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You are here: Home / Civil Rights / Racial Justice / This Week In Blackness / If We Can’t Swim, You Can’t Drive

If We Can’t Swim, You Can’t Drive

by Elon James White|  June 10, 20151:12 pm| 36 Comments

This post is in: This Week In Blackness

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Hundreds of protestors gathered in McKinney, Texas, on Monday to protest the brutal actions of a police officer at Craig Ranch Community Pool.

Community members rallied in the neighborhood to speak out against the racist actions of the two women who apparently made comments like “you black f****r” and “that’s why you live in Section 8 homes.” Demonstrators also called for the firing of a police officer who was captured on video manhandling a young black girl and wielding his gun at two black teenage boys who tried to help her. … At one point, protesters sat in the middle of the street deliberately blocking traffic as they chanted, “If we can’t swim, you can’t drive!” Throughout other portions of the march, crowds yelled “Let’s go swimming!” — an activity black partygoers were denied on Friday.

The officer, who was identified as patrol supervisor Cpl. Eric Casebolt, has resigned.

Team Blackness also discussed Cleveland leaders who are continuing to try to get justice for Tamir Rice, Mike Huckabee’s confusion with topless women, and a new Pizza Hut box that turns into a movie projector for your smartphone.

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Reader Interactions

36Comments

  1. 1.

    mouse tolliver

    June 10, 2015 at 1:53 pm

    So has anyone started a GoFundMe for the racists who started this fight? Because I’m sure their hurt feefees must be worth a couple hundred thou’ at least.

  2. 2.

    Peale

    June 10, 2015 at 1:55 pm

    I think this misses the issue. The issue is that black people were singled out for brutality when both African Americans and White people were breaking the rules. Unless it has come out differently, this pool was actually a private pool with association rules attached to it that said no more than three outside guests at a time – e.g., no pool parties at the pool. The pool connected with my building has the same rules (although I once had my entire family down by the pool when they came for a visit, had the lifeguard asked, I would have had to send a bunch of folks inside). This isn’t about denying people access to a public pool and making it about that clouds the issue.

  3. 3.

    Belafon

    June 10, 2015 at 2:18 pm

    @Peale: The kids you saw in the video lived in the neighborhood. The kids at the pool were either able to get in or had guest passes.

    But this doesn’t miss the issue. The white woman who made all those statements did not what those filthy black kids swimming in the same pool she was. That’s what started all this and, ultimately, that racism has to be dealth with. If the cop hadn’t shown up doing his thing, the fact that these kids weren’t allowed in the pool because they were black would have been the issue.

  4. 4.

    Calouste

    June 10, 2015 at 2:23 pm

    The man who called 911 to complain about a group of black teenagers at a pool party in Texas, and defended the controversial police response as a “good amount of aggression”, is a convicted felon who spent time in jail for violent behaviour and torturing animals.

    http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/10/texas-pool-party-911-caller-convicted-felon

  5. 5.

    Calouste

    June 10, 2015 at 2:30 pm

    And related:

    NYPD Chief Bill Bratton (paraphrased): “We have a racist white police force because we can’t hire minorities because they have criminal records because they have been targeted by our racist white police force.”

    http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/09/bratton-hiring-black-nypd-officers-criminal-records

  6. 6.

    Germy Shoemangler

    June 10, 2015 at 2:40 pm

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDOMtOFaCys

  7. 7.

    Mike in NC

    June 10, 2015 at 2:44 pm

    That Texas cop who resigned will be laughing all the way to the bank once some Wingnut Welfare is tossed his way.

  8. 8.

    Poopyman

    June 10, 2015 at 2:48 pm

    And relatedly, under an article currently on CNN’s front page subtitled (literally!) “Baltimore Officers Say They’re scared to Do Their Jobs”:

    “Our training and expertise, we are trained to be able to escalate things before they escalate,” the second officer said when pressed about his comments on “equal force.”

    “Everybody has lost something because of this,” he said about Gray’s death.

    When asked what the officers lost, he replied: “Their lives. I mean, they will never be able to go back to their normal life at this point. It doesn’t matter if they’re exonerated, which they should be. It doesn’t matter. This is a life-changing event, which can’t be turned back around.”

    I mean, WTF?

  9. 9.

    Amir Khalid

    June 10, 2015 at 3:03 pm

    @Poopyman:
    No matter how you dress that up, it’s essentially naked self-pity.

  10. 10.

    japa21

    June 10, 2015 at 3:09 pm

    @Poopyman: So they are to escalate things before someone else does. Like you said, WTF.

    Military rules are such that a soldier cannot fire his weapon unless fired upon. (Obviously not always done that way).

    Police are apparently taught to fire so that the other person doesn’t even have an opportunity to do so. (And may not even have had the ability to do so in the first place. )

  11. 11.

    Big ole hound

    June 10, 2015 at 3:17 pm

    The two women who started this whole thing can be charged with simple assault and hopefully lose their jobs which will make them heros to that 27 percent. Then they can be elected as local GOP school board members.

  12. 12.

    Amir Khalid

    June 10, 2015 at 3:23 pm

    @japa21:
    If cops are being taught to shoot first, something is very seriously wrong with police-officer training in Baltimore. I am not American, but it seems to me that this might be a matter for the DoJ.

  13. 13.

    japa21

    June 10, 2015 at 3:26 pm

    @Amir Khalid: Oh I agree and I might well be overstating it, but when I read that a cop says they are taught to escalate first, it sure appears that way. And current history appears to prove it as quite possible, even probable.

  14. 14.

    scav

    June 10, 2015 at 3:29 pm

    @Calouste: So, we’re possibly looping back to accepting (and no doubt soon defending on Faux) the abuse of farmyard animals as being expected, normal, unexceptional behavior for the right sort of people? Out of control cops back then penalized them for angelic healthy teens being teens type shenanigans?

  15. 15.

    Bobby Thomson

    June 10, 2015 at 3:34 pm

    @Belafon: some didn’t have passes and climbed the fence, according to reports. The issue is selective enforcement.

  16. 16.

    patrick II

    June 10, 2015 at 3:35 pm

    @Poopyman:

    This is a life-changing event, which can’t be turned back around.”

    Good, if it’s true.

  17. 17.

    Bobby Thomson

    June 10, 2015 at 3:36 pm

    @japa21: which is why Tamir Rice is dead.

  18. 18.

    Roger Moore

    June 10, 2015 at 3:37 pm

    @japa21:

    So they are to escalate things before someone else does.

    It’s also possible that he was trying to say that they’re taught to deescalate before somebody else escalates- which is what they’re supposed to be taught- but that he either misspoke or was misquoted.

  19. 19.

    scav

    June 10, 2015 at 3:44 pm

    @Roger Moore: I mean, really, I don’t think we could have come up with a better description of what seems to be one underlying problem if we’d purchased months of computing time than “Escalate First”. So many police keep kicking themselves in the face when they open their mouths in front of mics — the union PR guys, we had a string of those and now this home-run effort.

  20. 20.

    VincentN

    June 10, 2015 at 3:45 pm

    A Former Cop On What Went Wrong In McKinney

    I thought this was an interesting article about how things could have been resolved much more peacefully if Eric Casebolt hadn’t gotten involved.

  21. 21.

    Cluttered Mind

    June 10, 2015 at 3:50 pm

    @scav: Let’s turn to regular Fox contributor Mike Huckabee for his thoughts on animal torture and how it’s okay and forgivable when white guys do it. I hear he has some prior knowledge of this.

  22. 22.

    scav

    June 10, 2015 at 3:57 pm

    @Cluttered Mind: And who was the barnyard fraternization guy, from Georgia or thereabouts?
    Oh, and I was doing so well at avoiding the news earlier today, only to be lured back by a guardian link. Ben Carson seems to be cheerleading the creation of govt meta-spies, overseeing and firing co-workers. Apart from the whole govt. bloat inconsistency, plus the amusement at thinking of alternative definitions of “drones”, I love watching the anti-commie crowd cheer the creation of the some sort of employment stasi.

  23. 23.

    Mnemosyne

    June 10, 2015 at 4:10 pm

    @VincentN:

    It really seems sometimes as though cops are actively being trained to be confrontational and aggressive rather than being trained to be able to negotiate and calm situations down. That article was a great explanation of the mindset: Warrior vs. Guardian.

  24. 24.

    John Revolta

    June 10, 2015 at 4:13 pm

    Gentlemen, let’s get the thing straight, once and for all. The policeman isn’t there to create disorder; the policeman is there to preserve disorder.

    King Richard the First, Mayor of Chicahga. Plus ca change………….

  25. 25.

    Brendan in Charlotte

    June 10, 2015 at 4:29 pm

    @Poopyman: Shorter Baltimore cops on CNN: Unless we’re allowed to indiscriminately kill non-whites; we’re not going to do our jobs at all in non-white neighborhoods.

  26. 26.

    Shakezula

    June 10, 2015 at 4:33 pm

    One of the women involved has been placed on administrative leave by her employer. The other was the wife of Sean Toon, the turkey beater who called the police.

  27. 27.

    celticdragonchick

    June 10, 2015 at 4:36 pm

    @Amir Khalid:

    “Our training and expertise, we are trained to be able to escalate things before they escalate,” the second officer said when pressed about his comments on “equal force.”

    We had to destroy the village in order to save it.

    No matter how you dress that up, it’s essentially naked self-pity.

    Before Policeone.com made their comments section off limits to the public, you could see equal measures of officers whining about those goddamned sheep they have to hear complaining about brutality and outright sociopaths who loved to hurt people.

  28. 28.

    celticdragonchick

    June 10, 2015 at 4:41 pm

    @japa21:

    Also when there are hostages involved.

    https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=police+shoot+hostage

    If you are being held hostage…you will quite likely be shot by a cop…and his buddies will mock your family online if they sue for redress. (again, I witnessed that at Policeone concerning the bank hostage in Stockton who was shot repeatedly by several officers before they made the page private. Also saw that with the Andrea Rebello shooting where she was shot through the head by an officer as her captor used her as a shield. Cops at Policeone were all for going after her family)

  29. 29.

    Calouste

    June 10, 2015 at 4:50 pm

    @scav: I’m sure that Fox will have just the right person to defend torturing animals when Mike Huckabee returns from his grifting campaign.

  30. 30.

    msdc

    June 10, 2015 at 5:12 pm

    @Poopyman:

    “Our training and expertise, we are trained to be able to escalate things before they escalate,” the second officer said

    Truer words were never spoken.

  31. 31.

    Iowa Old Lady

    June 10, 2015 at 5:52 pm

    I know it’s trivia in the face of much worse, but even the police swearing was unnecessary and provocative. If the teens had talked that way, Fox News would be going on about how they were “no angels.”

  32. 32.

    BobS

    June 10, 2015 at 6:01 pm

    @Belafon: Here’s a couple of versions I found using Google, in black & white

  33. 33.

    A guy

    June 10, 2015 at 6:34 pm

    Problem is the kids running their mouths. Sit down and shut up. Not surprised the cop resigned but I love he offered no apology.

  34. 34.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    June 10, 2015 at 6:35 pm

    @Calouste:

    we can’t hire minorities because they have criminal records

    Wouldn’t they fit right in then?

  35. 35.

    Patricia Kayden

    June 10, 2015 at 7:53 pm

    @Calouste: Why am I not surprised at this? This should be a front pager.

  36. 36.

    Patricia Kayden

    June 10, 2015 at 7:58 pm

    @A guy: Why don’t you sit down and shut up?

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