Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

After dobbs, women are no longer free.

When we show up, we win.

This must be what justice looks like, not vengeful, just peaceful exuberance.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

He wakes up lying, and he lies all day.

Fear and negativity are contagious, but so is courage!

When you’re a Republican, they let you do it.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

A tremendous foreign policy asset… to all of our adversaries.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires.

Hi god, it’s us. Thanks a heap, you’re having a great week and it’s only Thursday!

Reality always gets a vote in the end.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

These are not very smart people, and things got out of hand.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

So many bastards, so little time.

The line between political reporting and fan fiction continues to blur.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

I’m more christian than these people and i’m an atheist.

You are here: Home / Justice / Racial Justice / Post-racial America / Patrice O’Neal Was Right

Patrice O’Neal Was Right

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I absolutely love comedians- there is nothing better than a good stand up comedian doing his thing. I particularly like edgy comedians who really take risks. I’m not talking about douchebags like Andrew Dice Clay, who just stand up and spew racist, misognystic hit. Edgy in that you think about things and it makes you uncomfortable and only they could get away with it. Richard Pryor. One of my all time favorites was Patrice O’Neal, who was an absolute genius. Watch from the beginning until 7:20.

Now read this:

Minneapolis Police Chief Janeé Harteau resigned Friday, less than a week after a city officer shot and killed a woman who had called officers for help.

Mayor Betsy Hodges said she asked Harteau to resign because “I’ve lost confidence in the chief’s ability to lead us further — and from the many conversations I’ve had with people around our city, especially this week, it is clear that she has lost the confidence of the people of Minneapolis as well.”

White woman’s life is valuable. Philando Castile and countless others? Well, shit happens.

Reader Interactions

63Comments

  1. 1.

    Gex

    Not disagreeing but Philando was shot by an officer in a different city. Not that your point is wrong but I keep seeing these two shootings contrasted in this way and, well, there never was an opportunity for Harteau to lose her job over Philando.

    There was a shooting in MPLS last year – Jamar Clark – that serves just as well to make the point.

  2. 2.

    Jerzy Russian

    This resignation is a good thing, right? Yes it would be better if resignations, firings, etc. happened after all unjustified police shootings, but it seems to me that a few resignations, firings, etc. are better than none.

  3. 3.

    Hal

    That cop is not only going to be charged, but will probably spend years in prison. Meanwhile, the next caught on camera, shot in the back while running away death of a nonwhite person will result in the usual go nowhere, change nothing investigation/maybe grand jury/maybe prosecution.

    BTW, has anyone heard a peep from blue lives matter or all lives matter folks. My old grade school friend who once opined on Facebook that it was simple! Do what the cop says and you wont be shot has been awfully silent. I’m just surprised I haven’t seen a “where’s Al Sharpton now?!?!” post yet.

  4. 4.

    Adam L Silverman

    Here you go:
    theroot.com/attorney-justine-damond-is-the-most-innocent-victim-1797113109

    Those who want to blame every single black person who has ever been shot by police for their own death have finally gotten their perfect victim: a white woman named Justine Damond. A lawyer representing the family of the Australian native who was shot and killed by a Minneapolis police officer said Thursday that Damond is “the most innocent victim” of a police shooting that he has ever seen.

    Robert Bennett is the attorney who was hired by Damond’s family earlier this week, and he told the Minnesota Star Tribune that the family is seeking justice for Damond, 40, who was killed by Minneapolis Police Officer Mohamed Noor Saturday after she called 911 to report a possible sexual assault.

    “It’s quite clearly an improper use of deadly force on someone who it is impossible for me to conceive of as a threat to anyone,” Bennett told the Star Tribune Thursday. “I mean, she saved ducklings out of the sewer, for God’s sakes.”

    Bennett is not unfamiliar with cases involving police misconduct. He worked with the family of Philando Castile in getting a settlement over his shooting death in Falcon Heights, Minn., last year by former St. Anthony Police Officer Jeronimo Yanez, and he represented Frank Baker who was bitten by a police dog and kicked by a St. Paul, Minn., police officer last year.

    “I’m not saying Philando wasn’t innocent, too, or that Frank Baker wasn’t innocent,” Bennett said. “But here is someone who called the police and was trying t0 stop someone from being hurt … and ends up being shot in her pajamas.”

    While Bennett may very well have the best intentions at heart, the meaning behind his words is there if you read between the lines.

    Damond’s shooting was unfortunate and tragic, and her family deserves justice. But let’s be clear: The biggest difference between her and other innocent victims of police shootings is that she was a white woman.

    Aiyana Stanley-Jones was 7 years old when Detroit Police Officer Joseph Weekley “accidentally” shot her as she lay sleeping in her grandmother’s home. She was in her pajamas. Was she not innocent?

    Tamir Rice was doing what you would expect a 12-year-old boy to do. As The Root’s Kirsten West Savali so aptly put it:

    How dare he, in an open-carry state, play with a toy gun that can be found on the shelves of most major retailers in this country? How dare he go to a playground with a toy? How dare Tamir—in a country that clings to its weapons, in a country where white women can point BB guns at police and live, where white extremists can openly menace black neighborhoods with assault rifles—walk around in his black skin and be a child?
    Was Tamir not innocent? Did his black skin make him less deserving of life?

    What about Jordan Edwards? What about Trayvon Martin? What about Jordan Davis?

    Why are we, as black people, always placed in the position of having to prove that we are as deserving of life as everyone else?

    Why does Blue Lives Matter come out so heavily to back police when the victim of a fatal police shooting is black, but remain in deadly silence when the victim is white?

    And what of Mohamed Noor? From the outset, the shooting looks egregious, but where are all of the “We don’t have all the details” people to tell us to be patient and let the investigation tell us what happened?

    Why was the Somali cop immediately identified as the innocent white woman’s killer? Why were pictures of him circulated showing him standing with two Muslim women?

    Just what are we doing here?

    Why is it that the one shooting that suddenly has white people fearing the cops is the shooting that takes one of their own?

    I’ll tell you why.

    It’s because they finally found their “perfect” victim. She was white and blond and rescued ducks out of sewers.

    She was the antithesis of the “superpredator” image they want you to believe represents blackness.

    She didn’t deserve to die.

    But neither did any of the others.

  5. 5.

    Mike in NC

    Sadly, Dice Clay has been getting a rehabilitation the past couple of years. He was recently on some shitty cable cooking show my wife watches.

  8. 8.

    lurker dean

    oh man, this guy is hilarious! never heard of him, thanks for the tip.

    crap, just found out he passed away a few years ago?!

  9. 9.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Mike in NC: Clay was a decent actor in a recurring role in Crime Story, one of my favorite TV cop shows. I can’t recall if that was before or after that “Dice” persona.

  10. 10.

    HL Guy

    Man, I watched the Patrice piece out past 7:00- the stuff about being “100 in Black years” is prophetic and sad.

  11. 11.

    debit

    I find it depressing that Noor’s religion is even a topic of discussion. He would be a shitty cop if he was Lutheran. Sadly, Minneapolis has a long history of shitty cops.

    ETA: and just to add to John’s point, the two dogs shot by a Minneapolis cop will get more justice than Philando Castile.

  12. 12.

    Amaranthine RBG

    White woman’s life is valuable. Philando Castile and countless others? Well, shit happens.

    I think there maybe some differences between the circumstances of the Philando Castile / Justine Damond shooting in addition to the fact that one was a black male and the other was a white female.

  15. 15.

    John Revolta

    I remember Pryor was talking about this stuff 40 years ago.

    Traffic stop, white guy: “How do you do, officer? Glad to be of help!”

    Traffic stop, black guy: “I am reaching into my pocket for my license!! ‘Cause I don’t want there to be no muthafukin’ accident!!!”

  16. 16.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @WaterGirl: No, I want it out in the open. For me, cops shouldn’t shoot anyone who is not a real, active danger. I cannot think of any of the black guys shot by cops that made the news recently as being dangerous. This woman wasn’t dangerous either. Why does the pro-gun zealot see a difference?

  17. 17.

    WaterGirl

    @Omnes Omnibus: Fair enough. I get what you’re saying, and I agree. All these cops who shoot black people are scared to death and racist and have absolutely no business being cops. As far as I’m concerned, none of these cops are fit for duty, not one of them.

    Marshall Dillon rarely had to use his gun, and I was raised to know that good cops control a situation without guns and that if you have to pull your gun, you’ve already lost control. Pulling your gun like that should be a point of shame, and a cop shooting a civilian like that should mean you never get another job as a cop again, or even as security. You lose your ability to carry a gun.

    The world has turned upside down.

    edit: not to mention the you should fucking go to jail for murdering someone, whether you are a cop or not.

  20. 20.

    Lavocat

    Just another day in America. If it feels like we’re living in a tragicomedy, it’s because we are. I’m just waiting for the next permutation of insanity.

  22. 22.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Omnes Omnibus: @WaterGirl: Even the attorney for the family referenced in the article I copied and pasted and linked to in comment 4 seems to have made this category/pattern recognition error. And that attorney was the attorney for Philando Castile’s family.

  23. 23.

    Brachiator

    There are law and order people who are reflexively pro-cop. They will bend over backwards to see the cop’s perspective and give them the benefit of the doubt.

    A local talk radio host, who is herself a blonde white woman repeated the police officer’s story, that he heard a loud noise as the woman approached him, and shot her because he thought he was being ambushed, as happened in that horrible incident a week or so ago.

    The talk show host immediately focused on the fear police officers must feel when they are on the street. She pretty much stopped there. No expression of sympathy for the woman who was killed. No mention about the possibility of better training. Just a reflexive acceptance of the idea that all is forgiven when a police officer says that he or she was in fear for his or her life. Case closed.

  24. 24.

    jl

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    ” Please explicate. ”

    Well, they happened in different places. Also two different people. There you go, different, that’s all. Somehow.

    Edit: seems to me the the more recent tragedy in MN is more understandable, if not excusable, since cops just arrived, potentially mildly confusing situation, and I read Noor had a history of getting rattled and acting too quickly.

    Edit2: but in absolute terms, neither shooting is understandable, if the cops were as professional as they should be.

  25. 25.

    Smiling Mortician

    @jl:

    I read Noor had a history of getting rattled and acting too quickly.

    Of course you did. Jesus Christ.

  28. 28.

    Smiling Mortician

    @jl: Thought it would be clear. Most of the white cops killing not-white people also have such reputations. They are often not suspended — and the details of their trigger-happy behavior rarely hit the press so soon after the shooting. Sorry. I assumed you lived in America and knew this stuff. My bad.

  29. 29.

    jl

    @Smiling Mortician: I was talking about the shooting of the Australian mom in MN, the victim was a white woman, the cop was the Minneapolis’ first Somali police officer. In fact I saw a news piece about the right wing reactionary nutcase sphere has been going berserk over a Muslim cop shooting a white woman and why was the country not up in arms, in outrage over… something… about them damned muslins.

    I think the cop who shot Castile should be in jail.

    I do hope that I have clarified my point.

  31. 31.

    Peale

    @Smiling Mortician: yep. Details of the victims pAst, their Facebook posts, anything that would make them less than sympathetic to white people…well that gets out before the coroner can arrive,

  33. 33.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Patrice O’Neal had it down solid.

    There are literally millions of white people who will not grok this, cannot grok it, refuse to grok it, and just shrug their shoulders and move along.

  34. 34.

    AndoChronic

    I live in Jamar Clark’s neighborhood and followed his case closely. While his shooting was tragic and unnecessary, Justine Damond’s circumstance is completely bewildering even for this jaded old fool.

  36. 36.

    Mnemosyne

    I realize that watching the process unfold is going to really, really piss people off, particularly Black people, but … this killing will change more white people’s minds about always giving the police the benefit of the doubt than any killing of a Black person ever could. That is the sad reality of our country.

    HOWEVER, quite a few of those people whose minds are changed are going to be willing and able to travel all the way and be retroactively sympathetic to people like Philando Castile.

    Here’s one example: one of my aunts is a pretty typical upper-middle-class white lady. She always assumed that the people she heard about getting shot by police probably did something to deserve it.

    That is, until a white guy was shot in her small city for soaking a local PD officer with a hose. Yep, they shot him for being armed with water.

    The thing is, she wasn’t just mad about this incident. This incident made her look back at all of the other times she had assumed the police were justified and become a lot more skeptical of those previous shootings. And she continues to be skeptical of every police shooting since then, regardless of the victim’s skin color. That one shooting permanently changed the way she thinks about all police shootings.

    It sucks that it takes a death as egregious as this one to change some people’s minds, but that’s how some people are.

  37. 37.

    TS

    @jl:

    He’d been suspended before for that reason. So if you have a point, why not say it?

    In other cases we didn’t get the history of the cop quite so quickly – they were not identified for days/weeks, let alone investigated. Now this cop – well he belongs to the scarry group.

  39. 39.

    Amaranthine RBG

    Wait, now I am confused – I read a couple of stories just now and they mentioned that her fiancé had a son, but nothing about her having children. Anyone know the facts here?

  42. 42.

    Smiling Mortician

    @Amaranthine RBG: Have you EVER questioned whether other victims of Murder By Cop had children? Did that fact matter to you when the victims weren’t blonde white women?

  45. 45.

    Smiling Mortician

    @Mnemosyne:

    a death as egregious as this one

    Seriously? I mean, I just promised Amir Khalid I was done, and I know you’re not a “troll” according to BJ definitions, but what the fuck makes this woman’s death “more egregious” than all of the other fucking humans just trying to live their lives under the hideously racist police state everyone seems to just accept here? How is her murder more “egregious” than Philando Castile’s? You like to talk about your awful relatives, but your own views about the value of the hearts beating beneath different colors of skin is peeking out from within your “please understand my racist aunt” stories.

  46. 46.

    Amaranthine RBG

    @Smiling Mortician:
    See, that’s the thing, I can’t get a definitive answer about whether or not she was, in fact, a mother.

    So much sketchy conflicting information about this.

  48. 48.

    Smiling Mortician

    OK. On advice of excellent commenters Amir & M4, I’ve put the asshole who stole Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s initials into Cleek’s filter, and the answer is NO. I do NOT have any pie for you.

  50. 50.

    Punchy

    Bad cops are like magpies. Cool until the “wrong” person comes in their neighborhood, and then they attack relentlessly.

  55. 55.

    Smiling Mortician

    @Mnemosyne: Not enough of a distinction. You’re still talking about white people getting upset about white people being killed. Just own it.

  56. 56.

    TenguPhule

    @Smiling Mortician:

    You’re still talking about white people getting upset about white people being killed. Just own it.

    Back down.

    This shooting was in “shot the black guy running away in the back on camera” territory.

    I mean you literally could not come up with more damning circumstances for the shooter under these circumstances without an equivalent video.

    And there will be consequences. Be glad for that.

  57. 57.

    Helena Montana

    “White woman’s life is valuable. Philando Castile and countless others? Well, shit happens.”
    Exactly, and glaringly, sickeningly obvious.

  58. 58.

    EBT

    @Amaranthine RBG: The legal gun he had a license for and the first thing he did was identify he has to the officer like YOU ARE GODDAMNED SUPPOSED TO DO. Fucking fix your shit.

  59. 59.

    debit

    @jl:

    the cop was the Minneapolis’ first Somali police officer.

    Just to clarify, no, he isn’t. He was the first Somali officer in that precinct. There are, I believe, 4 other Somali police officers in the city.

  60. 60.

    Greg Ferguson

    Cole, if you don’t have fun on this vac, it’s gonna be drastic. Forewarned.

  61. 61.

    Uncle Ebeneezer

    @rikyrah: Correction: Some BlueLives/AllLives aholes are happily declaring that the Damond officer was clearly unqualified to carry a gun/badge. And the fact that the only officer they have EVER criticized just so happens to be Somali/Muslim just proves you are the real racist for even bringing it up…

  62. 62.

    Uncle Ebeneezer

    @John Cole- If you want to find more, great comedians, especially ones who focus on race issues, Blackness, intersectional feminism etc., I highly suggest you check out The Black Guy Who Tips podcast. Rod & Karen are a married couple in NC and are absolutely hilarious. In addition to fun games like Guess The Race and Fuckin’ With Black People (where they read news articles and either guess the race of the person or rate on a scale of 0-100 how much they feel “fucked with”) they also bring on upcoming Black comedians regularly. I’ve discovered a bunch of other podcasts and great comedians through the show in addition to learning a ton about race. They also do the best Game Of Thrones (and Walking Dead) recap, out there.

  63. 63.

    AndoChronic

    We simply need better psychopathology and personality assessment tools other than the MMPI and whatever battery cops are currently using. My assessment would be one question. Do you WANT to be a cop? Answer ‘yes’ while tugging on your junk, no dice cowboy.

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