Sunday, November 30, 2014
Nah, we don't have a race problem in this country.
African-American man stopped by Michigan cop for walking with his hands in his pockets
African-American man, out for a walk on a cold Michigan day, was stopped by police after a caller reported that he looked suspicious because he had his hands in his pockets.
Brandon B. Waxx McKean posted video on his Facebook page showing his encounter with a police officer who briefly detained him on Thanksgiving day while he was out for a stroll.
In the video the officer can be seen radioing in, asking dispatch to close out a contact file, before explaining to McKean that he was stopped because he was “making people nervous.”
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19 comments:
Somebody called the cops because they saw a guy walking with his hands in his pockets? This is madness.
In the video even the cop seems to kind of realize how stupid the whole thing is. The police employee who took the call should have just told the caller not to waste police time with such nonsense.
Nonsense, yes. But it's common in the lives of African-Americans in this country. Remember Henry Louis Gates being arrested in his own home because he got angry at a Cambridge policeman for not believing he was trying to get into his own home?
There isn't one African-American man or young man that I know who doesn't have similar stories. This happens all the time.
Eric Holder, the attorney general of the U.S., told the story of how, when he was a young attorney for the U.S. government and living in Georgetown, he and his cousin were running down the street because they were going to be late for a movie both wanted to see. They were stopped and detained by Georgetown police. Why? Because they were two black men running. The police questioned them on why they were running.
I wonder how many white men who walk down the street for a stroll after Thanksgiving dinner get reported because they make people "nervous?" Or get stopped for running to a movie theater?
White privilege never questions why this happens to black people and not them. Why? White privilege.
There is no rational explanation for the unfounded fears people have over race.
In all reality people are people, the color of their skin is indicative only of pigmentation differences. No BFD.
People of reason unite.
Oh, I'm well aware that black people are subject to all kinds of harassment that white people don't experience, and often don't even know about unless they've had black people explain it to them (as I have). But thinking hands in the pockets on a cold day is suspicious is a new one. Most likely the caller just didn't think a black guy belonged in that part of town at all, and seized on something meaningless as grounds for calling the police and making a fuss about it.
We must shed our acquired sophistication, our beetle-shelled cynicism, and above all our Vanity, Conceit and Self-Centeredness in order to render ourselves as open –– and as credulous –– as a little child, if we are to receive the ever present Gift of Divine Love
In other words, let's become stupid so we can believe stupid things!
Anon @11:16 privilege doesn't know it is privileged.
Ann A. I don't care to talk about granfaloons and their foma. It's a waste of time.
RN, have you ever been to those blogs that consistently denigrate other races? They're all over the internet. Take a peek and see what the pit of hell, if it were real, would sound like.
Infidel753, yes, that's probably what precipitated the call. Not so different from the time someone saw Henry Louis Gates at his own front door and called the police because: BLACK MAN!
That lovely call to the love of God belies the fact that the same sort of people who hide behind a god's love routinely slander others of a political persuasion they do not care for and who choose pornographers and racists as their dear friends.
Go figure.
Like other truly talented phonies, Thomas Sowell concentrates his skills on the effect of his words on other people — most of whom do not have the time nor the brains to become knowledgeable about the things he writes about.
Whether what he writes bears any relationship tofacts is politically irrelevant. A talented con man, or a slick political writer, does not waste his time trying to convince knowledgeable skeptics. His job is to keep the true believers believing. And Sowell does his job perfectly, since his true believers never fail to quote him.
Yes Shaw I have visited 3 or 4, made me want t vomit. I do not look for these degenerative sites nor will I stay longer than the time it takes to recognize a site as such. People who run sites like that as well as those who visit and see nothing wrong with them are scrum.
Wow Ann... I must have really pissed them off... right before I took a vow of silence in regards to their comment pages.
I still read the posts, if only to keep up with what I believe the extreme right holds dear.
Sadly, there are some at a few of those pages who i would love to get to know and maybe even have as friends, but they are few and far between.
I don't think we all need to believe the same things, or walk in lock step, but we do need some civility.
Hope ya'll had a great Thanksgiving...
"Whatever is popular is wrong,"
~ Oscar Wilde.
Ronald Reagan was a popular president.
Many of his policies were not. He was popular because of his personality and folksy demeanour.
That and the economic expansion he presided over.
How about the cops who put their own lives the line everyday . Not knowing that even a routine traffic stop can get them killed
That is what they face every day too
Actually, Anonymousviolence against police has decreased, while violence against people of color has increased.
From a USAToday report in 2009:
"The number of officers who died in the line of duty was the lowest in 50 years.
The non-profit group reports that 124 law enforcement officers died in the line of duty this year [2009], down 7% from last year and the lowest number since 1959.
"When you consider there are three times the number of officers serving today … that makes the numbers even more favorable," Floyd says."
While we understand that police put their lives on the line and that most police officers do not kill unarmed Americans, we also understand that they take an oath to preserve and protect, not shoot unarmed Americans just because they think they look like "thugs" or "demons."
If a man or woman is afraid of African-American boys and men, they should find other employment.
Just recently, a 12 year old child who was playing with a toy gun was shoot dead within 2 seconds of the police officer encountering him on a play ground. You can google that to see that there is a huge problem when police feel threatened by a 12 year old American child playing with a gun.
I don't think the cop is the problem in this particular case, Shaw.
He had to respond to the call and he handled it fairly well.
The problem s the caller who felt there was something "strange" about a man in the cold with his hands in his pockets.
Like the 911 caller in the Walmart shooting who basically lied about the victim threatening customers with a gun.
Also interesting is statistics indicate the "sovereign citizen" (i.e. Cliven Bundy loon) like the one who tried to shoot up Austin the other day is the greatest threat to police. I believe a homeland security memo to that effect caused a s*** storm on Faux Snooze.
Did you see that kid and the gun?
It did not look likd a little kid playing with a toy gun . He was in a public place and someone ,I assume another black person called the cops
Here's a report of an off-duty policeman killed while trying to stop the robbery of his own car. Killed. Why? A white cop saw him in civilian clothes apprehending the car thief, and shot the black cop dead. In the back.
"A September report by the Sentencing Project found that “white Americans overestimate the proportion of crime committed by people of color, and associate people of color with criminality.” For some crimes, the overestimation was “by 20-30 percent.”
This is particularly significant in light of the fact that Americans overestimate the presence of crime in general. As a Gallup report pointed out recently: “For more than a decade, Gallup has found the majority of Americans believing crime is up, although actual crime statistics have largely shown the crime rate continuing to come down from the highs in the 1990s and earlier.”
If we continue to think that crime is up, data be damned, and we associate people of color with that crime, of course our concepts of guilt, innocence, veracity and compassion in encounters between police and people of color will be affected." --Charles Blow
oh man this is just so out of control. I agree that the wingnuts are fanning the flames.. I hate what our country has become since the TeaPublicans have taken over the GOP. They turned the GOP into a joke.
You see the disrespect towards the president and his family because these jerks know all they have to do is be able to fire up the Stupids in their base and their bloggers will slime Obama and his family.
I find it pretty amazing that the GOoPERS aren't talking about the shootings that killed a 12-year old on a play ground and another young kid in the stairwell of his building, minding his own business. But those are black lives, so why should they care?
Where is their biggest loud mouth Ted Crude on that? It’s all political with them. The TeaPublicans don’t care about people at all. They make it so obvious.
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