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Ferguson

Is Ferguson about...

  • Racism

    Votes: 16 19.5%

  • Police injustice

    Votes: 22 26.8%

  • Cultural differences

    Votes: 12 14.6%

  • Class Warfare

    Votes: 12 14.6%

  • Crazy people

    Votes: 26 31.7%

  • All the above

    Votes: 29 35.4%

  • Other

    Votes: 16 19.5%
  • Total voters
    82
grip

grip

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This is one of the most well written and sobering op-ed pieces I've read by a celebrity. I only posted the parts that seemed relevant before it got tl;dr.

It's not that we don't want to get it right, it's that we don't know how to frame the problem correctly, due to certain unsavory aspects about our society that could lead to a solution.

This is also endemic of a wider problem with the displeasure of the current governing system, similar to the civil protests and counter-culture of the 1960's. These situations could continue to spread and become more common (hope not), as the class/race/cultural distinctions become more disparaging.




Ferguson is not just about systemic racism — it's about class warfare, and how America's poor are held back. Will the recent rioting in Ferguson, Missouri, be a tipping point in the struggle against racial injustice, or will it be a minor footnote in the future?

And, unless we want the Ferguson atrocity to also be swallowed and become nothing more than an intestinal irritant to history, we have to address the situation not just as another act of systemic racism, but as what else it is: class warfare. By focusing on just the racial aspect, the discussion becomes about whether Michael Brown’s death—or that of the other three unarmed black men who were killed by police in the U.S. within that month—is about discrimination or about police justification. Then we’ll argue about whether there isn’t just as much black-against-white racism in the U.S. as there is white-against-black. (Yes, there is. But, in general, white-against-black economically impacts the future of the black community. Black-against-white has almost no measurable social impact.)

This fist-shaking of everyone’s racial agenda distracts America from the larger issue that the targets of police overreaction are based less on skin color and more on an even worse Ebola-level affliction: being poor. Of course, to many in America, being a person of color is synonymous with being poor, and being poor is synonymous with being a criminal. Yes, I’m aware that it is unfair to paint the wealthiest with such broad strokes. There are a number of super-rich people who are also super-supportive of their community. Humbled by their own success, they reach out to help others. But that’s not the case with the multitude of millionaires and billionaires who lobby to reduce Food Stamps, give no relief to the burden of student debt on our young, and kill extensions of unemployment benefits. With each of these shootings/chokehold deaths/stand-your-ground atrocities, police and the judicial system are seen as enforcers of an unjust status quo. Our anger rises, and riots demanding justice ensue. The news channels interview everyone and pundits assign blame. Then what?

By Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

Ferguson: The Coming Race War Won
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ps. If I don't respond, it's because my PC is down and I'm on an old laptop that barely functions.
 
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Good job, Cap.
 
I voted for both police injustice and crazy people. Because it is both. The shooting was clearly unjustified and people started protesting (rightfully so IMO). Then they got crazy about it and decided shoving TVs down their pants was a good way to get rid of police brutality.
 
Ferguson is just another chance for race baiters to bang the drum and celebrate a blood orgy. When the dust has settled, Al Sharpton, Jessie Jackson, and yes, even Lew Alcindor will crawl back into their sewers and wait for the next tragedy to exploit. What they WILL NJOT DO is aggressively work to change circumstance. They will not aggressively move to change attitude and behaviors. They will not clamor for personal responsibility and real growth, real hope, and real change. Ferguson is a pimple.
 
TeleKat said:
I voted for both police injustice and crazy people. Because it is both. The shooting was clearly unjustified
and people started protesting (rightfully so IMO). Then they got crazy about it and decided shoving TVs down their pants was a good way to get rid of police brutality.
Click to expand...

How was the shooting clearly unjustified?
 
TeleKat said:
I voted for both police injustice and crazy people. Because it is both. The shooting was clearly unjustified and people started protesting (rightfully so IMO). Then they got crazy about it and decided shoving TVs down their pants was a good way to get rid of police brutality.
Click to expand...
From the known limited evidence, the shooting was justified.

Brown attacked an Officer while he was still in his vehicle and tried to take his gun. That is a life threatening situation.
The Officer received injuries to his face that required hospitalization from this attack.
Then as it escalated, Brown already having shown he was violent, progressed towards the Officer. The hearsay evidence puts that progression as a charge.
In such cases, of course use of his firearm is appropriate and justified.
 
Here we go again. It seems that we will never be able to get away from playing the victim card. I could write pages and pages on why the black community can no longer legitimatly play the victim card but I will spare my fingers and my brain the effort. It's late and I am tired. All I will say is there has got to come a time where playing victim is no longer a legitimate defense to defending a violent culture.
 
Capster78 said:
Here we go again. It seems that we will never be able to get away from playing the victim card. I could write pages and pages on why the black community can no longer legitimatly play the victim card
Click to expand...
Nothing will stop it from being played.
 
All bullets hit brown in the front of his body including his arm. This blows away the narrative of the BS eye witness who said Brown had his hands up and was shot in the back. We also have the evidence of the man giving a police report who said Brown turned and went toward the cop.

So all these people with their symbolic hands in the air saying "Hands up, don't shoot" and all their signs reflecting the same are all based on a lie. The entire protest is based on a lie by an accessory to a crime and a proven liar.
 
Capster78 said:
Here we go again. It seems that we will never be able to get away from playing the victim card. I could write pages and pages on why the black community can no longer legitimatly play the victim card but I will spare my fingers and my brain the effort. It's late and I am tired. All I will say is there has got to come a time where playing victim is no longer a legitimate defense to defending a violent culture.
Click to expand...

The victim card will be played as long as it's played in place of personal responsibility. It's a lot easier to blame someone else than to be accountable for your own actions.
 
Capster78 said:
All I will say is there has got to come a time where playing victim is no longer a legitimate defense to defending a violent culture.
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What culture?
 
All of the above.

I've watched two nights of live feeds from Ferguson and I've seen passionate people, angry people, crazy people, stupid people, violent people, responsible people and people just wandering around wondering where their world went. It's ugly.

Yeah, racism is part of it. At this point I'd say it's more the institutional kind of racism where people of one race just assume that people of another race hate them....and it's going both ways.

Yeah, it's police injustice because I've seen cops being assholes but when you get right down to it, they're dealing with assholes on the other side. The problem is that they're lowering themselves to that level.

Yeah, it's cultural differences. Folks in Ferguson apparently don't think twice about incidental crime. It's just part of their daily life and others don't understand that.

Yeah, it's class warfare. Blacks are feeling like they're a subset of American culture. Of course all this crap in Ferguson isn't exactly going to change that point of view.

And yeah, it's crazy people. How ANYBODY could figure that this kind of behavior is productive or positive or reminiscent of the civil rights struggle is absolutely bat**** crazy.
 
For me, to shoot and kill an unarmed man has to be justified by him grabbing for the officers weapon or using physically deadly force. Two head shots and four body shots seems excessive, but in the heat of the moment anyone might have done the same. Police are also not trained to wound but shoot to kill, because a wounded perp may continue on to cause harm.
 
grip said:
This is one of the most well written and sobering op-ed pieces I've read by a celebrity. I only posted the parts that seemed relevant before it got tl;dr.

It's not that we don't want to get it right, it's that we don't know how to frame the problem correctly, due to certain unsavory aspects about our society that could lead to a solution.

This is also endemic of a wider problem with the displeasure of the current governing system, similar to the civil protests and counter-culture of the 1960's. These situations could continue to spread and become more common (hope not), as the class/race/cultural distinctions become more disparaging.

ps. If I don't respond, it's because my PC is down and I'm on an old laptop that barely functions.
Click to expand...

Independent autopsy shows Brown was shot in the front. Eye witness said Brown came toward officerhttp://www.ijreview.com/2014/08/168...tail-background-video-mins-ferguson-shooting/.
 
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grip said:
For me, to shoot and kill an unarmed man has to be justified by him grabbing for the officers weapon or using physically deadly force. Two head shots and four body shots seems excessive, but in the heat of the moment anyone might have done the same. Police are also not trained to wound but shoot to kill, because a wounded perp may continue on to cause harm.
Click to expand...
He already tried to get his weapon and injured the Officers face in the process.
Then after, he doubled back and was approaching the Officer. Charged him, if you will.
Since he had already established himself as a threat to the Officer's life, I see no problem with the Officer firing to eliminate the threat.
Six shots in all is not excessive given the circumstances.
 
We'll have to wait for more info and the cops story, but the wounds support a narrative of the cop trying to slow him down by shooting him in the arm and finally shooting him in the head after he kept coming. I think we can safely assume that the shot to the head would have dropped him so the shots to his arm were the first shots.


grip said:
For me, to shoot and kill an unarmed man has to be justified by him grabbing for the officers weapon or using physically deadly force. Two head shots and four body shots seems excessive, but in the heat of the moment anyone might have done the same. Police are also not trained to wound but shoot to kill, because a wounded perp may continue on to cause harm.
Click to expand...
 
Excon said:
He already tried to get his weapon and injured the Officers face in the process.
Then after, he doubled back and was approaching the Officer. Charged him, if you will.
Since he had already established himself as a threat to the Officer's life, I see no problem with the Officer firing to eliminate the threat.
Six shots in all is not excessive given the circumstances.
Click to expand...

If he was already shot, started to leave the car, then it doesn't make sense that he would turn and charge the car/officer? Unless he was told to "halt" or "freeze", then believed he would be shot again and thought taking the gun would help. Nobody is corroborating the exact details of what occurred.

Regardless, what's occurring with the demonstrations turning into riots is not a good response. People often do that when they feel powerless, but the looters are opportunists.


TobyOne said:
We'll have to wait for more info and the cops story, but the wounds support a narrative of the cop trying to slow him down by shooting him in the arm and finally shooting him in the head after he kept coming. I think we can safely assume that the shot to the head would have dropped him so the shots to his arm were the first shots.
Click to expand...

That seems like a reasonable scenario.
 
grip said:
If he was already shot, started to leave the car, then it doesn't make sense that he would turn and charge the car/officer? Unless he was told to "halt" or "freeze", then believed he would be shot again and thought taking the gun would help. Nobody is corroborating the exact details of what occurred.
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I didn't say that he was already shot, but it has been reported that he was.

As far as his turning and charging not making sense?

We have the third person hearsay account of what she was told by the Officer. Alone that can be ignored, but it is corroborated by an eye witness who is heard telling other folks exactly what he saw.
Brown turned and was progressing (charging) towards the Officer as the Officer fired at him. He thought the Officer was missing because Brown kept moving toward him.
 
If Brown is found to have been guilty of threatening the cop's life, or some other transgression that led to a legitimate shooting...how can this be about any of the poll choices?

The rioting may be but not the actual event....we have no idea what the facts are yet.
 
TeleKat said:
I voted for both police injustice and crazy people. Because it is both. The shooting was clearly unjustified and people started protesting (rightfully so IMO). Then they got crazy about it and decided shoving TVs down their pants was a good way to get rid of police brutality.
Click to expand...

It's interesting that you declare the shooting as unjustified, but yet, we don't have the facts. I suppose they're not really necessary when you can read tea leaves.
 
Excon said:
I didn't say that he was already shot, but it has been reported that he was.

As far as his turning and charging not making sense?

We have the third person hearsay account of what she was told by the Officer. Alone that can be ignored, but it is corroborated by an eye witness who is heard telling other folks exactly what he saw.
Brown turned and was progressing (charging) towards the Officer as the Officer fired at him. He thought the Officer was missing because Brown kept moving toward him.
Click to expand...


With his hands up, 25-30 feet away? I do believe he was facing the officer, because he was laying face forward in that direction, and shot in the front of his body.

My OP was not so much about the details of this incident, which I actually believe maybe just, especially seeing his demeanor in the convenience store, though that probably wouldn't be relevant in court. It was more about what's causing such a vehement reaction by the people? I think it's indicative of a wider social schism than a few unjust acts by LEO.
 
grip said:
With his hands up,
Click to expand...
Charging the Officer with his hands up?
Not believable.
His cohorts account sounded contrived. And we already know he lied when he said the Officer shot him in the back. So confirmed contrived.
Nor does one charge an Officer while surrendering.
Hands up surrendering? Unlikely.
The trajectory of the arm wounds will give us a better indication.
But as of now, hands up surrendering, when the reports are that he was charging, sounds contrived.
 
It's all of the above, and none of the above ....

We have no way, and most importantly, no information to make an intelligent assessment of the incident that caused Mr. Brown to be shot. We can't call it justified; we can't call it racist; we can't call it police over-reaction. However, as seen in the streets of Ferguson and the posts on this thread, facts don't matter. When lacking, we fill them in with our own prejudices and experiences. But, simply, we don't KNOW ....

As for the riots and protests, those aren't racist, either. How can blacks burning and looting black businesses be a racial issue? Instead, they are a reflection of a portion of Ferguson society who has no respect for their fellow citizens, no respect for the police, and no respect for moral authority or the rule of law. We have a frustrated, relatively uneducated, portion who have been told that all their woes are not their fault, that because of an accident of birth, that they are being held back. Michael Brown is not the REASON for the riots, but he certainly is the EXCUSE.

Clearly, the handling of the riot is a case of incompetence. The police force was unprepared and untrained. The police, and the military, are taught to use a concept called 'continuum of force'. Simply, when force is required, use force that is one level above the attacker. For example, if you hit me, I would hit you with my baton. If you pick up a knife, I will pull my gun. Clearly, the police hierarchy used this ... and the situation kept elevating. Obviously, the wrong way to defuse the situation ...
 
Ferguson is about people not knowing how to peaceably protest... it is a shame that morons are hijacking Browns killing and rioting and it is a shame that morons are condemning police for trying to calm things down even if they are not doing a great job. The real condemnation should be the race baiters that are using race as an issue instead of demanding that protestors protest in common sense and lawful manners.
 
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