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Zonie63 -> RE: Rioting is the answer (8/19/2014 9:51:51 AM)
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ORIGINAL: subrosaDom
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ORIGINAL: Zonie63
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ORIGINAL: subrosaDom
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ORIGINAL: ThirdWheelWanted
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ORIGINAL: Zonie63
Yes, but this appears to be the root of the whole problem. This cop just had to establish "dominance," as part of the ego trip that all those with badges get whenever their "authority" is challenged. So, rather than just let it go, the cop chose to escalate the situation and kept pushing it until it ended up with the confrontation. Can't let anyone ignore a cop's orders on the street, otherwise that will just breed disrespect for law enforcement. That's the conventional wisdom of police departments, yet it hasn't worked out too well for them, has it?
Of course! It's so clear to me now. That's the root of the whole problem, cops with power trips exerting their authority. It has nothing to do with entitled assholes who think they can do whatever they want and get away with it because of their ethnicity. That stupid police officer. Didn't he know that if you're almost to where you were going, and you're black, that you're allowed to walk down the middle of the street? Sidewalks are for chumps. How dare he expect those two to get the fuck out of the middle of the street just because he'd told them to. Trying to make them walk on the sidewalk, he was disrespecting them. He deserved to get punched in the face. And when they wanted his weapon? Hell, he should have just given it up!
I don't always agree with my Father, but he gave me some good advice growing-up that seems pertinent to this discussion. If you're dealing with the police, even if you think they're wrong (maybe especially if you think they're wrong), be polite, do what they tell you, and if there's really a problem it can be resolved later. You can always file a complaint later or hire an attorney. What you can't do is get un-shot. Or un-ass-kicked. Or get un-arrested if you piss one off enough to start looking for reasons to charge you with something.
Isn't it against the law to fail to comply with an lawful command given by a police officer? If you're breaking the law by walking down the middle of the street, and you don't get on the sidewalk when told to do so, that's breaking the law. That was enough to get Brown arrested. When the officer tried to exit his vehicle and Brown shoved him back in (according to His buddy Johnson), that's assault on a police officer, that was enough to get him arrested. So no, I don't think you have it right that the officer's "dominance" was the root of the problem. I think it was a big guy, thinking that one cop wouldn't try to arrest him and his buddy. That if he raised a big enough stink, the cop would back down.
Yes, it's a different rule now. No longer are blacks relegated to the back of the bus. Whites are relegated to the sidewalk. Blacks can apparently walk wherever they damn well please, just as whites were able to sit wherever they damn well pleased in the bus or in an establishment governed by Jim Crow laws.
Just for the record, I have not mentioned race or ethnicity. I have not accused anyone of racism. Others in this thread have done so, but I will not. Are you two suggesting that Brown and his accomplice were walking down the middle of the road because they felt entitled to do so due to their race?
And TWW, you ask that I should give the police the benefit of the doubt, but shouldn't that also work both ways? I understand the function of the police and the necessity to maintain law and order, but there also has to be a certain give and take between the government and the community its supposed to serve. I think you guys are missing the forest through the trees.
1) No you haven't nor have I accused you of such. I don't think they felt entitled to do so due to their race, I think they felt entitled to so because they were thugs and believed in livin' large, thug-style, basically meaning criminal, narcissistic, sociopathic behavior. Now, they objectively were/are black thugs, but that's a thug attitude. There are white thugs, too, for sure. Would Brown have moved for a black cop? Maybe. Maybe now. Maybe a black cop would have been more cop than black and he would have given him the same attitude. Unanswered questions. But Brown's proven penchant for gang signs, lyrics extolling thug life, and strong-arming a skinny retail clerk tell me he wasn't reading Siddhartha.
But is that really a function of being black or of being 18?
What if it was a little old lady walking down the street, one who had Alzheimer's and somehow wandered out of the nursing home? Would the cop's reaction had been any different to that situation, and if so, why?
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2) I think you have to give the benefit of the doubt when there's reason to. No matter what, you have to look at the evidence. Think of Jerry Sandusky. "Pillar" of the community, but actually a disgusting pedophile, worse than Brown ever was. All we can do is look at Brown's track record, as noted above. Based on that, no, I don't give him the benefit of the doubt, just as I wouldn't give anyone the benefit of the doubt, black or white, with that background. Not giving him the benefit of the doubt doesn't make him guilty either. You still have to investigate. But he certainly deserves no hagiographies. The evidence so far is that he was at best a 2-bit robber who was obsessively narcissistic and at worst a 1st class thug.
Well, see, that's part of the problem here, isn't it? We have "pillars" of the community such as the police department, and that's where much of the problem lies. There are too many people willing to give a blank check to the police department, supporting anything and everything they do, no matter what it is. Whenever a police or government official is found to be dirty, these same people act so shocked, like a bunch of kids who were just told there's no Santa Claus.
It has very little to do with the evidence and everything to do with society's preconceived notions about who should be elevated as a "pillar" versus those who should be denigrated as "thugs." That's, frankly, how Sanduskey and many Catholic priests were able to get away with their disgusting pedophilia, since people are compelled to "respect their authority" and not question what they do, lest society fall apart into anarchy, as you guys have been arguing. This is how abuses of power and police states occur in the first place, since there's far too much blind trust in people and professions which (in my opinion) should be viewed with greater skepticism.
The evidence shown thus far is a dead body and a cop who admitted responsibility for that dead body. There's no doubt who killed him, but the lingering questions are why and how. The resulting riots would also indicate that this has been a troubled community for quite some before this incident ever happened - something that the local authorities should have already been aware of and taken proactive measures to deal with. I would expect police officers to know their local community that they're sworn to protect and serve, and I can't help but think that if they had put in more of an effort, this might have been avoided.
Brown's apparent "thuggish" behavior may be an interesting point to raise, but I would still note that as a symptom of a deeper problem which existed long before Brown was even born. That's why I reject arguments that "it's all about Michael Brown and his 'thug' behavior" or that it's all about "condemning the rioters for their 'thuggish' behavior." This isn't some anomaly that just popped up out of nothing.
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