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You are here: Home / Civil Rights / Racial Justice / Post-racial America / Head Up His Ass and Proud Of It

Head Up His Ass and Proud Of It

by John Cole|  March 8, 20158:49 pm| 108 Comments

This post is in: Post-racial America, Shitty Cops, Assholes

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What’s that they say about stuff rotting from the head down:

The mayor of this embattled city said Friday that it would take some time to determine whether a Department of Justice report issued Wednesday, which highlighted a pattern of abuses by the city’s police and courts, fairly represented the facts.

But Mayor James Knowles III said the city wanted to make whatever changes it could to convince the U.S. government that “these sorts of things don’t happen in the city of Ferguson.”

One of the first such changes came late this week with the city accepting the resignations of two employees, and firing a third, who used city email to send or receive racist jokes.

Still, Knowles said in an interview Friday in the city council chambers that city officials had a lot of work ahead examining the findings of the scathing, 102-page report.

“There are stories that have been told in that report … that are very concerning, and those things have to be addressed,” Knowles said. “What they’ve shown is that it has happened. Now, how often has that happened? I don’t know. Their assertion is it happens regularly. Based on what? I’m not sure yet.

“Do they have a statistic that tells me that they’ve examined every arrest that we’ve made for the past four years and that half, or all, or 10 percent, or 5 percent are unconstitutional or without cause? They do not have that. They have not examined at that level that I know of at this point.”

Well, yeah. That’s precisely what they have statistics of, you jackass:

Ferguson’s approach to law enforcement both reflects and reinforces racial bias, including stereotyping. The harms of Ferguson’s police and court practices are borne disproportionately by African Americans, and there is evidence that this is due in part to intentional discrimination on the basis of race.

Ferguson’s law enforcement practices overwhelmingly impact African Americans. Data collected by the Ferguson Police Department from 2012 to 2014 shows that African Americans account for 85% of vehicle stops, 90% of citations, and 93% of arrests made by FPD officers, despite comprising only 67% of Ferguson’s population. African Americans are more than twice as likely as white drivers to be searched during vehicle stops even after controlling for non-race based variables such as the reason the vehicle stop was initiated, but are found in possession of contraband 26% less often than white drivers, suggesting officers are impermissibly considering race as a factor when determining whether to search. African Americans are more likely to be cited and arrested following a stop regardless of why the stop was initiated and are more likely to receive multiple citations during a single incident. From 2012 to 2014, FPD issued four or more citations to African Americans on 73 occasions, but issued four or more citations to non-African Americans only twice. FPD appears to bring certain offenses almost exclusively against African Americans. For example, from 2011 to 2013, African Americans accounted for 95% of Manner of Walking in Roadway charges, and 94% of all Failure to Comply charges. Notably, with

respect to speeding charges brought by FPD, the evidence shows not only that African Americans are represented at disproportionately high rates overall, but also that the disparate impact of FPD’s enforcement practices on African Americans is 48% larger when citations are issued not on the basis of radar or laser, but by some other method, such as the officer’s own visual assessment.

These disparities are also present in FPD’s use of force. Nearly 90% of documented force used by FPD officers was used against African Americans. In every canine bite incident for which racial information is available, the person bitten was African American.

Municipal court practices likewise cause disproportionate harm to African Americans. African Americans are 68% less likely than others to have their cases dismissed by the court, and are more likely to have their cases last longer and result in more required court encounters. African Americans are at least 50% more likely to have their cases lead to an arrest warrant, and accounted for 92% of cases in which an arrest warrant was issued by the Ferguson Municipal Court in 2013. Available data show that, of those actually arrested by FPD only because of an outstanding municipal warrant, 96% are African American.

So unless you have a bunch of traffic stops from 2012-2014 that you did not report, and in those stops, you pulled over exclusively black people, gave them a 100 dollar bill and wished them well and to have a nice day, they’ve examined every fucking arrest. Now here is the punchine, Mayor Knowles, you ignorant shitheel. The very next paragraph in the report:

City officials have frequently asserted that the harsh and disparate results of Ferguson’s law enforcement system do not indicate problems with police or court practices, but instead reflect a pervasive lack of “personal responsibility” among “certain segments” of the community.

Or, PRECISELY what you are doing in this interview. And if there are no problems, why did you just fire someone and accept another two’s resignation? This asshole needs to be fired.

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Reader Interactions

108Comments

  1. 1.

    Snarki, child of Loki

    March 8, 2015 at 8:53 pm

    This asshole needs to be fired.

    “At”, or “out of something”, either is good.

  2. 2.

    Mike J

    March 8, 2015 at 8:55 pm

    City officials have frequently asserted that the harsh and disparate results of Ferguson’s law enforcement system do not indicate problems with police or court practices, but instead reflect a pervasive lack of “personal responsibility” among “certain segments” of the community.

    If you, like I, are one of those people who grind their teeth when somebody says “begging the question” when they mean “raises the question”, this is an example you can use.

    “We don’t target minorities, they just commit more crime. How do we know? Look at how many we arrested!”

  3. 3.

    Villago Delenda Est

    March 8, 2015 at 8:59 pm

    This asshole’s head needs to be removed from his ass and placed on a pike.

    but instead reflect a pervasive lack of “personal responsibility” among “certain segments” of the community.

    Sort of like Knowles who is desperately searching for a way to tap dance out of responsibility for this entire mess.

  4. 4.

    Hildebrand

    March 8, 2015 at 9:00 pm

    “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” Upton Sinclair. This guy is willfully blind, and like a conspiracy theorist, no damn evidence is going to shake that lack of vision.

  5. 5.

    PurpleGirl

    March 8, 2015 at 9:00 pm

    If he really wants to start reforming things… raise taxes on all people and all businesses. Stop relying on police stops, fines, and fees and Court fees to provide revenue. Stop needing to have traffic stops to generate fees and fines. JUST STOP IT.

  6. 6.

    Baud

    March 8, 2015 at 9:01 pm

    @PurpleGirl: That’s a good suggestion for a start.

  7. 7.

    Mike J

    March 8, 2015 at 9:03 pm

    @Hildebrand: I saw himn on the news with a “I heart Ferguson” logo on his jacket.

    A better logo would be “Heart Ferguson before Ferguson hearts you.”

  8. 8.

    WereBear

    March 8, 2015 at 9:03 pm

    I have heard this smug crap from racists all my life. Why are they arrested more often?

    Here it is in, in writing. Because you arrest them more often!

  9. 9.

    sharl

    March 8, 2015 at 9:07 pm

    This response comes as no surprise whatsoever, given their behavior from the time Michael Brown’s dead body was left on the pavement under the baking sun for all those hours that fateful day.

    I’m almost sorry the racist e-mails were included in the report, since that gave these racist vampires a means for distracting everyone from the much bigger issues going on there. If those racist e-mail authors had kept their mouths shut and stuck to their roles of bleeding AA Ferguson residents dry and putting them in jail for minor and ginned-up traffic infractions, they would still have their jobs (at least for now).

    IIRC, AG Holder said DoJ would be looking at all the communities in STL County, not just Ferguson, in considering remedial actions. That is welcome news, since a lot of folks who live in that area and know the score say that there are a LOT of municipalities there that do the same thing, and a number of them are even worse than Ferguson. Ferguson of course got all the attention because that’s where Michael Brown was killed, and that”s the event that set off the powder keg for the increasingly tense and despair-laden situation that was building up there.

  10. 10.

    Hildebrand

    March 8, 2015 at 9:10 pm

    @PurpleGirl: I have had to educate both of my kids as to the benefits of proper taxation. Going to school in Texas has been awful on that front – they are constantly bombarding the kids with ‘all taxes are bad!!!’ I have done a decent job of explaining that taxation is a necessary part of our system of governance, and that if you want nice things you bloody well have to pay for them. I guess the talks worked, my daughter has been lobbying the principal, noting that instead of endless fundraisers maybe he should just work on getting the mayor to propose a tax increase which would benefit all schools.

  11. 11.

    NorthLeft12

    March 8, 2015 at 9:11 pm

    but instead reflect a pervasive lack of “personal responsibility” among “certain segments” of the community.

    The segment of the community I was thinking of was the leaders and employees of the municipal government of Ferguson.

  12. 12.

    VidaLoca

    March 8, 2015 at 9:24 pm

    “Do they have a statistic that tells me that they’ve examined every arrest that we’ve made for the past four years and that half, or all, or 10 percent, or 5 percent are unconstitutional or without cause? They do not have that. They have not examined at that level that I know of at this point.”

    This is a prime example of what discerning analysts call “a squid-cloud of butthurt”.

  13. 13.

    philpm

    March 8, 2015 at 9:26 pm

    @Snarki, child of Loki: Through would work as well, such as through a flaming semi full of cow shit.

  14. 14.

    Napoleon

    March 8, 2015 at 9:27 pm

    @sharl:

    wow are you a moron

  15. 15.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    March 8, 2015 at 9:27 pm

    @NorthLeft12:

    [I]instead reflect a pervasive lack of “personal responsibility” among “certain segments” of the community…

    The segment of the community I was thinking of was the leaders and employees of the municipal government of Ferguson.

    Exactly my thought as well. I’ll also note the condescension implied in the Mayor’s assertion that he wants to persuade the DoJ to join him in delusion.

  16. 16.

    philpm

    March 8, 2015 at 9:28 pm

    @PurpleGirl: Problem being, he’ll insist it either be personal income taxes or property taxes, and he’ll make sure it applies only to those making the least.

  17. 17.

    Sherparick

    March 8, 2015 at 9:29 pm

    @Mike J: This also shows they regularly watch Fox and listen to Limbaugh shove of shit since they are constantly going on about the lack of “personal responsibility” among Black people. And of course, we are not racists (since we don’t wear hoods – one is not a racist unless they are wearing a hood).

  18. 18.

    MobiusKlein

    March 8, 2015 at 9:31 pm

    @Hildebrand: Taxes are the price we pay to fund the government you like.

    If you go to the store and buy the 90% reduced price chicken, don’t be surprised when it flies out your tail at warp 2. If you try funding a govt. on the cheap, similar results.

  19. 19.

    Villago Delenda Est

    March 8, 2015 at 9:35 pm

    @Napoleon: Would you care to explain this comment? Because it’s not at all obvious what the hell you’re talking about…which indicates to me a lot of projection going on.

  20. 20.

    sharl

    March 8, 2015 at 9:36 pm

    @Napoleon: Hey, thanks for the trenchant critique! Made me rethink my entire position.

    [Actually it did motivate me to actually read the linked article, which I normally do before commenting. That didn’t help me in deconvoluting your complex and nuanced response though.]

  21. 21.

    feebog

    March 8, 2015 at 9:39 pm

    John, as you know, the Mayor can’t be “fired”, he is an elected official. What has to happen is every last AA resident of Ferguson needs to register and vote. Kick those assholes out of power and institute a fair an just system of taxation to support the town. Hire a Police Chief who will commit to developing a diverse and representative police force.

  22. 22.

    WaterGirl

    March 8, 2015 at 9:41 pm

    I read somewhere that Eric Holder said they would dismantle the police department if that’s what it takes. Based on what this guy said, I’m guessing that’s what it will take.

  23. 23.

    Brandon

    March 8, 2015 at 9:42 pm

    I hope that Holder makes good on his threat to disband that police department.

    The thing that bugs me the most though is the complicity of the courts. More attention needs to be brought to bear on these magistrates and judges. Why haven’t they been asked to comment?

  24. 24.

    VidaLoca

    March 8, 2015 at 9:47 pm

    @feebog: While I don’t disagree at all in principle with your point, the problem with the oft-cited solution “register and vote” is — vote for whom? If getting rid of this particular mayor only to replace him with another one just as bad is what the election is about, I can understand why the idea would lose a lot of its motivating force.

    A better candidate might be found — but neither you nor I know whether such a person who took the step of declaring their candidacy for that office (or any office in the St. Louis area from what it appears) might not find a cross burning on their lawn shortly after doing so.

  25. 25.

    sharl

    March 8, 2015 at 9:48 pm

    @feebog: Voting is definitely a matter of concern, but there are structural problems there too, which the ACLU filed suit over in December on the basis of non-compliance with the Voting Rights Act:

    …the American Civil Liberties Union sued the school board under the Voting Rights Act, arguing that the way its members are elected blocks minority voters from fully participating in the political process.

    The method is known as “at large” voting, and lets voters cast ballots for all candidates in the district, regardless of where the voters live. Since the district’s voting-age population is 50 percent white and 47 percent black, and since both groups there tend to vote along strict racial lines, the white voters’ candidates almost always win.

    The lawsuit, filed in a Missouri federal court on Dec. 18, contends that the white board members have not been attentive enough to the needs of black students, and in 2013 the board dismissed the district’s first black superintendent without explanation.

    The suit calls for at-large voting to be replaced with another system, like one that allows residents to vote for a candidate who lives in their part of the district, which would make it possible for majority-black neighborhoods to elect board members of their choice.

  26. 26.

    PaulW

    March 8, 2015 at 9:53 pm

    Dear city mayors and police departments:

    It would be more fair, and less paperwork, if you just taxed people to pay for your shit instead of the goddamn headaches of ticketing them and fining them every day of the week.

    Signed,
    Someone who wants Grover Norquist to slip on a bar of soap in his own damn tub and drown his own damn self.

  27. 27.

    Mwangangi

    March 8, 2015 at 9:55 pm

    OT but relevant, Photoshop used in a pleasing (to me) way:
    https://www.pinterest.com/pin/492792384202540309/

    It’s a mashup of Obama and MLK marching.

  28. 28.

    sharl

    March 8, 2015 at 9:55 pm

    More on structural problems with voting in the Ferguson area:

    …while Ferguson is 67 percent black, five of the six council members and the mayor are all white. Why this disparity? There are two culprits: the timing of municipal elections and the nature of the ballot in these elections.

    Ferguson holds municipal elections in April of odd-numbered years. In doing so, the town is hardly unique. Approximately three-fourths of American municipalities hold their elections in odd years, a Progressive-era reform intended to shield municipal elections from the partisan politics of national contests, but one that has been shown to have a dramatic effect on reducing turnout.

    Ferguson also holds nonpartisan elections (where party labels do not appear on the ballot), another Progressive reform, and one that has been shown to reduce both what citizens know about candidates as well as their likelihood of voting. These consequences are worse for people with less education and less income.

  29. 29.

    PaulW

    March 8, 2015 at 9:56 pm

    @WaterGirl:

    I read somewhere that Eric Holder said they would dismantle the police department if that’s what it takes. Based on what this guy said, I’m guessing that’s what it will take.

    The DOJ needs to disband the whole city government and arrest every employee who used their offices to “wipe away” or “hide” tickets and citations.

  30. 30.

    Villago Delenda Est

    March 8, 2015 at 9:57 pm

    @PaulW: It would ultimately be less expensive, too.

    But then again an efficiently run and fair tax system would cost the current 1% money, that they’d rather extract from the peasants.

  31. 31.

    Hildebrand

    March 8, 2015 at 9:57 pm

    @MobiusKlein: I have never understood people who don’t grasp the concept – it is not complicated economics: you pay in, the community (including you) gets stuff in return. If you try to do things on the cheap, it will bite you. Jeez, this is not hard.

  32. 32.

    Keith G

    March 8, 2015 at 9:57 pm

    This asshole needs to be fired.

    He’s an elected official. He will be fired when enough voters muster enough care to go cast a vote against him. I hope that is soon.
    @Snarki, child of Loki:

    “At”, or “out of something”, either is good.

    Snark notwithstanding, joking about an elected official (or anyone) being fired at isn’t that cool. Besides, you are dangerously close to coopting Villago’s shtick.

  33. 33.

    PurpleGirl

    March 8, 2015 at 10:00 pm

    @Hildebrand: I live in NYC. One of the things our taxes pay for is a municipal hospital and health system. I can’t say it is perfect but if you fall under certain guidelines they will charge you a discounted fee for seeing a doctor and a very low $2.00 per prescription. I’m n ot old enough for Medicare and I have too much in assets for Medicaid but I’m not working. I think I’ve gotten a good bargain for my taxes all these years.

  34. 34.

    trollhattan

    March 8, 2015 at 10:01 pm

    @sharl:
    “Napoleon” is James Knowles III’s internet nym. I thought everybody knew that. And every day is Waterloo.

  35. 35.

    Roger Moore

    March 8, 2015 at 10:01 pm

    @MobiusKlein:

    If you try funding a govt. on the cheap, similar results.

    But this isn’t just about funding government on the cheap. The racial disparity is absolutely deliberate, and it’s at least as much the point as avoiding taxes is. This is about sticking it to blacks.

  36. 36.

    mai naem mobile

    March 8, 2015 at 10:01 pm

    @PurpleGirl: the gop has turned taxes into an evil never mention word. Arizona just passed its 2015 budget with a big cut in education. There’s some GOPr on twitter whos going on about how AZ spends $9500/ student and how thats 236K a class based on 25 kids!!! Its makes it sound like theres a teacher with 25 kids in this singular classroom getting paid $235K!!! Don’t mention the principal, vice principal, utilities, maintenance, emergency training,counselor,psychologist,nurse,IT people, the PE stuff, school buses, the buildings etc etc because OMG! dontcha know the teacher is making $235K.

  37. 37.

    Pogonip

    March 8, 2015 at 10:06 pm

    A reporter, as opposed to a stenographer, might compare the minority arrest rates in communities with demographics similar to Ferguson’s, and then ask His Honor about any discrepancies.

  38. 38.

    Roger Moore

    March 8, 2015 at 10:07 pm

    @PaulW:

    It would be more fair, and less paperwork, if you just taxed people to pay for your shit instead of the goddamn headaches of ticketing them and fining them every day of the week.

    There are two problems with that approach:

    1) The expense of raising money this way is an advantage, not a disadvantage, since it allows the politicians and head of the police department to set up patronage.
    2) There’s no way they’d be able to engineer that kind of racial disparity with legitimate taxation.

  39. 39.

    Hildebrand

    March 8, 2015 at 10:11 pm

    @mai naem mobile: We had something similar here a few years ago – some local Tea Party knave found out how much the state ‘pays’ the university per student credit hour. This genius totaled up the student credit hour payments and figured that that is what each faculty member was making. Of course, if he had simply looked up faculty salaries for UT system schools on the Google, he could have found our salaries to the penny. Some people work so hard to be stupid.

  40. 40.

    scav

    March 8, 2015 at 10:12 pm

    He’s practically not denying such behaviors occurred, practically agrees they did. Dispropotionately targeting minorities, setting up policing and court systems to shake down residents and others for maximum monetary return (with targets), But hey! he says, are such things unconstitutional? Have we been proven to do them often enough for it to be unconstitional? What’s a little 10% or 5% unconstitionality or whatever by officers and institutions of municipal, police and judicial control, huh?

  41. 41.

    sharl

    March 8, 2015 at 10:17 pm

    Here is the latest from STL-area resident Sarah Kendzior – rather long read – written from the perspective of the local protestors, many of whom are barely getting by. Rather grim reading, unfortunately.

    @trollhattan: Heh (still wondering what THAT was all about).

  42. 42.

    WaterGirl

    March 8, 2015 at 10:18 pm

    OT, but speaking of mayors…

    TooManyJens, are you out there?

    I am starting to tune into the CU mayoral election that’s coming up in April. Any thoughts? I am discouraged that the choices are the current democratic mayor (and all his issues), two clear republicans and one “independent’ who really leans republican.

    A few minutes ago I thought, this is why people don’t vote. help!

  43. 43.

    Laertes

    March 8, 2015 at 10:18 pm

    The point of his framing is so that wingnuts can throw up their hands and say “Hey, who knows? The facts aren’t all in yet. I’m waiting to see the results of the City of Ferguson’s review of the report.” You can’t baldly assert that the report is a prayer that the feds are laying before the City of Ferguson. But if you can imply it without stating it directly, you can smuggle the idea into the discourse and people will just build on it.

  44. 44.

    Yatsuno

    March 8, 2015 at 10:26 pm

    OT: Donna’s in.

  45. 45.

    rikyrah

    March 8, 2015 at 10:29 pm

    @Yatsuno:

    yeah!

  46. 46.

    sharl

    March 8, 2015 at 10:31 pm

    @Laertes: Agreed, and sadly, I think the wingers have a good chance of succeeding, especially as the extent of the problem (and the effort and resources likely required to fix it) become more evident. If they can diffuse the relevant issues, divert attention, and eventually disappear the problem from sight (and ultimately from memory), then odds of achieving much-needed widespread changes will be lessened considerably.

  47. 47.

    Botsplainer

    March 8, 2015 at 10:32 pm

    Speaking of old white people who needed to be subjected to death panels or FEMA reeducation camps years ago, my mom has announced that my hateful, lazy, racist misanthropic grandmothers visitation will be from 2 PM to 8 PM Tuesday (with a private family time for an hour beforehand to pretend that my grandmother wasn’t a complete asshole). Then, the funeral which guts the midweek of my entire nuclear family at 11 Wednesday, followed by a burial which is needlessly in the middle of fucking nowhere about 1.5 hrs away.

    Keep in mind that wife and youngest daughter would be struggling under good circumstances to leave for Thailand and Csmbodia on Thursday, much less with the bullshit my mother stuck them with – I wanted everything to happen while they’re away.

    If I can avoid calling that old woman the C word in the process of all this, I’ll be accomplishing a lot.

  48. 48.

    Frankensteinbeck

    March 8, 2015 at 10:35 pm

    a pervasive lack of “personal responsibility” among “certain segments” of the community.

    Racists don’t just hate black people. They think blacks are inferior. Specifically, lazy, irresponsible, stupid, and inherently criminal – two year olds, basically. They believe this. They talk about it all the time, in front of you.

    @Sherparick:
    Fox and Rush didn’t make this up. They’re parroting what their audience have been saying for generations. Hell, since well before the Civil War. This is how they think of black people, and always have.

    @Roger Moore:
    This. When do they complain about government spending? When a Democrat is in charge. What do they try to do to fix it? Cut welfare. Yes, they’re whiny, selfish, entitled shits, but the main motivation of this is racism. Hell, they talk about it all the time. They’re not hiding it.

  49. 49.

    Gex

    March 8, 2015 at 10:38 pm

    @Roger Moore: And the thing that gets me is that we have to argue the the fact that the system is designed to hurt blacks when Lee Atwater flat out said so. Modern Republican policies hurt everyone but they hurt blacks more.

    I can’t fucking believe we’ve spent decades arguing over a fact that they admitted into the record.

    Edited for clarity.

  50. 50.

    sharl

    March 8, 2015 at 10:44 pm

    @Yatsuno: I would love to see my Congresswoman in the Senate – saw hints of something going on in tweets earlier today.* She needs to be ready to respond to any ratfuckings that may come her way from the state Dem machine, with whom she has had some tense moments in the past (Steny Hoyer is in solid with that lot, as was Donna’s predecessor Corporate Al Wynn). My gut feeling is that sticking to an economic populist message would be the best way for her to go. That should (I hope) even reach some of the folks in more conservative but economically depressed regions of the state, who may still not vote for her, but may at least not vote against her. [Did I say “I hope”? Yeah, I’ll say it again.]

    *Link

    Frank Thorp V ‏@frankthorpNBC
    While running w/ wife at National Harbor today we stumbled upon @repdonnaedwards taping a message w/ a large production crew #MDSEN?

    Frank Thorp V ‏@frankthorpNBC 4h4 hours ago
    An aide for @repdonnaedwards says she’s “seriously considering a run” #MDSEN, will decide “in the coming days.”

  51. 51.

    Frankensteinbeck

    March 8, 2015 at 10:45 pm

    @Gex:
    This took shape in the 80s. Being racist was unacceptable, so calling someone racist was super rude and you’d better be able to back it up. Since most of the nation was racist – and crap, I’d say at least 60% of whites have serious prejudice issues now – the end result was giving everybody the benefit of the doubt if there was any to extend at all. So all racists had to do was not say ‘nigger’, and they could express their concern for gang warfare, drug pushers spilling out of the inner city ghettos, and making sure welfare wasn’t being exploited all they like.

  52. 52.

    Gin & Tonic

    March 8, 2015 at 10:54 pm

    @Botsplainer: Just talking out of my ass here, but why not tell your wife she’s not obligated to attend? It’s your grandmother, not hers.

  53. 53.

    bargal20

    March 8, 2015 at 10:54 pm

    “these sorts of things don’t happen in the city of Ferguson.”

    And America doesn’t torture.

  54. 54.

    Roger Moore

    March 8, 2015 at 11:07 pm

    @Gex:
    I think you also can’t ignore the rapid demographic changes in Ferguson when trying to understand the behavior of the whites there. It’s a city that was predominantly white as recently as 1980, but has rapidly become majority black. You can’t ignore a desire to drive blacks out of town as a possible motivation for the constant police harassment.

  55. 55.

    p.a.

    March 8, 2015 at 11:14 pm

    I’m reading Braudel’s Mediterranean in the Age of Philip II and there’s a brief passage in Part 2 describing Ottoman and Spanish colonialism in the 16th century. It’s exactly the same design as Ferguson’s. TNC is exactly right to call it a system of plunder.

  56. 56.

    Cacti

    March 8, 2015 at 11:28 pm

    Looks like the British media (naturally), has unearthed a photo of Darren Wilson with his arm around the now fired Ferguson City Court Clerk, Mary Ann Twitty.

  57. 57.

    cokane

    March 8, 2015 at 11:29 pm

    have to wonder how such a mayor and city government came to be in a city that’s 67 percent black

  58. 58.

    Violet

    March 8, 2015 at 11:34 pm

    @Botsplainer: Just tell your wife and daughter they don’t have to come.

  59. 59.

    WaterGirl

    March 8, 2015 at 11:45 pm

    @Botsplainer: With your wife and youngest daughter leaving on a big trip like that, I would think they could do the 1 hour family private visitation (as a show of respect) and beg off from participating in any of the rest. It can either be just not possible – or it could be too unsettling, especially for your daughter, before the trip.

  60. 60.

    Gex

    March 8, 2015 at 11:58 pm

    @Frankensteinbeck: Yeah, I thought that point was made when I referenced Atwater.

  61. 61.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    March 8, 2015 at 11:59 pm

    @WaterGirl: This seems like an outstanding plan, and a better approach that I would have taken. That would be something along the lines of Fuck You, mom dearest; she was your mother so you’re on your own.

  62. 62.

    lamh36

    March 9, 2015 at 12:02 am

    Speaking of heads up one’s ass…apparently 47 Republican Senators decided to sent a letter to Iranian leaders to tank any deals offered by Obama to Iran.

    Hmmm, is treason too harsh a word to throw out there?

    Republicans Warn Iran — and Obama — That Deal Won’t Last

    A group of 47 Republican senators has written an open letter to Iran’s leaders warning them that any nuclear deal they sign with President Barack Obama’s administration won’t last after Obama leaves office.

    Organized by freshman Senator Tom Cotton and signed by the chamber’s entire party leadership as well as potential 2016 presidential contenders Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz and Rand Paul, the letter is meant not just to discourage the Iranian regime from signing a deal but also to pressure the White House into giving Congress some authority over the process…

  63. 63.

    Tommy

    March 9, 2015 at 12:04 am

    I live about 60 miles from Ferguson. I am as white and middle if not upper middle class as you can get. Ferguson hit a lot of us hard. I read most of the 105 page DoJ report and I couldn’t even make that shit up if I wanted. So over-the-top.

  64. 64.

    srv

    March 9, 2015 at 12:09 am

    @cokane:

    have to wonder how such a mayor and city government came to be in a city that’s 67 percent black

    @Keith G:

    He’s an elected official. He will be fired when enough voters muster enough care to go cast a vote against him. I hope that is soon.

    Maybe instead of #blacklivesmatter, perhaps #blackvotersmatter might be a better strategic play.

  65. 65.

    Peale

    March 9, 2015 at 12:09 am

    @lamh36: there is no reason for iran to bother negotiating, honestly. I don’t think for a minute that president rand Paul will honor any agreement.

  66. 66.

    Tommy

    March 9, 2015 at 12:11 am

    Happy things. I asked here what to do in Cleveland on a soon to come business trip. You folks hooked me up. I got tickets to see the Cleveland Orchestra play Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony Saturday. Some art. And food, food, food. I have no idea how I will get to all the food suggested, but will try. Try very hard. You people did not disapoint!

  67. 67.

    sharl

    March 9, 2015 at 12:11 am

    The story of how Ferguson became #Ferguson – to paraphrase the title of a CJR post – covers decades, is really complex, and involves the city of St. Louis and the entire surrounding area. An excerpt from that link:

    For revenue, many of those municipalities rely heavily on court fees and fines that can pile up for poor residents and sometimes land them in jail. These municipalities “profit from poverty,” according to the headline of a 13,000-word piece in The Washington Post by libertarian blogger Radley Balko that builds out from a report on municipal courts by legal aid group ArchCity Defenders. Balko attributes the practices of these revenue-hungry hamlets to a “legacy of segregation and structural racism” in which the white population would move further from the city each time black families began arriving, then “incorporate and zone to keep the black population at bay.”

    In a piece called “Why the Fires in Ferguson Won’t End Soon,” Slate’s Jamelle Bouie widened the lens even further, addressing other divisive practices such as unequal policing, school segregation, and subprime loan targeting. Bouie, Coy, Balko, and other journalists who addressed the structure behind the St. Louis region’s racial divide share one thing in common: They relied on the work of historian Colin Gordon, whose Mapping Decline: St. Louis and the Fate of the American City lays out the local policies and practices through which whites were able to isolate themselves residentially from African-Americans over the past 100 years. Gordon says segregation stems partly from Missouri’s lax requirements for creating municipalities. “You have six houses and a signature?” Gordon says. “Fine. You’re a town!”

    Gordon’s work captures a national racial dynamic at work. With real estate playing a major role in the accumulation of wealth, whites have long perceived residential racial integration as a financial risk, whether they admit to internal prejudices or not. But what’s important about Gordon’s work—and what’s important for local journalists to develop—is a focus on regional dynamics. When it comes to white communities protecting their home values, the song remains the same; what Gordon shows is the particulars of how each generation in St. Louis has rearranged the tune.

    That U. of Iowa Mapping Decline link goes to a page with multiple interactive maps (select Tabs at top) that show evolution of the situation with time (the “slide” bars at the bottom margins of the maps don’t so much slide as they leap, fyi).

    Balko did a thorough job in his WaPo reporting (linked by CJR); I didn’t read Bouie’s Slate post, so I cannot say anything about it. I think I have one more link before hitting the 3-link limit to avoid moderation, so for community planning wonks, this report – The Making of Ferguson – looks fairly meaty.

  68. 68.

    lamh36

    March 9, 2015 at 12:12 am

    @Peale: imagine the outrage if the Dems had done anything remotely like this to Bush the lesser heading into 2008?

  69. 69.

    TooManyJens

    March 9, 2015 at 12:16 am

    @WaterGirl: I’m here, but since I live in Urbana I haven’t really been following the Champaign mayoral race. Sorry!

  70. 70.

    MikeBoyScout

    March 9, 2015 at 12:23 am

    “

    They have not examined at that level that I know of at this point.”

    It’s been said above, this illiterate horse’s ass needs to be voted out of office.

  71. 71.

    Jay C

    March 9, 2015 at 12:23 am

    @sharl: @cokane:

    The method is known as “at large” voting, and lets voters cast ballots for all candidates in the district, regardless of where the voters live. Since the district’s voting-age population is 50 percent white and 47 percent black, and since both groups there tend to vote along strict racial lines, the white voters’ candidates almost always win.

    Something doesn’t seem right about these figures: according to most reports, Feguson MO is about 2/3 Black, 1/3 White; so even if the “voting-age population” percentages are roughly equal, there should be about twice as many black voters as white ones – might the 50-47% breakdown refer to actual voters? I have no difficulty imagining pervasive voter apathy (a common problem in poorer communities) depressing turnout, but the numbers don’t make sense to me. Am I missing something?

  72. 72.

    EriktheRed

    March 9, 2015 at 12:25 am

    @Napoleon: I think you oughtta expand on that.

  73. 73.

    Peale

    March 9, 2015 at 12:30 am

    @lamh36: unlike democrats, republicans will be in charge. Sometimes I still get jealous of that. But this does seem very close to treason but whatever.

  74. 74.

    lamh36

    March 9, 2015 at 12:31 am

    More heads up asses???

    Smh white people…do yall ever stop and think?

    Well I guess ya never know when ya being filmed, but still…

    University of Oklahoma frat investigated after video of ‘Never be a n****r SAE’ sing-along goes viral

    http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/03/university-of-oklahoma-frat-investigated-after-video-of-never-be-a-nr-sae-sing-along-goes-viral/#.VP0gnNipFfI.twitter

  75. 75.

    Repatriated

    March 9, 2015 at 12:40 am

    There was something going around about how Obama was going to make it illegal to arrest blacks, which struck me as a bizarre conclusion to draw from the Ferguson report. But it makes sense as a defensive play when you consider that due to criminalizing blackness as they have, one way to keep black voters from the polls would be to have police try (or threaten) to arrest people intending to vote, on outstanding citations.

  76. 76.

    sharl

    March 9, 2015 at 12:42 am

    @Jay C: My interpretation was that the voting boundaries – at least for the school districts – extend beyond Ferguson, so that voting within Ferguson gets diluted.

    As far as municipal elections in Ferguson proper, I linked to some sources in comment #28; the election scheduling is a big part of it. Ian Millhiser went into much greater detail in an August post at Think Progress.

    It looks like changing election laws alone won’t do it, IMO. They need a huge get-out-the-vote campaign and accompanying education program to explain why this matters. That will work to the extent that the residents aren’t too transient, and assuming there are no laws that ban people with outstanding warrants, arrest records, etc., from voting.

    Lotta work needed, and on multiple levels.

  77. 77.

    Mnemosyne (tablet)

    March 9, 2015 at 12:44 am

    @Jay C:

    I would be curious to know what Missouri’s laws are regarding voting rights and felonies and/or misdemeanors. If, as has been reported, the majority of Ferguson’s AA adults have multiple citations against them, does that affect their ability to vote? Who administers voter registration and what are the guidelines? I’m guessing there is massive voter suppression in addition to all of the other bullshit.

  78. 78.

    Tommy

    March 9, 2015 at 12:46 am

    I am watching this cooking show. Cook says he recalls the day he showed his roommate Kimchi for the first time. I so recall that. I know it. I suggest it to people and they are stunned. Didn’t buy in at the start, but I learned.

  79. 79.

    srv

    March 9, 2015 at 12:54 am

    You know, I have 55 or so first cousins and it really bugs me when the smartest post something hysterical to FB but don’t realize what might happen if someone forwarded that to CPS…

    @lamh36: In my day SAE was for Enginerds… tell me times have changed.

  80. 80.

    fuckwit

    March 9, 2015 at 12:54 am

    @feebog: Waaaiiit a minute. Something is fucked up here. Those statistics say that African Americans make up 67% of the population of Ferguson. So then… the real question in this whole thing is…

    HOW THE FUCK DID THIS ASSHOLE GET ELECTED IN THE FIRST PLACE???!!!

    I mean, something is wrong here. It is I think statistically impossible to have a racist mayor and racist city council and corrupt-ass racist judges (who are elected at the county level IIRC), if the SUPERMAJORITY of the population is black.

    I seriously would like someone to explain how it’s even possible that the 67% black population of the city elected this tool.

    UPDATE:
    @Jay C: You said it better than I did. Co-sign. Something is hinky.

  81. 81.

    RaflW

    March 9, 2015 at 12:55 am

    Well, look. Florida’s grifter-robot idiot governor just decided that his state’s government can’t mention global warming or climate change when discussing things like flood prevention, so I don’t really see this Furguson mayor as being cut from any different cloth.

    And Scott got reelected, so at least sufficient plurality of their residents want this moronic shit.

  82. 82.

    RaflW

    March 9, 2015 at 12:56 am

    @fuckwit:

    I seriously would like someone to explain how it’s even possible that the 67% black population of the city elected this tool.

    Have you not been reading Kay’s posts the past couple years about GOP/racist voter suppression tactics?

  83. 83.

    JaneE

    March 9, 2015 at 1:07 am

    When you see a “crime” like “Manner of Walking in Roadway” you know it has to be total BS. You might as well charge them with “thinking they are as good as whites” – at least then everyone would know why you are really punishing them. Everyone in the city government, the court system, and the police department needs to be charged with civil rights violations and sent to jail.

  84. 84.

    Repatriated

    March 9, 2015 at 1:09 am

    @Repatriated: Ok, found the link. (was posting from my phone). Kansas Secretary Of State Says Blacks Might Not Be Prosecuted For Crimes Because Of Obama: http://www.politicususa.com/2015/03/05/kansas-secretary-state-blacks-prosecuted-crimes-obama.html

  85. 85.

    cokane

    March 9, 2015 at 1:19 am

    @Jay C: that example is only relevant to the school board. the school district extends beyond ferguson and so the demographics break down differently.

    having a white mayor and 5/6 white councilmen seems to me to be largely voter apathy

  86. 86.

    cckids

    March 9, 2015 at 1:29 am

    @srv:

    In my day SAE was for Enginerds… tell me times have changed

    When my daughter started college, some older girls told her to avoid the SAE guys; that it was an acronym for “Sexual Abuse Experts”. It seems that that is what the guys in that frat call themselves. Jackasses doesn’t begin to cover it.

  87. 87.

    Tissue Thin Pseudonym

    March 9, 2015 at 1:31 am

    @Peale:

    But this does seem very close to treason but whatever.

    No, it’s not. It’s dumb. It reveals that the Republicans don’t even begin to understand this issue and that they are over-the-top hypocritical since they’ve made the same accusations when Democrats (like Pelosi) talked to foreign governments. But it in no way whatsoever resembles treason, which is a term those on both the left and the right throw around way too easily. It has a specific definition that you should look up.

    Not only is this not treason, it’s not even a violation of the Logan Act, any more than it was a violation when Democratic congresspersons have gone to the Middle East and done things involving hostile governments.

  88. 88.

    fuckwit

    March 9, 2015 at 1:33 am

    @RaflW: I’ve seen it, and the scale of it looked like it was designed to rig very close presidential elections… and it failed to do that in 2008 and 2012, mostly because they weren’t close enough to rig, they were outside the “Diebold margin”. If the voter suppression is on this kind of scale, where a supermajority black city ends up with a racist white mayor and racist white city council, then that’s beyond egregious, the feds must start arresting elections officials immediately. I can’t imagine there’s any way they can suppress votes that level without flagrantly violating laws.

  89. 89.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    March 9, 2015 at 1:41 am

    @Tommy: I had Kimchi for dinner, well, along with galbi.

  90. 90.

    sharl

    March 9, 2015 at 1:53 am

    @cokane:

    seems to me to be largely voter apathy

    I think this is a far bigger factor than the leftie sites I’m exploring are letting on; I mean, they usually give a passing and cursory nod to apathy being a factor, but dwell mostly on changing municipal election dates to coincide with the usual major election dates (typically first Tuesday after the first Monday in November). I guess I understand why they would do this: changing election law is only real hard, but overcoming apathy is real, real, real hard.

    The AA community in Ferguson is on average younger and much less rooted in the community than the white folks there, and there’s a wealth of demographic research showing that age and time-in-the-community correlate with voting habits. Add to that the well-earned lack of trust of the AA community there about white management of things like elections, as well as the general despair about their situation, and the apathy is bound to only be made worse.

    Beyond the racial issues, the economy really took a nosedive in “North County” during the 2008 Crash, and it’s now left with lots of shuttered/abandoned shops – the last mall there closed a long time ago, IIRC – and characterized by a proliferation of those “payday loan” outlets that commonly occupy a distressed community.

    Local writers like Sarah Kendzior (see #41) have noted that young folk that show significant promise are more likely to make a break for it, and leave the community for greener pastures, rather than take the much higher risk of sticking around to try fixing things. Sounds like so many other communities – Midwest, Appalachia, my old Rust Belt home – but the racial component just makes it more complicated and ugly.

  91. 91.

    scav

    March 9, 2015 at 2:17 am

    @sharl: Beyond the simple voters, getting to the polls on the days required, there’s also going to be the difficulty of getting a better slate of candidates on the menu. Hard to order vegan in German McDonalds. Not impossible, but it takes time, effort, cash, connections, etc. over an even longer haul, all of which can be in short supply in young (demographically), young (in terms of community rootedness), transient, poor populations. I seem to remember reading that other communities in the St. Louis area were managing to build up those kind of infrastructures but they were in the more, let’s call them established communities of the county.

  92. 92.

    sharl

    March 9, 2015 at 2:38 am

    @scav: Yeah, that all sounds right. Someone I went to grad school with works at Monsanto R&D, which is in a pretty nice area out west of STL (not too far from Creve Coeur IIRC, which is where she first lived when she moved there). I think a number of communities west and south of the big city are where the folks with higher incomes tend to settle, though it’s been ages since I’ve visited.

  93. 93.

    sharl

    March 9, 2015 at 4:11 am

    OT (though kindasorta not entirely) –
    Via @PopeHat, there was a case of prosecutorial misconduct so egregious that it even bothered law perfesser Glenn Harlan Reynolds, and he wrote about it:

    …It’s a big enough challenge when everybody plays things straight. But what about when you’ve got a prosecutor willing to lie? Then things are worse. And given that prosecutors often face no consequences for misconduct, it’s not surprising that some are willing to lie about it.

    That’s what happened in the California case of The People v. Efrain Velasco-Palacios. In the course of negotiating a plea bargain with the defendant, a Kern County prosecutor committed what the California appeals court called “outrageous government misconduct.”

    What prosecuting attorney Robert Murray did was produce a translated transcript of the defendant’s interrogation to which he had added a fraudulent confession. The defense attorney got a copy of the audio tape of the interrogation, but it “ended abruptly.” Eventually, Murray admitted to falsifying the transcript, presumably in the hopes of either coercing a plea deal, or ensuring a victory at trial.

    When the trial judge found out, charges against the defendant were dismissed…

    Obviously the right decision, but if it turns out the dude really was guilty of child molestation, that would really suck.

  94. 94.

    Fred

    March 9, 2015 at 4:31 am

    For me the kicker is arrests for “Manner of Walking”. Exactly what manner of walking could be against the law? Maybe walking while black. Those people do it to intentionally drive white cops nuts so it’s their own fault.

  95. 95.

    Kay

    March 9, 2015 at 6:12 am

    @sharl:

    You’ve hit a lot of the reasons they would have trouble removing mayor (“at large” elections is part of how black people are kept off school boards in majority black districts) but the bigger problem is low income PEOPLE don’t vote. It isn’t just black people. Voting rates go up with education/income/age so low income young people, in particular, don’t vote.

    We have some of the same problems here with fines/fees levied on poor people thru the police/court/probation system and our lower income population (less than 20k a year) COULD throw out mayor/judges, they have the numbers, they don’t because they vote at lower rates. It’s 95% white here. I think a huge part of it is because they are more transient than higher income people-they move a lot, they change jobs constantly (temp work or crappy jobs) and voting is so tied to an address. The problem has been made worse because they don’t need a mailing address anymore- they do everything electronically (paychecks, school grades, Medicaid) so all they need is a cell phone and they can move without ever updating an address.

    http://thedataweb.rm.census.gov/TheDataWeb_HotReport2/voting/voting.hrml

  96. 96.

    Cervantes

    March 9, 2015 at 6:15 am

    @sharl:

    You may be thinking of Chesterfield Village.

  97. 97.

    Cervantes

    March 9, 2015 at 6:27 am

    @sharl:

    Astonishingly, Murray said that his falsifying the record was a “joke.” The state AG’s office declined to prosecute him, citing a lack of evidence (had they asked me I might have volunteered to manufacture some). He remains employed by the DA. And so it has fallen upon the state bar to punish him by seeking a suspension of his license to practice.

  98. 98.

    Kay

    March 9, 2015 at 6:32 am

    @sharl:

    I think part of the reason they find excuses to pick people up is because they can’t find them to fine them. They’re fining them too much so that’s (obviously) the genesis but once they do pick them up they have this whole list of unpaid fines where the person got no notice because they’ve moved 15 times since the last fine. It just snowballs and once they’re in the system they can’t get out. Stopping them for bullshit reasons is a way to get their name and pull them back in. So is keeping them “on paper” (probation or post-release control) for years and years. That way the onus is on the person to show up and police/courts don’t have to find them and provide notice.

    It’s going to be really difficult to unravel because each person who is a part of it will say they’re just doing their narrow part of the job. They won’;t see it as systemic.

  99. 99.

    sharl

    March 9, 2015 at 6:59 am

    @Kay (#95 and #98):

    I’m glad you’re here to comment on the voting pattern issue; I was poorly equipped to address that when other commenters first brought it up here, and ended up with a slew of open browser tabs trying to jog my memory about what I had read on the issue months ago.

    Yeah, the combination of youth, poverty and transience appears to be the major driver for non-voting, and with respect to that specific issue of voting habits, being AA is just the cherry on the shit pie. I was surprised to see that the NYT had an op-ed in the earliest days following the killing of Michael Brown noting the significant role of the transience of the poor folk of Ferguson.

    As black families moved into Ferguson, the whites fled. In 1980, the town was 85 percent white and 14 percent black; by 2010, it was 29 percent white and 69 percent black. But blacks did not gain political power as their numbers grew. The mayor and the police chief are white, as are five of the six City Council members. The school board consists of six white members and one Hispanic. As Mr. Gordon explains, many black residents, lacking the wealth to buy property, move from apartment to apartment and have not put down political roots.

    Awareness of that report by U.Iowa’s Colin Gordon (linked in comment #67) clearly spread very quickly among journalists who were most determined to get to the root of the story.

    It’s going to be really difficult to unravel because each person who is a part of it will say they’re just doing their narrow part of the job. They won’t see it as systemic.

    Yeah, sadly, I think this will be true; I’m afraid it might be like trying to have a sword fight with a poisonous gas cloud.

  100. 100.

    sharl

    March 9, 2015 at 7:09 am

    @Cervantes:

    You may be thinking of Chesterfield Village.

    That could well be; it’s been a very long time. I do vaguely recall that we got on the beltway to get between her home and her office/lab, so work was not in Creve Coeur, but not way far away (on the same side of STL at least).

    And on the Kerr County, CA situation, I haven’t been in HALT for many years (and I’m not even sure it is still a functional organization, based on my just-attempted search), but back when I got their newsletter, most state bars got very low marks for disciplining misbehaving lawyers. Hopefully CA is one of the better states in this regard.

  101. 101.

    Sherparick

    March 9, 2015 at 7:16 am

    It came to me this morning that this is a classic illustration of Upton Sinclair’s famous aphorism: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.” In this particular case, given the revenue/business plan of the town of Ferguson being based on fines and fees collected from Black people, the Mayor’s salary is directly based on him not understanding that Justice Department report.

  102. 102.

    Cervantes

    March 9, 2015 at 10:32 am

    @Kay:

    It’s going to be really difficult to unravel because each person who is a part of it will say they’re just doing their narrow part of the job. They won’;t see it as systemic.

    Fire them all and let the Good Lord sort them out.

    (You’re too nice to agree, of course!)

  103. 103.

    Cervantes

    March 9, 2015 at 10:53 am

    @sharl:

    HALT ran out of funding and shut down — within the last year, it seems to me.

    Not surprising to me that you are (or were) familiar with them.

  104. 104.

    Jado

    March 9, 2015 at 10:56 am

    @PurpleGirl:

    Bwahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!

    You know taxes would be applied to WHITE people as well, right? That’s never gonna happen.

    If’n yer gonna be th’ mair of a good ol’ Sothin town lahk Ferguson, y’all gotta keep them thar Darkies in they’s place. If not, they might start to think they’re PEOPLE>

    Can’t have that…

  105. 105.

    ET

    March 9, 2015 at 11:16 am

    What they don’t seem to get is that they use the fines and the police to create a good bit of the income they need to finance a town that is not enough of a town to generate money enough outside of that. They need all those fines, tickets, and other monies squeezed out of the judicial system because if they didn’t have that money then there wouldn’t be a council, or a town police force, or other town employees. Until that is fixed for Ferguson in particular, and many other jurisdictions in that state what is going on is not going to change. Even then it will only be lessened.

  106. 106.

    RaflW

    March 9, 2015 at 12:03 pm

    @fuckwit: As a total package, fellon disenfranchisement + birth cert to register + restricting the times and places to register when in poor neighborhoods + purges of voting rolls + whatever else they think of X whoites playing on black sentiment that voting doesn’t matter = Ferguson type election results.

  107. 107.

    pseudonymous in nc

    March 9, 2015 at 12:23 pm

    The city (like many other white-flight municipalities) needs not to exist any more. How do you shut down a city?

    @RaflW: maybe they schedule all the traffic court appearances on election day? I’m not even kidding.

  108. 108.

    Laertes

    March 9, 2015 at 1:09 pm

    @Tissue Thin Pseudonym:

    But it in no way whatsoever resembles treason, which is a term those on both the left and the right throw around way too easily. It has a specific definition that you should look up.

    This.

    The founders knew very well that the party in power was quick to shout “treason” at the first sign of criticism, so they laid out a very clear definition. To a first approximation, anyone who accuses an American of treason is either ignorant or throwing a tantrum.

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