Originally published at: Georgia cops under fire after posting pic of them shooting target depicting black man | Boing Boing
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Nothing to see here… The targets depict all minorities and not just blacks. *shrug emoji
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at no time will I accept people telling me I’m a racist, or our department is a racist because we made a mistake
Can we criticize you for being resistant to introspection and unwilling to learn from your mistakes, or is that off limits too?
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Wonder if they have any posters of cops?
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It’s not racist unless we get caught.
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No, as the article notes Georgia cops are facing some well-earned criticism and backlash, but it’s the black men who are (literally) under fire.
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I grew up near Villa Rica, and while I have no special insight into current conditions there, I do know that VR has seemingly always had racial strife. The high school was considered (by outsiders and maybe insiders) to be “rough”…with a lot of racial fighting. Whenever our school played them in football, there was always extra police patrolling because of the potential (and often real) violence. All that to say, I’m not surprised at all about the “unintentional” black man shooting targets.
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Nothing innocent about this at all. They wanted a threatening target that no one would hesitate to destroy. They picked the scariest thing they could think of, an armed Black man. Not accidental at all.
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Also kinda weird that somebody actually manufactures “racially diverse” shooting targets? Like, what’s wrong with the generic outline of a person? An outline wont’ do because cops can’t get fired up enough (pun intended) unless what they’re shooting is, at the very least, a photo-realistic representation of a human?
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This practice is far more widespread, as shown here:
Agreed, and there seems to be a lack of diversity in the images that might make it easier to find the source.
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Sadly, part of the reason is to desensitize an officer in training to the thought of actually shooting a real, live human being without hesitation. There are situations where a fraction of a second of doubt could cost them their life. Unfortunately, saving that same fraction of a second often costs someone else their life. Frankly, making that call is a horrible position to be in.
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It’s also a significant benchmark on the slide beteen “police” and “military”.
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Bullshit
Policing is not that dangerous of a job, and it is extremely rare for a cop to be suddenly forced into a situation where there life is in immediate danger. The number of instances where police create dangerous situations, or just shoot people minding their own damn business, is a thousand times more common.
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So per the article, this is one of the police qualification targets Georgia uses. Looking it up, it looks like they have 8 different photo type targets, as well as silhouette types. It’s a little weird they grabbed only one of those photo targets. (Accidentally on purpose?)
The bigger issue is Georgia using this target at all. They will probably defend it saying that only 1 of the 8 (or at least of the 6 I found) is black. I’d argue there is little practical reason for photo targets for qualification, and they should do away with them and use silhouette types.
At the end of the article it mentions Michigan having similar backlash, and can confirm they use the same target (with Michigan qualification markings.)
Site I found that shows/sells Georgia police qualification targets (though only showing 6 of the 8).
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Thank you for reinforcing this. The “extreme danger” of policing is a persistent myth.
You’re more likely to die on the job as a roofer, a garbage man/woman, or a farmer. And most police deaths in the line of duty are traffic accidents. Until COVID, at least, I’m not sure if that overtook traffic.
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We’ve succeeded in making racists understand that it’s a bad thing based on how virulently they always deny it.
Now they need to let go of the idea that it requires intent, or that if you’re not trying to be racist then it isn’t. 
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It’s not even in the top ten. It’s below fishing, logging, roofing, construction, helicopter piloting, garbage collection, iron working, truck driving, mining, and farming.
Police officer is currently #22. This data also doesn’t account for how much of that danger cops are creating themselves by escalating everything with their shitty training and attitudes in the US.
Crossing guard is more dangerous (#12). I bet cops would love to be told that.
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That thought process is how kids with cell phones get shot. Cops are not in the top 10 most dangerous jobs, they just train to treat everyone as a threat, to be constantly in fear of their lives and shoot on impulse because “if you stop to think you might be dead.” It’s all bullshit.
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I wonder if the other targets include babies and blind men.
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that’s why i slightly lean towards language which says: this action is racist, rather than this person is racist - because the label seems to terrify most white people
it really does say something though that so many white people are more afraid of being called racist, rather than they are worried about the harm that racist actions ( or even something like micro aggressions ) cause
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