generalspeaking

Blame To Share

"We get mad at racism, but most government outrages have structural roots. The left doesn't want to go after police unions because they're unions. The right doesn't want to because they represent law and order. Politicians of all stripes shy away because they are powerful."
David Brooks, The New York Times

"[Law enforcement has a] tough job. Understand, our police officers put their lives on the line for us every single day. They've got a tough job to do to maintain public safety and hold accountable those who break the law."
U.S. President Barack Obama

(a)"Is my child safe, and not just from some of the painful realities of crime and violence in some of our neighbourhoods, but safe from the very people they want to have faith in as their protectors?"
"That's the reality."
(b)"[The police killings are a]particularly despicable act [that] tears at the very foundation of our society. An attack on all of us."
"Our city is in mourning, our hearts are heavy. We lost two good men who devoted their lives to protecting all of us."
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio

"Police officers feel like they are being thrown under the bus."
"There is blood on many hands, from those that incited violence under the guise of protest to try to tear down what police officers do every day. That blood on the hands starts on the steps of city hall in the office of the mayor."
Patrick Lynch, president, Patrolmen's Benevolent Association

"We've had four months of propaganda starting with the president that everybody should hate the police."
"The protests are being embraced, the protests are being encouraged. The protests, even the ones that don't lead to violence, a lot of them lead to violence, all of them lead to a conclusion. The police are bad, the police are racist. That is completely wrong".
Rudolph Giuliani, former mayor, New York

Do police commit abusive acts? A WNYC News (New York) found that 40% of the "resisting arrest" charges were filed by 5% of officers with the New York Police Department; most officers avoid confrontation leading to that charge, others look for them. In some areas of the U.S., union contract rules give officers a 48-hour cooling off before being questioned; they can access names and testimony of accusers and cannot be threatened with disciplinary action during questioning.

One Oakland, California policeman shot and killed an unarmed 20-year-old in 2007, and seven months later he killed another unarmed man, shooting him three times in the back while he was running away. He was fired, but appealed through his union and was compensated with back pay when he was reinstated. A union executive informed a news outlet that Fraternal Order of Police representatives lobbied "maybe 80% of senators and half the House" in defence of police militarization.

If ever there was a polarizing issue on police action it is the long-established informal but blatant, informal protocol of targeting blacks for special attention. The reason for which is obvious enough; though not representative of a population majority, they are responsible for what might be termed the lion's share of criminal activity. In the 17% population pool of black Americans, 93% of black homicide victims from 1980 through 2008 were killed by blacks. And while 84% of white victims were killed by white offenders, they're also a larger pool.

Blacks are over-represented in prisons in comparison to their population numbers, and that is mostly because the black population generates more crimes within society. Cause and effect cannot be ignored. And then there is the cause and effect of historical marginalization and demonization, prejudice and demoralization. A witch's brew of discrimination and poverty leading to an attitude that unfair treatment leads to social antipathy and acts of social criminality.

In the vast hub of humanity it brooks ill indeed that a mayor, voicing his personal concern for his own biracial son speaks of the dangers lurking in the shadows of a society with a black underclass viewed with perennial suspicion and little room for caution due to endemic fear common among the public and the police who represent their fears as well. He has every right to do so, and to put on the record his acute awareness of the tentative and often dangerous place in a largely white society with a background of racism, of young black men perceived as trouble.

The implied criticism of the public security agents tasked with maintaining order and public safety does not go over well when it is the mayor who points out the unfortunate obvious, with all the complexities involved, and then attempts to mollify those outraged feelings by expressing views in support of the difficult job faced by police in such a socially fractured society. Police believe that the mayor supports the protesters staging anti-police rallies, and his words aided that perception.

Labels: Conflict, Crisis Politics, Prejudice, Racism, United States

posted by Pieface @ Tuesday, December 23, 2014