Texas Cop, "Police Brutality", Black kids.

[HuskerNBigD]

Which is really the point I want to drive home: the power of the situation. To use your analogy, let's say I avoid eye contact when I'm in a situation that makes me nervous/uncomfortable, but make eye contact in the absence of those situations. You wouldn't say I have Asperger's because that lack of eye contact needs to be present across situations, and that, my friend, is a pretty sweeping analogy. You're essentially saying that everything committed by white people against black people is done on the basis of race and race alone, which I think is pretty short-sighted. Might there be bad eggs in the police department who abuse their power? Without a doubt. Heck, there are even whole towns who subtlety discriminate and disadvantage black people. But to say that this is the case whenever a black person meets an unfortunate situation completely disregards any situational component necessary in understanding human behavior.

I'm growing sick of us trying to solve problems that aren't there. Racism is a problem and rears its ugly head on a daily basis. But not every scenario includes a racial component, even if it involves people of two different ethnicities. We will never solve a problem until we fully understand said problem, and crying racism whenever something bad happens with two people of different ethnicities only blocks of from fully comprehending the racism problem in America.

Where the analogy falls short is in trying to document and show how racism as a power can permeate and exist above individual situations where people might not actually be "acting racist".

What I am not saying is that everything committed by white people against black people is done on the basis of race.

What I am, in fact, saying, is that every black person has experienced things committed against them by white people on the basis of race, and even if they haven't explicitly they still live in a society that affects them adversely in some way(s) because of their race. This has been statistically proven every which way you could possibly hope for, and too many people (not saying you are one of them) are still somehow denying that it's true.

My point is...even if this situation isn't heavily hinged on anything to do with race, it's disturbing and not helpful that so many people are immediately trying to go to actual conscious effort to declare that race doesn't have anything to do with it. Is that true? It could be. But if race doesn't have anything to do with it, it's not a problem. If race DOES have something to do with it, which is very likely, racial tension and inequality is a big problem so I don't see why we would not want to err on the side of perception that gives the benefit of the doubt to people being wronged in a bullsh#t way.

White guilt much? I mean seriously man, the kids were illegally there. Who gives a crap what their skin color happened to be?

 

[Landlord]

As per usual, you continue to bury your head in the sand when presented with facts that show that there is MUCH more to the story.

White guilt much? I mean seriously man, the kids were illegally there. Who gives a crap what their skin color happened to be?

I'm hardly even talking about the story.

 

[BigRedBuster]

Obviously, there is a lot more to this story than we know. Someone sure could have started video taping the issues that lead to the police showing up.

HOWEVER....the actions of this officer are completely way out of line and I would be absolutely shocked if many police officers said that it is SOP to draw your gun on a crowd of unarmed teenagers no matter what color they are. If he showed up to the scene and was the only one there and the crowd was being as bad as some claim, if he couldn't resolve the issue differently than he did, he should have simply waited for backup.

That video is NOT showing the actions of a police officer acting in a professional and controlled manner. Chasing kids around pointing a gun at them yelling and acting like an idiot is not how you deescalate a situation like this even if the kids were acting inappropriate.

And, to the woman at the pool, telling a bunch of black kids to get out of your white neighborhood and go back to the projects is quite possibly the most inflammatory thing you could say to these kids....again....just the opposite of what is needed to deescalate the situation.

So, these kids may very well have been doing something wrong. BUT, nobody involved (especially the police in the video) handled it appropriately.

 

[HuskerNBigD]

As per usual, you continue to bury your head in the sand when presented with facts that show that there is MUCH more to the story.

White guilt much? I mean seriously man, the kids were illegally there. Who gives a crap what their skin color happened to be?

I'm hardly even talking about the story.

So at this point, I guess we should just rename the thread to "Racism still alive and well in America" if we're going to get away from the premise of the situation.

 

[Landlord]

As per usual, you continue to bury your head in the sand when presented with facts that show that there is MUCH more to the story.

White guilt much? I mean seriously man, the kids were illegally there. Who gives a crap what their skin color happened to be?

I'm hardly even talking about the story.

So at this point, I guess we should just rename the thread to "Racism still alive and well in America" if we're going to get away from the premise of the situation.

And we're back full circle.

There's a thread about this

Regardless, this is a complex situation with a lot of nuance. It's no fault or responsibility of any one person or motivation or action or anything like that. There's a ton at play here, but one thing that, to me, is incontrovertible is that this police officer was way out of line. There's a lot of questions that come out of that that I think people are starting and needing to ask more seriously. Is this dude just an isolated hot head? Is there something in his training, or something lacking from his training, that had a play in how he poorly handled a situation? What's the culture of his precinct like? Could that be related to the skin color of some of the kids? Maybe. Maybe not. The kid blatantly filming was, by his own perspective, invisible to them (he thinks because he is white).

 

[It'sNotAFakeID]

I think it would be fun, incredibly difficult, and probably unethical to recreate this situation but only change the demographics. Keep everything the same, from the number of kids present to the loudness of the music, to the way the kids respond upon police showing up. Just have one situation with 200 white kids, one situation with 200 black kids, and one situation with 100 white kids and 100 black kids. You could also manipulate the gender of in each scenario as well.

See if the cops respond differently or if it's just the way people respond to the cops that make the cops respond differently. If they don't respond differently (i.e., they chase after the white girls running away as much as they do the black guys running away), then you may have evidence that it's the way people respond to cops that elicit the different cops reactions. Now, it wouldn't be generalizable to all cops, but interesting nevertheless.

Landlord, without a doubt racism exists at an institutional level, but you have to wonder how much of that can be controlled. Because you've been looking at this issue for some time, you must be aware of the Implicit Association Test (IAT), which tests our implicit preferences (race being just one of many). Here's the link, you can go take the test: https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/selectatest.html. What the IAT attempts to assess is our snap decisions regarding--for example--behavior towards whites and blacks. It takes a lot of effort to control our snap decisions, so I'm just wondering, if you have an implicit preference towards whites over blacks, how much effort/control does it take/do you have over whether you engage in these subtle acts of discrimination. And if a majority of people engage in these subtle acts of discrimination, do they add up to create a much worse, yet still uncontrollable situation?

 

[HuskerNBigD]

Obviously, there is a lot more to this story than we know. Someone sure could have started video taping the issues that lead to the police showing up.

HOWEVER....the actions of this officer are completely way out of line and I would be absolutely shocked if many police officers said that it is SOP to draw your gun on a crowd of unarmed teenagers no matter what color they are. If he showed up to the scene and was the only one there and the crowd was being as bad as some claim, if he couldn't resolve the issue differently than he did, he should have simply waited for backup.

That video is NOT showing the actions of a police officer acting in a professional and controlled manner. Chasing kids around pointing a gun at them yelling and acting like an idiot is not how you deescalate a situation like this even if the kids were acting inappropriate.

And, to the woman at the pool, telling a bunch of black kids to get out of your white neighborhood and go back to the projects is quite possibly the most inflammatory thing you could say to these kids....again....just the opposite of what is needed to deescalate the situation.

So, these kids may very well have been doing something wrong. BUT, nobody involved (especially the police in the video) handled it appropriately.

Well the out-of-line is what we need to drive media ratings! Because now you can't get out of the neighborhood without CNN coming around the streets asking you if you had a moment to talk about what happened. Or the helicopters that are constantly circling around. Story is pretty straight forward, their are racist people everywhere. Was it wrong how the situation transpired, absolutely. On all sides. BUT, and here is what I dont understand is so hard to see, if you don't even have the party to begin with...none of the nonsense happens.

 

[BigRedBuster]

So...black kids can't congregate at a public pool for an end of the school year fun day? Does that only apply to black kids? Or, can they do it if they stay in "Their neighborhood"?

 

[Landlord]

Landlord, without a doubt racism exists at an institutional level, but you have to wonder how much of that can be controlled. Because you've been looking at this issue for some time, you must be aware of the Implicit Association Test (IAT), which tests our implicit preferences (race being just one of many). Here's the link, you can go take the test: https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/selectatest.html. What the IAT attempts to assess is our snap decisions regarding--for example--behavior towards whites and blacks. It takes a lot of effort to control our snap decisions, so I'm just wondering, if you have an implicit preference towards whites over blacks, how much effort/control does it take/do you have over whether you engage in these subtle acts of discrimination. And if a majority of people engage in these subtle acts of discrimination, do they add up to create a much worse, yet still uncontrollable situation?

I love these types of test. Absolutely fascinating stuff, and I think the last time someone did a big study out of one, they found that police officers, on average, are actually a bit better than average citizens as far as having lower implicit bias in quick situations based on skin color, but the bias does exist.

It's really not even an indictment on police, or on citizens, that that's a thing. People are a product of their environments. I have tons of implicit bias that I probably don't even realize. I don't think the Oscar voters purposefully get together and say, "We need to make sure we keep all the blacks out of here by not voting for them", but it's hard to believe someone can honestly say there have only been 34 minority Oscar worthy performances in the history of the event.

I only think the indictment comes if we don't recognize, acknowledge, and try taking steps to eliminate it, and even moreso when people actively try to hold onto the belief that it doesn't exist. That's extremely disrespectful to hear someone that has different color skin than me explain to me, "Hey. This is what I have experienced and found to be real in my life." and for me to be audacious enough to tell them that isn't true.

 

[HuskerNBigD]

So...black kids can't congregate at a public pool for an end of the school year fun day? Does that only apply to black kids? Or, can they do it if they stay in "Their neighborhood"?

It wasn't a public pool...

 

[BigRedBuster]

So...black kids can't congregate at a public pool for an end of the school year fun day? Does that only apply to black kids? Or, can they do it if they stay in "Their neighborhood"?

It wasn't a public pool...

And, I read where they had $15 guest passes to have access to the pool. Or, are those passes just for white kids?

 

[HuskerNBigD]

So...black kids can't congregate at a public pool for an end of the school year fun day? Does that only apply to black kids? Or, can they do it if they stay in "Their neighborhood"?

It wasn't a public pool...

And, I read where they had $15 guest passes to have access to the pool. Or, are those passes just for white kids?

Read whatever the hell you want my man; you're still misinformed. The Craig Ranch HOA did not authorize the DJ to be there and he was one of the first sending out the tweets and fliers about a $15 cover. Just some guy trying to push his music illegally, by getting kids to pay to show up. But yeah, only the black kids... Good god give it a rest.

 

[ZRod]

So...black kids can't congregate at a public pool for an end of the school year fun day? Does that only apply to black kids? Or, can they do it if they stay in "Their neighborhood"?

It wasn't a public pool...

And, I read where they had $15 guest passes to have access to the pool. Or, are those passes just for white kids?

Read whatever the hell you want my man; you're still misinformed. The Craig Ranch HOA did not authorize the DJ to be there and he was one of the first sending out the tweets and fliers about a $15 cover. Just some guy trying to push his music illegally, by getting kids to pay to show up. But yeah, only the black kids... Good god give it a rest.

Look who the only people detained, chased down, and cuffed were...

 

[Minnesota_husker]

I tend to usually side with the police, but in this situation that officer should be fired.

The kids were not listening, and were acting like pricks.. but they are kids. You need to be a bigger man in that situation..

I understand you need to listen to the police, and ya, that girl probably deserves to have her head slammed in the sidewalk, but that isnt the police's job. That guy seemed like a power hungry prick. The two other officers there seemed fine, just that one.

The kids really didnt pose much of a threat other than being a-holes.

 

[Scratchtown]

I tend to usually side with the police, but in this situation that officer should be fired.

The kids were not listening, and were acting like pricks.. but they are kids. You need to be a bigger man in that situation..

I understand you need to listen to the police, and ya, that girl probably deserves to have her head slammed in the sidewalk, but that isnt the police's job. That guy seemed like a power hungry prick. The two other officers there seemed fine, just that one.

The kids really didnt pose much of a threat other than being a-holes.

You can't know that. I understand what you are saying but one can't go in assuming they have pillows in an escalated situation.