Posted on 05/02/2015 11:58:35 PM PDT by Uhhh
Over the past 24 hours, the Internet has exploded with commentary and armchair analysis on the riots in Baltimore. The civil unrest started just hours after the funeral of Freddie Gray, a citizen whose spinal cord was injured “mysteriously” while in the back of a police van.
Gray, an African American, died on April 19.
At a press conference on Friday, BPD Commissioner Anthony Batts admitted at least one glaring failure of his department: that Gray did not get the medical care he ought to have received while in police custody.
Batts, a self-described reformist, forcefully asserted that he’s doing his best to work against a police culture in a city rife with problems. Even Baltimore’s mayor has called interactions between residents and police a “broken relationship.” Despite calls for his resignation, Batts insisted that he was staying. He was there to change things, because things desperately need to be changed.
Late last year, the The Baltimore Sun reported that the police department there had settled $5.7 million worth of claims since 2011 in cases involving over 100 people who alleged excessive force or brutality at the hands of police. Many of the cops involved faced no real consequences: “Department officials said some officers were exonerated in internal force investigations,” writes Mark Puente, “even though jurors and the city awarded thousands of dollars to battered residents in those incidents.”
In other words, there is a serious problem in Baltimore, and it’s an example of the problems endemic in American policing overall. Endemic is the right word, too. Based upon the evidence available to us, these aren’t isolated incidents. Over the past year alone, we’ve seen or read about: a man, who later died, being strangled by police on camera; a man being shot to death in the back by a police officer; a teenager being shot to death by a police officer; and, now, Freddie Gray, a man who suffered a fatal spinal cord injury while in police custody.
All of those men were unarmed. They were all people of color, too. They’re not the only ones, either: People of color are disproportionately, and regularly, killed by police. And The Nation explains that, thanks to the way the system is set up, it’s basically “impossible” to indict a cop for killing someone.
It’s clear that there exists a problem between American police and people of color specifically. That remains true even when people of color are in authority. Here in Philadelphia, we currently have a black mayor and police commissioner, just like Baltimore. Before marijuana decriminalization late last year, though, we Philadelphians were arresting people of color at a rate four to five times that of whites for the same crimes.
Philadelphia isn’t an outlier. Following the Ferguson protests last year, USA Today looked into arrest data nationwide. “At least 70 departments scattered from Connecticut to California,” writes Brad Heath, “arrested black people at a rate 10 times higher than people who are not black.” Overall, a “staggering disparity” exists between whites and blacks in terms of custodial arrests.
Now, some white people are going to say that this data exists because black people commit more crime. But The Washington Post reported in December that whites typically overestimate and inflate the percentage of crime committed by African Americans. In fact, part of the reason whites do think this way is likely attributable to those institutional arrest disparities in the first place, explains The New York Times‘ Charles Blow.
So: Legal and civil means for dealing with this situation have not satisfactorily resolved the problem. Why are we surprised when people who fear for their lives get angry and interfere with social order? Even America’s patron saint of peaceful resistance, Martin Luther King, Jr., talked specifically about rioting and disruptions as an understandable component of social change. When the terms of how to “acceptably” change things are dictated by people who are the root cause of the problem — people in authority — then the “acceptable” or “legal” or “civil” ways to change things are, in fact, frequently oppressive.
It’s the same reason LGBT people rioted repeatedly in the 20th century, often in response to police brutality or failures of the legal system rooted in homophobia and bigotry.
Which brings us to the point of this post.
Over the past 24 hours, I have witnessed a wide array of responses to the rioting that took place in Baltimore following Gray’s funeral. Many white people responding to the riots in Baltimore are either ignorant or outright racist.
First, given all aforementioned issues surrounding arrest disparities, police brutality, and nothing being done to stop it, there is a reason for people to be angry. This is an issue that demands redress. Anyone claiming it is not an issue, that “black people should stop committing crimes,” is either ignorant of all the facts I just outlined, or they simply don’t care — and whether it’s ignorance or callousness that leads them to whimsically dismiss the concerns of people of color, that dismissal amounts to racism.
Second, I have seen many people bemoan the riots in Baltimore as their first foray into social commentary. Prior to this, many of them said nothing about Freddie Gray, his spinal cord being severed, or his untimely death immediately following being in police custody. In other words, only when people of color are behaving “badly” do these armchair analysts feel moved to opine about the state of American policing. If they said nothing about Freddie Gray yet are bloviating about the riots that happened in direct response to Gray’s death, then guess what: They are racist, whether consciously or not, looking for an excuse to characterize people of color as lazy criminals.
Third, many white people have been inclined to call people of color “animals” or “thugs” in the past day. But in fact, all human beings are human beings. The words “animals” and “thugs” are often used as code — as a dog whistle in place of arguably the most offensive word in American English. Even Questlove pointed this out on Twitter. Ironically, white people who chomp at the bit to call people of color “animals” say literally nothing whenever fellow white people riot, which happens frequently after sporting events or following pedophilia scandals.
Fourth, and lastly, a great many white liberals have clutched their pearls, first after demonstrations in Ferguson and now after the goings-on in Baltimore. Many have taken to Facebook to call for peace, saying that damaging property is a terrible thing. This is an unnecessary observation akin to “the sky is blue.” Yes, damaging property is bad. No, it does not require your observation. If you’re actually an “ally” to marginalized communities in America, don’t tell those communities how they should or should not act in response to society’s brutality or refusal to change.
We should care much more about all the innocent people getting killed by police than about property damage. Why is this confusing? We should care more about human life than about money.
If you value plate-glass windows more than you value the life of a person of color, you are being racist.
If you value plate-glass windows more than you value the life of a person of color, you are being racist.
Josh Kruger, give me all of your electronics, or you're a racist and I'll smash your windows.
And what is your opinion? Do you agree with what you posted?
Welcome to FR.
Is looting a civil right?
People of color don’t have freedom to riot and destroy anyone else’s property. JUST LIKE EVERYONE ELSE doesn’t have that right either.
They don’t have the right to attack others and they don’t have the right to terrorize others. People will rightly defend themselves and others.
You don’t get ot riot because a court ruling doesn’t go your way.
Talk about racism. Every case these people have already declared them guilty before the court case begins.
The racism is thick and heavy in the black community.
Posting and running triggers a software feature on FR. It is a special type of HARP Ozone Generator.
From the author's profile -
" Along with his column, Josh blogs daily for PW on various topics including queer culture and news, mass transit, politics, crime, drugs, HIV/AIDS, civil liberties, activism, media and everything else Philly."
Methinks he's a Tinkerbelle.
It's so easy - other "people of color" know how that works:
Keywords added.
Peruse at your leisure.
Keyword: twerkingtwerp
That’s a nice looking rifle/shotgun combo there.
Do you like kitties?
The death has to be investigated....but stealing from people who have nothing to do with Greys death is wrong. Blacks kill Blacks WAY more than the police kill Blacks. The problem isn’t the police. The problem are Blacks not caring about themselves and blaming their problems on some undefined source...acting civilly towards themselves and other races, respecting the law, educating themselves on subjects other than slavery, cursing, sex, drugs and so on.
Note to self: Should I ever start a business, install rooftop Koreans.
5.7 million in claims in four years verses how much damage in one night by your thugs ?
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