[quote=“Brainspore, post:43, topic:39395”]I respectfully disagree. The militarization of police, particularly in neighborhoods of color, has made the already-huge problem of police racism and brutality even worse.[/quote]Then you don’t know anything about US history. The police killed literally hundreds of people in protests back in the 1950s, 60s and 70s. There were individual protests were dozens of people were just straight up murdered by the police. And that’s just the official stuff. We know a huge portion of the lynchings and bombings that occurred during that time and earlier were committed by law enforcement agents.
And outside of protests, just speaking of regular day to day crap, the DOJ tracks deaths (including their race) during arrests. There’s been no increase in this stuff over the last decade as all this military gear poured into police departments.
Again, that’s not to say militarization isn’t an issue. It is. But it’s had absolutely no impact on how the police treat Black people. And is has nothing to do with the this killing in Ferguson.
“Worse” as in “worse than the problem would be without that equipment,” not “worse than anti-black violence has ever been in American history.”
No one is saying the militarization of police caused the killing in Ferguson, but it’s pretty darn relevant to the events following that killing.
When you already have a violent, racist police force that sees the citizenry (and especially the black citizenry) as the enemy then adding a bunch of military gear is not going to help the situation. That’s not the same thing as saying taking it away will fix the problem, but nobody has claimed that either.
Yeah, but he wasn’t shooting at Brown, he was simply getting rid of all his ammunition so his gun would be safe when he lost consciousness!
I read everything here, and I didn’t see anything insulting. I saw someone correctly identifying the issue that gave rise to everything, which is racism. I saw militarization correctly identified as a secondary problem, and one that hasn’t actually made things much worse for blacks/minorities in particular. Despite this, I saw people get their hackles up simply because they had already identified with militarization as the issue most important to them. People might not like having the real issue of racism pointed out to them, but those that would be friendly to joining an anti-racism coalition likely aren’t greatly insulted, and I suspect that at least some of those who were insulted or who disagree will give it a second thought. And his words might actually help sway someone like you, who sees racism as the greater issue but who is nevertheless willing to support the more popular cause of militarization on the (possibly misguided if not counterproductive) basis of coalition building.
So militarized police actions are worse than German Shepherds, billy clubs, water cannons, and other such things that used to be deployed? They’re just different tools for doing the same job.
For one, this seems to kind of dismiss the Brown’s death as little more than the undercard for the main event of police suppression of protests.
For two, there is still a long history of police brutality in response to protests, and most of these happened with un-militarized police forces. I don’t know if there’s actual empirical evidence saying that militarized police are worse, and if demilitarizing the police won’t fix the problem then what’s the point? Because I’m pretty sure that taking real, serious, and consistent efforts to eliminate racism will actually help the problem… and if that’s not a good reason to focus on racism and not militarization then I don’t know what is.
This isn’t happening in my country so I will recuse myself of offering an opinion, but I did note that 538 had an article yesterday: “Nobody Knows How Many Americans The Police Kill Each Year”, and regarding those statistics that are available:
there’s no governmental effort at all to record the number of
unjustifiable homicides by police. If Brown’s homicide is found to be
unjustifiable, it won’t show up in these statistics.
Don’t mean to pick on you, but it’s interesting how a (presumably) white Australian living in Japan disagrees with a (presumably) black American living in the US about how minority communities in the US are affected by militarization.
And it’s interesting how just about everyone commenting here disagrees with this black American, even though I would guess that almost everyone else commenting here is white (or at least not black). Apparently we all know the real issues facing “minority communities” and the best way to address them—and how dare a black person come in here to question our judgment! If he knew what was best for him (and his community) he would get on board and join us, and then maybe he would deserve some of our support for his quaint little anti-racism thing sometime down the line.
So, basically, law enforcement has always been excessively violent toward black people. Therefore, whether or not it’s “militarized” doesn’t matter, in the context. Theoretically, I could imagine that not being the case (i.e. if they have access to more lethal weapons, officers can deal more damage), but in reality, you’re most likely right.
It takes fewer and fewer armed bigots to pull it off. If we take away their force multiplies, they’ll either have to swell their ranks (which is not realistic) or treat their fellow human beings like human beings, and be peace officers.
This has everything to do with police militarization. You can’t separate a cop from his gun in America.
Militarization was done under the guise of “Drugs” and “Terrorists”, but every African-American male knows that, as far as the cops are concerned, they are drugged up terrorists.
Some years back, police got access to “(somewhat) less than lethal” weapons, which they could use instead of their side arm. That way, in events when their side arm was needed they didn’t have to use lethal force. What happened? They tase the fucking shit out of everybody on a regular basis.
WTF do you think is going to happen now that they have military gear? Picnics?
No one is safe when a gun is pointed at them, yet that’s SOP for American police - even in war zones, soldiers don’t point their guns at civilians. Americans traded their freedoms for security and this is the result.
Often people become insulted when called ignorant. At the very least, the same sentiments could have been worded a bit more diplomatically. And my absolute final note, the thread has “police militarization” in the title. It is the topic of discussion, so it’s bound to be the dominant issue, right here in this thread. There’s likely no way to prevent that, in this thread. If you don’t like participating in threads where “police militarization” is the dominant issue, find (or create) a thread that focuses on racism and contribute there. I imagine quite a few of the people you’re currently arguing with will happily focus on that thread’s topic as well.
The police used tear gas unsparingly the past week, and it was perhaps the most disturbing ingredient in the stew. As others have noted, the Chemical Weapons Convention of 1993 actually bans the gas as a permissible means of warfare. Then again, it is allowed for domestic riot control, and nations like Turkey, Bahrain, Israel and the United States have exploited the loophole to great avail.
