Race, class and above all power.

What is happening now on American streets is certainly about race but it is also about class and above all about power.

The police have power and so it’s going to be attractive to those that want power - authority- that is why there has to be good oversight in place with checks and balances - this is the same in politics. If oversight is weak or none existent it is bond to lead to the abuse of power.

The police have been getting away with it for years because established power thing they need them to protect their power. You protect our advantages and we will protect your authority.

Because advantage and privilege, be it granted by position, wealth or skin colour has to be protected, the system was always skewed to favour authority, advantage and privilege those with those things where believed above those without them.

Without oversight power attracts those wishing to abuse that power, if the police can get away with been corrupt the position is going to be attractive to the corrupt, if the police can get away with been racist the position is going to be attractive to racists.

That does not mean every police officer would be corrupt or racist but without proper oversight it is definitely not going to discourage such people.

 

Many police officers have been able to get away with abuses of power for years because they could lie with impunity with it, its hard to stop abuse of power when even the extremely dubious is been accepted.

You might as well just tell them that is what you want them to do.

What you get is a corrupt policing just as if a politician does something clearly corrupt and those that are meant to do oversight accept their extremely dubious lies means you end up with a corrupt political system.

I mean you might as well just politicians that is what you want them to do.

In relation to policing the system hasn’t changed but technology has when there are video camera on many streets and in most people’s pockets, it’s much harder to claim a person ‘resisted arrest’ when footage is there showing no such thing. It’s harder to get away with making up a speeding fine when the dashcam tells different story.

If the system doesn’t catch up with technology and keeps upholding abuses of power how long before that become untenable?

 

The bar for cops is so low in America. There is really no serious education or psychological screening. This attracts the wrong people. One of the most common prior jobs for a cop is the military. This attracts people who see paroling an American city as paroling Iraq. It's us vs them which is why their instinct is to protect cops over the public. We are not out there, we are not part of the brotherhood that is essential to keeping each other alive. In a way they can't stand on their own. It's also why it's so common for veterans to join a motorcycle club. They crave stricture and protection. They need an enemy. So being a cop or a Hell's Angel is good. Since people don't like them they know they are doing the right thing. If there is no enemy there is no war to win, no idea to force on others, so they have no purpose. Right now police are happy because an enemy is attacking them.

I think the best way under the American system is to stop funding them with tax dollars and to not contract with them for sporting events and concerts. Cops really depend on that extra pay. And I'm sure the same Republicans in support of the cops will support the free market. The police can not be trusted to provide good service.

University of Minnesota Ending Contracts With Minneapolis Police Department After George Floyd's Death

 

That's why the REPUBLICAN PARTY supports police unions - to protect and save their sorry asses when riots and mass insurrections happen. The REPUBLICAN PARTY has ALWAYS opposed unions of any kind because organized, large groups of like-minded people are scary to business leaders ( Chamber of Commerce - the most powerful union in the U.S. of corporate business leaders ) who want laws written and enforced to THEIR liking. But the REPUBLICAN PARTY backs police unions for their own protection, hiding behind empty claims of "rule of law" & "law & order" even as they break many other laws on the books, or put loopholes into laws so corporations and well-placed executives and the rich can dodge justice.

This two-faced support of police unions shows clearly how CORRUPT and hypocritical the REPUBLICAN PARTY truly is. All other American workers must be subdued and divided - but the police ……………. they can have a union. ( because we REPUBLICANS need them to protect us! )

 

Has anyone heard of the Sovereign Citizen movement?

Youtube is full of videos of Republicans breaking the law in the name of this. They do things like drive with no license plate or claim that US courts have no authority over them because they don't consent to the courts laws. Cops are part of the system and always evil. They force their views and law on you. It's an extension of their misunderstanding of what freedom means. Just like with a mask or even a seat belt law if we go back far enough they just refuse to do anything for anyone.

The movement is for the most part white and has endorsed Trump and his government. Black people are way too nervous to challenge cops this way. They make sure their registration is up to date. I've seen this many times. All this small government talk only applies to Democrats. What they really want a white dictatorship. I wonder how many people who spend a few months in jail because they walked out of their court date for driving with no license now support curfews and the military censoring the first amendment. All this stuff was super important under Obama who did nothing to stop it now it's not when someone does. I wonder why.

 

This is really a gross oversimplification. The problem is much bigger than systemic racism in police forces. It is a culture of racism in society. Do we need to clean up our police forces? Absolutely. Super liberal Seattle has been under a consent decree for 10 years for issues with civil rights and the police. But then we face the racism that has been generally acceptable is society for far too long. How many of the real estate agents in Minneapolis, Milwaukee, and St Louis every paid the criminal price for redlining? Without racism, Trump would have been removed from office last year. In fact Trump would never have been elected; his racism did not suddenly occur, we all knew it was there long ago but far too many people accepted it. I watched racism and sexism in a small Ozark town many years ago; it permeated every level of daily life and I suspect little has changed 50 years later. The real message is enough already.....this has to stop.

 

Yeah. I remember some dude in Woodward, OK, who was a vocal member. He renounced his citizenship. His wife followed suit, and lost her job at the state tag agency and couldn't understand why.

 

Perhaps it all goes back to what kind of training recruits receive at police academies,

 

while this is unfortunately partially true, why would ANY sane responsible person wish to become an almost universally hated pariah , a good LEO deals with the absolute shit of society on a daily almost hourly basis , the pay aint great the divorce rate is sky high the possibility of being killed on a daily basis is real

 

Do you have evidence for anything you're saying? Blacks have their own sovereign citizen movement called the Moors.

 

walk

Interesting question, it’s not based on one source more, of a thing I’ve picked up from many different mediums over many years.

Here are some first thoughts.

Well i'd begin by saying that Black households have traditionally had some of the lowest median incomes according to the US census. So in a socioeconomic sense black people are more likely to be of a class and to be perceived by some as been part of a class.

And lower class people (irrespective of colour) are perceived to have certain characteristics (less educated, more criminal more like to be lazy etc) add racism on top of that and….

And studies have shown that Black Americans experience dramatically lower upward social mobility than white Americans do

Among children who grow up in the bottom fifth of the distribution, 10.6 percent of whites make it into the top fifth of household incomes but only 2.5 percent of black children do and downward mobility is much higher among black Americans than among white Americans. White children whose parents are in the top fifth of the income distribution have a 41.1 percent chance of staying there as adults but for black children, it’s only 18 percent.

It also is connected to something I read (sorry not sure where) that went something like ‘you might be poor white trash but at least you are not black’

This was a way of sowing division within a class that if united could have been a powerful force for progressive change so racism meant the Marxist ideal of workers of the world uniting was not such a big thing in the US with many of the early unions not accepting black members

And the fear of others taking jobs away from white workers has always been a powerful tool of division today its aimed a migrant workers from outside the US but it should be remembered that during the Great Migration more than 6 million African Americans moved from the rural South to the cities of the North, Midwest and West from about 1916 to 1970. They often lived in specific areas and did mainly lower paid jobs and there was often tension between the working class wite people of those areas and the black newcomers.

What resulted were working class and mainly white police officers policing working class and mainly black areas. Within a structure were racism as a tool to divide the working class was often prevalent.

 

And the question is WHY does the above happen? culture of dependence? Entitlement? Why is it that black children are more likely to grow up in a single parent home?

Fact ANYONE can make themselves better some have to overcome more obstacles then others.
Handing out participation trophies is certainly NOT the answer
Blame is certainly not the answer either, life is about choice some make poor choices

 

Wrat

This is just the old self-serving argument of the ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving’ often put forward by the advantaged who do not wish to help the disadvantaged.

This is the idea that the deserving are those that don’t seek for help and so don’t need any and the undeserving being those who do ask for help thereby showing that they are scroungers and wasters who don’t deserve any help.

So it was plain - the argument went – that there was little or no need to give assistance to the disadvantaged.

The problem was that these disadvantaged people were often the same people but just at different stages of life or circumstance.

It is very similar to the right wing argument often put forward today that if people are responsible and make the right choices they don’t need assistance but if they’re irresponsible and make bad choices they’re feckless and don’t deserve assistance.

 

None of which address THE WHY......

"if people are responsible and make the right choices they don’t need assistance but if they’re irresponsible and make bad choices they’re feckless and don’t deserve assistance"
For the most part this is absolutely true BUT sometimes bad shit does happen stuff thats out of the norm and then someone needs a hand up

 

Wrat

That’s my point

And its even more a point in a system where there is racism.

Sorry I’m unsure where you are coming in this i mean you ask -

But the US rates are comparable with other countries

Single parent rates according to the OECD in 2014

UK – 26%

Denmark – 23%

US – 23%

And according to the 2016 US census - Two-thirds of American single parent households are white, 1/3 are African-American.

 

Census Bureau: Higher Percentage of Black Children Live with Single Mothers | Afro

72 Percent Of Black Kids Raised By Single Parent, 25% Overall In U.S.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...motherhood-in-america-over-the-last-50-years/

 

Wrat

You beat me to it i was just about to post


Although in percentage terms black household are more likely to have a single parent

The other thing is that it is also a class thing with many single parents been from the lower classes in society with lower educational achievements this just happens in the US to coincide with the likelihood of been black.

 

And again none of this address the WHY......
FACT ANYONE can make themselves better some have to overcome more obstacles then others. so CHOICES matter