Race- Privilege, Relations, Racism, etc.

Some facts:

One article I found claimed that there are approximately 400 justified homicides by police per year. This was in 2008, and they were rising at the time.

But as this article notes, that figure (400) is based on local agencies voluntary reports to the FBI. No one keeps a definitive record. According to the same article, some independent researchers estimate that the true number is somewhat over a thousand each year.

Mother Jones investigators estimated that black people are between 2-4 times as likely to die by being shot by the Police than whites.

According to this estimate, using some of the same data as the sources above, 3 people are killed by the police each day, and roughly two of them are black.

So, whatever one's opinion of the events in Ferguson, there is obviously a problem here.

@Greenmantle: The internalized racism amongst black cops is fairly well-documented.

As that article says, it is suspicious indeed that we know the precise number of people killed by sharks in the US every year, but not the number killed by police. If the government doesn't know, it's because they don't want to know.

So apparently the forensic evidence in the Mike Brown case supports Wilson's side of the story, and it turns out he DID kill him in self-defense.

It appears so. Greenmantle's point still stands- although it's turned around now. Just as the reality of racism in America didnt prove that the officer was guilty; his being innocent doesnt prove that there is no racism in America. The cop still shoot too many black men.

That's what I was referring to earlier. Because people have turned the case into a symbol, it doesn't matter if he's guilty or innocent. The facts of the case are irrelevant. It's not about Darren Wilson and Mike Brown, it's about racism and the relationship between minorities and police in America. That's a mixed blessing — the good part is that it means we might actually end up doing something to address the wider issue (like pushing for police to wear body cameras nationwide), but the bad part is that when the courts fail to indict Wilson because the evidence doesn't support it, the response is blind outrage because it's taken as a dismissal of the entire wider issue rather than just the specific case.

x3 Last I checked that was a pack of Blatant Lies and willful manipulation of evidence.

I don't think it's "Blind outrage" like everyone's making it seem. There is a clear reason why people are outraged. They are outraged because there are so many examples of black people (women too!) being unjustly killed by police who assumed that they were criminals, that this case was the straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak.

Being killed in general and being imprisoned in general at uneven rates and with pretty much no repercussions.

The outrage is valid and there will always be those loathsome people out their willing to use that to their advantage like inciting riots so they can loot.

It is not just that. Racial profiling in general is just out of control from and to everyone.

Yeah, like it's impossible for them to doctor the forensic evidence to support Wilson.

Can I say something really controversial here? If a African American officer shot and killed a white criminal Snoop Dogg would likely laud him a hero, and in my view rightfully so.

The real problem would be if a black cop shot a white innocent guy... Of course that wouldn't happen.

Anyway this whole situation sucks and nothing is going to become of it really, it would actually have been better if the town burned down completely because unless there is real economic pressure from this nothing is going to happen. Even with the rioting the businesses all made money from the tourism brought to the town and the damage would be covered via insurance.

Given the law of averages, that has probably happened at some point this year. But, like 99% of police shootings, nobody cares.

As tempting as it may sound, I don't think "burn it to the ground and start over" is a viable solution 99.9% of the time.

I'm still a little fuzzy on why people care about this one so much. Rodney King? Sure, absolutely, who can blame LA for going berserk over that. But the guy was coming at him with a gun. Wasn't he?

No, he was unarmed. According to witnesses he might have been trying to surrender but the officers says he was charging him when shot.

He was or they say he was? See, this is one of the reasons I keep getting confused, I keep hearing conflicting reports. This morning the assailant had a gun, then he didn't, then police cleared the officer, then the suspect was trying to surrender.

Didn't someone say about having police cameras as part of the uniform? I think some specialized police do have that and think it would be a great idea, if only to conclude the guilt or innocence of the parties involved.

Yeah, I don't think we can trust the forensics too much on this one.

Brown was also 150 feet away from Wilson when he was killed. That's quite a long distance to start a berserker charge against a dude with a gun from. The witness testimony, for the record, seems to suggest that Brown fled, Wilson shot at him and missed, Brown turned around and tried to surrender, Wilson kept shooting, and Brown started walking slowly forwards as he got filled with bullets. That, at least, seems to fit with the injury patterns and blood-spatter.

They didn't take photos because they ran out of batteries?

Police Academy called. They're suing. I'm no Andy Warhol but I'll take the job because if this medical examiner wasn't fired they ought to be.

The president of the National Bar Association, America's oldest and largest organisation of black lawyers, explains part of what was screwy about the Ferguson trial.

The New York Times, meanwhile, has a useful chart of the ways in which the trial differed from how you're supposed to run a grand jury.

edited 27th Nov '14 3:38:23 AM by Iaculus

This is what Witness 40, the one who most closely backed up Wilson's account of events, had to say. It's pretty whatthefuck.

Oh, and the Klan is apparently 'ready for war', and has been talking to Ferguson law enforcement off the record. Which may have something to do with Michael Brown Senior's church burning down on the night of the jury decision.

Well I hope the Klan do go to war. I hope they go to war and finally they can be listed as a terrorist hate group which had been a long time coming.

The KKK is little more than a racist Westboro nowadays. They're probably just bullshitting the media for publicity.

Oh, sweet mother of Odin, they weren't even pretending to make this legit, were they?

Yeah despite what people think, even in the South the Klan is not taken seriously. Occasionally they have a rally and hand out pamphlets but generally speaking they dont' do much. I wouldn't really be concerned about them.