Well, lots of people aren’t paying attention since only 33% of white people think there might be a problem with how the local police is handling the shooting.
And which issue do you think politicians are more likely to address: black/white inequality, or the militarization of police?
A black man (in a 70% black town) is shot with by a white policeman (on a police force that is 6% black) using a handgun (which police in the US have long carried), and the coalition you think we should be building is about militarization of the police, and not racism? Why is that the coalition? Would Brown be alive if the police didn’t have APCs and assault rifles? Is this de-militarization process going to result in firearm-free police like we see in other countries?
But hey, I guess I shouldn’t be disparaging this coalition and alienating people by pointing out things like this. Or maybe the anti-militarization people should get behind the anti-racism coalition and try to get them to work with people concerned about another related issue, like anti-militarization.
Saying someone doesn’t deserve to die isn’t the same thing as defending them. Criticising the police and institutional racism isn’t the same thing as defending the victim.
Or they’re simply mistreating black people in different ways. Back in the days of slavery there were no SWAT teams, and thus no SWAT raids on black families, so I guess it’s also clearly untrue that there was more mistreatment of black under slavery.
What do we know about the character of Wilson? Well, he was born to a teenage mother and was raised with half-siblings after his father left. His mother was convicted of multiple felonies and was accused of many more at the time of her death (which sounds like it may have been suicide), when Wilson was 16. He got divorced a couple of years ago after a short marriage. Can we do some gross stereotyping from this and pretend we get insights into Wilson’s character? Sure, and I’m pretty sure that’s exactly what you’re doing when you quote people as saying “we wasn’t doing nuttin’,” as though their grammar makes them less worthy, less truthful, or somehow objectionable. If Brown was raised in a single-parent family with an absent father and a teenage mother I’m sure people would try to draw conclusions from that. But this information isn’t very relevant, and highly prejudicial, which is why it wouldn’t be allowed in a court of law. And yet you have the gall to talk about how people are being mislead by the “mainstream media” who are twisting things, all the while trying to bring up irrelevant information about Brown and impugn a witness as though the way he talks makes him a liar.
You are mistaken. The police released statements saying that the officer was assaulted in his car, that Brown reached for the weapon, and that the officer suffered a bruised eye.
First you say you’ll take someone word that the skull was not broken, then you assert as a matter of fact that the skull was broken and that he was assaulted. As for me, I probably wouldn’t trust the person who shot an unarmed teenager six times (including the inner arms, which are normally concealed but which are visible when you have your hands up).
