How does vandalism and looting accomplish anything???

[Grmnshplvr]

Maybe he should get call the media to bring attention to those daily speeches.

He doesn't control what the media covers. He give speeches on the radio constantly about this topic...if you want to hear him look up his schedule and listen

 

[ZuZugal]

An excerpt from an op ed piece in a metro St. Louis newspaper. (Leonard Pitts is often a contributing editor to this paper.)


And it is about the bitter sense of siege that lives in African-American men, a sense that it is perpetually open season on us.

And that too few people outside of African America really notice, much less care. People who look like you are everyday deprived of health, wealth, freedom, opportunity, education, the benefit of the doubt, the presumption of innocence, life itself - and when you try to say this, even when you document it with academic studies and buttress it with witness testimony, people don't want to hear it, people dismiss you, deny you, lecture you about white victimhood, chastise you for playing a so-called "race card."

They choke off avenues of protest, prizing silence over justice, mistaking silence for peace. And never mind that sometimes, silence simmers like water in a closed pot on a high flame.

One can never condone a riot. It is a self-defeating act that sells some fleeting illusion of satisfaction at a high cost in property and life.

But understanding this does not preclude recognizing that the anger we see in Ferguson did not spring from nowhere, nor arrive, fully-formed, when Michael Brown was shot. It is the anger of people who are, as Fannie Lou Hamer famously said, sick and tired of being sick and tired.

Silence imposed on pain cannot indefinitely endure. People who are hurting will always, eventually, make themselves heard.

Even if they must scream to do so.

Read more here: http://www.bnd.com/2014/08/13/3347556/leonard-pitts-jr-riots-in-ferguson.html#storylink=cpy

 

[Gumbo4x4]

He doesn't control what the media covers. He give speeches on the radio constantly about this topic...if you want to hear him look up his schedule and listen

When a man spends decades making a fool of himself loudly, the desire to seek out what he says quietly is pretty low.

 

[Gumbo4x4]

An excerpt from an op ed piece in a metro St. Louis newspaper. (Leonard Pitts is often a contributing editor to this paper.)


And it is about the bitter sense of siege that lives in African-American men, a sense that it is perpetually open season on us.

And that too few people outside of African America really notice, much less care. People who look like you are everyday deprived of health, wealth, freedom, opportunity, education, the benefit of the doubt, the presumption of innocence, life itself - and when you try to say this, even when you document it with academic studies and buttress it with witness testimony, people don't want to hear it, people dismiss you, deny you, lecture you about white victimhood, chastise you for playing a so-called "race card."

They choke off avenues of protest, prizing silence over justice, mistaking silence for peace. And never mind that sometimes, silence simmers like water in a closed pot on a high flame.

One can never condone a riot. It is a self-defeating act that sells some fleeting illusion of satisfaction at a high cost in property and life.

But understanding this does not preclude recognizing that the anger we see in Ferguson did not spring from nowhere, nor arrive, fully-formed, when Michael Brown was shot. It is the anger of people who are, as Fannie Lou Hamer famously said, sick and tired of being sick and tired.

Silence imposed on pain cannot indefinitely endure. People who are hurting will always, eventually, make themselves heard.

Even if they must scream to do so.

Read more here: http://www.bnd.com/2014/08/13/3347556/leonard-pitts-jr-riots-in-ferguson.html#storylink=cpy

When you're part of the demographic that causes the most trouble, you're going to catch the most flack. It just is what it is. Fighting back only reinforces the notion that you somehow deserved such treatment. It's not remotely fair, but whoever said life was fair?

In my hometown, we were 99.9% white. There were no young black males for the police to hassle, so as young white males, the hammer fell on my friends & I instead. And heaven forbid you had a souped up car to boot! You were CONSTANTLY under the magnifying glass. Had my car searched illegally on multiple occasions, and got a bull-you-know-what ticket that would NEVER happen to me at my current age with what I currently drive. My friends & I were all clean-cut, National Honor Society members, many received academic scholarships, and were pretty much considered the "goody goody" kids in our school. I can only imagine how much hassle the long-haired kids received. The girls in our town pretty much walked water.

Though only perhaps 5% of our "demographic" were true troublemakers, they represented MOST of the troublemakers in town. Females & other age groups just weren't represented. So, our group caught all the flack from local police even though the majority of us weren't doing anything wrong. It's just human nature when one demographic causes most of the issues, that group is going to catch the most flack. And that will never change.

 

[Grmnshplvr]

When a man spends decades making a fool of himself loudly, the desire to seek out what he says quietly is pretty low.

I responding to the question "why doesn't he let the media know he does these speeches" I didn't say he was worth listening to.

 

[Gumbo4x4]

I responding to the question "why doesn't he let the media know he does these speeches" I didn't say he was worth listening to.

 

[Disneychick75]

An excerpt from an op ed piece in a metro St. Louis newspaper. (Leonard Pitts is often a contributing editor to this paper.)


And it is about the bitter sense of siege that lives in African-American men, a sense that it is perpetually open season on us.

And that too few people outside of African America really notice, much less care. People who look like you are everyday deprived of health, wealth, freedom, opportunity, education, the benefit of the doubt, the presumption of innocence, life itself - and when you try to say this, even when you document it with academic studies and buttress it with witness testimony, people don't want to hear it, people dismiss you, deny you, lecture you about white victimhood, chastise you for playing a so-called "race card."

They choke off avenues of protest, prizing silence over justice, mistaking silence for peace. And never mind that sometimes, silence simmers like water in a closed pot on a high flame.

One can never condone a riot. It is a self-defeating act that sells some fleeting illusion of satisfaction at a high cost in property and life.

But understanding this does not preclude recognizing that the anger we see in Ferguson did not spring from nowhere, nor arrive, fully-formed, when Michael Brown was shot. It is the anger of people who are, as Fannie Lou Hamer famously said, sick and tired of being sick and tired.

Silence imposed on pain cannot indefinitely endure. People who are hurting will always, eventually, make themselves heard.

Even if they must scream to do so.

Read more here: http://www.bnd.com/2014/08/13/3347556/leonard-pitts-jr-riots-in-ferguson.html#storylink=cpy

At some point, people need to stop blaming others for their problems.
There are lots of people from disadvantaged neighborhoods who study, make good grades, and go on to successful lives. No one is pretending that it's easy but it can be and is done. They don't let the excuse of their backgrounds limit them. "It's their fault" is the easy way because it gives you a reason not to change.
If someone is sick and tired of being sick and tired and they see that others aren't changing it for them, maybe they need to change it for themselves.

 

[NotUrsula]

Pitts has a point, I don't deny it. However, there is a space between silent and riotous, but lately no one seems to go there.

I was listening to an NPR story the other day about the decline of civility in government, and one of the things that was mentioned was that lately people seem not to know how to engage in constructive conflict, or at least be unwilling to do so. Even here on the DIS, we used to have a Debate Board, but it was shut down because the discussions too often devolved into nothing more than name-calling. I was on another thread recently, and someone gave a controversial POV on the topic and then said that she was expecting people to "hate on me". WTH? When did it become normal to expect people to HATE us simply because we disagree with their POV?

This situation is another example. No one is asking anyone to be silent. It's even fine if they shout. However, when fire and gunfire begins to accompany the shouting, that drowns out all reason, and the combatants on both sides retreat to entrenched positions that allow no discussion at all.

 

[gottaluvPluto]

Pitts has a point, I don't deny it. However, there is a space between silent and riotous, but lately no one seems to go there.

I was listening to an NPR story the other day about the decline of civility in government, and one of the things that was mentioned was that lately people seem not to know how to engage in constructive conflict, or at least be unwilling to do so. Even here on the DIS, we used to have a Debate Board, but it was shut down because the discussions too often devolved into nothing more than name-calling. I was on another thread recently, and someone gave a controversial POV on the topic and then said that she was expecting people to "hate on me". WTH? When did it become normal to expect people to HATE us simply because we disagree with their POV?

This situation is another example. No one is asking anyone to be silent. It's even fine if they shout. However, when fire and gunfire begins to accompany the shouting, that drowns out all reason, and the combatants on both sides retreat to entrenched positions that allow no discussion at all.

Hating is now the word people use if you have difference of opinion. This really has become an issue within the last 7 or so years. I don't hate someone if I disagree with them, I just don't agree. When you have people in the media, people doing speeches and so forth talking about hate when you disagree ..... that gets the ball rolling for others to join in.

 

[mom2rtk]

Hating is now the word people use if you have difference of opinion. This really has become an issue within the last 7 or so years. I don't hate someone if I disagree with them, I just don't agree. When you have people in the media, people doing speeches and so forth talking about hate when you disagree ..... that gets the ball rolling for others to join in.

I agree. But I'm afraid today's society has become very intolerant of differing opinions.

 

[Airship Ariadne]

I agree. But I'm afraid today's society has become very intolerant of differing opinions.

I think our society has always been very intolerant of differing opinions, the difference now is we are so much more connected...previously I seriously doubt the people in this thread would ever have talked in real life.

The internet has made sharing opinions easy...and disparaging those opinions just as easy. What everyone NEEDS to learn is that not everyone has the same life experience, and that we shouldn't just tear into opinions without trying to understand them.

But I fear that is just a dream...but like the great John Lennon once said, "You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one...I hope some day you'll join us, and the World can live as one."

 

[Geoff_M]

Pitts has a point, I don't deny it. However, there is a space between silent and riotous, but lately no one seems to go there.

I don't think there's too many points in that article that is mostly filled with hyperbole.

Case in point:

Because, again, this is not just about Brown. It's about Eric Garner, choked to death in a confrontation with New York City Police. It's about Jordan Davis, shot to death in Jacksonville, Florida, because he played his music too loud. It's about Trayvon Martin, shot to death in Sanford, Florida, because a self-appointed neighborhood guardian judged him a thug. It's about Oscar Grant, shot by a police officer in an Oakland, California, subway station as cellphone cameras watched. It's about Amadou Diallo, executed in that vestibule and Abner Louima, sodomized with that broomstick. It's about Rodney King.

And it is about the bitter sense of siege that lives in African-American men, a sense that it is perpetually open season on us.

It's ironic that in the examples that Pitts cites, three cases resulted in convictions of police officers, two shooters were criminally charged, and the death of Garner has been ruled a homicide by the medical examiner and you can expect that the policeman in that case will all but certainly need a good criminal defense attorney soon. If these are examples (reaching back up to 17 years) of a perceived pervasive immunity of whites (or "White Hispanics") to kill African-American males in this country, I don't think it makes a very compelling case.

Again, the problem is that of perception, which is emotionally stronger than reality. As one poster here has already stated: "the police will kill us when they want, any time they want and get away with it," and investigations into such deaths "always lead" to "no where". But this clearly is at odds with the facts that police, and non-police alike, certainly are indicted for such crimes, are convicted, and then sent to prison for such crimes. While this isn't the case in 100% of the cases hoped for by the families of those killed, it certainly is a number well above "never".

In cases like this people react based on what they "just know". They "just know" that the cop gunned down Brown in cold-blood. Others "just know" that the cop was in a life and death struggle for a service pistol before Brown was shot. When people get emotionally invested in a position, almost all objectivity becomes lost. Only the things that support a preconceived position are then easily accepted.

In the case of Brown's death, I don't know if it was a warranted shooting or not. I'm one of these odd people that prefer to let the fact gathering be completed first. But others, that have decided that they "know" what happened that night or "know" that a fair investigation will not be performed prefer to deal with their perceptions.

 

[Geoff_M]

Hating is now the word people use if you have difference of opinion.

But you have to understand that it's a very effective tactic to neutralize your opponent's side of the issue. By labeling it "hatred", you impeach the other person's opinion as being beyond any rational consideration. And if you can get others to agree with the label, then it's just all the more effective at shutting down any debate and you "win" by default as having the only rational position.

 

[3 MEN AND A BOAT]

An excerpt from an op ed piece in a metro St. Louis newspaper. (Leonard Pitts is often a contributing editor to this paper.)


And it is about the bitter sense of siege that lives in African-American men, a sense that it is perpetually open season on us.

And that too few people outside of African America really notice, much less care. People who look like you are everyday deprived of health, wealth, freedom, opportunity, education, the benefit of the doubt, the presumption of innocence, life itself - and when you try to say this, even when you document it with academic studies and buttress it with witness testimony, people don't want to hear it, people dismiss you, deny you, lecture you about white victimhood, chastise you for playing a so-called "race card."

They choke off avenues of protest, prizing silence over justice, mistaking silence for peace. And never mind that sometimes, silence simmers like water in a closed pot on a high flame.

One can never condone a riot. It is a self-defeating act that sells some fleeting illusion of satisfaction at a high cost in property and life.

But understanding this does not preclude recognizing that the anger we see in Ferguson did not spring from nowhere, nor arrive, fully-formed, when Michael Brown was shot. It is the anger of people who are, as Fannie Lou Hamer famously said, sick and tired of being sick and tired.

Silence imposed on pain cannot indefinitely endure. People who are hurting will always, eventually, make themselves heard.

Even if they must scream to do so.

Read more here: http://www.bnd.com/2014/08/13/3347556/leonard-pitts-jr-riots-in-ferguson.html#storylink=cpy

No-one that I've heard is saying there can't or shouldn't be an investigation, but they started protesting immediately, then turned to rioting the first night.

And it's easy to say if your not African-American you just can't understand the troubles because this basically calls out any differing opinion that is not coming from an African-American as uninformed. As previously stated when the majority of crimes are committed by a certain segment of the community why not look closer at that segment.

To the presidents comments. I'm very critical of him but I didn't hear anything about the situation that warrants criticism, he called for calm. Not like his "if I had a son..." nonsense

 

[LBIJim]

You do know Al Sharpton speaks out on black on black crime daily right? There is plenty of outrage, you just aren't looking for it so you don't see it.

In what decade, actually in what lifetime it sure isnt this one.

Sure, in this decade. And last decade, and likely the past few decades before that. Probably as recently as last week. I don't know about daily, but he often speaks out against black on black crime.

Maybe he should get call the media to bring attention to those daily speeches.

Maybe he does. NYC local TV news covers him more than occasionally, mostly at community appearances dealing with issues of interest to African-Americans. He mostly speaks in a calm and rational manner. And yes, black on black crime is mentioned.

I suppose these appearances aren't widely known, because, well, face it, posters like the above don't want to hear it. They only pay attention when he says something outrageous. Same with the national media. To them, black on black crime isn't news, merely "daily, routine life."

 

[NotUrsula]

I don't think there's too many points in that article that is mostly filled with hyperbole.

Case in point:It's ironic that in the examples that Pitts cites, three cases resulted in convictions of police officers, two shooters were criminally charged, and the death of Garner has been ruled a homicide by the medical examiner and you can expect that the policeman in that case will all but certainly need a good criminal defense attorney soon. If these are examples (reaching back up to 17 years) of a perceived pervasive immunity of whites (or "White Hispanics") to kill African-American males in this country, I don't think it makes a very compelling case.

That's Pitt's point, I think. That as an American black male you wonder every day if it could happen to you, and if it does, will the killer actually go to trial, much less get convicted?

They do go to trial in many cases, and they are convicted about half the time. That means that the bad actors have about a 50% change of getting away with it; not odds that make potential victims feel hopeful that fear of conviction is going to keep rogue cops in check.

Again, the problem is that of perception, which is emotionally stronger than reality. As one poster here has already stated: "the police will kill us when they want, any time they want and get away with it," and investigations into such deaths "always lead" to "no where". But this clearly is at odds with the facts that police, and non-police alike, certainly are indicted for such crimes, are convicted, and then sent to prison for such crimes. While this isn't the case in 100% of the cases hoped for by the families of those killed, it certainly is a number well above "never".

To give Pitts credit, he never says that bad cops never get convicted. The article doesn't say that at all.

In cases like this people react based on what they "just know". They "just know" that the cop gunned down Brown in cold-blood. Others "just know" that the cop was in a life and death struggle for a service pistol before Brown was shot. When people get emotionally invested in a position, almost all objectivity becomes lost. Only the things that support a preconceived position are then easily accepted.

In the case of Brown's death, I don't know if it was a warranted shooting or not. I'm one of these odd people that prefer to let the fact gathering be completed first. But others, that have decided that they "know" what happened that night or "know" that a fair investigation will not be performed prefer to deal with their perceptions.

I don't want to reach any conclusions, either. We don't know yet what really happened. What I do know is that justice isn't going to be served by rioting and death threats against every white cop in Ferguson. If it hadn't been for the riots we would now know who the officer is, but thanks to all this violence it is being withheld, and I can't blame the police for that under the circumstances. The reckless behavior of the very people who are screaming for justice is helping to wreck the chances that Brown will actually get it.

 

[Disneychick75]

Sure, in this decade. And last decade, and likely the past few decades before that. Probably as recently as last week. I don't know about daily, but he often speaks out against black on black crime.



Maybe he does. NYC local TV news covers him more than occasionally, mostly at community appearances dealing with issues of interest to African-Americans. He mostly speaks in a calm and rational manner. And yes, black on black crime is mentioned.

I suppose these appearances aren't widely known, because, well, face it, posters like the above don't want to hear it. They only pay attention when he says something outrageous. Same with the national media. To them, black on black crime isn't news, merely "daily, routine life."

Hard to hear or read what is not broadcast or published. I'm happy to know that he does speak about black on black crime.

 

[Geoff_M]

They do go to trial in many cases, and they are convicted about half the time. That means that the bad actors have about a 50% change of getting away with it; not odds that make potential victims feel hopeful that fear of conviction is going to keep rogue cops in check.

But you would agree, I think, that the success rate isn't 100% with other other such prosecutions either? Sometimes the "bad guys" get off, sometimes the evidence doesn't support the charge... and sometimes the "bad guys" are really innocent.

To give Pitts credit, he never says that bad cops never get convicted. The article doesn't say that at all.

I would argue that by his declaration that he perceives, as an African-American man, a perpetual "open season" on "us" that indeed he feels that such killing are, and can be, committed at will with impunity.

 

[Gumbo4x4]

Sure, in this decade. And last decade, and likely the past few decades before that. Probably as recently as last week. I don't know about daily, but he often speaks out against black on black crime.



Maybe he does. NYC local TV news covers him more than occasionally, mostly at community appearances dealing with issues of interest to African-Americans. He mostly speaks in a calm and rational manner. And yes, black on black crime is mentioned.

I suppose these appearances aren't widely known, because, well, face it, posters like the above don't want to hear it. They only pay attention when he says something outrageous. Same with the national media. To them, black on black crime isn't news, merely "daily, routine life."

He says something outrageous so frequently it's hard to take ANYTHING he says seriously. It's no different than Ted Nugent. If you listened to home all the time, you'd find he says a LOT that makes sense. But, he puts his foot in his mouth often enough that most have no interest in the rest.

 

[Gumbo4x4]

but you would agree, i think, that the success rate isn't 100% with other other such prosecutions either? Sometimes the "bad guys" get off.

oj