'They Think We Are Animals': How America's Police State Controls Black People

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/rights/155389/%27they_think_we_are_animals%27%3A_how_america%27s_police_state_controls_black_people/

“Get out of the fucking car,” he yelled. I dashed to my apartment window, looked down and saw a cop aiming his gun at a car. Slowly, hands trembling above his head, a black man stepped out and kneeled on the road. Is he going to kill him? I wondered. If he so much as twitches the cop will blast his brains out.

As the afternoon mist thickened into rain, I saw the officer blinking droplets from his eyes. His face was a knot of rage and fear. Thankfully the young man being arrested didn’t twitch as he was handcuffed. After they left and my panic ebbed, I knew it wouldn't be long until someone somewhere was blown into oblivion by the police.

It wasn’t a knee-jerk anti-authority reaction but a heavy feeling based on history. Months later I read of the NYPD killing 18-year-old Ramarley Graham and 68-year-old Vietnam veteran Kenneth Chamberlain. They join Duane Brown, Sean Bell, Timothy Stansbury, Patrick Dorismond, Michael Stewart and others on the growing roster of black men killed by the police.

Once the smoking guns cool and the body is buried, mainstream media repeat the same words, “accident” or “tragic.” But we, who are black or Latino or politicized, hear the slurs and threats shouted in the background. Progressive news show Democracy Now reported that when cops banged on Chamberlain’s door and he told them he was fine, one shouted, “I don’t give a fuck nigger!” In 2011, cops created a Facebook page to complain about working the West Indian Day Parade, on it they called the black partiers “animals” and “savages,” and one wrote, “Drop a bomb and wipe them all out.” Repeatedly, journalists or lawyers smuggle out of the Blue Code of Silence evidence of police using racist, animal imagery to describe the very people they are supposed to serve.

[sheriff_joe_arpaio]

1. USA v. Sheriff Arpaio, 2nd plaintiff files

The court pleading is here.

http://www.scribd.com/jarpaio_1/d/93245267-USA-DOJ-v-Arpaio-2nd-Plaintiff-files

Ethnic cleansing is not the sole mission of the sheriff. He has an absolute disdain for the Bill of Rights -- without a discriminatory element. The Constitution, apparently, just gets in the way of law enforcement.

[sheriff_joe_arpaio]

3. Fed Court Approves million dollar settlement against Arpaio

This is the same federal courthouse where USA v. Arpaio is being heard. Time to get out of town by sundown?

http://www.azcentral.com/news/politics/articles/2012/05/11/20120511mary-rose-wilcox-county-lawsuit-award.html

[teddy51]

2. We have stepped back years in this country with respect to black/white relations. What

scares me is, where is this all going to end?

[Zalatix]

4. And people get mad at me when I say the cops are utterly useless.

[the peoples summit]

9. Until people starting controlling THEMSELVES

(being conscious when conceiving and choosing a partner, not dropping out of high school, etc.), what can or will change? Expecting cops to act as social workers is ludicrous. Cops=brute force. Another thing: I can see how cops assigned to tough beats would become very jaded very quickly. Are you implying that there is zero savage behavior out there on the mean streets? Last night in Chicago at least 20 people were shot and two killed!

[Zalatix]

11. The problem is that the police have a legal monopoly on the use of force.

That's what makes them corrupt. They're increasingly unaccountable to the people they can use force against.

[duhneece]

5. The War on Drugs has been an effective tactic (strategy)

From being pulled over, charged, arrested, prosecuted, sentenced...at every step, blacks-then Hispanics-then poor white are marginalized, brutalized....
I can't offer this book often enough: The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration....by Michelle Alexander...or suggest 'liking' Michelle on facebook.

[lonestarnot]

6. And too big to stop for years now.

[msongs]

7. so what is the reason given why the police state "controls" people of no color? nt

[Liberal_in_LA]

8. k&r

[Zorra]

10. Thanks. K&R

xchrom

[KG]

12. Police State DURec