Police are human beings
 

Suppose a black man grows up in a good family, gets a good education, gets a good job, gets married, and has a few children. He never breaks the law, never gets arrested, and is a good family man. One day, he is pulled over by a white police officer and is not treated in the same way that the police officer would normally treat a white man. But, the black man obeys the police, shows his valid license and registration, and is eventually released, even though he feels like he should have been treated with more respect. Who should he blame? The police officer because he is obviously a racist? Maybe. But, how about placing at least some of the blame on the disproportionate number of black men who did not follow the same law abiding course in life, and had some influence on the police officer's perception about life. Police officers are supposed to follow a standard procedure, but they are only human.

I agree. People are so judgmental without knowing all the facts. There is no more innocent until proven guilty just guilty by social media.

Lot of truth in what you say.

We are all human beings.

This whole mess is making me beyond sick and it is being used to collapse what we know as a democracy.

The violent and destructive behavior out there is vile and is to be condemned, not encouraged for ulterior motives as is happening right under our noses.

Remember this? (Some 8th grade teacher might have made you memorize it):

. . ."our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure."


Years before Lincoln gave that speech, Ben Franklin said, "We have given you a republic -- if you can keep it."

(Haunting words -- here we are.)


Do not categorize me so you can dismiss me. Please read on:

In my family there are two police officers, both women. One is my age so she is retired. She was the first female officer in her city so she often had to face down the territory that came with that. The other one is young. I respect and admire her -- and I worry about about her. I think police work is often a calling -- like it is for truly dedicated teachers and nurses. But I have to wonder how long it will be before we have very few who will want to answer any of those callings.

Our country is starting to look like Oceania, the country in Orwell's dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. In the book the government made sure the Proles were saturated with violence, brought to them on screens, to keep them in a constant state of anger and fear in order to control and rule over them.

And now, in real life, not a novel -- the times -- they are Orwellian.


Boomer

Just for a moment, imagine what police must deal with on a daily basis. There are people out there that resist arrest, don't follow instructions. Walk away from the police and reach into their vehicle. The cops have a split second to make a decision on deadly force. The media, and the looter/protesters don't care about this!

I think you hit the nail on the head. Not really racism, profiling based on history.

I think you hit the nail on the head. Not racism just profiling based on history and experience. Totally understandable.

Given your ridiculous scenario, I totally blame the cop. Here is a law abiding citizen who is mistreated by someone who is sworn to protect him because he can't see beyond skin color. Then give up your badge and become a commenter on TOTV. The cop is given special rights and special protection and special treatment and special honors and is still a racist in your scenario.

All of you who say this is just fine, it is human nature are exactly the same people who claim there is not such thing as white privilege. Yet you are presented a simple clear example of white privilege and defend it, even think it is completely reasonable. After all, those blacks are criminals and thugs and rapists and murderers and druggies and so they and anyone who shares their skin color deserves what they get.

Even if the driver in your little thought experiment is a former convicted felon he deserves to be treated with respect and exactly the same as any lily white driver unless he is at the time he is stopped committing a crime. Period.

I am 81 years old, fought for my country, and as news developed the last 24 hours and became legit, I literally had tears in my eyes.

You are correct with your book comparison.

Sleeping will be difficult tonight. No control any more

It does depend somewhat on where you are a law enforcement officer. There are parts of NYC that would be a whole lot safer than other parts. Parts of Los Angeles that are a lot safer than other parts. And most of the parts of the Villages are a great deal safer than probably any place in NYC, Los Angeles or many other cities.

There was/is a retired cop from the South Side of Chicago in our neighborhood of the Villages and he probably had to adapt his reactions to his immediate environment a great deal after retiring and then moving to the Villages.

I have met law enforcement officers from many different parts of the country in the fifteen years we have been here in the Villages and all of them have different stories depending on where they lived and what kind of law enforcement they did.

I’ve never been referred to as ‘Lilly White.’

Well said!

If you are stopped by the police for a traffic violation, do this:

1- Don't admit to anything.
2- Keep Your mouth shut. Don't argue. Obey his/her instructions and be respectful
3- Keep your hands on the wheel
4- Turn off the engine
5- If at night, turn the cabin lights on.
Go to court if you don't agree with the officer. It's better than going to jail.

How hard is that?

Are you saying that being a racist is justifiable and acceptable behavior? Gee, I hope not

Amen!!! Blue lives matter!!!!!

Totally agree. I also think that police fraternities, unions, need to stop supporting (and sometimes covering for) bad behavior from bad cops. The blanket "we support all cops all the time regardless" is not helpful and needs to change. Bad cops need to be weeded out. Likewise, community leaders such as Al Sharpton cannot be supporting bad actors. They need to be more discerning with their support.

Racism IS profiling with history

Police and Predudice
 

Your supposition goes much deeper. It’s found in your need to rationalize unacceptable behaviors. In a nut shell pointing out racial divide requires one to focus on superficial differences. Drop the color and replace it with culture. We all can work on culture equally.

You miss the whole point. The police officer ONLY enforces the law. When the officer takes the role of judge and jury, he crosses the line. Not everyone will be treated the same, but no officer issues any form of punishment. That is for the courts to decide.

Why do you think the Cop is a 'racist'? Is it because he was raised by racists who instilled that mode of thinking or is it possible because he has witness the actions and behavior or most blacks and formed a racial bias? When I was younger and had long hair and rode a motorcycle I was often stopped by police and treated in a harsh manner much differently that I was later in life or today. I think its human nature to react to what we've be taught or leaned to expect in any given situtation.

I agree. Well said.

When you call Sharpton a leader you lose me. He is only interested in fomenting trouble and enriching himself.

Not to mention should have gone to jail some years ago for non payment of a substantial amount of taxes.

Would he still be worthy if he didn't marry or have children? Just curious.

Exactly. And if this is so hard for you to understand, how about you ride with a police officer for one day and see what they go through. And I dont mean take a ride with them thru the Villages and the town square. How about you ride through downtown Ocala or any low income crime ridden area. Im sure you will be crying to get back to a safe area within 5 minutes. Dont judge unless you know what youre talking about. CNN isnt an accurate assessment of anything

Suppose a white man grows up in a good family, gets a good education, gets a good job, gets married, and has a few children. He never breaks the law, never gets arrested, and is a good family man. One day, he is beaten by black thugs, just for fun, while they use racial slurs. They all have extensive criminal histories. The police track down the thugs but the animals are never charged with a hate crime. Who should he blame? The police officer because they are obviously racist? The thug animals because they are just misunderstood and expressing their first amendment rights and peacefully protesting "something"? The racist "system" because blacks are given a pass from hate crimes? But, how about placing at least some of the blame on the disproportionate number of dirty politicians who pander to criminals and are hypocrites. Sorry liberals...it is true,

Watch LivePD on A&E Friday’s and Saturday’s at 9 PM. They have Live cameraman riders with police patrols across the country. You will see what a cop has to go through with all kinds of people from domestic arguments to hard and dangerous criminals. This is not scripted nor staged. You will have tremendously more respect for the police.

Very well stated, that's all it takes. Especially true the first couple of sentences and the last few sentences. Regardless of skin color just comply no big deal! Not all police officers are racist and looking to confront or make trouble for anyone, just doing what they are there for and I thank them for it!

"Only human" is not an excuse for a police officer being a rascist. Perhaps more education than a hs diploma, more than several months of police academy training, and better background and family checks to weed out a rascist upbringing, will allow better decisions to be made by the police.

Police are Human Beings
 

Your headline is perfect ... and then you explain why the police are justified in their treating blacks and whites differently.

My friend's dark skinned son drives his Mercedes through Washington DC and gets pulled over every two to three blocks ... and you are saying "understandable"?

You excuse the actions .... and explain the actions .... how do you feel about it?

No exaggeration there then!

Why can't Blue Lives Matter and Black Lives Matter co-exist? Along with all the other colors? One slogan does not mean the other one is not legitimatel

Good point. It’s a bit like what happens when someone picking romaine lettuce in the San Joaquin Valley of California has to relieve himself, has diarrhea, but has no hand washing facilities, and a few dozen heads get contaminated with e-coli. Someone in New Jersey gets very sick, and the culprit turns out to one of the few dozen bad heads, grown in one field. But then many thousands of bags from that company and field are pulled off the shelves and destroyed. The news reaches consumers by television, and millions of people not only throw away all the romaine lettuce in their refrigerators, even from other companies, and even from other states, but stop buying romaine for a month, a year, forever. That seems really silly. (But I still get nervous in the face of a Caesar salad after the outbreak several years ago.) But meanwhile, government inspectors from the Department of Agriculture or wherever are grabbing more heads of romaine in the packing plants and testing it. Store owners may decide to keep it off the shelves. All romaine is suspected, just because of a couple dozen heads grown in one field out of a hundred million from around the country, with no more outbreaks.

Now, what if it’s not one head in ten million, or one in a million, or one head in a thousand, or one in a hundred, or one in ten, but 28.5%? If nearly three out of ten heads of male romaine lettuce was likely to be contaminated, the inspectors would be very careful to examine and test the male heads thoroughly, simply because they are more likely to make people sick. If 28.5% of male romaine can harm you, but only 4.4% of male iceberg lettuce, you would probably want all lettuce destroyed, period. But meanwhile, you’d expect inspectors to be checking the heads of romaine even more carefully. It’s just common sense, for the public welfare. Maybe even every head of all lettuces should be tested. That would be expensive, but if it’s necessary, so it goes.

What if someone gave you tickets to some event, say a real football game, with 50,000 people in the stands. Would you go if you knew there were ten COVID-19 positive people there? How about 500 (1%)? How about if there were 2,200 COVID-19 positive people in the stands (4.4%). What if it were 28.5% COVID-19 positive, nearly a third? Would you want everyone tested? I would. If fans wearing home team paraphernalia were 28.5% likely to be positive or become positive, wouldn’t you expect extra attention to be paid to testing the home team fans? Wouldn’t you hope you are sitting among the away team fans (not that that would be safe, either). Testing like that makes everyone safer, whatever their favorite team.

Missing from the comments is the fact that all officers are not White. Willing to wager that most of the DC officers the youth may have encountered were Black/Hispanic.

I agree completely with this post. Everyone should be treated the same. Most of the other responses to this point are perfect examples of White Privilege in action. Some of you know it and don’t care because you know you are special.

Others also know it but try to justify/ deny their privilege with additional “facts” to justify their privilege.

It’s time to come to grips with your bias and change or admit it, you are a racist.

Because Black Lives Matters is a marxist organization.


Black lives matter is a statement.


Huge difference.

Thank you, thank you, thank you

Something to read.
 

The posts in this thread are an example of I'm right.

When you have a few minutes google "The Five Stages of a Society", read it and ponder and post which stage you feel we are in currently.

Can't wait to read the answers.

This happens every day. There's no supposition about it.

Now change the words "Black man" and insert the name if you or your spouse or one of your children or grandchildren. How do you feel about it now? You might feel profiled especially if you didn't do anything wrong.

Former NASA Astronaut Says Getting Stopped by Police as a Black Man Is Scarier Than Going to Space
"It's when I've been stopped by police officers that I didn't even know... I was starting to sweat and just holding the steering wheel really hard," Leland Melvin said

Because Blue isn't a race. There are no blue people but there are Black ones. Blue goes home at night and takes the blue off. Black doesn't get the opportunity to do that.

When you say Blue Lives Matter you might as well say accounts lives, architects lives, chefs lives, etc.

Blue is what they do. Black is what they are.