White privilege

[rasheedfan2005]

White privilege at its finest. If he was black he would have skipped the tazer and gone straight for the gun

 

[dviss1]

Thanks for this. I'll give it a good watch a lil later today.

 

[bodyman5000 and 1]

I can't watch it all. At work. Looks like another power trip 4 minutes in. HOW DARE YOU FLASH YOUR HIGH BEAMS AT ME PEASANT....YOU'RE GONNA DIEEEEEEEEE.

That's what it looks like anyway. Will watch later as I said.

 

[oldfisherman]

Police taking a very aggressive stance over a minor infraction(as in this video) will not diffuse a situation, in many cases, it will escalate the situation. At the very least, this type of bad behavior by LEOs results in the public no longer trusting them. Police shooting a un-harmed civilian over a minor issue is murder.

There is getting to be more and more of this aggressive combative attitude by many LEOs over minor issues, at many levels and agencies. If this type of behavior is a result of some new training the LEO are receiving, then there is something very wrong with their training.

It has gotten to the point that I no longer trust any LEOs. As the result of two similar personal situations by very aggressive LEO’s, one over a very minor infraction and one a vehicle safety related issue, I now fear our police and enforcement officers. And I am a white male over 65 years old. I can not image how fearful our minority brothers are of the police, and they have a right to be fearful of them.

 

[PtldPlatypus]

White privilege at its finest. If he was black he would have skipped the tazer and gone straight for the gun

While I don't deny the existence of white privilege, I'm really getting tired of "if he were white/black" statements. The implication in any statement like that is essentially that everybody is racist, and that the individual commenter's jaded view of the world is universal and inarguable. There's no way to know if this particular person in this particular situation would have reacted any differently if the person were black. Attempting to claim otherwise is disingenuous and irresponsible.

 

[riverman]

Police taking a very aggressive stance over a minor infraction(as in this video) will not diffuse a situation, in many cases, it will escalate the situation. At the very least, this type of bad behavior by LEOs results in the public no longer trusting them. Police shooting a un-harmed civilian over a minor issue is murder.

There is getting to be more and more of this aggressive combative attitude by many LEOs over minor issues, at many levels and agencies. If this type of behavior is a result of some new training the LEO are receiving, then there is something very wrong with their training.

It has gotten to the point that I no longer trust any LEOs. As the result of two similar personal situations by very aggressive LEO’s, one over a very minor infraction and one a vehicle safety related issue, I now fear our police and enforcement officers. And I am a white male over 65 years old. I can not image how fearful our minority brothers are of the police, and they have a right to be fearful of them.

great post....I found in the military, there were bad folks...some people join to serve, others crave power and enjoy dominating with their authority. Others are there for the right reason....when ANY flag of misconduct arises, an officer or soldier should go straight to rehab and counseling and be replaced immediately. Too much damned rope is allowed for LEO's who are packing

 

[rasheedfan2005]

While I don't deny the existence of white privilege, I'm really getting tired of "if he were white/black" statements. The implication in any statement like that is essentially that everybody is racist, and that the individual commenter's jaded view of the world is universal and inarguable. There's no way to know if this particular person in this particular situation would have reacted any differently if the person were black. Attempting to claim otherwise is disingenuous and irresponsible.

Apparently you havent read any of my posts before. Denny needs to program the forum to permanently green font my posts.

 

[rasheedfan2005]

Cliffs.
Kid flashes high beams at cop to let him know his brights are on
Cop gets offended and pulls him over, demands papers
Kid knows his rights and doesnt comply
Cop goes insane over nothing
Kid attempts to defend himself from situation that never should have escelated
Cop sees it as aggression and kills kid

Kid is white. Hence white privilege title

 

[UncleCliffy'sDaddy]

Very disturbing video. And a situation that has become far too frequent. I was recently pulled over on I5 on my way to the coast with my cousin. Two old white dudes driving the limit on a clear sunny morning. A state cop was behind me. For no other reason than I was near my exit, I changed lanes, signaling while I did so (I had been ticketed a few years back for failure to signal, so I wasn't stupid enough NOT to use my signal with a cop right behind me). Yet I was pulled over for failure to signal??!!?? My cousin even swore to the cop I had indeed used my turn signal. We were polite in the extreme and completely cooperative. Yet this young cop wanted to argue with me!! I remained calm, shut my mouth and let the cop lecture me. He let me off with a warning (probably figuring...correctly...that I would fight the ticket AND provide a witness). He then followed me off the exit and continued to do so on a back country road for miles. I'm not sure what was up his butt, but he pulled me over under false pretenses, was prepared to argue and then followed me far out of his jurisdiction. It was a waste of my time, his time and taxpayer money. And I resented the living hell out of it. It's time to put a stop to abuse of LEO power before it gets even worse. If that's even possible......

 

[Rastapopoulos]

While I don't deny the existence of white privilege, I'm really getting tired of "if he were white/black" statements. The implication in any statement like that is essentially that everybody is racist, and that the individual commenter's jaded view of the world is universal and inarguable. There's no way to know if this particular person in this particular situation would have reacted any differently if the person were black. Attempting to claim otherwise is disingenuous and irresponsible.

Isn't it a sign of white privilege to be in the position to be tired of hearing about race?

I'm only being slightly facetious here. On the grand scheme of things we've had a blink of an eye of pointing out racial injustice, and yet white people are tired of it. Think how tiring it must be to have the issue constantly at the forefront of your mind because of the different way you're treated.

To respond directly to your point, the implication is not necessarily that "everyone is racist" in the sense that everyone has racial animus. It could be that, given that the culture is racist (standards of beauty, common stereotypes, etc.) everyone is trained to respond a certain way, no matter how fundamentally decent they are, and how un-racist they would have been in a truly non-racist society. I see this a lot: people acknowledge racism but get butthurt at the idea that it might apply to them (or people they know). Why not acknowledge that we're all steeped in it? Is that so hard to believe?

Furthermore, re: "There's no way to know if this particular person in this particular situation would have reacted any differently if the person were black. Attempting to claim otherwise is disingenuous and irresponsible"
In one sense, you could say that about EVERYTHING. Yes, people can respond differently. But statistics mean things. Sometimes they're pretty damn accurate predictors, and often more accurate than what the individual person would predict about themselves.

 

[blue32]

Furthermore, re: "There's no way to know if this particular person in this particular situation would have reacted any differently if the person were black. Attempting to claim otherwise is disingenuous and irresponsible"
In one sense, you could say that about EVERYTHING. Yes, people can respond differently. But statistics mean things. Sometimes they're pretty damn accurate predictors, and often more accurate than what the individual person would predict about themselves.

Ahem........sir... I don't think racial profiling is going to get your point across correctly.

You start using stats when it comes to race and well... ill just leave it at that...

 

[oldfisherman]

Not sure I can express my next thought clearly. But with so many LEOs abusing their power, it is starting to feel like a foreign military has invaded our country and taken control of our lives. LEOs no longer protect and serve the people. LEOs have increased their abuse of all of us, regardless of color and age. They now consider us revenue sources to expand their power over us.

My two experiences where much like UncleCliffy’sDaddy. Both times, the LEOs were intentionally trying to provoke me. That is not serving and protecting the people. One time the abuse was witnessed at very close range by an 85 year old grandmother. After the sad event was over, she said I should have kicked the shit out of the LEO for what he was doing. I could tell that he was trying to provoke me into doing something stupid, so I kept my cool.

 

[PtldPlatypus]

Apparently you havent read any of my posts before. Denny needs to program the forum to permanently green font my posts.

Sorry, wasn't considering the source. I was already bristling about people making similar statements about Lochte: "If Ryan Lochte were black, everyone would be calling him a thug, but since he's white, he's just a dumb frat bro..."

 

[PtldPlatypus]

Isn't it a sign of white privilege to be in the position to be tired of hearing about race?

I'm only being slightly facetious here. On the grand scheme of things we've had a blink of an eye of pointing out racial injustice, and yet white people are tired of it. Think how tiring it must be to have the issue constantly at the forefront of your mind because of the different way you're treated.

To respond directly to your point, the implication is not necessarily that "everyone is racist" in the sense that everyone has racial animus. It could be that, given that the culture is racist (standards of beauty, common stereotypes, etc.) everyone is trained to respond a certain way, no matter how fundamentally decent they are, and how un-racist they would have been in a truly non-racist society. I see this a lot: people acknowledge racism but get butthurt at the idea that it might apply to them (or people they know). Why not acknowledge that we're all steeped in it? Is that so hard to believe?

Furthermore, re: "There's no way to know if this particular person in this particular situation would have reacted any differently if the person were black. Attempting to claim otherwise is disingenuous and irresponsible"
In one sense, you could say that about EVERYTHING. Yes, people can respond differently. But statistics mean things. Sometimes they're pretty damn accurate predictors, and often more accurate than what the individual person would predict about themselves.

Statistics give general information, but are not necessarily applicable to specific situations. That's what I have issue with, the dogmatic proclomations of "what would have happened if..." as though the attempted application of the statistics are absolute.

And it's disingenuous to turn "I'm tired of people making dogmatic race-based claims" into "I'm tired of hearing about race". There's a massive difference between the two, and conflating them does nobody any good.

 

[MARIS61]

Voluntary manslaughter if you give the officer the benefit of the doubt.

More likely murder, if we had video.

 

[ripcityboy]

Isn't it a sign of white privilege to be in the position to be tired of hearing about race?

I'm only being slightly facetious here. On the grand scheme of things we've had a blink of an eye of pointing out racial injustice, and yet white people are tired of it. Think how tiring it must be to have the issue constantly at the forefront of your mind because of the different way you're treated.

To respond directly to your point, the implication is not necessarily that "everyone is racist" in the sense that everyone has racial animus. It could be that, given that the culture is racist (standards of beauty, common stereotypes, etc.) everyone is trained to respond a certain way, no matter how fundamentally decent they are, and how un-racist they would have been in a truly non-racist society. I see this a lot: people acknowledge racism but get butthurt at the idea that it might apply to them (or people they know). Why not acknowledge that we're all steeped in it? Is that so hard to believe?

Furthermore, re: "There's no way to know if this particular person in this particular situation would have reacted any differently if the person were black. Attempting to claim otherwise is disingenuous and irresponsible"
In one sense, you could say that about EVERYTHING. Yes, people can respond differently. But statistics mean things. Sometimes they're pretty damn accurate predictors, and often more accurate than what the individual person would predict about themselves.

I think it comes with how race is discussed in our society. I for one am glad race is discussed in our culture. Any type of social justice discussion is a good thing but that's just the point in our country.... social justice should be about REFORM and our country doesn't do reform--it does REVENGE. We are unable to come to terms with the social and economic reforms needed to change the mindset of our public and social instutions.... i.e. our police and our prisons. It's easier to say "this country is a construct of hundreds of years of guilty straight white males who use the government, law enforcement and media to push an agenda." Not everybody believes that..... but it's a cause for a lot of people as justification for the belief structures they have. If anything, our society is the result of a couple hundred years of terrible government, religious and sociological policies gone terribly wrong. It's created a dystopian, "air conditioned nightmare."

Racial identity is a double edged sword for EVERYONE. You want the protection and the good things about the tribalism. But you don't the negative contatations associated with them. Well tough shit! You get them. Yet human beings deserve an individual say in how they identify themselves. They need to say, "I am an individual FIRST and I CHOOSE my belief system." Not that they are drafted as part of a demographic that is responsible for historical indescretions and automatically falls under racist tendencies for that. The worst thing you can do constantly point a finger at a group of people and say, "you suck, you suck, you suck." It will cause them to get defensive and make them suffer from cognitive dissonance. You want them to inform them of the inequalities of society but at the same time maintain a cross cultural dialog.

But I don't know if that's possible at this point. Society and it's social ills are going unchecked at an all time high and nobody is letting out the steam from the boiler. Read "Civilization And It's Discontents" by Sigmund Freud. The odd war, artificial living and plasticized reality we create for ourselves isn't working to spellbind us. David Mamet put it best. We are living in a strange time where we don't know how to show our love. All we can show is hate. And in America, where we cannot discuss ANYTHING objectively and have a common ground discussion..... that hate will be equally meted out along religious, political, racial and sex political lines. Oh joy!

 

[riverman]

The US is supposed to be a diversified nation brimming with personal freedoms that unite behind how great it is to be free....divisions within this country are a product of power struggling. Classism is probably one of the biggest divisions we have...if you keep the lower classes of society fighting amongst themselves, they will ignore you as you control everything around them...goes back to the Art of War by Sun Tsu

 

[Natebishop3]

The problem that I see between the police vs citizens issue is that we can't defend ourselves.

Cop is armed. If you are armed, you are a threat.

If the cop is aggressive, and escalates the situation, you can't say, "office I am armed and I will defend myself." That would essentially give him a green light to kill you. So basically we're a position now where we have to just hope that the cop pulling us over isn't a nutjob who will shoot us for nothing. Great country that we live in.

 

[riverman]

The problem that I see between the police vs citizens issue is that we can't defend ourselves.

Cop is armed. If you are armed, you are a threat.

If the cop is aggressive, and escalates the situation, you can't say, "office I am armed and I will defend myself." That would essentially give him a green light to kill you. So basically we're a position now where we have to just hope that the cop pulling us over isn't a nutjob who will shoot us for nothing. Great country that we live in.

We do live in a great country...and relatively safe compared to countries with soldiers and marshall law in the streets...if you've ever been to a place like Cambodia where a 9 year old will shake you down for cigarettes with an AK47 ...you'll appreciate just how easy we have it here....the issue is to not let it get out of control to the point of marshall law and to keep questionable candidates from becoming cops to begin with.

 

[Rastapopoulos]

 

[ripcityboy]

What's that old saying "A guest sees more in one hour in a house than the owner does in an entire lifetime." Sometimes that the thing about race.... we can't see the ways we are priveleged or the pedjudices we inadvertently agree to. But I think this is true of every society (not just western culture.) There are some sub-cultures out there would some pretty f-ed up belief systems.

 

[bodyman5000 and 1]

Watched it all, the kid and the cop were drawn together by the universe. Two morons having a battle of epic proportions.

I don't know if the kid had an actual condition or was just an average teen idiot.

The cop knew fully that his lights were blinding people so his moron club membership is assured.

A normal person driving a new SUV that is causing people to flash their lights at it would think "hey, I gotta have these lights checked because I'm blinding people"

Not this fucker, he just figured he'd fuck with people and recharge his power trip batteries.

The whole thing is ridiculous. However, if people haven't realized that cops have the power to do this to you and that you need to comply I don't know what to tell them.