The Police Murder of Tyre Nichols - Page 4 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#15263470
1. For a to long didn't watch run down of the incident, I watched this interview of civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump. I learned more about what happened from his account than from any of the news articles I had read. Such as that the policeman who tased the killed man was himself white. Also that in the process of trying to mace the now deceased person, they ended up spraying themselves in the face. The police unit in question, the Scorpions, seems to me to have been one part street gang, and the other part Keystone Cops . 2. One thing I want to mention, that Mr. Crump apparently doesn't realise, is that while it might not be as well publicized, white people in America can get brutalized, and even killed by overly vicious police. Take for just one notable example the case of Daniel Shaver, who was shot to death in his own home by a bloodthirsty cop on a power trip. 3. In Vietnam the police are not nearly as violent as in the United States of America. Yet Vietnam is described as being a Communist dictatorship. Here in the supposed land of the free, where liberty and justice for all is said to exist, the police are behaving as if this is some sort of totalitarian police state.
#15263472
@wat0n

I do not see how being apathetic about possible consequences and who sees incriminating footage requires premeditation. At most, it requires simply two beliefs: that the people who are watching the footage to check for any abuses are also cops, and that the cops watching it will not care.

And note that you just said they were filmed discussing what excuse to use. My claim that they felt they needed a justification is based solely on that. As you said, they clearly attempted a justification.

Oh, wait. Do you think I claimed that they felt they did not need a justification? I never said they did.

At best, they only needed some excuse that the public would accept.
#15263474
Pants-of-dog wrote:@wat0n

I do not see how being apathetic about possible consequences and who sees incriminating footage requires premeditation. At most, it requires simply two beliefs: that the people who are watching the footage to check for any abuses are also cops, and that the cops watching it will not care.


You also did not claim they were apathetic about the possible consequences of what they were doing. In fact...

ap·a·thet·ic
/ˌapəˈTHedik/
Learn to pronounce
adjective
showing or feeling no interest, enthusiasm, or concern.
"apathetic slackers who don't vote"


...Feeling the need to provide a justification shows they were most definitely not apathetic about the possible consequences of their actions. They were, in fact, concerned about the consequences of their actions.

Your narrative most certainly requires being in a state of mind where you think you can do as you wish to Black people, and if that belief is what motivated these cops then it is premeditated by definition.

Pants-of-dog wrote:And note that you just said they were filmed discussing what excuse to use. My claim that they felt they needed a justification is based solely on that. As you said, they clearly attempted a justification.

Oh, wait. Do you think I claimed that they felt they did not need a justification? I never said they did.

At best, they only needed some excuse that the public would accept.


...they felt no need to pretend that this violence and abuse was necessary...


Pretty self-explanatory.
#15263479
Pants-of-dog wrote:Other than the dead body, the video, and the statistics showing how black men are more likely to deal with lethal police violence?

If that is not good enough evidence for you, please clarify exactly what would constitute good evidence of systemic racism in policing.


I'm not talking about policing in general, i'm talking about this incident in particular. Just because a black person was involved in a violent unjust police interaction doesn't mean racism or systemic racism was involved. White people are involved in such incidents with white cops all the time, I doubt race has anything to do with it. There is no evidence I see for this to have occured in this case.
#15263481
Rich wrote::lol: Has it never occurred to the average so called White Liberal that these so called Black police officers might actually care about "Black Lives" or at least the law abiding members and children of Black communities. I'm not saying these police officers were right to take the law into their own hands, but when you've got some deranged criminal, high on drugs speeding through your local neighbourhood its not surprising that the rights of the criminal sometimes come second.

Please stop this nonsense about institutional racism, this is the police taking the law into their own hands, as police have tended to do in pretty much every country in the world since the modern police force came into existence. Liberals do you actually believe this drivel you spout? I support, the rule of law, not the rule of the police, I support due process, but lets not pretend that it doesn't have a cost. A minority and it can even be as small minority of criminals can make life a misery for the majority of the community. it can be difficult for the liberal elite in their gated communities to understand why people in poor crime ridden communities would support authoritarian policing, but this is a phenomena we see the world over.


But you don't actually support either of these things, @Rich. You just like to say that you do.
#15263482
wat0n wrote:You also did not claim they were apathetic about the possible consequences of what they were doing. In fact...

...Feeling the need to provide a justification shows they were most definitely not apathetic about the possible consequences of their actions. They were, in fact, concerned about the consequences of their actions.

Pretty self-explanatory.


No.

You seem to be confusing two things:

1. a justification or excuse the murderers would need for the police, and...
2. a justification or excuse for public consumption.

The murderers definitely need the second, the one for the public.

I sm arguing that the murderers felt that they did not need the first one: the excuse for the other cops.

Your narrative most certainly requires being in a state of mind where you think you can do as you wish to Black people, and if that belief is what motivated these cops then it is premeditated by definition.


There is a difference between being aware that you can kill a black man with impunity amd deciding to kill someone in a premeditated fashion.

------------

Unthinking Majority wrote:I'm not talking about policing in general, i'm talking about this incident in particular. Just because a black person was involved in a violent unjust police interaction doesn't mean racism or systemic racism was involved. White people are involved in such incidents with white cops all the time, I doubt race has anything to do with it. There is no evidence I see for this to have occured in this case.


I explained how systemic racism was one of the causes of this tragic murder here:

viewtopic.php?f=42&t=183258&start=40#p15263449
#15263483
wat0n wrote:Hold on. So do you think these cops in particular, being Black, were trained or primed to believe Black suspects are more likely to require using force?

Feel like you’re continuing to try and carrel the discussion into a kind of interpersonal racism. Which from the outset I said is possible, against the predicted point that somehow being black they are above and beyond such anti-black sentiments. But in this case we cannot prove such sentiment without some great detail about each of the individuals for consistent differences in behavior.

My focus has instead been that they good have great views about black americans but still participate in institutional racist practices as it’s not dependent on interpersonal animosity but participation in institutions and practices that disproportionately target black americans in a possibly arbitrary basis than individual perceptions of blacks. Hence my earlier points that militarization of police relating to areas of greater segregation between blacks and whites.


So do you think these Black cops were moved by racial animus against another Black person?

You'll seriously need to elaborate here. It is indeed possible, but it would need to be proven.

As for the role of history, I think that in this case the US has made a clear and explicit effort to root racism out of its institutions. It's clear from the law and, honestly, recent history.

I can't know whether the cops were motivated by racism based on some sort of animosity specifically to black people and that how they treated Nichols is distinct from how they treated other americans of different races. I presume that they are this nasty in general and it simply hasn't escalated into murder. One of the officers is now being reported for involvement in an inmate being knocked down and hitting his head on a sink when he tried to dispose of a phone or something that they suspected he had. But this is still focusing on policing and racism at an individual level where I am wanting to make more of a link between policies and practices being more aggressive end up targetting black americans in their effect and are in part supported not simply by a sense of objective crime rates but a perception of blacks and criminiality which relates to a history since Nixon. Where there was teh crack epidemic, late night news reporting many murders and such, the crime rate objectively exploded but it also took on racial connotations and is where we get Clinton's super predator, which is the same talking point of previous politicians.

Law in abstract equality doesn’t guarantee anything per the Lee Atwater quote before of how the of a policy can still be racial while its presented in an abstract form.
And there have been efforts but that doesn’t mean things have achieved one beyond institutional racism.

For the context of Memphis itself, while you mentioned the majority are black, that doesn’t mean it isn’t without racial strife. It is one of the most segregated cities by counties in the US.
https://mlk50.com/2021/08/06/do-you-live-in-one-of-memphis-blackest-whitest-or-most-segregated-neighborhoods-read-this-story-to-find-out/
They are also predominantly the poorest sections of Memphis.
https://www.cafth.org/racial-disparities/

So my tentative claims of systematic racism in the case of the Memphis Police Department are based on the earlier points of how police are more likely to receive military-grade equipment where there is segregation, the idea that crime is often tied to areas of poverty, that policing in the US still has a history of disproportionally targeting and harming black Americans and isn't something we can wash away as being in the distant past. So you could dismiss me as simply not knowing, but I would push back that it isn't unreasonable to suspect that the existence of a SCORPION unit, and the aggressiveness of these officers in this case, isn't from no where but reflects broader trends within policing instititonally which has it's ties to issues of race in the US.

The general question is what made these men feel comfortable to do what they did? This doesn't stand out as an oddity except to the extent they were quickly charged and fired rather than the usual wait time of paid leave. And what is the policing of these officers like? We are now hearing how the SCORPION unit is disbanded, of which these officers were part of. An extremely aggressive approach to crime which is framed as merely having police preceence in high crime areas to deter it and deal with it, but it's not clear that they were not instigating and escalating unnecessary encounters with the public as part of the unit.

It seemed logical in that with an uptick in crime more police presence is the expect response of the police. Yet there are many claims of them using unnecessary force. Why did this occur? Often the idea becomes simply needing more training, needing greater diversity, and all this. But the point now is that it didn't matter that they were black for Mr. Nichols. The concern is how does one change a police culture to be more of a friendly member of the community who keeps the peace rather than a stranger who harasses and hurts the public.

My thought is that the criticism of police culture and practices, being a threat to many black americans who do not commit crimes at all or very minor ones that do not warrant such excessive force is tied to a lot of issues of racial divides in society . The tough-on-crime approach historically emerges with Chief Justice Earl Warren who affirmed many rights of American citizens such as miranda rights, the right to not speak, a right to an attorney during one's interogration under custody and such. Conservatives attacked him so severely that they blamed rise in crime on his decisions, and Nixon had another Chief Justice selected precisely for his opposition to his 'red tape'. This then exploded into a bunch of action movies of the good cop who shoots a bunch of people and doesn't abide by the book because it limits him from catching the crooks. It then carried on through to the 90s, and America has been waging war on aspects of society in trying to force the matter and ignore the social conditions of crime and poverty.

My speculation is the outcome we see emerges in an environment and culture where race is an issue and is tied to policies to be hard on crime but only see crime through the lens of more police and prisons which have exploded in recent decades than they do about how to help communities.

I can imagine this type of argument being used to justify the white man's burden. I mean, even if you regard their desires as corrupted, that doesn't mean you can or should do anything about it.

Yes that is tje knee jerk reaction I expected from not understanding the concept of solidarity or the point if having to be participant to something ti have any meaningful say less one simply moralize. Even the last quote emphasized the population effected articulating the critique even if it originates in concepts outside the community. For example, in an anthropological study there is a big emphasis on being hands off observer. But one woman was asked for assistence from the women in the group she was studying and staying with to resist sexism. She didn’t know whst to do and her professor advised her to not assist. There is a difference from forcing assistance on ones own terms. We call that charity, I give what i want. Solidarity submits yourself to the goals and and means of those you are helping and doesn’t position ones self above anyone. If one can only see assistance in terms of a colonizing perspective than thats an issue within liberalisms sense of freedom from others than emphasizing the social relations which underpin ones means of life.



It would depend on how you struggle, I think. But all revolutions end in Thermidor.

I am thinking in terms of movements that don’t reject the status quo as much as wish to change it.
https://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/pdfs/rawls.pdf
Clearly the Abolitionists and Civil Rights activists resorted to illiberal means and Rawls cannot bend his conception of liberalism to include the use of illiberal means ‒ civil war, non-violent resistance, boycotts, intolerance towards slavery and racism ‒ to overthrow the dominant consensus and institutionalise a new conception of Right. Liberalism is simply a description of a mode of compromise within an established way of life. The fact is that a new consensus was not established through reasoned argument; reasoned argument came into play only once the goal posts had already been moved. In our times, dynamic justice is the norm. That is, it is generally recognised that the series of new claims to recognition and established social practices which will be called into question is indefinite. Rawls’ liberalism solves nothing in this respect.
...
It would appear that it is reasonable for you to ask me to accept private ownership but unreasonable for me to ask you to accept common ownership. The interests of rich and poor can be mediated in the liberal manner; the poor remain poor and the rich rich of course, but rich and poor can treat each other and free and equal persons and can reach a modus vivendi. Social safety nets, public health and education can all moderate the extremes of capitalism and so long as the liberals can hold sway in the capitalist camp all these things are possible to the extent that those who suffer are prepared to engage in the very illiberal struggle against the ills of capitalism.
...
By committing itself to the domain of fact and seeking overlapping consensus by excluding counter-factual appeal to comprehensive doctrines, political liberalism does not just tolerate such practices but must actively place itself in opposition to emancipatory projects of this kind. Contrariwise, all emancipatory struggles are illiberal. That is a fact.


What I find most interesting about these articles is that the examples provided therein are from over 50 years ago. That alone should tell you something.

But yes, institutions are indeed manned by "people placed in the right positions" which is why the composition of the police is so relevant here but it just doesn't fit the narrative. It did in 1965, yes, but not now.

That's why I think the issue lies in something else. I'd say it's an issue of checks and balances, how do you check police unions after all?

Yeah and with those examples in mind it establishes the historical trajectory of policing, where unless you argue some sort of clean break, which seems less and less tenable with the many high profile incidents and studies that show disproporateionyly of use of violence and arrests on black americans, then why should we not think that police still have an issue in their relationship to black americans and their communities. Not simply as a manner of dealing with crime because black americans don't like crime and are scared of it to and would like help in dealing with it. But when the general public comes to fear the police as a threat to even their own lives, something is wrong.

Indeed, but it's not clear if veterans are more likely to be involved in these incidents. I did however want to raise the other issue, i.e. policing requires far more self control in practice.

It certainly does as it entails very stressful situations and having to keep your cool. The idea is with PTSD, that keeping one's cool is hard as with modern warfare one's threat alertness is way overblown compared to the PTSD/Shellshock of saying a WW2 soldier who sat in a bunker while being bombarded for hours.

Well, this brings another question: Could it be that support for "tough on crime" policies is not, in fact, driven by racial considerations? And, that those protesting in Atlanta are, actually, a minority of the community (overall and the African American community specifically)?

I don't think it always ignores objective criteria such as crime rates as the issue emerged largely in the 80s. However, I do think crime in the US has always had a racial connotation if not explicitly framed racially. Playing upon race was part of Nixon's success in turning the South, and for many Republicans since. But of course the issue of crime in the 90s with Bill Clinton had a lot of support from black Americans but of course there cannot be a consensus on the basis of demographic, only of political ends.

And yet Israeli police doesn't have the same problems American police has, as far as I am aware. As far as I'm aware, this is an American phenomenon (leaving aside Amnesty has no expertise in policing and is using guilt by association. It seems for them the problem is not systemic racism but Jews)

I don't think it's an emphasis on being Jewish but the idea that Israel is developing tactics in a significant conflict which raises concerns of their application domestically in the US. Though I do think it can get speculative as to what specific training there is when there is talk of Kettling and so on for crowd control.

Hence why both are complementing each other.

Indeed, not that body cams are bad, but that it does have it's limitations that the police seemed to be trying to take advantage of with them seeming to be under the impression they could frame it as resisting arrest by shouting show your hands.
"We can't say whether systemic racism explains any particular incident but we know it explains them all". That's how this sounds - like a religion.

This seems stronger than what I can claim. As there seems to be an issue in the difference between ontology, what exists, and epistemology, what one can know in regards here. Best I can point to is factors that signify a trend of systematic or institional racism which inform policies, and practices which are more aggressive in US policing. This isn't seeking out some individual racist with slurs, but about the impact of such larger instititions upon individual actors regardless of how good their intentions may be.

To push it to another extreme, I could similarly make things look ridiculous if I just said of your position that racism doesn't exist, the US is a racial utopia and there exists no case of race informing harsher policing in policy or practice. I don't think your views go that strongly even if they might be suspicious of a claim of racism.
But the uncertainty in an individual case only fixates on interpersonal racism because it cannot consider what is systematic at that level. So what is systematic is the dispproprtionate amount of force, at times lethal, and targeting of black Americans. This combined with the known increase in military gear of police, that based on my earlier post has some studies concluding is supported as a product of racial segregation.

So it's not that it explains every case, and it's also why I don't think anyone is arguing that they know this is some racially motivated incident. Rather what is pre-emptively deflected is the fixation on the officers being black somehow meaning that it is impossible to still be interpersonally motivated. But even ones who claim the possible existence of such I doubt have a means of arguing that they know that it exists in this case. So instead I would emphasize that there is valid reasons to suspect the aggressive practice of police isn't merely from the difficulty of dealing with dangerous situations, but that police themselves are ones escalated small signs of resistance which could be readily subdued with their greater numbers and power into harm and death uncessarily.
Why that is could be the concern about guns? But I think when people talk about policing culture, it can readily appear away from the PR work as a macho side of kicking bad guys asses than professional who takes care of the community. Get cops with the punisher symbol for example.
There is even an approach suggesting that a lot of cop aggression is partly predicted by threats to their sense of power or masculinity so one could relate that to how any sign of resistance is taken poorly and blows up quickly, especially with status effects of colorism meaning that ones place is to be more obedient or prone to disobeying authority.
Last edited by Wellsy on 31 Jan 2023 00:35, edited 1 time in total.
#15263486
Pants-of-dog wrote:No.

You seem to be confusing two things:

1. a justification or excuse the murderers would need for the police, and...
2. a justification or excuse for public consumption.

The murderers definitely need the second, the one for the public.

I sm arguing that the murderers felt that they did not need the first one: the excuse for the other cops.



There is a difference between being aware that you can kill a black man with impunity amd deciding to kill someone in a premeditated fashion.

------------



I explained how systemic racism was one of the causes of this tragic murder here:

viewtopic.php?f=42&t=183258&start=40#p15263449


This is pure speculation on your part. I find it weird to try to make this about race.
#15263487
@Unthinking Majority

While there is some speculation on my part, please note that my scenario conforms to all the facts as we know them, as well as the historical context, and is also logical and plausible.
#15263488
Pants-of-dog wrote:No.

You seem to be confusing two things:

1. a justification or excuse the murderers would need for the police, and...
2. a justification or excuse for public consumption.

The murderers definitely need the second, the one for the public.

I sm arguing that the murderers felt that they did not need the first one: the excuse for the other cops.


Oh but it turns out they do need one for both, given the cops that are investigating them are not their Memphis colleagues but those from the state.

Pants-of-dog wrote:There is a difference between being aware that you can kill a black man with impunity amd deciding to kill someone in a premeditated fashion.


So you think that systemic racism is not, in fact, the cause of this incident?

Pants-of-dog wrote:I explained how systemic racism was one of the causes of this tragic murder here:

viewtopic.php?f=42&t=183258&start=40#p15263449


...guess not.

Wellsy wrote:Feel like you’re continuing to try and carrel the discussion into a kind of interpersonal racism. Which from the outset I said is possible, against the predicted point that somehow being black they are above and beyond such anti-black sentiments. But in this case we cannot prove such sentiment without some great detail about each of the individuals for consistent differences in behavior. My focus has instead been that they good have great views about black americans but still participate in institutional racist practices as it’s not dependent on interpersonal animosity but participation in institutions and practices that disproportionately target black americans in a possibly arbitrary basis than perceptions of blacks. Hence my earlier points that militarization of police relating to areas of greater segregation between blacks and whites.


And as I mentioned, I'm not sure how can you truly separate both in practice. That's more apparent in this case where the officers are Black and Memphis's population is mostly African American.

Wellsy wrote:I can't know whether the cops were motivated by racism based on some sort of animosity specifically to black people and that how they treated Nichols is distinct from how they treated other americans of different races. I presume that they are this nasty in general and it simply hasn't escalated into murder. One of the officers is now being reported for involvement in an inmate being knocked down and hitting his head on a sink when he tried to dispose of a phone or something that they suspected he had. But this is still focusing on policing and racism at an individual level where I am wanting to make more of a link between policies and practices being more aggressive end up targetting black americans in their effect and are in part supported not simply by a sense of objective crime rates but a perception of blacks and criminiality which relates to a history since Nixon. Where there was teh crack epidemic, late night news reporting many murders and such, the crime rate objectively exploded but it also took on racial connotations and is where we get Clinton's super predator, which is the same talking point of previous politicians.

Law in abstract equality doesn’t guarantee anything per the Lee Atwater quote before of how the of a policy can still be racial while its presented in an abstract form.
And there have been efforts but that doesn’t mean things have achieved one beyond institutional racism.

For the context of Memphis itself, while you mentioned the majority are black, that doesn’t mean it isn’t without racial strife. It is one of the most segregated cities by counties in the US.
https://mlk50.com/2021/08/06/do-you-live-in-one-of-memphis-blackest-whitest-or-most-segregated-neighborhoods-read-this-story-to-find-out/
They are also predominantly the poorest sections of Memphis.
https://www.cafth.org/racial-disparities/

So my tentative claims of systematic racism in the case of the Memphis Police Department are based on the earlier points of how police are more likely to receive military-grade equipment where there is segregation, the idea that crime is often tied to areas of poverty, that policing in the US still has a history of disproportionally targeting and harming black Americans and isn't something we can wash away as being in the distant past. So you could dismiss me as simply not knowing, but I would push back that it isn't unreasonable to suspect that the existence of a SCORPION unit, and the aggressiveness of these officers in this case, isn't from no where but reflects broader trends within policing instititonally which has it's ties to issues of race in the US.


Who segregated Memphis? Have you considered it is unlikely White voters are driving this type of segregation on their own?

This is leaving aside that, given the city is almost 2/3 African American, chances are that some neighborhoods will in fact be almost completely populated by Blacks even if you assign where should people live randomly.

Something similar can be said about the "military grade equipment hypothesis". That hypothesis that it is driven by racial stereotyping makes more sense in jurisdictions where most of the voters are White and, as such, the segregated Blacks are essentially an enclaved minority. I'd not expect that to be caused by mere stereotyping in places where those demographics are flipped up.

I also don't know up to what extent is that theory true either, honestly I'd expect jurisdictions with most organized crime issues (including gangs) to be the more heavily armed, and for this objective need for better weaponry to drive the phenomenon. I don't know if there's research on the matter, but I'd have expected cities where the mafia was most active during Prohibition to have introduced military grade weapons (the Tommy gun) first, regardless of their ethnic/racial composition.

Wellsy wrote:The general question is what made these men feel comfortable to do what they did? This doesn't stand out as an oddity except to the extent they were quickly charged and fired rather than the usual wait time of paid leave. And what is the policing of these officers like? We are now hearing how the SCORPION unit is disbanded, of which these officers were part of. An extremely aggressive approach to crime which is framed as merely having police preceence in high crime areas to deter it and deal with it, but it's not clear that they were not instigating and escalating unnecessary encounters with the public as part of the unit.

It seemed logical in that with an uptick in crime more police presence is the expect response of the police. Yet there are many claims of them using unnecessary force. Why did this occur? Often the idea becomes simply needing more training, needing greater diversity, and all this. But the point now is that it didn't matter that they were black for Mr. Nichols. The concern is how does one change a police culture to be more of a friendly member of the community who keeps the peace rather than a stranger who harasses and hurts the public.

My thought is that the criticism of police culture and practices, being a threat to many black americans who do not commit crimes at all or very minor ones that do not warrant such excessive force is tied to a lot of issues of racial divides in society . The tough-on-crime approach historically emerges with Chief Justice Earl Warren who affirmed many rights of American citizens such as miranda rights, the right to not speak, a right to an attorney during one's interogration under custody and such. Conservatives attacked him so severely that they blamed rise in crime on his decisions, and Nixon had another Chief Justice selected precisely for his opposition to his 'red tape'. This then exploded into a bunch of action movies of the good cop who shoots a bunch of people and doesn't abide by the book because it limits him from catching the crooks. It then carried on through to the 90s, and America has been waging war on aspects of society in trying to force the matter and ignore the social conditions of crime and poverty.

My speculation is the outcome we see emerges in an environment and culture where race is an issue and is tied to policies to be hard on crime but only see crime through the lens of more police and prisons which have exploded in recent decades than they do about how to help communities.


You don't believe the fact the officers are Black is noteworthy in itself? Their approach was indeed very aggressive, and it does indeed suggest they need different training. Oddly enough, I recently (today) read American cops might spend far less time training than in other developed countries.

But this would suggest the issue isn't systemic racism and that defunding the police would make the issue worse, if anything.

Wellsy wrote:Yes that is tje knee jerk reaction I expected from not understanding the concept of solidarity or the point if having to be participant to something ti have any meaningful say less one simply moralize. Even the last quote emphasized the population effected articulating the critique even if it originates in concepts outside the community. For example, in an anthropological study there is a big emphasis on being hands off observer. But one woman was asked for assistence from the women in the group she was studying and staying with to resist sexism. She didn’t know whst to do and her professor advised her to not assist. There is a difference from forcing assistance on ones own terms. We call that charity, I give what i want. Solidarity submits yourself to the goals and and means of those you are helping and doesn’t position ones self above anyone. If one can only see assistance in terms of a colonizing perspective than thats an issue within liberalisms sense of freedom from others than emphasizing the social relations which underpin ones means of life.


"Colonialism and manifest destiny are only good when we do it". That's how this paragraph reads to me - these women choosing to abort female fetuses don't seem to be requesting any external help and you don't know if they want your input to begin with. It's not solidarity if your assistance is neither requested nor wanted.

From what I've seen, many feminists would regard it as condescension.

Wellsy wrote:I am thinking in terms of movements that don’t reject the status quo as much as wish to change it.
https://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/pdfs/rawls.pdf


And it is those fence sitters in particular who may end up reacting adversely. You mentioned Nixon earlier, well, I don't think he was voted in because most Americans rejected civil rights. No, I think he was voted in because most Americans, including many who supported MLK, got tired of the prevailing disorder. MLK himself realized the risk in pushing too much and too strongly.

Wellsy wrote:Yeah and with those examples in mind it establishes the historical trajectory of policing, where unless you argue some sort of clean break, which seems less and less tenable with the many high profile incidents and studies that show disproporateionyly of use of violence and arrests on black americans, then why should we not think that police still have an issue in their relationship to black americans and their communities. Not simply as a manner of dealing with crime because black americans don't like crime and are scared of it to and would like help in dealing with it. But when the general public comes to fear the police as a threat to even their own lives, something is wrong.


A clean break isn't necessary for policing to have changed for the better since 1965. If anything, I can't help to compare the police reaction to the riots in the mid 1960s and in 2020. It's undoubtedly true that the reaction back then was far, far harsher than in 2020.

Wellsy wrote:It certainly does as it entails very stressful situations and having to keep your cool. The idea is with PTSD, that keeping one's cool is hard as with modern warfare one's threat alertness is way overblown compared to the PTSD/Shellshock of saying a WW2 soldier who sat in a bunker while being bombarded for hours.


Indeed, and there is far more freedom in the response to that type of stress in war than in peacetime policing. A cop can't just shoot a place up if he comes under fire or kill someone just due to the suspicion someone they are interacting them has a gun without expecting any questions, a soldier might (in fact, a soldier may even request support to simply destroy a position he's being shot from).

Wellsy wrote:I don't think it always ignores objective criteria such as crime rates as the issue emerged largely in the 80s. However, I do think crime in the US has always had a racial connotation if not explicitly framed racially. Playing upon race was part of Nixon's success in turning the South, and for many Republicans since. But of course the issue of crime in the 90s with Bill Clinton had a lot of support from black Americans but of course there cannot be a consensus on the basis of demographic, only of political ends.


Well, Nixon actually managed to win broadly across the US. Framing the issue in racial terms may have helped him (although I'll point out he did not win in the Deep South, Wallace did)

Wellsy wrote:I don't think it's an emphasis on being Jewish but the idea that Israel is developing tactics in a significant conflict which raises concerns of their application domestically in the US. Though I do think it can get speculative as to what specific training there is when there is talk of Kettling and so on for crowd control.


Well, it is wholly speculative if they don't know what the actual training is and also which units are being trained.

Wellsy wrote:Indeed, not that body cams are bad, but that it does have it's limitations that the police seemed to be trying to take advantage of with them seeming to be under the impression they could frame it as resisting arrest by shouting show your hands.


Indeed, but for instance the bodycams show Nichols did not reach for one of their guns, and honestly they show he didn't resist arrest actively. You can see the bodycam footage yourself.

Wellsy wrote:This seems stronger than what I can claim. As there seems to be an issue in the difference between ontology, what exists, and epistemology, what one can know in regards here. Best I can point to is factors that signify a trend of systematic or institional racism which inform policies, and practices which are more aggressive in US policing. This isn't seeking out some individual racist with slurs, but about the impact of such larger instititions upon individual actors regardless of how good their intentions may be.

To push it to another extreme, I could similarly make things look ridiculous if I just said of your position that racism doesn't exist, the US is a racial utopia and there exists no case of race informing harsher policing in policy or practice. I don't think your views go that strongly even if they might be suspicious of a claim of racism.
But the uncertainty in an individual case only fixates on interpersonal racism because it cannot consider what is systematic at that level. So what is systematic is the dispproprtionate amount of force, at times lethal, and targeting of black Americans. This combined with the known increase in military gear of police, that based on my earlier post has some studies concluding is supported as a product of racial segregation.

So it's not that it explains every case, and it's also why I don't think anyone is arguing that they know this is some racially motivated incident. Rather what is pre-emptively deflected is the fixation on the officers being black somehow meaning that it is impossible to still be interpersonally motivated. But even ones who claim the possible existence of such I doubt have a means of arguing that they know that it exists in this case. So instead I would emphasize that there is valid reasons to suspect the aggressive practice of police isn't merely from the difficulty of dealing with dangerous situations, but that police themselves are ones escalated small signs of resistance which could be readily subdued with their greater numbers and power into harm and death uncessarily.


I think one of the issues with the systemic racism explanation is that you remove agency. Basically, why would these cops ever go to jail for unjustifiably killing or beating a civilian if in the end it's all systemic?

And if you accept agency plays a role, how can one explain this incident? As in, how credible is that these cops were unaware of what they were doing? Are they unable to question what you and perhaps they would consider to be racist assumptions and stereotypes in doing their job or their training?

That's not considering there have been similar incidents where it is a White guy who ends up being killed, which gets us into one of the other issues: Why would you or anyone else, really, assume this kind of thing wouldn't happen to pretty much anyone? If the cops are primed by e.g. a caller to believe they'll face a dangerous situation, they could be more aggressive. The Wichita swatting incident I cited earlier involved only White people (the perpetrator and both the actual and intended victims were White), and the call that started it was about a domestic violence incident turned into a hostage situation involving firearms. I don't think one could blame the SWAT team for acting like it did given what they knew at the time, and no one did.

This brings up another issue with the systemic racism hypothesis, namely, the refusal to consider other plausible explanations that may lead to a similar result. It gets worse if pointing this out is somehow seen as racist.

At last, no, I don't think the US is an utopia when it comes to race. If anything, I think "race" plays an oversized role in American society and I don't just mean it in terms of discrimination but it's far broader than that. Yes, American history perfectly tells you why, but that doesn't make it good, and Americans may not realize it but there are some behaviors, beliefs and overall mentality that are distinctly American and those of us who were raised abroad can perfectly tell. The US would already be an outlier in how it organizes its own society even if you completely took race out of the equation.

@late the refusal to consider other plausible explanations for this incident, and police brutality in general.
#15263490
wat0n wrote:Oh but it turns out they do need one for both, given the cops that are investigating them are not their Memphis colleagues but those from the state.


Yes, I addressed that.

So you think that systemic racism is not, in fact, the cause of this incident?

...guess not.


What are you talking about?

And as I mentioned, I'm not sure how can you truly separate both in practice. That's more apparent in this case where the officers are Black and Memphis's population is mostly African American.

Who segregated Memphis? Have you considered it is unlikely White voters are driving this type of segregation on their own?

This is leaving aside that, given the city is almost 2/3 African American, chances are that some neighborhoods will in fact be almost completely populated by Blacks even if you assign where should people live randomly.

Something similar can be said about the "military grade equipment hypothesis". That hypothesis that it is driven by racial stereotyping makes more sense in jurisdictions where most of the voters are White and, as such, the segregated Blacks are essentially an enclaved minority. I'd not expect that to be caused by mere stereotyping in places where those demographics are flipped up.

I also don't know up to what extent is that theory true either, honestly I'd expect jurisdictions with most organized crime issues (including gangs) to be the more heavily armed, and for this objective need for better weaponry to drive the phenomenon. I don't know if there's research on the matter, but I'd have expected cities where the mafia was most active during Prohibition to have introduced military grade weapons (the Tommy gun) first, regardless of their ethnic/racial composition.

You don't believe the fact the officers are Black is noteworthy in itself? Their approach was indeed very aggressive, and it does indeed suggest they need different training. Oddly enough, I recently (today) read American cops might spend far less time training than in other developed countries.

But this would suggest the issue isn't systemic racism and that defunding the police would make the issue worse, if anything.

"Colonialism and manifest destiny are only good when we do it". That's how this paragraph reads to me - these women choosing to abort female fetuses don't seem to be requesting any external help and you don't know if they want your input to begin with. It's not solidarity if your assistance is neither requested nor wanted.

From what I've seen, many feminists would regard it as condescension.

And it is those fence sitters in particular who may end up reacting adversely. You mentioned Nixon earlier, well, I don't think he was voted in because most Americans rejected civil rights. No, I think he was voted in because most Americans, including many who supported MLK, got tired of the prevailing disorder. MLK himself realized the risk in pushing too much and too strongly.

A clean break isn't necessary for policing to have changed for the better since 1965. If anything, I can't help to compare the police reaction to the riots in the mid 1960s and in 2020. It's undoubtedly true that the reaction back then was far, far harsher than in 2020.

Indeed, and there is far more freedom in the response to that type of stress in war than in peacetime policing. A cop can't just shoot a place up if he comes under fire or kill someone just due to the suspicion someone they are interacting them has a gun without expecting any questions, a soldier might (in fact, a soldier may even request support to simply destroy a position he's being shot from).

Well, Nixon actually managed to win broadly across the US. Framing the issue in racial terms may have helped him (although I'll point out he did not win in the Deep South, Wallace did)

Well, it is wholly speculative if they don't know what the actual training is and also which units are being trained.

Indeed, but for instance the bodycams show Nichols did not reach for one of their guns, and honestly they show he didn't resist arrest actively. You can see the bodycam footage yourself.

I think one of the issues with the systemic racism explanation is that you remove agency. Basically, why would these cops ever go to jail for unjustifiably killing or beating a civilian if in the end it's all systemic?

And if you accept agency plays a role, how can one explain this incident? As in, how credible is that these cops were unaware of what they were doing? Are they unable to question what you and perhaps they would consider to be racist assumptions and stereotypes in doing their job or their training?

That's not considering there have been similar incidents where it is a White guy who ends up being killed, which gets us into one of the other issues: Why would you or anyone else, really, assume this kind of thing wouldn't happen to pretty much anyone? If the cops are primed by e.g. a caller to believe they'll face a dangerous situation, they could be more aggressive. The Wichita swatting incident I cited earlier involved only White people (the perpetrator and both the actual and intended victims were White), and the call that started it was about a domestic violence incident turned into a hostage situation involving firearms. I don't think one could blame the SWAT team for acting like it did given what they knew at the time, and no one did.

This brings up another issue with the systemic racism hypothesis, namely, the refusal to consider other plausible explanations that may lead to a similar result. It gets worse if pointing this out is somehow seen as racist.

At last, no, I don't think the US is an utopia when it comes to race. If anything, I think "race" plays an oversized role in American society and I don't just mean it in terms of discrimination but it's far broader than that. Yes, American history perfectly tells you why, but that doesn't make it good, and Americans may not realize it but there are some behaviors, beliefs and overall mentality that are distinctly American and those of us who were raised abroad can perfectly tell. The US would already be an outlier in how it organizes its own society even if you completely took race out of the equation.

@late the refusal to consider other plausible explanations for this incident, and police brutality in general.


Can you please explain how systemic racism differs from individual racism? Thank you.
#15263491
Pants-of-dog wrote:Yes, I addressed that.


No, you did not. In fact, you are unable to deal with the contradiction between this specific incident and your narrative.

Pants-of-dog wrote:What are you talking about?


Your hypothesis implies premeditation.

Pants-of-dog wrote:Can you please explain how systemic racism differs from individual racism? Thank you.


Sure. Systemic racism is the idea that the way institutions are designed or, if not designed, the way they operate can lead to racist outcomes even when the individuals there are not themselves racist.

But in this case, where all the persons involved are Black, requires us to believe that certain Black people - the cops - couldn't perceive that type of racism against Blacks in their force and were somehow unable to resist it. It doesn't add up.
#15263492
wat0n wrote:No, you did not. In fact, you are unable to deal with the contradiction between this specific incident and your narrative.


Yes, it is quite simple.

Due to systemic racism, the cops thought they would get away with it.

They were wrong.

Your hypothesis implies premeditation.


No. It simply requires an awareness of being able to get away w8th a crime.

Most men understand they could rape a woman and get away with it. However, most men also walk out of their home every day without any premeditated plan to rape a woman.

Having an awareness of social biases that would lead to getting away with a crime does not, in any way, imply premeditated crime.

Sure. Systemic racism is the idea that the way institutions are designed or, if not designed, the way they operate can lead to racist outcomes even when the individuals there are not themselves racist.

But in this case, where all the persons involved are Black, requires us to believe that certain Black people - the cops - couldn't perceive that type of racism against Blacks in their force and were somehow unable to resist it. It doesn't add up.


Black cops may well perceive systemic racism but decide to go along with it anyway because of prevailing cultural norms or internalised racism or corruption or many other reasons.

As far as I can tell, black cops do perceive the systemic racism. Those who do oppose it get fired.
#15263493
Pants-of-dog wrote:Yes, it is quite simple.

Due to systemic racism, the cops thought they would get away with it.

They were wrong.


And you are still unable to explain why did the DA open an inquiry right away if this was true. Seems unlikely the cops were unaware of the policy in case something like that happened, if as you say police and DAs often collude to avoid prosecuting killer cops.

Pants-of-dog wrote:No. It simply requires an awareness of being able to get away w8th a crime.

Most men understand they could rape a woman and get away with it. However, most men also walk out of their home every day without any premeditated plan to rape a woman.

Having an awareness of social biases that would lead to getting away with a crime does not, in any way, imply premeditated crime.


Most men don't know that and, even if they did, that doesn't mean they are set out to rape women :roll:

Pants-of-dog wrote:Black cops may well perceive systemic racism but decide to go along with it anyway because of prevailing cultural norms or internalised racism or corruption or many other reasons.

As far as I can tell, black cops do perceive the systemic racism. Those who do oppose it get fired.


And because of that they'd choose to beat up a Black guy, in a city that's almost 2/3 Black?
#15263495
wat0n wrote:And you are still unable to explain why did the DA open an inquiry right away if this was true. Seems unlikely the cops were unaware of the policy in case something like that happened, if as you say police and DAs often collude to avoid prosecuting killer cops.


Please show that the DA opened an inquiry right away.

Most men don't know that and, even if they did, that doesn't mean they are set out to rape women :roll:


Exactly.

Being aware that they can get away with a crime does not mean premeditation is involved.

So the murdering cops thought they could get away with it and no premeditation involved.

And because of that they'd choose to beat up a Black guy, in a city that's almost 2/3 Black?


Yes.

What do demographics have anything to do with it?
#15263496
Pants-of-dog wrote:Please show that the DA opened an inquiry right away.


Check this out, it's from January 8th:

https://www.actionnews5.com/2023/01/08/ ... utType=amp

Pants-of-dog wrote:Exactly.

Being aware that they can get away with a crime does not mean premeditation is involved.

So the murdering cops thought they could get away with it and no premeditation involved.


Oh so rape just happens to you, does it?

Pants-of-dog wrote:Yes.

What do demographics have anything to do with it?


Quite a lot, actually. For starters, it means African Americans aren't a minority but the majority of the city. They are the ones who elect officials and also the ones who make up the police. Most of the people a cop will see when deployed in Memphis will be Black.
#15263513
wat0n wrote:Check this out, it's from January 8th:

https://www.actionnews5.com/2023/01/08/ ... utType=amp


Please quote the relevant text.

Oh so rape just happens to you, does it?


At this point, I have shown that premeditation is not a part of my argument, implied or otherwise.

Quite a lot, actually. For starters, it means African Americans aren't a minority but the majority of the city. They are the ones who elect officials and also the ones who make up the police. Most of the people a cop will see when deployed in Memphis will be Black.


How does this relate to systemic racism?
#15263521
Pants-of-dog wrote:Please quote the relevant text.


Due to Nichol’s condition, District Attorney General Steve Mulroy determined that the TBI would handle this investigation, according to MPD.


Pants-of-dog wrote:At this point, I have shown that premeditation is not a part of my argument, implied or otherwise.


No, you have definitely not.

Pants-of-dog wrote:How does this relate to systemic racism?


How doesn't it? Are you saying that the fact that the majority of the city's population is African American has no influence on how its government functions?
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