so difficult to try to understand where American blacks might be coming from, and recognize that it’s not where YOU came from?
David Appell
25 NOVEMBER 2014 AT 3:43 PM, “Depends on your past actions. In any case, you might want to think for a moment on the long line of crimes and abuses inflicted on black people in the US, and realize they may have a different view of it than you do. For a moment.”
I have thought about it quite a bit and couldn’t find any crimes abuses that I inflicted on any black people in the US or elsewhere. Therefore, I don’t see any reason why I should be included in a collective guilt indictment.
If you think I’m wrong, let me know.
You can pretty much piece together a lot of what happened by the evidence collected at the crime scene. This clears up some questions.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/national/ferguson-diagram-of-the-scene/?hpid=z2
An altercation clearly occurred at the car (blood on the car)
A chase occurred.
Brown was shot, and then continued to run at the officer (blood spots going toward car)
The final fatal shots likely occurred at very close range (shell casings close to body).
This is consistent with the officer’s account. A few other items of note are that Brown’s DNA was found on the gun, Wilson had some minimal abrasions, and at least a couple witness statements corroborated Wilson’s account. You would never, ever get a conviction here I would suggest, especially with the robbery. This looks a lot more like a tragedy than a crime, and the victim played a leading role in his own demise.
Nullius in Verba wrote:
“1. Those guys are all dead by now. None of the current crop of Americans can say that.”
Do you also think racism ended with the abolition of slavery?
“2. They weren’t enslaved for being black – they were actually enslaved for being non-Muslim.”
White southern Christians enslaved blacks because they weren’t Muslim? Ridiculous.
“3. Any Black Americans today are far better off than most Africans – and the opportunities available to them in America are even better.”
So American racism is OK because they’d have a worse life in Africa? FIrst of all, you don’t know what their lives would be in Africa, nor do you know what Africa would be today if other civilizations hadn’t exploited and decimated their societies. And unless you’re black you have no idea what opportunities are and are not available to them, and it would be reasonable and polite to listen and try to understand them without the arrogance to try and tell us what you think they think.
“Yes, it was unjust on their ancestors, but they themselves did quite well out of it. Stop whining about it.”
Bull Connor couldn’t have said it better.
“And as I just said, there’s a long line of abuses directed against every category of people.”
Yes, you listed “traffic wardens and tax collectors,” two of the most oppressed groups on the face of the Earth. Why do people so universally hate this race of bureaucrats, simply for being born as traffic wardens and tax collectors? When will society finally become traffic warden-blind, and when will be begin to accept tax collectors for being the tax collectors they are?
“I have thought about it quite a bit and couldn’t find any crimes abuses that I inflicted on any black people in the US or elsewhere. Therefore, I don’t see any reason why I should be included in a collective guilt indictment.”
It’s too bad you choose to make fun of the situation. It ensures you won’t learn a thing. (Hey, maybe that’s the point, huh?)
Appell, please do us all a favor and connect all the dots on how 100 year old historical slavery caused Brown to rob a store, violently confront a police officer, caused the grand jury to ignore evidence and let Wilson walk, caused the community to loot their own businesses, and then connect it all back to how the fault lays at the hands of people with a certain skin pigmentation who have zero connection to Ferguson.
The competing theory would be that a criminal got shot after unwisely attacking a police officer.
If you want to understand why this rarely happens to other people, you might ponder how they typically interact with police officers and their typical behavior at convenience stores. Maybe this ground breaking social research will unearth some very surprising results.
“Why do you find it so difficult to try to understand where American blacks might be coming from, and recognize that it’s not where YOU came from?”
Some of my ancestors were German, yet strangely I don’t feel any particular animosity towards Americans, French, and many other societies and races I could hold grudges against. An American killed my grandfather, yet strangely I don’t feel hate towards Americans or any particular grudge against them, although I have more right to do so than most blacks.
Will,
I have a relative that went to Nashville with her husband for a 2 years contract for a nuclear agency.
Since moving there she can’t believe the number WWB (walking while black)”random arrest” she witnessed. She and her husband have never been subjected to any of those arrest though she witness many blacks being subjected to these arrest. She has yet to see a white subjected to the same treatment.
“How come Cliven Bundy still has his cow grazing on federal land. How come cops didn’t shoot a bunch of white who were targeting them, they were more than justified to do so.”
Well a quick peek at the video suggests it had something to do with being outnumbered and outgunned…
Sheri,
Perhaps, they mean that one cannot really know how it feels to be black. Which is probably true, but it should not stop us from trying to understand and be familiar how it is like.
I “am so lucky to be a minority” so that I don’t have to imagine how it is like to be a minority and to experience racism!
It seems to me that you cannot, or perhaps are not willing to, imagine, how it is like to be black. Evidence-based opinion. I use the phrase “it seems that†to express my uncertainty.
Briggs,
Michael Brown, an unarmed teenager, doesn’t deserve to be shot to death, regardless of how many people you can find on the Internet to agree with you. My only question is why you seem eager to justify that he got what he deserved, i.e., death.
Sheri,
No, you’re misreading it.
The neighbor is not evil, though his actions may be. See the parable of the Good Samaritan, which btw was offered in response to a follow-up question: who is my neighbor? The Samaritans and Jews at the time had no love for each other and probably did some evil things to the other. The stand-alone message is to care even for a hurting “enemy” — not to endorse the evil he might do, but that you might win him over to friendship. The Samaritan was repairing the evil done to a stranger because it was the right thing to do. It didn’t matter who the stranger was. If we all were better at doing this, big things like the Ferguson incident and subsequent riots, and little things like nasty blog arguments just wouldn’t happen.
One man’s perspective:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpsQwl_19M4
Mike: Bundy may or may not have outgunned and outnumbered the Government people. Reportedly, the government has some nice photos of the people there and are pursuing investigations of said people. The reason there was no shooting was none of Bundy’s supporters were stupid enough to try and take a weapon from the Government officials, charge at and attempt to harm one or open fire to go down in a blaze of glory. Plus, the government is well aware of the tactics of said individuals and is trying very hard not to repeat stupid mistakes of the past. A guy grabbing an officer’s gun is very, very different. There is only one possible reason for grabbing the gun and it’s grounds for losing one’s life.
JH: What would I have to do to understand what it is like to be black? Having my niece live with me (she’s very dark), having a black sister-in-law, having friends who are married to blacks, having friends who are black? Put on black make-up and a wig? Even if I did that, I’m back to “is it that I am black or that I lack social skills or some other reason?”. Which is my position on this–I cannot imagine myself a victim in any situation, race, sex or whatever. I have no desire to understand why one would relish being a victim and demand they be a victim forever. None. If that’s what it takes, then I don’t want to know. Victimhood is a sad, bad way to live one’s life. Yet that’s fully advocated by some here–make everything everyone else’s fault. That is just cruel and evil.
As for Brown “deserving to die”, if you grab a police officer’s gun and try to kill him, he has every right to self defense. Police are not taught to “wound” (like people who have never been threatened, used a gun or been in a gunfight do–maybe you should try understanding what the cop feels like here)–the person is trying to murder the cop. The attacker is a danger to the cop and to society. If one does not want to die, one should not grab an officer’s gun or charge at a person who is armed. Not a difficult concept to grasp.
(Bonus question: How far apart does a person with a knife and one with a gun have to be for the one with the gun to prevail?)
Gary: I get your meaning. And don’t we have these “nasty” arguments because we love each other and want to help each other become better people?
“Racism is not necessarily in the fact that the shooter is white but in the fact that the victims is black. And blacks victim in the USA are less likely to see their killer face justice or found guilty. While over 80% of people accuse of killing whites will be found guilty, and less than 50% if the victim is black.”
Sylvain, I don’t believe you.
“Since moving there she can’t believe the number WWB (walking while black)â€random arrest†she witnessed. She and her husband have never been subjected to any of those arrest though she witness many blacks being subjected to these arrest. She has yet to see a white subjected to the same treatment.”
Sylvain, I don’t believe this is true.
I believe this. I’ve lived in the south all of my life. Yes, sometimes things seem a little out of whack. It’s almost always cultural and not skin color related. Now, because some folks of a certain skin color choose to adopt certain cultural norms (very negative cultural norms) the reaction to those people is not necessarily related to their skin color. It’s related to their BEHAVIOR. This was all aptly demonstrated in Ferguson as folks enamored of certain cultural norms proceeded to burn their own town down. Seems to have very little to do with their skin color and a lot to do with what goes on between their ears.
Having had no blacks in my grammar school and only one in my high-school class, and having pursued a profession in which I encountered only a single black colleague in my entire career, I suppose it’s hard to claim I know what it’s like to be black.
But I did drive an ice-cream truck as a summer job, and there were “colored” (as they said in those days) drivers, so I knew some. One driver got beaten up and robbed, and the two white cops who investigated the incident were hostile and didn’t believe his story, so he had to go to a police interrogation after he got checked out at the hospital. Luckily, though, the black detective who did the interrogation bothered to find out that it was the driver’s own money, not the ice-cream company’s, that was taken, so it wasn’t likely that the driver had, as the white cops apparently thought, pilfered the cash. The driver was therefore released without prosecution.
I don’t know what it’s like to be black, but I think I can understand why a young black man in that situation would suspect some profiling. Yet I myself don’t think race was a factor. You see, I was that driver, and I’m white.
So, no, I don’t know what it’s like to be black. But neither do blacks know what it’s like to be white, and they are consequently likely to blame things on racism that they shouldn’t.
Poe’s Law is strong in these comments. Thanks, Luis, for setting the stage so well.
So, I said, “I have thought about it quite a bit and couldn’t find any crimes abuses that I inflicted on any black people in the US or elsewhere. Therefore, I don’t see any reason why I should be included in a collective guilt indictment.â€
And Mr. Appell replied, “It’s too bad you choose to make fun of the situation. It ensures you won’t learn a thing. (Hey, maybe that’s the point, huh?)”
I’m not sure how asserting that I have done nothing (along racial lines, anyway) and therefore have no reason to feel racial guilt, is making fun of a situation.
I begin to think that, arraigned for a crime before Judge Appell and protesting my innocence, Judge Appell would say, “That’s not funny”, don the black cap and remand me to the hangman.
Sheri,
” And don’t we have these “nasty†arguments because we love each other and want to help each other become better people?”
Not the nasty, provoking, name-calling ones. In those the desire to help one’s opponent to become a better person really is making him/her see how brilliant we are and how stupid he/she really is. Trollish behavior no matter who started the fire.
Actually, I think the “nasty” ones are an exasperated response to someone who refuses to engage in civil discourse. While there are those who believe that remaining civil will somehow magically turn the uncivil commentor into an enlightened person with manners, the empirical evidence does not run that way. The only possible way to avoid this is to simply ignore those who are not civil, which I suspect you could then claim that it’s rude to ignore people. It’s a catch22—be nice and the troll continues being rude, ignore the troll and you’re rude. (We might also want to define “troll”, since most definitions concern rude and trouble-making individuals. Just the use of the term troll might be unkind.)
This debate has devolved into a non sequitur:
Team A: The evidence doesn’t support this shooting was unjustified or racially motivated
Team B: Are you saying racism doesn’t exist?
If you happen to be white, the best way to experience being a minority is to spend some time in Japan or China. These are some of the most homogeneous societies on the planet. You definitely get the feeling you stand out. It is an amazing culture shock to spend a month in one of these countries and then fly into NYC where the airports are a spectrum of diversity.
While America unquestionably has some real (and much imagined) lingering racism, we are ahead of the pack when it comes to tolerance of other races and religions as compared to large swaths of Asia and the Middle East. We may not be perfect, but some perspective is required. Almost everyone supports race equality and equal opportunity, but that doesn’t re
…but that doesn’t require you to see racism around every corner or blame yourself where it does exist.
I see the media (CNN, FOX, MSNBC) as the person poking the fire to help create and build the momentum of these types of events. A adult robs a store assaults a police officer and is now dead. If asked “what would happen if” to the trail of events that started this horrific scene, the situation ended as many would predict.
On another note – At what age does racism set in, or fully develop? Most small children have no concept of this. If children are brought up in it and trained subconsciously then would average teenage rebellion eliminate racism slowly like church attendance or other societal norms that are slowly fading away?
Sheri,
Sheri, maybe the policeman has the right to self-defence. Michael Brown, an unarmed teenager with his hands up, did not deserve to be shot to DEATH! To justify otherwise is WRONG.
Well, happy commenting. I already spent more time than I budgeted for blog reading for this week.
JH—Ignoring all the evidence seems very wrong to me. Since you may never read this comment, you can go on living in your fantasy world happily ignoring the real world. Happy fantasy.
JH,
The evidence doesn’t support Brown had his hands up. Multiple conflicting witness accounts. We will probably never know. The fact that there we several witness accounts that were inconsistent with physical evidence (shot in the back, shot while on the ground, etc.) gives one pause to believe any witness account. The autopsy show impacts were not consistent with him having his armed raised while being shot. That does not mean there is no scenario where it could have happened, it is that this inflammatory accusation appears to be on shaky ground.
If you can show where there is definitive or even probable evidence that this is the case, I’m interested.
Sheri,
Ignoring certain behaviors can be kind. Think about the boisterous child or the mildly obnoxious house guest. Or maybe it’s better to say that all responses should be gauged to the provocation. Even ignoring is a response (a null one). If the goal is a civil discourse, then reward appropriate behavior. I don’t see any catch-22 problem with not feeding trolls.
Sheri wrote:
“The only possible way to avoid this is to simply ignore those who are not civil, which I suspect you could then claim that it’s rude to ignore people.”
Do you mean civil as in “Proof Mr. Appell or shut up.” Or would that be rude?
https://www.wmbriggs.com/blog/?p=14820#comment-133788
“We might also want to define “trollâ€, since most definitions concern rude and trouble-making individuals. Just the use of the term troll might be unkind.”
The title of this post is “Ferguson Open Discussion.” Open. A “troll” is just a derogatory label for someone whose opinions you dislike. Deal with it.
Gary: Then I shall go on ignoring the trolls.
Sylvain,
Lawrence O’Donnel presented very interesting discrepencies in the testimony of witness #10 the only one that was mention by the DA yesterday has being constant. … The DA got the decision he wanted and made a mockery of the U.S. court system.
I inadvertently recorded the O’Reilly Factor last night. I don’t normally watch him but since he had two former prosecutors with him I watched the first 10 minutes or so. They ran a short clip of the prosecutor in this case saying that many of the witnesses said conflicting things between their testimony and what they initially told the police. His opinion was this would have made prosecution even harder. Why do you only mention that of witness #10?
Interestingly, both former prosecutors said that the amount of evidence and time spent with the grand jury was very unusual and both said a lot of grand jury cases are relatively short — often under one hour. The Missouri case ran for around 70 hours IIRC. The prosecutor presented all available evidence to the jury including every self-claimed eyewitness.
What certainly was a factor was that the results of every autopsy conducted was consistent with the cop’s statement. For example, the only wound that would have indicated being shot from behind is inconclusive. The bullet entered the arm from behind the palm. This is inconsistent with running away unless Brown was running with his palms facing forward which is a bit awkward. It is inconsistent with him holding his hands in surrender unless he held them up with the palms toward his face. It is consistent with him being shot while charging or while struggling for the cop’s gun.
So how was this a mockery? That the prosecutor could have held back evidence to color the case the way you would have preferred but didn’t? It’s the only way that a prosecutor could indict a ham sandwich as the old adage goes. Apparently this may be a common occurrence, That’s your idea of justice? The prosecutor went out of his way to give ALL of the evidence to the grand jury including evidence he wasn’t required to provide. Is this what you mean by mockery?
“Do you also think racism ended with the abolition of slavery?”
No. Absolutely not. 149 years later and here you are, justifying people burning down shops and looting on the basis that they’re black, and you can therefore expect no better of them.
“White southern Christians enslaved blacks because they weren’t Muslim? Ridiculous.”
Do you think there were lots of white southern Christians living in Africa?
Try reading what I wrote.
“So American racism is OK because they’d have a worse life in Africa?”
Strawman.
This is nothing to do with American racism. This is to do with a criminal robbing stores attacking a cop and getting shot. This is to do with further criminals rioting, looting, and burning shops down. This is peripherally to do with racist apologists telling us that such criminal behaviour is OK if you’re black, because of some things that happened before 1865. Or because some people don’t like other people, and are nasty to them, or something.
“And unless you’re black you have no idea what opportunities are and are not available to them, and it would be reasonable and polite to listen and try to understand them without the arrogance to try and tell us what you think they think.”
I know what it’s like for people to be prejudiced against me. I know what it’s like to be hated. Lots of people do. But not many regard it as an excuse for criminality.
People make excuses for it, as if there’s something special about it. The sad thing is, it’s partially that indulgence that destroys their hopes. Instead of learning the self-discipline and effort needed to earn their success, they learn that they can be given a pass if they complain of their disadvantages. A student who is always granted passing marks without having to make an effort soon learns to make no effort. One constantly offered charity soon learns not to work. That’s the fastest way to destroy someone’s moral character. And that’s nothing to do with skin colour – I have known a lot of white people caught in that trap, too.
Authoritarians love it, because inequality that arises when people are free can be used to justify taking that freedom away. If prejudice prevents some getting their fair share, the state (i.e. them) has to step in to redistribute it. And once you have justified it once in a good case, the precedent is set for all the others. Even better, the people having their character and values destroyed in this way inevitably vote for more of it. The more advantages they’re handed, the worse they do. The worse they do, the more new advantages they demand. And they’ll vote for the ones giving them, like a five year old voting for the parent who gives them candy on demand.
I feel sorry for them, but probably not for the reasons you do.
Dav,
“Why do you only mention that of witness #10?”
The reason they concentrated on this witness is that the DA mentioned him in is press conference. Witness #10 is the only witness who corroborated the policeman statement, and his story was deemed consistent yet there were major contradiction between is first declaration and the declaration in front of the grand jury. None of the discrepancies were were ever challenge by the DA.
“Interestingly, both former prosecutors said that the amount of evidence and time spent with the grand jury was very unusual and both said a lot of grand jury cases are relatively short — often under one hour. The Missouri case ran for around 70 hours IIRC. The prosecutor presented all available evidence to the jury including every self-claimed eyewitness.”
This is exactly what a prosecutor that don’t want an indictment would do. Many of the complaints are because the grand jury process was so unusual. The prosecutor who consult the grand jury usually want an indictment and will usually present the evidence that makes the case for it. The grand jury proof is the lowest level of proof required which is probable cause.
Self-claimed eyewitnesses are usually vetted and excluded before the the case get to the court,. The inclusion of such witness has the effect of discrediting other witnesses.
No reenactment was ever done either with the policeman so that it could be corroborated by the recording evidence of the shooting and the description that the policeman did do not match the recording. So no work was done to see which witness was the closest match to the evidence.
The collection of evidence was never confronted to any scrutiny either, as it would have in court.
The cop shot more bullet than the number of wound. The kill shot was above the head which is inconsistent with a person charging. During is testimony there were many statement by the cop that were not challenged.
The guy had cannabis in is blood which is anything but a stimulant it would have made the guy weaker, slower, not stronger and more aggressive.
The only thing that matters is was the cops life in danger when he fired the kill shot and the answer is no.
“So how was this a mockery? ”
That the prosecutor went out of his way to exonerate the policeman is why it was a mockery. Why did he do everything so different than in any other case. Why was he soft on the cop in the grand jury testimony. If the victim would have been white the cop would have been in jail the same day.
People in positions of power abuse their authority from time to time, and the more so if they regularly get away with it. But that shouldn’t be used to support a culture of victimhood. Once, when I was younger I was standing alone minding my own business, when I was grabbed by two apparently bored security people (most likely steroid junkies by the look of them), who tossed me down a flight of steps. Because I was sober – something they were not expecting – I managed to grab the handrails on the way down and doing so likely saved my life. A police car drove past so I hailed them down and reported what had just occurred. They shrugged, told me that I didn’t “belong” in their city and drove off. I’m not black, by the way.
The problem here is that there is a conflation of issues. The core problem here is a dysfunctional culture reinforced by a dysfunctional ideological world view (progressiveism).
This is exactly what a prosecutor that don’t want an indictment would do.
As opposed to one who is insisting on an indictment even if not justified? So, your idea of how things should go is that the prosecutor should NEVER include evidence which weakens his case? That’s your idea of how justice would be served? Really? Admittedly, this may often be the case but it’s serving the prosecutor’s office; not justice.
In this case, the prosecutor did feel it should have never gotten to this point and NO grand jury presentation would have been made. However, he apparently wanted — or was coerced into — a second opinion and so took it to a grand jury to let them decide. Yeah, he presented both sides and somehow you think this is gaming the system? I think a prosecutor ONLY giving evidence for and not against the state’s case is the one seeking miscarriage of justice.
Self-claimed eyewitnesses are usually vetted and excluded before the the case get to the court,. The inclusion of such witness has the effect of discrediting other witnesses.
Then you have no idea how things are done here. Stop proving it.
The cop shot more bullet than the number of wound. The kill shot was above the head which is inconsistent with a person charging.
You have shown time and again when it comes to things involving guns you are clueless. Have you ever been in a gun fight? There are many wild shots because there is little time to aim. I saw a dashcam video of a state trooper exchanging shots with a guy across the hood of a car. What’s that? About 6-10 feet? Neither one of the was getting hit. Since when did you become an expert in this?
And. no. the shot that killed Brown was INTO the top of the head — very consistent with someone charging forward in a dash with determined intention of collision. Do you ever watch football? Next time watch how the ends tackle each other.
DAV: I asked JH before she departed how far apart two people, one with a knife and one with a gun, have to be for the gun holder to prevail. My guess is most people think the gun always prevails. You are very correct about gun fights and how often both parties fire and miss. Several years back, there was a police woman in a town in my state who emptied a 17 round magazine in a hotel room. Her partner was fighting with the bad guy, she was trying to “save” him. She hit no one in 17 shots (which may have been advantageous, actually). My little brother (who is in law enforcement) says it’s very different when there’s someone shooting back.
All,
Uncle Fred, an alternate take.
Just for fun, another look at people who have bought into the victimization mantra:
http://www.thefederalistpapers.org/us/georgetown-univ-student-says-he-deserved-to-be-mugged-because-of-his
Sheri,
There was a Mythbusters episode on this. They showed it was possible for a knife wielder to overpower a gun holder within 20 ft by charging. The knife holder is also a moving target.
When the adrenalin hits, things are no longer as easy as on the shooting range. In the movie Shane, Shane tells little Joey that shooting cans off a rail isn’t the same as when someone is fighting back. It takes a lot of nerve to calm down enough to take aim. One of those easier said than done things.
At the range, I practice at 25 yards with my handguns. It’s the minimum they’ll allow (they also have other strange rules that seem to have no rationale) . I figure I’ll never be further than that anyway if I’m defending myself — particularly at home. Hopefully, I’ll never have to. Even with being perfectly legal the whole world would turn upside down. With such close quarters, I’ll probably also shoot from the hip. I was taught this before being shipped to SE Asia. Unfortunately, the shooting range table is about waist high so I can’t try it there.
DAV: Yes, it’s about 20 feet. Most people don’t realize this.
You are right about one’s whole world turning upside down. This is also true for the police officer who discharges his weapon. He is going to get administrative leave, mountains of paper work, a visit to the mental health professional and investigated as to the validity of the shooting. The police officer has seconds to make the decision, which is then followed by days, weeks and maybe months of everyone who wasn’t there evaluating said decision. I don’t envy their position.
Regarding: “Uncle Fred, an alternate take.”
This style of argument just as readily applies to those ignorant primitive South Americans, Asians, Indians, Irish… attacks on the inferiority of all of these classes of peoples work well, so long as the century or decade is adjusted to suite.
The intelligence arguments are more difficult to disentangle. I’d be inclined to point out, though, that if you live in a dysfunctional sub culture, your desire to obtain academic success will be reduced relative to the general population. That shouldn’t even be slightly surprising.
Will,
I think his argument is rather more subtle and evidence-based than that.
However, how’d you like those rap lyrics?
“I think his argument is rather more subtle and evidence-based than that.”
As in –
“Of the countless explanations given for the poor performance and poor behavior of blacks in the US, one of them dares not speak its name: Low intelligence.
Yet it fits all the evidence. ”
The problem with evidence based on social studies, is there a lot to pick and choose from, and a lot of leeway in interpretation. I always thought Stephen Jay Gould did a good job of debunking this type of reasoning a long time ago. If these arguments are subtle I’ve missed the subtle bits.
Frankly, I’ve very sceptical of innate intelligence style arguments because, as in the example post you’ve cited, he is not considering evidence based on innate intelligence, but rather, sweeping generalizations combined with very specific types of educational testing. There is, relative to other species, very little genetic diversity in human populations. All of the tired arguments made in his article could just have easily been made against those dumb, dirty, genetically inferior Indians during the time of the British Raj.
DAV wrote:
“The prosecutor went out of his way to give ALL of the evidence to the grand jury including evidence he wasn’t required to provide. Is this what you mean by mockery?”
Yes, that seems to have been part of the scheme. From Justice Antonia Scalia, United States vs Williams, 1992:
“It is the grand jury’s function not ‘to enquire … upon what foundation [the charge may be] denied,’ or otherwise to try the suspect’s defenses, but only to examine ‘upon what foundation [the charge] is made’ by the prosecutor. Respublica v. Shaffer, 1 Dall. 236 (O. T. Phila. 1788); see also F. Wharton, Criminal Pleading and Practice § 360, pp. 248-249 (8th ed. 1880). As a consequence, neither in this country nor in England has the suspect under investigation by the grand jury ever been thought to have a right to testify or to have exculpatory evidence presented.”
Source: http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2014/11/26/3597322/justice-scalia-explains-what-was-wrong-with-the-ferguson-grand-jury/
Nullius in Verba commented:
“No. Absolutely not. 149 years later and here you are, justifying people burning down shops and looting on the basis that they’re black, and you can therefore expect no better of them.”
I *never* wrote that. And you’re a liar for implying I did.
“Do you think there were lots of white southern Christians living in Africa?”
There were lots of white southern Christians living in the U.S., who went to war to assert their “right” to oppress an entire race based on nothing but their skin color.
“This is nothing to do with American racism. This is to do with a criminal robbing stores attacking a cop and getting shot. This is to do with further criminals rioting, looting, and burning shops down.”
Baloney. This has to do with black Americans being fed up with being a target of police — Emmett Till, Rodney King, Amadou Diallo, Trevon Martin, Michael Brown, Akai Gurley, and more. It has to do with racial profiling, with blacks being arrested more often than whites for minor offenses, for blacks being arrested while rich white American college students get a pass on rape. It has to do with blacks feeling their lives are worth less in the U.S. than whites. It has to do with the inequities in this country, something they know about far better than us.
“This is peripherally to do with racist apologists telling us that such criminal behaviour is OK if you’re black, because of some things that happened before 1865.”
A stupid comment based on a serious lack of awareness about the U.S.
“I know what it’s like for people to be prejudiced against me. I know what it’s like to be hated. Lots of people do. But not many regard it as an excuse for criminality.”
Was the Boston Tea Party a excuse for criminality?
“People make excuses for it, as if there’s something special about it.”
The looting — which is nothing compared to what Wall Street looted from America last decade — is isolated. Tonight in American lots of people are protesting the results of this case — in Boston, Portland, Minneapolis, Los Angeles, New York, Dallas, Atlanta and more. You’d prefer everyone focus on the few who are looting so that no one sees the massive outrage and protests. How Fox News of you.
“The sad thing is, it’s partially that indulgence that destroys their hopes. Instead of learning the self-discipline and effort needed to earn their success, they learn that they can be given a pass if they complain of their disadvantages.”
Sure, because YOUR success is simply because of your hard work and self-discipline, right, with no advantages at all, and it’s a darn shame those people can’t be as tough and upstanding as you. Right?
DAV,
Maybe you should read outside your comfort zone.
http://www.salon.com/2014/11/26/everything_the_darren_wilson_grand_jury_got_wrong_the_lies_and_mistruths_that_let_michael_browns_killer_off_the_hook/
“As opposed to one who is insisting on an indictment even if not justified? So, your idea of how things should go is that the prosecutor should NEVER include evidence which weakens his case? That’s your idea of how justice would be served? Really? Admittedly, this may often be the case but it’s serving the prosecutor’s office; not justice.”
This prosecutor was suspicious by the community from the start. Many people asked that the governor appoint a new prosecutor from another district. If he wanted another point of view he should have recused himself and let another office take a look at it. At least the decision would not have been has contentious.
Where I am, when a policeman is implicated in a shooting the investigation is handle by a different corps of police and a prosecutor from another city. Not the prosecutor that usually works with that corps of police.
It is possible that the police officer is innocent something that a trial would have proved.
I work with two retired policemen both said that this investigation stinks.
People who claim to have seen something but didn’t are not witness to the event. Why then bring them in front of the grand jury if not to bury and discredit the real witness. This comes from Lisa Bloom who is trial defense attorney
who predicted the outcome of the Trevon Martin trial and this decision. She predicted the decision last september, if not earlier.
A DA doesn’t have to call all the witness to a trial, he only has to disclose all of them to the defense.
Usually a grand jury is used when the prosecution want to indict someone and that the proof is scarce. They will never ask the grand jury to say which charges should be brought, but if he has enough probable cause to charge the accused.
“And. no. the shot that killed Brown was INTO the top of the head — very consistent with someone charging forward in a dash with determined intention of collision.”
And of course, this is not consistent with someone who got it in the gut falling to the ground. The kill shot was a on the top of the head with a downward angle (from the back to the front of the head). The policeman had weeks to prepare is statement with its lawyer.
I know football enough to know that these guys don’t run toward someone shooting at them.
BTW in Mythbuster the gun was holstered when the guy started running.
Wilson claimed he was afraid and would not have done anything different. Only psychopath would say that (not all psychopath are murderer), but they are not scared very often. Most people would suffer from PTSD after such an event.
Will Nitschke commented:
“The core problem here is a dysfunctional culture reinforced by a dysfunctional ideological world view (progressiveism).”
Progressiveism is responsible for pretty much everything good that has happened in the US for at least a century. (Well, back to the abolition movement too — thank God somebody cared about the human rights of the enslaved in the evil south.) It’s reactionary conservatives who want to divide the country purely for political gain (Rush Limbaugh and the dittoheads; Fox News), and it’s the Republicans in Congress who exploit that division at every opportunity, who exist to lick the boots of their corporate paymasters, and who have no ideas about solving problems in the U.S. beyond “No!”
“The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.”
— John Kenneth Galbraith
Sheri commented:
“Just for fun, another look at people who have bought into the victimization mantra.”
“It’s not so much just this one thing,†he said. “Who cares about one event? It’s just the pattern where they tell you things are going to change, that they appreciate what we do, that capital markets are important, but then the actions are different and they continue to want to score political points on us.”
– senior executive of a Big Six US bank,
political.livejournal.com/7458794.html#ixzz3KFMkgDam
“Victims in Chief — Wall Street’s got a new roll: victim,” New York Post, 6/20/11 http://nypost.com/2011/06/20/victims-in-chief/
Sheri commented:
“You are right about one’s whole world turning upside down. This is also true for the police officer who discharges his weapon. He is going to get administrative leave, mountains of paper work, a visit to the mental health professional and investigated as to the validity of the shooting. The police officer has seconds to make the decision, which is then followed by days, weeks and maybe months of everyone who wasn’t there evaluating said decision. I don’t envy their position.”
Sounds fair to me. As representatives of the state, police officers carry the ability to execute citizens on sight. What higher power does the state have? Seeing that police offers use their weapons in a responsible, well-justified manner is paramount. (Especially since police departments have become militarized.) Too bad if that requires paperwork.
The number of reported “justified homicides” by police is lately on an upward trend, at a time when the trend in crimes is downward:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2014/08/15/how-the-number-of-justified-police-homicides-has-changed-since-the-1990s/
“Progressiveism is responsible for pretty much everything good that has happened in the US for at least a century.”
You mean like freeing the slaves? You know that famous Democratic president, Abraham Lincoln. 😉 Or why the Temperance Movement was so prominent in the Democratic party?
In many ways I am sympathetic to the goals of ‘social progress’ but I’m an anti-progressiveist as it now exists, because it’s filled with cookie cutter nitwits who have no interest whatsoever in anything more than moral posturing. The modern nitwit of this flavour assumes everything good comes out of his ideology and his ‘enemies’ are in his mind a 19th century caricature. This is not to say conservatives don’t have their own collective form of stupidity, but I have found that most of them have not yet abandoned rationalism in favour of romanticism.
DAV,
What is more likely. A guy getting angry at someone who is shooting at him, or a cop that would shoot a guy that would dare giving him a punch in the face?
All,
Not irrelevant: George F. Will: Thanks, or something
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/george-will-thanks-or-something/2014/11/26/67da136e-74e6-11e4-a755-e32227229e7b_story.html
All,
The mind of the barbarian knows no bottom.
http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-California/2014/11/26/Video-White-Ferguson-Protestor-Demands-Black-LAPD-Officer-Feel-Shame
Obama not a pinnacle?
And this:
And poor John McWorter can’t even parse his own sentence:
To answer that question: what made Brown comfortable is that he was a confirmed criminal, an evil man, a brute, a man who got the fate which he asked for. Right, McWorter?
It is possible that the police officer is innocent something that a trial would have proved.
Apparently not possibly innocent at all to you. You complain that a grand jury reaching a (for you apparently, wrong) conclusion after hearing both sides is somehow unfair but if the same thing happens later in front of yet another and smaller jury THEN it would be PROVEN. Huh? Not at all for you. You’d be here whining that the grand jury saw enough evidence of a guilt so the trial jury must have got it wrong and moaning about the unfairness of it all when you, of course, KNOW he’s guilty. Admit it. There’s no acceptable resolution for you except conviction – a lose-lose situation. Why bother with juries at all?
BTW: a grand jury’s task is to determine if a trial is warranted. The investigation is conducted by the police. It’s supposed to be one of the safeguards in the system. But for you apparently it’s just an annoying side-stop on the railroad to the hanging.
Briggs: The answer to that question in the past was what you posted. However, after reading about the idiots who seemed to think they deserved to be mugged, I’m pretty sure there are far more people out there in the media spouting this nonsense than ever before. The fact that a college kid asked such a ridiculous, uninformed question is not unusual. Even years ago, college was an age and place where idealism ran rampant, unencumbered by reality. The difference now is so many do not seem to ever leave that mentality. Now Mumsy and Daddy let Jr live in the basement, put him on their insurance, and support him. He remains a dependent child far into what used to be adulthood. When Mumsy and Daddy die, Jr is left out in the cold. I suspect this is where the social upheaval really becomes bad as Jr. tries to replace Mumsy and Daddy with taxpayers and other non-volunteers who will not agree with being robbed to support a 50 year-old “child” created by two lousy parents and a permissive society. (Speaking of permissive parents, Brown’s parents know full well he robbed a store, but that was apparently acceptable to them as they just blew it off as irrelevant.)
Speaking of understanding minorities, is it okay if I go burn down their homes and businesses in a protest for some trial verdict I did not like? There was a perfect time for that—the OJ verdict. Yet, had whites burned down buildings and homes, would anyone have called that justified? Of course not.
This is like climate change—everything proves whites are racists just like cold proves warming. There is no contact with reality in any of it. (Please don’t jump onto global warming now—it’s just an analogy and I’m pretty sure at least the majority here understand that. Feel free to insert your own preferred example of irrational behaviour if mine is not acceptable, without actually arguing about it.)
Sheri wrote:
“This is like climate change—everything proves whites are racists just like cold proves warming.”
What cold?
Sheri wrote:
“Speaking of understanding minorities, is it okay if I go burn down their homes and businesses in a protest for some trial verdict I did not like?”
Was it OK for the Boston Tea Party to destroy corporate property? The Whiskey Rebellion? For Sherman to destroy Georgia? For the Homestead Strikers to destroy Pinkerton property? The Newark riot in 1968?
No, destroying other’s property isn’t acceptable. But I think I can understand why at many times in history people decided the only way to get attention and change was to protest and even riot.
Briggs where was is trial that proved him guilty of any crime. Brown was never arrested before that I know of. Aren’t the U.S. a presume innocent state and does stilling cigarillos warrant a death sentence.
Dav,
There are many thing Wilson could have done including letting Brown go through and catch him later. He was afraid in the car, why was he still afraid when Brown ran away. He was no longer in danger. It looks like Brown was afraid at some point, since he was running away. All answer the prosecution didn’t sought. If afraid why get out of car? If afraid why not wait for reinforcements which were close by? Remember the guy was a demon and and the policeman felt like a five year old.
A few month ago you defended Cliven Bundy has a model citizen for not paying his grazing tax. Yet one of the militia guy that went to confront the police, a white guy, ended up killing two police officer dinning at a restaurant. I guess that these cops deserved to be shot ants that this guy deserved a medal.
Finally, why does in the US the guy who is afraid always the guy with the gun?
“No, destroying other’s property isn’t acceptable. But I think I can understand why at many times in history people decided the only way to get attention and change was to protest and even riot.”
Not in a democratic society subject to due process. There is no understanding or tolerance in a situation like this. The property damage also has the opposite of the intended effect. People end up writing nonsense like this when they work backwards from their conclusions.
So a fat black criminal assaulted a policeman and then got shot and killed.
Time for celebration I think.
I suspect most of these rioters are just thick.
If “David Appell” hadn’t shown up, we’d have had to invent him… in order to have great examples of all of the pathetic arguments that are used in today’s race war. And he’s a progressive… who would have thought?
You don’t have to “know how it feels to be black” in order to know that the blacks who misbehaved in Ferguson shouldn’t be doing it, and they deserve to be prosecuted. You don’t have to “khifttb” in order to recognize that these people are behaving like barbarians, while destroying their own community.
Cries of racism these days are just excuses to beat up on anyone not of the favored race, and to provide more and more goodies to those of the favored race. They are getting really old.
Speaking of old… I’m old enough to remember when real racism was common. When we moved to the “free state” capital of Kansas (Lawrence), the real estate agent assured my parents that we would be in neighborhoods where “the wrong people” aren’t allowed to live (my parents were aghast at this). We actually had real racists, all over the place, and this was in the college town in the free state, where the residents had been massacred exactly 100 years prior, for supporting the union cause.
Today we do not have much racism, with a few exceptions, *except* in the black community, where racism is rampant. Of course, a modern progressive, perhaps like Mr. Appell, wouldn’t agree that it’s racism, since “only oppressors can be racist” or some such bilge.
The fact is that we have come as far as we will ever get in the US in combating white racism. It is now time to combat black racism, whether from white or blacks. It is time to honor those who achieve and are responsible members of society, whatever their ethnic background, and to condemn those who misbehave. I am sick and tired of the constant whines from the race baiters. It is time for responsible people to recognize that tolerating racism from blacks can only increase white racism. And it is time for us to condemn those race baiters who are trying very hard to achieve that result, so as to further line their own pockets… folks like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson.
x
Minorities and Progressives now enjoy a codependent relationship. While someone like Appell openly despises religion, the irony is that religious thought is no more than a branch of ideological though. Progressive concerns are fundamentally moral concerns, in much the same way religion is fundamentally focused on morality. To a Progressive, ‘facts’ are rhetorical devices used to support in one way or another, a collective moral perspective. The moral perspective is established first. Facts are then interpreted to agree with the moral perspective. If they cannot be bent into agreement, they are ignored.
John,
In the US the killer of black male will be sent to jail only 20% of the time and that is, when there is a trial. When the victim is white that number grows up to almost 80%. There is a similar discrepencies between poor and rich. A rich young female is the most likely to see the accused convicted.
In the u.s., the tea party like to say this quote from Jefferson:
“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/t/thomasjeff109180.html#DmuyQh8J0YFFShZb.99
It seems that when the quote is used against you it is not as glamorous as when it is said against Obama. The blacks have the right to request a better treatment in the US.
Jon Stewart related an anecdote where they sent a black well trimmed in a $1000 suit and a white guy dress like a homeless in the lobby of high rise building to see which one would get the attention of security and the black was intercepted much more often than the white homeless.
When were you ever called up by the cop for walking in the street. Last year a team of basketball were accused of loitering for waiting the bus that would get them to a game. They were sent to holding even after the coach arrived with the bus and confirmed that it was the where he had asked them to regroup.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/12/04/charges-against-ny-teens-will-be-dismissed/3868097/
“Even the coach walked up and became engaged in it, but the demeanor and the attitude of the officer was like, ‘I don’t care who you are. I’m taking them to jail, you want to come down and pick them up in booking, and if I had a car for everybody else, I’d take you all down there, too.’ “
For the record: earlier it was said:
Witness #10 is the only witness who corroborated the policeman statement, and his story was deemed consistent yet there were major contradiction between is first declaration and the declaration in front of the grand jury. None of the discrepancies were were ever challenge by the DA.
But, according to CNN, In an earlier police statement, the witness admitted that his version differed from what others claimed to see, as bystanders traded stories on the street in the immediate aftermath.
Not at all the same as saying his testimony differed from his initial police statement. Also, in his testimony (p194, lines 7-19) he said that he came forward because his version differed from what others claimed to have seen. What discrepancy was there to challenge?
Also interesting (p198, lines 10 and 11):
Q. Like running toward him quickly?
A. Yes, in a tackle motion charge.
I once came upon a shooting behind a bar almost immediately after it happened. There were only two people present besides myself — one with a gun and the other on the ground. Within a week nearly everybody in the bar claimed they saw it happen. I guess after they saw it they decided to go back to drinking and dancing a bit more before returning once again because they weren’t there when I was. What’s weird is I think they actually believed they saw it.
“In the US the killer of black male will be sent to jail only 20% of the time and that is, when there is a trial. When the victim is white that number grows up to almost 80%. There is a similar discrepencies between poor and rich. A rich young female is the most likely to see the accused convicted.”
..
“The blacks have the right to request a better treatment in the US.”
The incarceration rates of males in the US exceed females by 15 times. Clearly, following your ‘logic’ (I use this term loosely) males in the US have the right to expect better treatment. Clearly there is vast discrimination against males in the US and the most obvious culprit, again following your ‘logic’, are the females.
Now, don’t get me started on how both the male and female population over the age of 80 discriminate against younger males and females. If we look at incarceration rates based on age groupings…
Institutional Racism.
This little gem popped up here in the UK, after the murder of a black teenager in 1993.
The investigation into his murder was undoubtably bungled, but the fear of accusing any member of an ethnic minority, of commiting a crime, has lead to even greater injustices, like the Rotherham child exploitation scandal.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/11057622/Rotherham-child-sexual-exploitation-Victims-raped-beaten-and-doused-in-petrol-if-they-threatened-to-tell.html
Organised gangs of Asian, Muslim men, were targetting young teenaged white girls. Teachers, social workers & police were inhibited from reporting & investigating because they feared being labelled as “Rascists”.
No, destroying other’s property isn’t acceptable. But I think I can understand why at many times in history people decided the only way to get attention and change was to protest and even riot.
This is trivial.
Everybody can understand that somebody, anybody who doesn’t feel like he is getting a sufficient attention might imagine actions that (in his mind) will get him the attention he thinks he deserves.
There is probably no other human feature more shared than to think that one is not getting the attention one deserves.
I do think so, William certainly too and so about everybody with the exception of very few ermits.
Everybody understands that.
Things get more difficult when trying to evaluate rationnally what is the threshold between feeling undeservedly ignored (what almost everybody does) and starting to burn things down (what arguably almost nobody does).
Personnally I would put that threshold far, very far above some gangster having been shot (skin colors non withstanding).
So, obviously, there is some small town in the US where some people think that this threshold was passed. They don’t get attention so they burn.
Well it is indeed like the Tea Party.
Once you did the first step, you become fair game because you legitimate those that do not agree with your way to express yourself and who may and will use violence against you too.
The Tea Partist took the risk that Howe joins with Burgoyne, wins at Saratoga thus preventing France and Spain entering the war on the US side.
The history would then forget Boston just mentioning in a footnote that some rioters and criminals lead by Washington had been rightfully hung by the British Crown.
And the lesson is that once you start to burn and riot regardless whether YOU think that you should get attention, you better win the battle you started.
If you don’t, then don’t complain about the consequences.
http://youtu.be/MVzcrSzirrs
Will,
Interesting how you talked about the accused while I was talking about the victim. Racism in the US has a lot to do with the victim.
Re MSNBC destroying Ferguson prosecutor:
1) I seriously doubt this person is an expert in violent confrontation. Everything he said about the encounter was his opinion. “He knew” was said several times followed by conclusions. That is OPINION from someone who is not an expert. O’Reilly has a tendency to do this and it’s something I don’t care for but, at least in O’Reilly’s favor, he usually makes it clear it’s his OPINION but this guy seems to be declaring his OPINION is TRUTH.
2) the major discrepancy in witness #10’s testimony was where the two were walking prior to the encounter? Really? That’s it? That doesn’t strike me as a major or even pertinent detail. Also note that his police interview was on Monday following the Saturday event.
3) He also made a big deal over the distance. It was perhaps large enough to miss fine detail like what exactly Brown did with his hands. But surely he could see major details like whether Brown raised his hands in surrender or if he was charging at Wilson.
This is a pathetic rebuttal.
None of this could be considered destroying any testimony.
Do you have any from a more credible source than MSNBC? How about the actual police report for starters?
Sylvain, those killers of black males are almost always black. Does this mean that the police and prosecutors are racially prejudiced in favor of those black males since they aren’t sent to jail as often as white killers?
As for the other “prejudice,” it’s mostly rational behavior. Even Jesse Jackson says he gets more nervous if he sees black teens on a dark street than if they are white. Blacks are much more likely to be criminals than whites, so it makes sense to be a bit more leery of them.
Not fair? No, certainly not to those who are not criminals, but the blame should fall on the blacks who commit so many crimes, not people who wisely are more careful around blacks than whites.
John Moore wrote:
“Cries of racism these days are just excuses to beat up on anyone not of the favored race.”
And yet oddly, it’s black people who are the ones getting beaten up. And have been getting beaten up for a long time. You can choose to ignore it if you want, to pretend like everything fine and the protestors are just “barbarians.” Your comment showed no attempt at all to understand how you might feel in their shoes. Keep on hating — blacks, the god awful progressives, or any of the people you don’t like. I’m sure you have a long list of them.
Dav,
Actually, O’Donnel pointed to the discrepencies in the transcript of both the police interview and the grand jury one not his opinion.
The distance is a major discrepencies. The position were they walk was very important since it is why Wilson interpelled them. That they were in the street had been made public by all the person that actually saw what happened. I suspect that witness #10 didn’t see anything but was fed up a story by the police. Having no trial we won’t know who he is and there won’t be any challenge to his discrepencies.
Charges if involuntary manslaughter should have been deposed and we could have seen the truth at the trial.
Sylvain: You’re making great points. Here’s another one:
“The American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota released a report this week showing that a black person is 8.86 times more likely to be arrested than a white person for disorderly conduct, 7.54 times more likely to be arrested for vagrancy and 11.5 times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession….. The report also found that a black youth is 16.39 times more likely to be arrested than a white youth for a curfew violation or for loitering.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/29/racial-disparity-arrests-minneapolis_n_6070324.html
Sylvain, the statistics I cited demonstrate rampant sexism by females towards males. Hence the 15x greater incarceration rate of males. If these are false imprisonment then the convicted are the victims.
Or, you are misunderstanding the issues in a rather fundamental way.
Then this is this terrible video of a black man being arrested for waiting for his kids to get out of school:
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/08/the-problem-is-im-black/379357/
Will Nitschke commented: on Ferguson Open Discussion.
“To a Progressive, ‘facts’ are rhetorical devices used to support in one way or another, a collective moral perspective. The moral perspective is established first. Facts are then interpreted to agree with the moral perspective. If they cannot be bent into agreement, they are ignored.”
When are you going to stop whining that you aren’t winning the debate on AGW because the scientific side is scheming against you? The only way to win the debate is by producing superior science. Contrarians haven’t, and can’t. So, like this post, they need to make things up and demonize their opponents.
TomVonk:
“And the lesson is that once you start to burn and riot regardless whether YOU think that you should get attention, you better win the battle you started.
If you don’t, then don’t complain about the consequences.”
So it’s OK to riot as long as you win the bigger war?
PS: NOBODY riots who isn’t looking for attention.
John Moore wrote:
“Sylvain, those killers of black males are almost always black.”
Except when it’s not, which is when the protestors protest — Emmett Till, MLK Jr, Rodney King, Amadou Diallo, Trevon Martin, Michael Brown, Akai Gurley, etc. Then it’s white people doing the killing, and look how often they get off.
Gee, David, you cited 7 blacks killed by whites, over decades. Wow.
And you ignored the fact that blacks are almost always killed by blacks. There is also the fact that a far higher percentage of blacks kill whites than whites kill blacks.
Give it a rest. We are all sick and tired of the constant whining and chest thumping.
All,
Black and White Homicide Rates: Who’s Killing Whom?
https://www.wmbriggs.com/blog/?p=7168
And don’t forget the Knockout Game. Racism sure exists all right.
Sylvain,
Actually, O’Donnel pointed to the discrepencies in the transcript of both the police interview and the grand jury one not his opinion.
How silly. His ONLY discrepancy was with where the two were walking BEFORE anything happened. It’s totally irrelevant to his testimony. Most likely he didn’t start paying attention until after Wilson arrived and probably not until AFTER Brown had his head inside the window of the SUV and really why would he? His testimony concerning the events AFTER that is the most important part and NONE of that was impeached at all by discrepancies.
The rest was nothing BUT opinion.
You’d make an attorney’s dream juror — one easily swayed by irrelevancies and hand waving. IOW: someone incapable of independent thought.
1) About the reliance on witnesses, you should watch this episode of test your brain which is very interesting:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1jpdsw_national-geographic-test-your-brain-3of3-memory-pdtv-xvid-mp3-mvgroup-org_tech
From what you will see on the show not one witness can retell exactly what happened but the truth can be found in the some of all of them who remember clearly different part of the event.
2) Where the 2 individuals were is very important. If you can’t remember where the people were then you don’t remember much, or you are inventing. If you cannot say where the individual is then you cannot tell what happened.
This witness who came forward saying that he had a different version than the others and who claim to first having seen everything from 300 feet away, and cut that distance by half in between testimony can’t be reliable since he can’t even remember how it all started.
If Brown was walking on the sidewalk then Wilson has no reason to approach them. But if they are walking in the street he is justified in approaching them. All the black witness that went on to tell there story on tv said that they were walking on the street, while it would have been favorable to Brown to say that he was on the sidewalk which was at least 10 feet from the curb.
3) If you are so good at having an independent thought, maybe you will be able to answer some of these question:
Why is it always the guy that is armed with a gun that is afraid for is life?
If you are so scared as to describe someone as a demon, why the hell do you get out of your car?
How can your life be in danger if the other person his running away from you?
Maybe you should shoot yourself in the gut and try to run to see if you are able to run full charge. My guess is that you want be able.
This link is interesting for putting testimony side by side
“http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2014/11/25/the_shooting_of_michael_brown_three_versions_of_how_it_unfolded.html”
And audio from the shooting here:
http://rt.com/usa/183540-ferguson-shooting-audio-recording/
From the recording which as been time stamped as being real Wilson seems to have fired at least six shots from the car before getting out and shooting 4 more time
The shot from the car might have been justified but the 4 others were a pure execution and should have warranted a trial.
Between you and me you seem the one to be eating anything said by McCullough and Wilson.
In reading through the comments, it’s quite evident that science, evidence and so forth has nothing whatsoever to do with some beliefs. It’s very clear why climate change was easily sold, how racial hatred is fanned, etc. People want to believe—no matter what. Had the Pope, 5 lawyers, a judge and a dozen other high ranking officials witnessed everything that happened, the story from the witness that said Brown was a poor, innocent thing unjustly shot would have been believed, not the Pope and all the others. Had there been video, it would be claimed it was altered (no one cared at all that Brown was thief and a bully—on tape). It’s very hard to educate when people just feel and don’t think. Sadly, that seems to be the direction we are going. No thought, just emotions. That never ends well.
Sheri,
I hope you realize you are amongst those who believe what they want.
Forensic science is not as clear cut as they show in csi. There was a show called csi university where student tried to recreate crime scene and never even got close to get it right.
There was also a PBS documentary called forensic on trial that showed how forensic science led to the incarceration of numerous innocent men and women. 142 death row prisoner have been found innocent since the 1980s Many of them convicted by faulty science.
Recording:
1) there are 10 shots
2) we hear 6 shots then about a 5 sec pause then 4 more
3) there is nothing that indicates where Brown or Wilson were when they were made
4) there are no time stamps in your link
5) any shots while in the car would likely have been muffled and not recorded.
6) there would have been more gun shot residue on the other wounds if they were sustained while he was in the car.
This doesn’t really tell much about what happened.
What does being shot in the gut have to do with anything? Are you making things up? Washington Post
The original reason for Wilson stopping Brown is irrelevant. Guess what? Witnesses (you, too) fill in detail. With all the time available you claimed a gut wound of which there is absolutely no evidence so by your logic you are manufacturing your claims. In this case, where they were before things went south is unimportant. One of the tasks a jury faces is to attempt to sort out fill-in from the rest.
I was on a jury where the plaintiff claimed she had stopped for traffic and was hit from behind almost immediate.y. When asked how much time elapsed she said 30 sec. which was preposterous. That would imply the car that hit her from behind was about 1/3 mile away when she stopped. I have driven in traffic during rush hour on the same road and there is never such a large gap between cars. Some people think 30 seconds is a really short time so it was likely the first answer that popped into her head and she really had no idea how much time had elapsed except that it was short. To her, the number was an unimportant detail but gave one because she was being urged to.
Likewise, it’s quite probable #10 didn’t pay attention to what was going on until he saw Brown with his head stuck in a cop SUV. That’s something to remember. Where Brown was before not so much and his answer even on the initial report was his best guess. Try to remember that people who aren’t trained don’t stop to examine their perception to see it they are reasonable. If you’re looking for discrepancies at least pick important ones.
How can your life be in danger if the other person his running away from you?
Nobody claimed that. Wilson said he feared for his life when Brown charged him.
DAV: The officer’s ability to hit his target was quite high. Ten shots and seven connected.
The drawing you linked to also illustrates why “shooting to wound” doesn’t work. Look at the number of wounds before the final fatal shot. Wounding sounds like a good idea, but in reality, not so much. In this case, it does not appear to have been effective.
Sylvain,
I’d like you to explain why the statistics you quoted are valid when used in relation to victims while being bogus when applied to perpitrators. Unless you’re able to defend your arguments why would anyone pay attention to them?
(Appell did exactly what he always does when he can’t defend himself. That is to say, angrily call his opponents names. Considering he spends most of his unemployed life on Internet forums one would think he has acquired at least rhetorical skill by now, but not so.)
Dav
Recordings
1-2) we agree on that
3) What indicates where they were is the testimony of Wilson and Johnson, which are put side by side here:
http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2014/11/25/the_shooting_of_michael_brown_three_versions_of_how_it_unfolded.html
4) The time and location of the recording was obtained from the servers of the app the guy was using so the time stamp matched the shooting and location of the event.
5) The 2 shots in the car were not recorded and happened before the recording began.
6) The wound at the thumb and forearm are likely caused by the same bullet. The upper torso or arms could have been cause at the without gunshot residue.
If Brown had died at the car I would agree that Wilson should not be charged. But this is not when he died.
“Witnesses (you, too) fill in detail….”
I had not seen any sketch of all the injury before. I just mistranslated the location of a wound. Still shoot yourself at the same place and try to run to see how easy it is. I would agree if he had had PCP in is system but that was not the case.
“Likewise, it’s quite probable #10…”
If you have watched the test your brain video you will see that witness #10 is similar to the woman who come forward and claim she saw everything and yet she is the worst witness in the bunch.
The problem is that Brown never charged him. Brown was shot before he had the time to move.
Remember that For Wilson fighting against Brown was like a 5 year old fighting Hulk Hogan.
If he was so scared why get out of his car. Brown was a big guy and such don’t run for long before getting winded. Is upper chest wound likely happened among the first six on the recording. Such a shot would bent the guy in two. It would also prevent charging someone. This means that the last 4 shot were an execution.
Here’s the best evidence yet that the outcome was rigged — exactly what many people expected from this District Attorney, and why they’re angry. The ADA gave the jury wrong information about a law, then, much later, gave them different information and declined to tell them why — or that US Supreme Court decisions trump Missouri law. This news article astonished me:
“Shocking mistake in Darren Wilson grand jury,” MSNBC.com‎, 11/26/14
http://www.msnbc.com/the-last-word/watch/shocking-mistake-in-darren-wilson-grand-jury-364273731666
There needs to be a new grand jury, and the ADA should be disbarred (at the least).
Sylvain,
I’m sorry but you seem to insist on presenting the worst evidence in support of your case then, when rebutted, keep trying to ramp it up. In the process you make statements that are opinion and some found to be false.
For example.
o)Your reliance on opinion pieces as evidence from non-experts.
o)You provided a link to a soundbite that proved absolutely nothing.
o)You also claimed that 6 shots were fired before Wilson got out of the car but even your not-so-side-by-side link says only 2 were fired inside the car. Your words: From the recording which as been time stamped as being real Wilson seems to have fired at least six shots from the car before getting out. Yet you supply no evidence for this time stamping let alone a correlation to other events.
o)You manufactured a gut shot from which you drew conclusions and wanted me to do so as well.
o) You provide a so-called side-by-side which gives no times. Interestingly, all it says about the recording is there is indeed a gap between the two groups of shots.
o) There’s plenty more but for now this list is long enough
It’s getting tiresome to sort your sham arguments which are nothing but your opinion from what you are supplying for evidence. I don’t have time to chase down all your bogeymen.
So, here’s the deal:
Make your best argument. Present all your facts that can be verified first links would be nice. Be aware that posts with too many links that aren’t hidden behind a-tags will land you in moderation. Above all, avoid opinion pieces in place of evidence. If your think they are detailing facts then go find the facts and link to them. Keep to the point and avoid all the rhetoric on the sad state of affairs and other distractions. If you must, then give your conclusions based upon this. Make sure it’s complete and your best argument.
If you do this then you have something to explore.
An alternative: propose a guest post to Briggs. Perhaps the best solution. Too many a-tags could land you in moderation too but don’t quote me on that.
Please be quick about it. I have been procrastinating other things too much this week to put up with your dribbling any more. If you can’t or won’t do this then don’t expect me to be surprised.
Dav,
If you believe so much in expert how don’t you believe in global warming.
You keep saying that I can’t make my own mind yet you are the that take Wilson and witness 10 at the bottom of there word.
Provide proof that Brown was in fact charging. Hint there is none the vast majority of actual witness saw brown surrendering, oh yeah they are black so what they say doesn’t matter. After all only black could possibly say something false that could advantage someone they don’t know. And Wilson would never lie to save himself from prison?
Where is the proof that Brown ran toward Wilson. There is none because he never did.
Wilson shot an unarmed man who was falling to the ground from his injury.
This is a murder, pure and simple. But it seems that in the USA murdering a black does not constitute a crime.
Again why is it always the guy with the gun who is afraid?
Why is it the person who is unarmed always a superhero that think they can fly though a wall of bullet?
Btw the civil right in the are looking ever more like the nightmare seen in China and Russia.
BTW, the only thing Canadian envy from the USA is the southern climate.
Also I,be been watching untold story of the er on tlc.twice surgeons refused to come the help to the er doctor. The first one was because the person was bleeding from an artery and both surgeon refuse to come help because the were not cardio vascular surgeon. This is something that we would never see here. The second was an obstetrician refusing to help an er doctor who was not able to stop the bleeding from her vagina.
You would never see this in one of our hospital. Only were doctor are afraid to be sued can you see such reaction.
Sylvan: Many US doctors care primarily about how much money they can make. 4.5 years ago I nearly was paralyzed, while the neurosurgeon spent several hours making sure he would be paid ($36,000, as it turned out). He saved my life, but his priority was pretty clear.
That’s about all the US is nowadays — who can make money off of whom. Most Americans approve of this greed, which is why we’ll never have universal heath care here.
All,
The Ferguson Grand Jury Meets the Liberal Science Deniers. Deniers! Deniers!
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/jeffrey-lord/2014/11/29/ferguson-grand-jury-meets-liberal-science-deniers
David Appell: “That’s about all the US is nowadays — who can make money off of whom. Most Americans approve of this greed, which is why we’ll never have universal heath care here.”
If you don’t like your surgeons making money, I suggest you go to Cuba, which people like you seem to think is a socialist paradise. We won’t miss you… go ahead.
“Here’s the best evidence yet that the outcome was rigged — exactly what many people expected from this District Attorney, and why they’re angry. ”
Conspiracy theorist…
Briggs,
Can you point the scientific evidence that brown was charging Wilson?
Hint there is none.
What is more probable when a guy is hit in the chest and winded from running?
1) bend and fall on the ground exposing the top of his head
Or
2) that the guy start charging through the wall of bullet. (This could be believable if the guy had pcp’s in his system)
And this is what Ezra Klein was claiming that his unbelievable.
So please provide the physical evidence that Brown was charging and I will agree with you.
The claim that Brown was bending forward is not questioned by anyone.
John,
In all develop countries a surgeon will not refuse to help an ER doctor if no one more qualified is available, except in the US as I learned yesterday while watching “untold stories of the er” and saw that two general surgeon refuse to help an er doctor because the bleeding was from an artery and they were not cardiovascular surgeon, which there was none in the hospital.
Sylvain, is there a point to this whining? Every health care system has horror stories, because they are all, these days, tangled bureaucracies. Most likely, those general surgeons had been told that they could be sued if they provided that assistance. I thought you liberals loved trial lawyers.
I could dig out the horror stories from Britains NHS, but I’m not going to bother. Suffice it to say that they are far more frequent and far worse than you get here in the US. In France, lots of people died during a heat wave in August, because everyone goes on vacation in August, including the health care workers. Etc…
Can you point the scientific evidence that brown was charging Wilson? Hint there is none.
Can you point to scientific evidence that you are not a child molester?
Hint there is none.
That’s why an allegation must be proven and not disproven at least here outside of the mainstream media and YouTube. I see allegations that Wilson is a murderer despite a grand jury finding no probable cause for a trial. No real proof for the allegation given but there is a request — demand even — to disprove the allegation.
Sylvain, you have been invited to lay out your case and have not but still insist on someone disproving your allegation — which BTW is not a trifling one. We can only assume you can’t thus are resorting to talking out of your anus. Well, maybe not your anus. Maybe you just have bad breath.
Dav,
If someone came up and said that I’m a child molester, he would be the one that would have to prove it. Having to deal with teenager everyday in my work I have to go through security check every two years. A proof could be through dna if there is a victim and if there is any.
142 person sentenced to death in the last 30 years were found not guilty when DNA test became available. Do you think that any of the prosecutor who were assign to these cases were has gentle to the accused than he was for Wilson.
If someone came up and said that I’m a child molester, he would be the one that would have to prove it.
Indeed, now prove your allegation Wilson is a murder. What the prosecutor did or did not do is irrelevant to your proof as is my or anyone else’s opinion. Make your case and leave out the irrelevancies.
Dav,
Here is the evidence that you should be able to provide:
If Brown charged Wilson there should be drops of bloods that would show movement toward Wilson. The fact that there is none render Wilson’s version unbelievable.
The fact that you want to believe that a man who had by then seven wound would try to carge a police officer who is shooting at him shows your bias. If Wilson had kill Brown at the car I would agree. But when he shot the last 4 bullets it was an execution.
If the prosecutor had really wanted a charge he would have presented the case in a better way. But he did not want a charge so he presented the in a way not to get one.
I guess that the National Bar Association knows something about the law:
http://us7.campaign-archive1.com/?u=b493e6c4d31beda32fdaf8e2d&id=73514e334b
Sylvain,
The evidence shows two blood areas, one where Brown died, and one about 20-25 feet further back where the original series of shots presumably took place. This clearly demonstrates Brown was moving forward toward the officer. Almost every witness also states this is the case. The question of whether he was “charging” the officer will never be fully answered by the forensic evidence and conflicting witness testimony. See the WP link to the forensic diagram I posted earlier.
It’s an open question why Brown continued toward the officer after first getting shot, what is not in question is that he did. The fact your find this incredible is irrelevant to what the evidence and testimony shows.
It’s not clear why you comment so fervently here and don’t have a grasp on the basic evidence and witness statements. Believe what you want, but for your version of events to be correct, both the forensic evidence would have needed to be tampered with and the bulk of the witnesses would be wrong on this walking/charging forward point.
If you want to demonstrate police racism and this is your best example of this happening, one must conclude that this alleged problem is more imagined than real. I’m sure there are isolated examples of this actually occurring and these should be punished appropriately, but the evidence that this is a systemic problem are lacking. In any case Wilson should not be punished for the alleged sins of others. Our justice system was specifically designed to prevent exactly this type of witch hunt by people with an agenda.
If …
If that’s your case, it’s a rather shabby one. You have no evidence or you wouldn’t be telling me to go find it. You can either make a case or not but you certainly need to backup your allegation with facts and it’s up to you to provide them. You are effectively saying you can’t.
What I believe or want to believe is entirely irrelevant. It is also entirely irrelevant what the prosecutor did or did not do. You seem to be basing your “proof” on this and the opinions expressed on MSNBC and Salon and nothing else. This is how you think? Really? If so, it’s quite sad.
As for what I think: it’s pointless to continue; we are done.
Tom.
Take a look back at the link you posted and you will see that something is not adding up.
Look at where the cartridge are found and listen back at the recording. Their are first 6 shot fired and then 4.
You see two groopings of bullet
The first one which should correspond to the 6 shots are 10, 13, 14, 15, 16, and 18
Then you have 21 and 11,12,22 very close by.
There is no way Brown was running toward Wilson when the last shot occured. Wilson was near the grass and Brown on the other side of the street.
From his wound at his thumb there should have been enough blood drops to know exactly the path that Brown took while trying to evade.
From the schema we can infer that Brown was moving from right to left and Wilson from up to down.
1)What we can see it from the evidence from the schema is that after the 2 shots fired at the car Brown started running left lost is footware and was caught up at the far right of the schema where Wilson had caught up with him and hit him in the shoulder.
2) After the first 6 bullet were fired Brown started running right to left to where the body was found. Meanwhile Wilson seems to have gotten further away from him toward the dowside curb of the Schema.
3) For Wilson version to match the evidence he wou have to have between brown and his car. This is not what the evidences show.
From reading here:
http://t.thestar.com/#/article/news/world/2014/11/25/the_shooting_of_michael_brown_three_versions_of_how_it_unfolded.html
Wilson admit to have backup after the first six shot.
Only one witness confirm Wilson’s version of brown running toward him bad the evidence shows it to be false.
All,
White man killed by two St Louis “juveniles” with hammers.
http://www.stlbosnians.com/teenage-suspects-in-custody-after-man-killed-with-hammer-in-south-city/
This must be all over the networks, right?
Briggs,
Are the murderers known and let go free without any charges? That would make it?
Sylvain,
That would make it racism.
It would not matter the race of the victim or the perps. What would national news worthy would be the non-arrest of the perps who are known. A video would also help.
Sylvain,
Videos are in the link, and are easily found by searching.
Sylvain, here’s the racism: With Ferguson, everyone knew right away that a black had been killed by a white.
In the latest incident, the new media are going out of their way to keep us from discovering that the perpetrators are black (but they can’t hide that the victim was white).
That’s racism, and it is standard policy by our “news” media. They cover up for favored minorities, on the nonsense excuse that by doing so they are contributing to ethnic or racial harmony.
Sylvain,
You said: “If Brown charged Wilson there should be drops of bloods that would show movement toward Wilson. The fact that there is none render Wilson’s version unbelievable.”
That is demonstrated by 19, 20, and 17. Brown didn’t fly from point 17 to points 19.20 after he died, not possible.
I don’t think there is much to draw from where the shell casings ended up as this is likely pretty chaotic. It does seem to support that Wilson could have been moving backwards as he stated. Casing 4 is pretty far from the car so Wilson could easily have been center street for 11,12,22,21. I think the trajectory of the fatal shot was pretty much full frontal, not sure.
The first 6 could have been 11,12,22,16,21,18 with final 4 being 10,13,14,15. We will never know.
Do you really believe a jury would convict someone on this evidence? Beyond a reasonable doubt? It didn’t even get to the probable cause threshold with jury #1.
You would actually convict Wilson on this evidence? Seriously?
I think there is enough wiggle room to say the evidence does not prove Wilson didn’t “shoot first and ask questions later” (i.e. overreacted). But the convenience store video and DNA on the gun shut the door for making that doubt very substantial.
Briggs I meant video of the beating would help making it national news.
John: the teen arrested are minors and cannot be legally identified yet.
@Sylvain. Nice try. Their race can be provided, and often is when they are not black.
Most of us, by now, know that when a headline ties “teens” or “youths” to crime, that the perpetrators are black.
Tom,
There is no indication that wilson was ever near 17.
evidence 4 could have been kicked when they fled or wilson exited the car.
I don,t know if a jury would have convicted, but there was enough doubt for a probable cause.
A nytime story that merits a read:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/30/us/raised-hands-and-the-doubts-of-a-grand-jury-.html?_r=0
Again where is the trail of blood showing Brown charging Wilson?
For the last 4 shots Wilson is at least 30 feet near the curb as the shell casing position shows. Brown has at least 7 wounds and bleeding much so there should be a trail of blood showing motion toward the shell casing. There is none.
Sylvain, you, like the New York Times, are just determined that reality should be altered to fit your prejudices.
The fact is that the preponderance of evidence shows that Wilson acted correctly. You can nit pick at it forever, but them’s the facts.
John did you know that the decision to not indict required only 4 members of the grand jury. They needed 9 to indict.
Have you at least read the article
Yes of course. It’s the latest rage amongst the perpetually enraged.
A unanimous verdict is required for conviction. That’s a vote of 12-0 for conviction. This is also true in federal cases. Two states allow 10-2 vote for conviction in non-capital cases and Missouri is not one of them.
IOW: 100% needed for conviction in Missouri.
So, in the Ferguson case, the vote was not greater than 67% when 75% was required for probable cause leading to a trial yet somehow you think it would have been different with another jury where the requirement is even higher.
Give it a rest already.
Sylvain,
You can see the randomness of shell casing ejections here:
http://www.forcescience.org/articles/ShellCasingStudy.pdf
Average ejection is about 7 feet but as much as 20 feet. The angles are allover the place but mostly to the right rear. How the gun is held makes a big difference.
The order of the shots is unknowable, the randomness of ejection cannot be accounted for with any accuracy. Feel free to construct any fantasy you wish with casings, it won’t be very useful.
I asked if YOU would convict him on this evidence, you didn’t answer that. Remember the system in place is innocent until proven guilty. Wilson isn’t proving his innocence as many would like to think this case is about.
Probable cause could be seen as a 50/50 threshold of guilt, conviction more along the lines of 95%. This case was hopeless, that is why there was no indictment.
Tom,
I’ve looked at the study you provided. The location of the shell would be a problem in there had been only one shot. But figure 3 shows that the majority of bullet fall within six feet of the shooter. In this case the position of the shooter doesn’t need to be defined that precisely. It is good enough to know that when he fired the first 6 shot in the recording Wilson was close to the middle of the street and that when he fired the other shot he was closer to the curb.
The kill shot happened when he was close to the curb and there is no trail of blood leading toward the curb which means that when he fired the kill shot Brown was not running toward him and that he was not in danger for his life.
Look at images of people who are out of breath:
http://www.google.ca/images?client=safari&rls=en&q=runner+out+of+breath&oe=UTF-8&gfe_rd=cr&hl=en&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ei=RW99VK_3H8ihNp2jgJgG&ved=0CBMQsAQ
Doesn’t it resemble the position he was when the bullet it the top of his head.
Brown ran at least 180 feet full sprint after he had a tussle with at the car. With his weight 290 lbs and 6’5″/6’6″ and the fact that he was not an athlete, it is not hard to imagine that he must have been out of breath. By contrast Wilson is an athlete, trained to fight and not a 5 year old child at 240 lbs and 6’4″.
Other than Wilson only witness 10 claim that Brown was going full charge toward Wilson. There is no blood trail evidence to support that claim. He may have charged Wilson from #19 or #20. If he had died then, there could have been some justification but he didn’t died then.
Near the fatal shot he already had at least 7 wounds maybe 8 and he could have lost as much as one liter of blood. On of the wound near the shoulder would have render the right arm very uncomfortable which would explain that he brought his and to his waist to get some support for is shoulder. Wilson also knew he was unarmed and that a bullet had touch him since at some point he had jerk backward according to Wilson.
Whatever happen before the immediate moment of when the kill shot happened doesn’t matter. The question is: Was Wilson’s life in danger when he killed Brown. The answer is NO.
Wilson action were not premeditated, so forget first degree murder. But Wilson should at least have been charged with voluntary or involuntary manslaughter.
I think that Wilson enticed the situation and showed an unprofessional conduct by slamming the door of his car into Brown and Johnson causing the tussle. He could have moved his car in order to be able to open his door. He should have been ask to clarify what he meant by “this is not a neighborhood that is well liked” since it goes to state of mind and that he expected trouble. Was he scared or angry at Brown? If scared he could have disengaged until back up arrived. His role was to delay until help arrived, not to make the situation worst. It is really not hard to see that Wilson was furious at Brown for hitting him and that he would not let him go with it. This is why he pursued, this is why he fired at the moment when Brown was the most defenseless.
You should read the book by Randall Wilson: Violence a micro-sociological study where he explain how people become the most violent when they are the less afraid of reprisal. When Brown lowered his head he gave Wilson the biggest advantage he could have had.
So yes I think he is guilty of at least involuntary manslaughter. Unless he could provide a very good answer of why it is the guy with the gun who was the most afraid.
All,
Eyewitness: Before St. Louis Hammer Attack, ‘Black People’ Ran Up And Down Street Yelling, ‘Kill The White People’
http://www.breitbart.com/InstaBlog/2014/12/01/Eyewitness-Before-St-Louis-Hammer-Attack-Black-People-Ran-Up-And-Down-The-Street-Yelling-Eff-the-white-people-kill-the-white-people