Gunfight at the O.K. CorralFollow

Uh huh.

Hey, I'm not the one insisting that black men are more likely to look like thugs or furtively skulk around your fences. That's your argument, bub.

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Gbaji wrote:

Yes. I'm aware of that. But that doesn't change the facts of what I'm talking about. You're zeroing in on one thing that you want to argue about (cause I happened to mention hip hop, so that's apparently the entire issue now), while ignoring the whole. You can bury your head in the PC sand all you want, but the reality is that black males exhibit behavior that is more likely to be seen as potentially criminal by a police officer walking by at a much higher rate than white males do.

When I want to have a discussion on defining the root of the problem at a high level, you complain that I need to discuss specifics. When I point out a specific fault, you accuse me of "zeroing in one thing". You have no intention of actually discussing the problem with solutions.

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Gbaji wrote:

Heck. We saw this with the Treyvon Martin case. Desperate attempts (including an FCC violating edit to the police call by a major network) to make it entirely about race aside, the fact is that Zimmerman called the police, not because of Martin's skin color (which he could not see and did not know when he made the call), but because of his behavior. Walking down the street, meandering from one back yard fence to the next, and looking over said fences, is going to be viewed by an observer as someone looking in peoples yards for something to steal. Period. Any objective person would make that assumption.

Funny how I corner you in a discussion, you stop responding, only to bring up the exact points in another discussion.

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Gbaji wrote:

I guess the problem I have with this entire issue is the sheer lengths people seem to be willing to go to protect the PC viewpoint on this. I mean, Martin? We could make some valid arguments about that. But Brown? Seriously? Guy's walking down the middle of the street, with stuff he just stole from a convenience store a few minutes earlier in his hands, and we're still going to put him in the stat category of "police unfairly profiling young black men"? You're kidding right? At what point is it ok for a police officer to stop a black man in your eyes then? Ever?

The complaint wasn't that the police pulled Brown over, it was the handling of the case. This only further proves the point that you don't understand the concern and you're still not differentiating personal actions from systemic problems.

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Gbaji wrote:

The behavior only has to be suspicious to draw attention.

So, does this include historical behavioral problems of the police? You point out the behavioral issues of Brown and Martin, but completely disregard the recorded behavioral problems of their killers.

Innocent until proven guilty, unless you're black and "look suspicious" to a middle aged suburban white guy.

Anyway, this is happening now. I'm sure the U.S. Dept. of Justice really meant to say "suspicious gangster-style fence meandering" not "race."

That's the liberal media for you...

Edited, Aug 10th 2016 9:07am by someproteinguy

Apparently some guy went all Oscar Pistorius on his 11 year old daughter.

Been quite a few stories recently about gun owners getting scared and shooting unarmed people, be in in their car in the streets, or who knocked on their door by accident while drunk, or when their daughter comes home and scares them...

Edited, Aug 10th 2016 7:58pm by TirithRR

Totally unavoidable and acceptable..

I have never once ignored the possibility of police bigotry. I have, in fact, stated several times that out of any sufficiently large group, you're going to find some bigots. What I have said, repeatedly, is that the impact of bigotry among police is a very very small amount, while the impact of black poverty is massive. We're focusing on something that is maybe 1% of the problem, while ignoring the part that is the other 99%.

In today's world, where we are hyper vigilant about anything that even remotely wiffs of racism, it seems incredibly unlikely that there's more than a tiny percentage of racially bigoted cops still working, and their ability to actually take actions which may cause such a large statistical difference? The math just doesn't add up. You'd have to assume this massive conspiracy by police which has somehow managed to take continuous and statistically large racist actions to negatively impact black people, while managing to avoid a corresponding public reveal of their motivations? How do you think this even works? They all just silently engage in constant racist activity, but never talk about it, even among themselves? All the black and latino cops are apparently in on it too?

At some point, you must reject this absurd notion and maybe look elsewhere. Just a thought.



I'm not blind to that possibility. I even mentioned it earlier. Heck. I've written whole diatribes about the possibility that at least some of the motivation behind our modern welfare state was to intentionally trap as many blacks in a condition of poverty as possible, and maximize the odds that their children will also grow up and remain in poverty. But it's not the police engaging in redlining practices. It's not the police pressuring blacks to stay in "black neighborhoods" or to support "the black community". It's not the police rigging housing assistance regulations so as to force so many black poor to live in areas that are effectively job deserts.

The police are the poor dumb saps who have to police those neighborhoods. They didn't create them.



A personal attack? Color me shocked!

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Gbaji wrote:

Because when you talk in broad terms, they are so vague as to be meaningless and you fail to actually make anything remotely close to a point, or an argument to support that point. And when you zero in on something, it's invariably something tangential to the subject being discussed, and often serves the purpose of actually avoiding a point that I made. Like, for example, me very clearly stating that police are looking at both body and verbal language when determining if someone's behavior is suspicious, but because I also happened to mention hip-hop culture in the same post, you chose to go off on some strange tangent about the police targeting people based on the clothes they wear.

Again, despite me very very clearly saying it was about body language and verbal language. Not clothing. Not hairstyle. Not skin color. I'm fine discussing specifics, as long as you actually discuss the specifics that are relevant.

Gbaji wrote:

You get that the only way the stats can change is if people actually apply racial bias to their actions and deliberately avoid interacting with black men. Is that *really* what you think we should be doing? The cops should just no longer patrol black neighborhoods? No longer pull over any person who is black, no matter what they are doing? No longer make any effort to chase down a suspect if that suspect is black? Cause that's the only way you're going to significantly reduce the rate at which black men are harmed or killed by police. I think that's stupid, but if that's what you want, then that's on you.

Unless you have some other suggestion about what these police officers could have done differently? Feel free to share with the group.

How can you provide specific solutions to a category of a problem, if you don't acknowledge that the category even exist? I'm simply asking you to acknowledge that the category exists. If you can't do that, then you will never provide a solution to a more specific problem under that category.

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Gbaji wrote:

Funny how I don't recall you cornering me in a discussion. And I certainly have no clue how this constitutes any sort of response to what I posted and you quoted. So... Huh?

During our discussion when Zimmerman got off, you contradicted yourself on who initiated the situation. It constitutes as a response to only demonstrate that you have no desire to talk the issues. If you were serious about the topic, you wouldn't ignore my posts, only to pick up where you left off in another discussion. Then you somehow get upset about me saying "see post xx".

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Gbaji wrote:

You have an incredibly subjective memory. There was a huge uproar over the issue of why Brown was stopped in the first place, whether the officer recognized him as a suspect in the robbery, or not, etc. The original claim was that the officer stopped Brown for "no reason at all" (ie: walking while black), attacked him (not the other way around as we now know), and then when Brown ran away, pursued him until Brown surrendered with his hands up in the air, then the officer shot him in cold blood.

That was the BS story that was thrown to the public's consumption, absent any facts at all. A big lie told by his friend, and to which the media and the race peddlers were more than willing to jump right on. And they took that lie and pushed it, and pushed it, and generated outrage, which lead to anger, which lead to rioting. All because no one was wiling to actually wait for the facts to be known. Rush to judgement is the common theme to all of these cases. Then, when the facts are known, it's already too late. Those who have already become outraged, and may even have spoken out publicly about it, very very rarely going to just go "Oh. We got it wrong. Sorry". Nope. They change the subject. They insist that the cops still could or should have done something different. All the time, refusing to acknowledge their own role in creating chaos.

There was nothing wrong with the handling of the case. It's police policy not to provide public details of an ongoing investigation. You know, because they don't want people rushing to judgement based on false or incorrect information they may provide. The media, of course, doesn't seem to mind doing this, and will report on any rumor that sound juicy. Which is how public perception of these events become so twisted around.

Given that you don't actually follow the news, I will go out on a limb and say that I was following this much more closely than you. You are simply nit-picking things that support your narrative; however, the overall concern was the process; hence "Black Lives Matter".

Spoiler

Gbaji wrote:

That... doesn't even make any sense.

Gbaji wrote:

I'm sorry. Exactly which recorded behaviors of Zimmerman or Wilson are you claiming I've disregarded? I've discussed, at length, the actions both men took, and have concluded that there's little they could have done differently to change the outcome. Unless you're arguing that a private citizen on watch is no longer allowed to even approach and speak to a person if that person is black, or that a police officer is no longer allowed to even just speak through his window with a person who is walking down the middle of the street holding stolen goods (again, apparently only if that person is black).

For example, how does the fact that Brown robbed a store before his encounter with Officer Wilson matter, but not the fact that Officer Wilson was kicked out from his previous police department for being unfit?

What "category" are you talking about? This is what I mean. You're so vague with your comments that I have to guess what the heck you're saying. You accuse me of failing to acknowledge a category, but I don't know what context you mean this in, nor what category you want me to acknowledge.



Huh? I was very specific. I went step by step through the timeline of events. Your problem is that you repeatedly failed to grasp that the action of Zimmerman pursuing Martin through the complex is separate from the action of Martin attacking Zimmerman. Zimmerman "initiated" a completely lawful and reasonable action. Martin "initiated" the violent confrontation. You seem to be under the impression that because Zimmerman pursued Martin this somehow made Martin's decision to attack Zimmerman justified. Guess what? The law, and common sense, both disagree with you.



Yeah. Because I have no clue what you're talking about when you do that. You repeatedly lurch from one thought to the next, and rapidly change the subject when it's inconvenient to keep talking about the current one. Like here, where you drop in some alleged inconsistency, not in the events of the Martin shooting, but in my statements about the events? How is that relevant?

My comments from 3 years ago aren't really part of the discussion. The pattern of public outraged fueled by leaps to false conclusion that are sold to the public as fact is. That's why I brought up that old case. You, apparently, failed to understand this.



I'll note that this response doesn't actually include any sort of statement disproving my claim. The fact is that a large portion of the initial outrage was based on false assumptions about the reason Brown was stopped, the actions that occurred after he was stopped, and the actions leading up to him being shot. All of which, turned out to be incorrect after the fact.



Wow. Really? Um... When you're trying the case, absent facts, in the court of public opinion, and one of your primary and first claims is about how Brown was such a good boy, headed to college, and clearly couldn't have done anything that might have justified the shooting, the fact that he had just committed a strong arm robbery just minutes before the altercation is pretty darn significant. Surely you can see this?

Wilson's previous employment had nothing at all to do with it. You're grasping at straws here. His personal record showed no problems. But this is kind of the point. From the moment of the shooting, the entire focus was on the officer and not on the actions of the person who was shot, and the specifics of the encounter that lead to the shot. You're trying to make it about the people, and not the actions those people engaged in. But no sane legal system can work that way. Which is why trying to do this leads to pissed off people and rioting.



Oh. I'll also point out that Milwaukee is proving my point for me right now. Care to explain how any of the rioting going on right now is even remotely justified? It's pretty clear that this is not about the actions taken and even an attempt to determine if they were justified, but just about agitating anytime a black person is shot by a cop. Which leads us back to the problem I mentioned in my earlier post. This approach just doesn't work. Unless the police simply stop policing at all in black neighborhoods, there's no way to "fix" this problem via changes in police actions. The bar for outrage is now set so low that the cops literally cannot do their jobs without prompting riots.

Is that really what you think we should be doing? Where's BLM telling everyone to stand down because this doesn't look like a case of unjustified shooting? Heck. Just telling people to wait until the facts are known? They don't want the facts. They want the violence. Can't you see this?




[/quote]

I'm not going to argue with you about what we're arguing about. That's just silly. Stick to the topic.



Wait? You're making me read a years old thread, where it looks like you responded to a post I wrote about school vouchers with a completely out of topic screed alleging some kind of inconsistency in my statements about the Martin shooting? You get that this is just supporting my point about how you ramble around, lurching from point to point, and constantly changing the topic, right?

I don't have an issue with you quoting me and then responding to the thing I was talking about. But you have this bizarre habit of quoting a very broad line from me (like "You should really have started a separate thread for this Alma. But I'll pay anyway! ;)"), but then talking about something completely different. This creates a disconnect since I have no clue what you're talking about when you respond. You did it there, and now you're referencing you doing it to do it yet again.

if you have a specific claim that I was inconsistent in something I wrote, then quote the actual things I wrote that you think are inconsistent and then respond to them. You're not doing this. You just quote some random thing I wrote, then declare some other thing I wrote to be inconsistent. Which makes it kinda hard to follow.

But, and I'm dreading even starting down this trail, if you want a response, you're still conflating multiple things and apparently unable to see how different reactions occur as a result of different things.

1. Zimmerman first action was to place a call to police after seeing what he believed was suspicious behavior by Martin.
2. Martin's first action (involving Zimmerman) was when he saw Zimmerman talking on the phone in his car and chose to run from him.
3. Zimmerman responded to that action by pursuing Martin.
4. Zimmerman lost sight of Martin and began heading back to his car.
5. Martin attacked Zimmerman at some point after that.


Each of these actions and reactions needs to be examined on their own. The point I consistently made through all my arguments was that the first illegal act was taken by Martin when he attacked Zimmerman. None of the known actions by Zimmerman can be seen as a lawful justification for Martin's decision to attack. But, when I made these points back then, you keep meandering back and forth between the fight and the phone call and Zimmerman getting out of his car. None of those earlier actions justify Martin's later action. I was *very* consistent about this.

It's like you want to argue every single thing except the point. The point isn't even about Martin and Zimmerman. Again, I brought that case only to show the pattern of public outrage being generated based on horribly incorrect (or sometimes just outright false) information being reported on these cases well before the actual facts are known. It's startling just how consistently the events which have resulted in the most outrage and the most rioting and the most violence have been the ones where the facts were the least accurate.

Which is a pattern one might just want to pay attention to.



Repeating a statement doesn't make it any more true, or relevant. I'll ask you again: What part of the process was so horribly handled in the Brown shooting? What do you think they should have done differently?



Yeah. Kinda easy to read between the lines there though. And it's a lot of politics, and frankly another point I've been kinda holding off making (since it's just another thing really). It seems as though many of these cities with heavily black urban neighborhoods have made an effort to change their police forces so as to be more diverse. They've done this specifically to try to avoid the narrative of "white cops patrolling black neighborhoods", presumably to decrease the likelihood of charges of racial profiling and whatnot. This is presumably why Wilson's former department was disbanded (presumably re-organized and absorbed into other departments, since it's not like no one's covering the same area anymore).

What's interesting is that as city managers have moved to do this, in direct response to very kinds of allegations we're talking about, it does not seem to have made things better, but instead has caused things to get worse. So the question is: Have things actually gotten worse, or have the political factions who demanded and go such changes become emboldened to demand even more and thus need to keep lowering the bar for "outrage" in order to achieve it? Cause that's sure what this looks like. The case in Milwaukee is a perfect example of this. A department that has taken all the right steps. They've implemented all of the changes that BLM (and other groups) have demanded. They've diversified their police force. They've implemented training courses. They've installed body cameras. Yet, despite this, and despite what appears to be an absolutely clean shoot, we not only got riots, we got them faster than ever before.

Is this really about black lives anymore? Or about perpetuating the perception of the problem out of a need to institutionalize those leading the political charge for a "solution"?



Huh? So you acknowledge that the rioting isn't justified, but I'm still wrong somehow? I'm not sure what you're trying to say. My main argument is that there's a faction in our politics that wants the violence and the rioting (we can speculate about reasons), and thus will deliberately create them, even when the circumstances don't warrant it. And that's certainly what appears to be going on in Milwaukee right now. There is *zero* reason for rioting. There's zero reason for peaceful protests. There's nothing to protest.

It does not appear to be about black lives anymore, or about bad police actions. It's about rioting in order to create some kind of very loud and very angry platform. But what is the message? I guess that's the issue I've been having all along. BLM seems to love to use any opportunity they can to make people angry about things, but doesn't seem to have any intention of using those people for anything productive. They just mobilize them in yet another and even more angry protest. Demanding "something" isn't terribly useful. It honestly doesn't seem like they want anything other than more violence.

But hey. That's just my opinion. I'm sure you see them as shining beacons of civility and justice, fighting for a better tomorrow or something. Me? I just don't see it.

Edited, Aug 15th 2016 4:44pm by gbaji

Let's pretend for the moment that I don't spend more than a tiny fraction of my time thinking about this subject and that I have no clue what "category" you're claiming I'm refusing to accept. Please tell me what category I'm not accepting and we can go from there. I'm quite sure I already asked you this just a few posts ago, and all you did was repeat the claim. I'll ask again: What is it you think I'm ignoring?



I'm not going to reopen a 3 year old thread Alma. You're the one who freaking linked to it and went off on said tangent, not me. You're also the one who injected some claim that I was inconsistent with some comment or other I made 3 years ago in that thread. See above about me not having a clue what the heck you're talking about.

I'll say this again: I only referenced the Martin shooting as another example of a public leap to judgement prior to knowing the facts. I was not in any way attempting to dredge up random comments or disagreements we may have had in a 3 year old thread on the topic, and I'm not sure how you stamping your feet and complaining because you don't think I adequately responded to something you said back then in any way constitutes a response to something I just said right now on this thread.

That's called "going off on a tangent".



I can't ignore a point that was never made. If you think I'm ignoring something, it's usually because I don't have a clue what you're talking about because you seem to go out of your way to be vague. You respond to a statement I make with something else totally unrelated. You reference past posts, that don't appear to have anything to do with the current one. Then you sit back and insist that I'm ignoring you when I ask you to clarify what exactly it is you're talking about. See how that's a problem? Focus your mind. You wander all over the place.



Uh... What? The riots in Ferguson occurred well before there could have been a prosecutor assigned to anything related to the shooting. Who was this prosecutor you're talking about? The police do an investigation of all shootings. Typically some kind of IA investigation occurs as well. In high profile shootings an FBI investigation will occur as well. Prosecutors aren't involved until much later.

The reality is that the shooting of Brown was justified. Period. People rioted, not because the cop did something wrong, but because they believed a lie told about what happened. And after having expended so much effort protesting and rioting, they just couldn't accept that they were wrong. So they cast about looking for other things semi-related to the shooting to complain about. Which is basically what you're doing now.

So the result of the investigation was correct, but you're still upset because of... some procedural thing involving a prosecutor? That makes no sense. And no, people weren't rioting because of that. They rioted because of "hands up, don't shoot". They rioted because they were told a lie about what happened. Period. Stop trying to spin this into anything other than people rushing to judgement and then being horribly wrong. Not just once, but over and over and over.



I did. I also understood what I was reading, and applied it to the broader context of this issue. You did not.



Does the state of Black America justify the rioting in Milwaukee? It's funny because it's like you just can't say (write) the words: "The riots in Milwaukee are unjustified". It's like you're so stuck in an "us vs them" mindset that you see any condemnation of any action taken by those on your "side" (no matter how ill conceived or counter productive) as a retreat from a position you hold.

You can simultaneously condemn the violence we keep seeing from these events and support the cause of improving the condition of blacks in the US. In fact, I think that the hesitancy to do this is part of the problem. It makes those who engage in violence think that they're helping. They're not. But as long as prominent black leaders and blacks as a whole fail to roundly condemn these sorts of things, it's just going to get worse. And any hope of moving forward with actual solutions and improvements of the black condition will be stalled.

And this is why I have an issue with BLM. They don't seem to want solutions. They just want to stir the pot.

I'm waaaayyy ahead of ya.