Quote:
Originally Posted by graciegirl
It is just that so many black lives are heading toward that confrontation that saddens me. WHY? Both Garner and Brown had broken the law and both resisted arrest. PLEASE don't forget that. People who are insane are shot. Remember the young woman near the White House a few years back who tried to ram her car through the White House gates? She had her children in the car and they killed her. She was mentally ill and I couldn't tell you what color she was. That is how it IS, Blueash. People need to know WHEN to STOP. Stop means stop and messing with an armed police officer could get you very dead. THE LAW HAS to be respected. I don't think Garner or Brown had anything to do with RACE.
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Gracie, I think you are sweet and naïve. Garner and Brown had a lot to do with race. Garner is an especially egregious example as most everyone agrees.
Bill OReilly:
" Mr. Garner clearly a low level offender was not a threat. American police are held to a very high standard because they have power. They have guns. They must control inflammatory situations not make them worse. "
Krauthammer:
the grand jury's decision here is totally incomprehensible. It looks as if at least they might have indicted him on something like involuntary manslaughter at the very least.
If the people on Fox see that the Garner case was an injustice then it certainly was an injustice.
This case might help you to understand how a black person might have fear of the cops. A well publicized case where a not perfect black person dies at the hands of a group of New York's finest for selling illegal cigarettes and there are not consequences. It looks like open season on black men
Gracie, how comfortable would you be walking around in Over the Rhine at 2 AM? Do you personally know anyone who has actually been harmed in OTR? Do you believe as a white woman that either your race or your gender might make you a target in that part of town? You have heard stories of people like you who did get hurt, robbed etc. So maybe you would be very leery of all the thousands of perfectly nice people who live in OTR because of the very few who might do you harm. I gather from your previous posts that you have had many very positive interactions with black people through the years. But now, you are distressed because there were some lack of smiles on your recent trip.
If you were a black man you can be absolutely certain that you would have had many negative interactions with police, storeowners, the stares of white people .. crossing to the other side of the street, following you in stores, stopping you for driving while black. You would be leery of cops even though you understood that they have a difficult job, you would still have more than a little discomfort when you saw one in your rear view mirror or one approached you on the street. Just like you are discomforted by the approach of a perfectly innocent black teen at 2 AM in OTR.
Our society is still very permeated by racism (sorry to all those who would deny it and don't want it pointed out). You noticed that black people didn't smile at you. You are racially aware as are we all, cops included.
The challenges faced by a black person are different and greater than those lucky enough to have been born white. I am given the benefit of the doubt when shopping, driving, interacting. Too often a black person is not. It is their reality not just a perception. I have no solution, I have no suggestion. I just try to understand why the black community can see institutional racism when so many white people cannot. Maybe it is the same for Jews being more sensitive to anti-Semitic comments and politics. Maybe it is the same for Muslims who get the permit for building a mosque turned down or find they are stared at in airports. Maybe it is the same when a black man standing at the valet desk outside a trendy restaurant awaiting his car is asked by the white man in line to go get that man's car assume that any black man at the stand must be a car parker. Sad to say racial consciousness pervades every interaction for all of us and the brunt of that truth is to detriment of black people.