You see something absurd. You hear something absurd. You read something absurd = Yeah,TNTG. Posts tagged police.
“ Rather than viewing lynching as a frenzied abnormality, historians in recent years have sought to understand it as a tradition, a systematized reign of terror that was used to keep Blacks fearful and to forestall Black progress and miscegenation. The effect of the peculiar institution of slavery on Black Americans is well documented, but the institution less so, yet it was for many decades an awesome destructive power, murderous to some, menacing to a great many, a constant source of intimidation to all Black Southerners young and old and a daily reminder of their defenselessness.
Is it possible for white America to really understand Blacks’ distrust of the legal system, their fears of racial profiling and the police, without understanding how cheap a Black life was for so long a time in our nation’s history?
Is it possible for white America to really understand Blacks’ distrust of the legal system, their fears of racial profiling and the police, without understanding how cheap a Black life was for so long a time in our nation’s history?
—
Philip Dray, At the Hands of Persons Unknown: The Lynching of Black America
(via wretchedoftheearth)
CodeLens Note: Lynchings occurred throughout the US, not just in the southern area of the so-called United States and lynchings occur now under the guise of so-called laws, such as “stand your ground”, designed to target black persons, particularly black males.
(via codelens)
“Bryan Stevenson: We Need To Talk About An Injustice” - TEDTalk
“How many people of color have to be killed by cops before you hate the state?!”
“No more police brutality” is written in his confiscated picket!
The Scars of Stop-and-Frisk: A short documentary film on New York’s stop-and-frisk policing focuses on Tyquan Brehon, a young man in Brooklyn who says he was stopped more than 60 times before age 18.
Aversive Racism and Police Violence. A cartoon by the sometimes controversial Kirk Anderson highlights the circular thinking that can lie behind race-based prejudice and violence. KIRK ANDERSON.
This keeps happening over, and over, and over.
“ Racism in America’s police force is linked to their role as keepers of the status quo in an unequal society. They enforce laws written by politicians on behalf of the wealthy — laws that end up trapping poor and working-class people in desperate lives. Racial and sexual minorities, legal and illegal immigrants are seen as threats to the social order. When we protest the law and “occupy” a space we are beaten and arrested. When we commit a crime to “get some” we are beaten and arrested. And when we do neither but simply live we’re busted to make a cop’s stop-and-frisk quota.
— ‘They Think We Are Animals’: How America’s Police State Controls Black People | Nick Powers - Alternet (via newwavefeminism)
“Cop runs license check on a suspicious vehicle. Although they apparently committed no traffic violation, cop insists that his decision to run a check had nothing to do with the fact that the occupants were black, and happened to be driving in an affluent, predominately white neighborhood. The cop’s partner apparently then enters the wrong license number, which returns a car that had been reported stolen. So cop follows car into driveway, which happens to be the home of the driver’s parents, where he lives. Cop approaches driver and occupant with his gun drawn. Driver’s parents come out to see what’s causing the commotion. Cop roughs up driver’s mother. Driver gets up from ground to tell cop to lay off of his mother. Cop shoots driver, a full 32 seconds after pulling into the driveway. The driver, who was unarmed, will now carry a bullet in his liver for the rest of his life. The cop was charged with first degree aggravated assault. A jury acquitted him. Now this week, U.S. District Judge Melinda Harmon dismissed the driver’s lawsuit against both the cop that fired his gun and the cop who entered the wrong license plate number, citing qualified immunity. According to Harmon, the officer acted “reasonably,” and moreover, wrongly accusing an unarmed man of stealing a car, pointing a gun at him, then shooting him in the liver, “did not violate [his] constitutional rights.” Both cops are back on the force. The guy with the bullet in his liver? Tough luck. He’ll be paying his own medical bills.”
— Radley Balko, via Coyote (via econarchy)
