It’s a bit hard to read the Ferguson report, because it is just so horrible, even the mild stuff will have your blood boiling. For example:
Even relatively routine misconduct by Ferguson police officers can have significant consequences for the people whose rights are violated. For example, in the summer of 2012, a 32-year-old African-American man sat in his car cooling off after playing basketball in a Ferguson public park. An officer pulled up behind the man’s car, blocking him in, and demanded the man’s Social Security number and identification. Without any cause, the officer accused the man of being a pedophile, referring to the presence of children in the park, and ordered the man out of his car for a pat-down, although the officer had no reason to believe the man was armed. The officer also asked to search the man’s car. The man objected, citing his constitutional rights. In response, the officer arrested the man, reportedly at gunpoint, charging him with eight violations of Ferguson’s municipal code. One charge, Making a False Declaration, was for initially providing the short form of his first name (e.g., “Mike” instead of “Michael”), and an address which, although legitimate, was different from the one on his driver’s license. Another charge was for not wearing a seat belt, even though he was seated in a parked car. The officer also charged the man both with having an expired operator’s license, and with having no operator’s license in his possession. The man told us that, because of these charges,
he lost his job as a contractor with the federal government that he had held for years.
And that is the mild stuff. I’m not done reading it, because it is too depressing and draining to finish in one sitting.
Can you imagine what white people would do if they were subjected to this kind of abuse on a daily basis? Half of us have spent the last six wearing tricorner hats waving guns around in public trying to secede because a black man wanted to give us access to health care.
Baud
I think you answered your own question.
Trentrunner
I’m so very glad that this problem is unique to Ferguson.
/crying on the inside
Baud
I’m on my phone so I can’t look it up, but someone should post the Scalia quote about the professionalism of the modern police Force, followed by the Roberts quote about how times have changed.
debbie
I just don’t understand how anyone, even the most stupid, thinks sending those kind of emails is okay and that no one will ever know. Even more, that their superiors not only were fine with the sentiments but thought they were pretty funny.
People need to lose jobs.
Roger Moore
@Baud:
Yep, these guys are professional racists, not amateurs. The comment that best sums up the whole thing is a tweet from Ta-Nehisi Coates:
neech
@Baud:
Here you go:
raven
@debbie: What exactly are you talking about?
David Koch
Hell, some left the country and moved to Brazil.
JPL
@Roger Moore: Just remember some ass in TN wants to pass a law protecting those whites.
PurpleGirl
When I first moved to Woodside from Astoria, I called the DMV to ask about updating my non-driver ID card with my new address. IIRC, I still had a few years before renewing it. DMV told me that I didn’t have to get the address changed. I asked them but what about if people wanted it as proof of address. No answer. So the following week I went to the DMV office in Midtown Manhattan and had a new picture taken and the address changed.
Who knows if that man also had recently moved and the DMV told him it didn’t matter?
Baud
@neech:
Thank you. That’s perfect. I wish they had prefaced the report with that.
debbie
@raven:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/03/04/ferguson-police-emails/24400005/
JPL
@raven: Ferguson police sent racist emails. ….
Mike G
Except most of the media attention is focusing on racist email jokes, which trivialize the real damage to local peoples’ lives and careers from thuggish authoritarianism like the example above. Imagine the helplessness and trauma inflicted upon people victimized by these cops, knowing the whole corrupt cops/courts/jails/local government machinery will always back them over you, and there’s damn little chance of justice or accountability.
Baud
@PurpleGirl:
You see why the GOP wants voter ID laws.
raven
@debbie: Sorry, I just read the post here.
eta There has sort of been other email news so I thought it might be that.
Jacks mom
Fuck….just fuck. On my best days I hope that reincarnation isn’t something that happens….. And then I hope it does but only to those that I believe it should happen to. Like Dick Cheney coming back as a woman or some fuck head cop coming back as a black man in Ferguson. Fuck
Tree With Water
Stewie Griffin to black Americans: “Thanks for taking it all in stride”.
debbie
@raven:
Hilary? I suppose it’s better wingnuts obsess on them rather than shrieking about her needing a walker.
JPL
I think that restraint was shown after Brown’s death, after reading the report. I would have burnt the city down.
raven
@debbie: Yea I just wasn’t sure since I rarely stay on topic.
Kyle
@neech:
As a SC justice, I’m sure every law enforcement agent Scalia encounters treats him with the utmost deference and professionalism. But it takes an incredible solipsism and arrogant self-centeredness to assume that this is everyone’s experience. Shorter Scalia solipsism: ‘I’ve never seen cops behave badly, so it only happens to people who “deserve” it.’
What an overprivileged, head-in-the-sand statement to make. But his ideology which has taken him far in life, demands that he pretend not to see many things.
Mike in NC
Never heard of a cop asking for your SSN. Is that even legal? Many states have removed them from drivers licenses due to problems with identity theft.
The bit about the seat belt was mind-boggling. Most white people would deny it happened.
gelfling545
Sadly, I believe that the answer, these days, would be bitch about in on Facebook. I don’t know what it will finally take to move us to action. Can’t even get people out once a year to vote.
scav
All those wearing bracelets Proudly Trumpetting “I Am Darren Wilson”
Yup. You all certainly are. And those are undoutedly the PD attitudes, assumptions, behavior and actions they want and automatically support, especially when mooching off the free military surplus govt teat.
WereBear
It’s no friggin’ wonder that black people tend to have problems with high blood pressure.
The Ancient Randonneur
So, Holder and the DOJ are playing the race card again? Thanks, Obama!
Villago Delenda Est
It’s pretty obvious that it is policy to treat blacks they way they are treated in Ferguson. Darren Wilson was just following orders…and then screwed up and they had to concoct a story to somehow “justify” the murder of Michael Brown.
WaterGirl
My blood is boiling at that story. I guess John Edwards was right about there being two Americas, just not the two he was talking about.
Hal
The email thing mirrors what I’ve seen in the social media world, particularly Facebook with people I worked with, or grew up with. Not too many, but I ended up defriending a couple of folks, and lost some respect for a couple of others.
I was amazed at how clueless at the casual racism of some of these people. One person who had a photo of a plane airdropping envelopes which he said were job applications. The best way to get Ferguson protesters to disperse! haha. Another friend of a friend who said Ferguson protesters belonged in African Lion Safari, but they are totally not racist! Ask their black friends! I saw no black friend defenders, but I’m sure they were just at the Zoo.
As long as this kind of thing happens largely to people of color, particularly inner city, poor black and hispanic people, it’s going to take an enormous effort to push for changing the system. Everyone in charge of these institution are white and I’m guessing male, and unless they come to feel this is morally and ethically wrong, it’s going to be an uphill fight for reform.
JPL
@Mike in NC: Normally in a parked car, you aren’t cited for being unbuckled but I guess there are different rules for blacks in Ferguson.
The Moar You Know
@gelfling545: Somebody knows the score!
You’re damn right that’s all that would happen.
celticdragonchick
@gelfling545:
When populist progressive action is ever taken, it is immediately derided as “extreme”, “socialist”, “dangerous”, “outside agitation” etc while the police are used to beat, injure and subdue the activists.
This has been the template since 1870, and it works Every. Single. Time.
The general populace is assured the demonstrators hate Jesus and America and the police are there to keep them safe. Wash, rinse, repeat.
TaMara (BHF)
@debbie: Because they didn’t think there was anything wrong with what they were saying.
I’ve seen it before. I used to work with someone who surrounded himself with the most racist people, listened to racist talk radio and then thought nothing of walking into the office and spewing his hatred, like it was a totally normal thought to have, a normal response to having a black president.
It never occurred to him that the rest of us were completely appalled and when we said so, he seemed completely surprised. And offended we did not agree with him.
celticdragonchick
@scav:
Those tanks just won’t drive themselves into an apartment complex dontchaknow…
Villago Delenda Est
@neech: Well, from Nino’s perspective as a member of an ethic group which was once considered to be criminal in nature, I guess it’s better now.
They’re white at last.
celticdragonchick
@TaMara (BHF):
Yep. Their internal filter is fucked up they have no idea how off base they are. Then, they get mad when they find out and, natch, blame everybody else.
Gex
@The Moar You Know: you both think that is all white people would do if they were treated the way blacks are by cops?
I disagree. I think this nation has shown that the whites in power will do just about anything and everything to make sure blacks are kept down, and in this day and age that white supremacy is actually buoyed by a belief that whites would be treated as poorly by blacks as whites treated blacks.
raven
OK, I’m going to hit the rack but what the hell do ya’ll think all the shit that went down after Michael Brown was killed about? None of this shit is new.
Roger Moore
@Mike G:
OTOH, the racist emails by people at the top help to show that the racist behavior of the police is something that came from the top down, rather than the result of rogue cops acting on their own hook. They’re also something that’s categorically not OK in most people’s books, while individual incidents of cops harassing people are easier to whitewash.
jake the antisoshul soshulist
@Jacks mom:
I remember reading a S-F story from the late fifties or early sixties about a sehregationist southern politician being reimcarnated as a black man. Can’t remember the name of tbe story or the author.
celticdragonchick
@Hal:
Because the system is not broken.
The system is working perfectly well as designed to give desired results.
We just discovered the resuts are monstrous…but that still doesn’t mean the system was ever actually broken. We were.
celticdragonchick
@jake the antisoshul soshulist:
Almost sounds like something from Ray Bradbury.
The Other Bob
@JPL:
Or maybe just the police station and city hall.
Mnemosyne (iPad Mini)
This related story broke last month — in most places, you can serve a jail sentence in lieu of paying a fine, but in Ferguson, they can jail you for nonpayment of the fine AND you still owe the fine:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/codeswitch/2015/02/09/384968360/jail-time-for-unpaid-court-fines-and-fees-can-create-cycle-of-poverty
Baud
I bet the Senate GOP wishes they hadn’t of slow rolled Lorreta Lynch’s confirmation.
Little Boots
it is kinda amazing. what the hell, but this is reality for so many people.
rikyrah
The report was disgusting.
Jacks mom
@jake the antisoshul soshulist: I can’t think of a book that I’ve read that addresses that subject but it would be a good plot line. Unfortunately there are a lot off people that are living it. I wish it was fiction but apparently……
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
I go to get my hair cut at a Black barbershop in Alexandria, Virginia. The guy I go to is the only barber yet I’ve found who can cut my cowlick and make it look all right. Anyway, I was there last Friday, just sitting, chatting with my barber, and everybody else there was just casually chatting and joking, and being generally mellow. It’s like that every time I go in. And sometimes, I think of all the shit going on in this country, and I just want to scream, “I can’t understand why all you guys aren’t burning shit down in this country!! Why aren’t you burning shit down?!?!”
And that’s the thing I really don’t get about a lot of white people in America. They’re always talking about these “dangerous” Black people, how they’re always rioting and looting; and the somewhat worse ones will say even worse shit, comparing them to animals and shit, when all the while… I mean, this shit has been going on for 400 years! And through it all, Black people haven’t burned any shit down, really. Whenever shit gets burned down, it’s more likely to be white people burning down Black people’s houses and businesses.
Sometimes I think the only way this country is going to get over this racial problem is if Black people do start burning shit down. And, damn if we white people don’t need to have some of our shit burned down, if that’s what it’ll take to get us to open our eyes. So, if there are any Black people reading this thread, well, come on! What the hell are you waiting for? Burn some shit down already! Jeez…
debbie
I bet there’s lots of deleting going on tonight on Staten Island.
JPL
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.): When Brown was murdered in Ferguson, one thing I noticed that on the street that he died there were still cook outs and gatherings. What bothered me about the latest report is that someone was playing basketball and cooling off in his car and ended up being charged with eight counts. Cook out and basketball games happen in communities and the police in Ferguson are trying to take those things that build a strong community away. I don’t know what the answer is.
Little Boots
and now, because of need:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fWyzwo1xg0
pseudonymous in nc
As Ta-Nehisi said on Twitter, this is how white supremacy works. This is why ‘The Case for Reparations’ is an argument about property.
1. White people steal black people’s stuff.
2. White people make it legal to steal black people’s stuff.
3. White people point at black people and say ‘We have stuff. Why don’t you have any stuff? Try harder.’
(3a. White people point at black people and say ‘You have stuff? How dare you have stuff!’)
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@JPL: Hell, I still want to burn the place to the ground after reading the report, and do my best to be certain no one in that council or police department ever has a job better than fast food or Walmart.
pseudonymous in nc
In a way, I’d like to crowdfund thousands of dollars to pay off those fucking fines.
But fuck that. I’d like to crowdfund thousands of dollars to buy off the entire city’s theft-based economy. And I’d like to direct thousands of dollars into getting an entirely new set of people elected to run the damn city.
JPL
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): It’s sickening.
Little Boots
needs more omnes.
as always.
Botsplainer
@Baud:
They generally say “quit resisting, sir” while they taze you, so I suppose there is some improvement.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@JPL: That’s almost an understatement. if I had a Missouri license I’d be moving there. And even more tempted to burn it to the ground.
JPL
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): Imagine you living in a community doing the best you can. You might plan cook outs or basketball games and those are exactly the activities that label you as subversive. You might be right because I’m not sure there is anything to save. .
Botsplainer
@JPL:
A billionaire sponsoring a gun giveaway and badge bounty, a bonus for the ones with holes in them.
Of course, I hate America, Jesus and white people things…
Jack the Second
IMO the problem with reincarnation as a punishment is that the reincarnated are not typically assumed to be aware of their prior existence. After all, I don’t know what I did previously to merit whatever rewards or punishments are meted out in this life.
So a white racist asshole reincarnated as a black man in Bumfuck USA is ultimately just another victim. No lesson learned, no cathartic realization, just more pointless suffering.
Little Boots
@efgoldman:
dammit.
Culture of Truth
Here’s what’s most shocking (among many things) First, that this was institutional, and not limited to a few indiviudals or even the police department, rather this was wrapped into the totality of entire civic system, not just criminal justice system but government, top to bottom, finances and more.
Second, that we only know about this via the death of Michael Brown, and subsequent inaction leading to federal investigation, which could have been nipped in the bud at many times. So how many Ferguson’s are there? From my own experiences, many thousands, across state and federal jurisdictions, but who is to say? But yes, a lot.
WaterGirl
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.): In 2007 and 2008 when I was working so hard for Barack Obama in the primaries and there was talk about super delegates stepping in and voting for Hillary even though Obama was clearly winning the primaries fair and square…
My sister asked me if I thought the black people would riot if that happened. My answer was that it had better not be just the black people who riot if that happens.
After reading your comment, I’m kind of wondering the same thing that I wondered then. Why do you think it’s just the black people who can act to try to change things?
Little Boots
@Culture of Truth:
yup and yup.
scav
Buckle-laws — in parked cars no less — are justified indictable offences in Ferguson and not an example of government over-reach and infringement on personal choice and risk. And in their zealous patrolling to combat pedephilia did the ever-vigilant Ferguson PD haunt Church sanctuaries and Boy Scout outings checking for appropriately tinted glass and sinister unbucklings? Haul away nuns for responding “Sister Mary Rose” instead of the Helen O’Flannery of the birth certificate?
JPL
@Botsplainer: Thanks for your informed comments earlier about ACA. Health insurance stocks liked Kennedy’s statements, so that’s good.
Adam
The sooner white people become a minority in this country, the better.
Lurking Canadian
@Mike in NC: There are at least a half dozen minions of Tucker Carlson even now going through that man’s trash, hoping to find that he once cut the label off a mattress or something, and thus deserves what he got.
Botsplainer
@efgoldman:
Wrong places burnt. The torchings should have been directed at large churches, country clubs and nice neighborhoods.
debbie
@efgoldman:
I’d like to think that this report is Holder’s “F.U. G’Bye” to his critics.
Violet
@Botsplainer: Yeah, when protests happen in rich, white neighborhoods it gets plenty of attention.
Culture of Truth
@efgoldman: I have experience with testi-lying, and foreiture, but I have none with a municipality funding itsely by harrassing and crushing a majority of the population. Since I’m sure I’m not alone, this DOJ report is extremely valuable.
Little Boots
no omnes?
no steeplejack?
HRA
@jake the antisoshul soshulist:
From Wikipedia
“Black Like Me is a nonfiction book by journalist John Howard Griffin first published in 1961. Griffin was a white native of Dallas, Texas and the book describes his six-week experience travelling on Greyhound buses (occasionally hitchhiking) throughout the racially segregated states of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia passing as a black man. Sepia Magazine financed the project in exchange for the right to print the account first as a series of articles.”
KS in MA
@celticdragonchick:
No, it doesn’t work every single time. All that’s needed is people who aren’t afraid to be called names, or even to be beaten and/or arrested. They may not be crazy about it, but they’re not afraid of it. There have been such people, there are such people, and there will continue to be such people. How about you?
PhoenixRising
@Botsplainer: Yeah, the challenge with effective burning shit down is that…it never is.
My hands-on is from 1992, when a lot of very reasonable black folks burned shit down after the cops who damn near killed Rodney King by beating him senseless on video got to walk. LA and Oakland were free-fire zones. As the only white person on the block, I was literally afraid to leave my house, because the liquored-up groups of young men with guns were shooting them off, throwing rocks and setting fire to cars. The Korean family that ran the grocery store never came back; I heard from a Vietnamese neighbor that they took the insurance settlement from the store burning down & bought something else in the Central Valley.
Where there were no black folks.
Everyone learns the wrong lessons from shit getting burned down. White people who are scared of black people got some validation that weekend; when the state patrol pacified the neighborhood with tanks, they learned that black people are scary and violent; their victims learned that they’d be stupid not to shoot first at a cop.
It sounds good, but it just doesn’t seem to work. Which is why what really happened in MO in August was painful, but a good start toward more effective action.
Little Boots
and just for omnes, who is not here, but should be:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=qeMFqkcPYcg
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Little Boots: @Little Boots: Please, this is the wrong topic for that. You’ll have plenty of other chances to play.
Little Boots
fine.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@Little Boots:
Come up to the Hillary thread instead. It can use some more absurdity.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Little Boots: Thanks, man.
trollhattan
WaterGirl
@trollhattan: Translation:
“Now that we know you’re watching, this type of behavior will not be tolerated. Not in any written documentation, anyway. We will be much more careful from here on out.”
lamh36
gwangung
@lamh36: Thought it wasn’t “the” seven racist emails, but seven examples of racist emails….
scav
@lamh36: PaleBlobTommy over there lamenting the good old days when political correctness hadn’t made telling offensive jokes about dumb blonds and women and fatties et al such a social landmine. Cruelty for personal sport and fun used to be Overt! and Proudly a part of cadual social interaction exactly like his Mamma done taught him his Manners! the Traditional Christian Family W(estern) Values! Real-‘Merkan Way!
WaterGirl
@lamh36: Wow. Just wow.
No wonder Eric Holder wants to leave, partially for health reasons. So much hate and so much hatred and disrespect for the first black president and for the first black attorney general of the united states.
KS in MA
@KS in MA:
“How about you?”
Sorry … should have added, “How about me, too?”
AxelFoley
That’s the damned thing of it all.
AxelFoley
@David Koch:
HAHAHAHAHAHA I see what you did there.
Amir Khalid
@lamh36:
Interesting headline on The Washington Post’s story. “The seven racist e-mails” implies, falsely I expect, that those were the only racist emails found.
J R in WV
@Little Boots: The only music appropriate for this thread would be Billie Holiday, singing “Strange Fruit”…
Get my drift?
J R in WV
@Amir Khalid:
I dunno how many, really. 70… seven hundred? Seven million? Think we’re getting close?
What time of the day is it at your house? ’cause I’m up in the middle of the nite!
Thanks for participating, hope you do understand that President Obama did get elected, twice. So things are a lot better than they were when we were kids, back in 1950-68. Sorta. a little. some… how f’in depressing!
Daniel'sBob
Not that it matters now, but Godfrey Cambridge in “Watermelon Man” about 1969.
Daniel'sBob
@jake the antisoshul soshulist:
Sorry. Intended as a response to your post. Don’t know if it was an original screenplay or based on a book.
NorthLeft12
I agree with the comments that the emails, while stupid and offensive, are a distraction from the main issue of institutional harassment that had by far the greatest impact on the residents of Ferguson.
I will concede that the emails probably helped to identify the worst of the worst [or the most moronic of the moronic] so to speak. Now all you have left are the smarter, sneakier, yet still racist and dangerous LEOs.
MomSense
@lamh36:
The report reveals a really disturbing portrait of institutional racism that has been a complete nightmare for the citizens of Ferguson. My own opinion is that if we could do reports like this one on all police departments we would confirm the lived experiences of so many who say that Ferguson is just like their town or city’s police department.
WaterGirl
@MomSense: It’s appalling. Perhaps the DOJ needs to randomly select towns of a similar size and makeup and report on those, as well.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
@WaterGirl:
It isn’t that I think that only they can do something to change things; it’s just that I can’t fathom how Black people just plain aren’t burning shit down out of anger and frustration. I mean, you look at our history, and, well, shit, has there ever been a group in history that has suffered so much degradation, harassment, exploitation, dehumanization and terror that has dealt with it with such good grace? I can’t think of any.
tam1MI
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.): Jewish people.
LongHairedWeirdo
@Mike G: Heh. Just like in Jim Crow when people believed that the issue was that black people had to use a separate drinking fountain and sit in the back of the bus – the bit about “and could frequently be killed with impunity – sometimes for no other purpose than public spectacle” is often ignored.
However, the racist e-mails are a necessary part of the investigation, because if you don’t say explicitly racist things, a lot of people will find a way to claim that race had nothing to do with it. “Sure, it’s a poorly run force, with overuse of fines and fees, but that doesn’t make it *racist*. It’s not like they’d say that the President will fail because ‘what black man holds a steady job for four years’ or some bullshit like that.”
Steeplejack
@LongHairedWeirdo:
Excellent point.
WaterGirl
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.): I’m with you on that, I think I would be enraged pretty much all day, every day.