I definitely don’t know if race played a factor in this situation…but I want to do an experiment and have a white friend hop her fence, get the soccer ball and hop back over.
I’d have a black friend do it, but fear for his/her life.
Should white friend be male or female?
0 voters
I don’t think you even need to go so far as to get someone else to jump her fence. Just see if she’ll answer the door when they ring the doorbell.
Yep, and increasing (media-driven) fear of crime too (especially at the hands of “non-white” people), despite the fact that crime has been generally declining for at least a couple of decades now.
And I totally understand the fear of crime. I don’t necessarily want people (regardless of color) hopping my fence and hanging out on my property either. But, there are situations where you just have to use your brain and think.
“When Holland again holds up his key as his form of proof, the officer can be seen in the video taking it out of Holland’s hand.” This is, arguably, assault, possibly battery, certainly theft and possibly robbery if the “officer” was displaying a weapon or used force or threat of force to take property from his person.
Charges should be filed and let a jury sort it out. Zero tolerance for criminals, particularly those in a uniform.
Judging by some of the data on how racial composition changes (particularly white people moving into black neighborhoods) lead to huge swings in nuisance calls we can guess that there are at least a few thousand similar incidents a year. We’re getting about 1 or 2 videos a week.
Female and petite. Culturally, we’re considered incapable of criminal behavior. The only thing we’re ever accused of is bein’ a Man Stealin’ Bitch.
This cultural stereotype has been on my mind the last couple of days, as I was trying to weasel out of jury duty ( it was only a near-miss), while simultaneously working in a Neighborhood of Color where I was accidentally locked out of a senior-living apartment building, but was let in through a locked door by a resident, in spite of the rules.
The next time I get tapped for jury duty, I will be dressing in full drag as a Republic Senator’s Wife, as my fellow jurors were a collection of sketchy-looking riff-raff. I recognized a couple of people from the neighborhood, who I never tried to meet due to their unfriendly appearance.
My mom is a 4’11" white lady. I’m pretty sure she could rob a bank and they’d offer to keep it quiet for her.
Now the only problem is scaling that fence both ways for a petite, white lady. Going in is easy, getting back out is harder because there isn’t a railing to use.
Gonna have to put an ad out for a petite, white female rock climber.
All the creepiest of my neighbors are the ones whose families have lived there for three generations or more. I run into plenty of really, really white junkies stealing scrap metal and panhandling in parking lots.
Male, of course.
Gotta have all the privilege that’s possible…
Aw, they just need some help! They’re sick, or down on their luck, or abused by someone, or something else forgivable. Not like those black losers looking for a handout over there, the ones who need to pull up their pants and pull themselves up by their invisible bootstraps.
/s, obvs
Oh, see? There you go, believin’ in stereotypes. I can shotput a concrete block several yards, repeatedly, in 100-degree heat and I look like I should be wearing an apron. I also have plenty of experience climbing over 6-foot cedar privacy fences with no footholds other than friction. The worst? F#@king splinters…
Do you live in the Dallas area? I have an experiment to perform.
BTW, you’re starting to scare me.
In no way do I wish to take anything away from what you have just said, as it is very well put.
I did like the implied dig about portrait videos that you managed to get in there, though. Actual LoL.
Denver. But, due to early childhood exposure, I can easily slip into a Texas drawl. I’ve got nothing going on, work-wise, for the rest of the month, so line me up a ride-share!
I think your gender was more of a problem for the homeowner than your color. Females are simply considered less capable of being/doing anything physical, including intimidation, thus: Female bullying, harassment, and battery aren’t taken seriously. GIRLFIGHT! tee-hee!
Seeing this article after several others, I was thinking about how obviously this has gone on forever, ubiquitous cellphone cameras allow people to document it (previous to that, it was frankly just ignored) which in turn makes it possible for it go to viral, but it’s only lately that the conditions have existed - a news fad - to allow some of the stories to get some coverage.
Let’s face it - this is but the tiniest, tiniest tip of the iceberg. Cops being guilty of racism by negligence is ubiquitous. Boingboing could post nothing but such stories (with video) and they’d still miss out on the majority of such events. As @bobtato pointed out, there’s something about looking at just one highly specific circumstance, and how it keeps coming up, again and again. Although even here, I fear it may become misleading by under-reporting even incidents of this one event.
They’ve been getting away with this behavior all their lives, including after cellphone cameras came along, and most are still getting away with it. It’s a common enough behavior that they’re thinking (if they’re thinking about it at all), that they’re not doing anything wrong. If they had some self-awareness, they’d be thinking that the odds are on their side, in terms of not being held up to public scorn. Maybe after a sufficient number of years of this behavior being publicly shamed, they might start thinking about it differently, but as a culture we’re not at that point yet.
It appears the officer was moonlighting as private security for the apartment complex and was engaging in racial profiling in that capacity. So I’m sure the justification was, “I was just checking to see if they belonged there (even though I never do that to white people).”
We’re already there, it’s just not evenly distributed.
When it comes to interacting with cops (and, historically, all white people) while black, “admirable self-control” = “self-preservation.” Getting upset greatly increases the chances of getting killed. An admirable quality becomes a necessary quality when you don’t have white privilege. America!
But is that because she’s white? Or because she makes the best damn meatballs and sauce ever and no one wants her to stop making them!!!?
Hmmmmmmmmmmm???
I do live in the states. Just have, well, basically no first-hand experience with police harassment, probably because I am a white male.
