The Demonstrations in Minnesota (Update: Now Nationwide){Now International} (2 Viewers)

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You claimed that it was the protests that brought action. All I'm saying is that it was coming, regardless of the protests and most likely at the next election. All the protests did was push the legislature to act now rather than allow it to go to a vote.

Protests work. And I didn't ever claim that ONLY protests work. The legislature *voted*. It's how we do laws in America.
 
Protests work. And I didn't ever claim that ONLY protests work. The legislature *voted*. It's how we do laws in America.
Then why didn't you say that when you replied to me before?
So why do you have to add in your "yeah but the only way it passed..."?
Because it was the protests which brought about the action.

And what were you implying here if it wasn't a claim that it only passed because the legislature pushed it through due to the pressure of the protests? If that isn't what it implies then what is it that you know and I won't accept?
we do know. You may not want to accept, but that's not the same as not knowing.

The protests may have forced the issue, but it was something that was going to happen anyway and as I said, I am of the opinion that it would have passed based on my local experience. You may want to deny that it was coming, but you just don't have mass cities, counties, businesses, advocacy groups, news outlets and individuals dropping the flag, bringing attention to the cause and calling for it's removal and not bring it to a vote. That's not the outside protests at work, that's the state of Mississippi. All the protests did was hasten the brief inevitable.
 
Then why didn't you say that when you replied to me before?



And what were you implying here if it wasn't a claim that it only passed because the legislature pushed it through due to the pressure of the protests? If that isn't what it implies then what is it that you know and I won't accept?


The protests may have forced the issue, but it was something that was going to happen anyway and as I said, I am of the opinion that it would have passed based on my local experience. You may want to deny that it was coming, but you just don't have mass cities, counties, businesses, advocacy groups, news outlets and individuals dropping the flag, bringing attention to the cause and calling for it's removal and not bring it to a vote. That's not the outside protests at work, that's the state of Mississippi. All the protests did was hasten the brief inevitable.
all y'all are arguing is whether the protests were the ONLY reason for the change
which neither of you are arguing
you're both saying essentially the same thing without realizing it
 
all y'all are arguing is whether the protests were the ONLY reason for the change
which neither of you are arguing
you're both saying essentially the same thing without realizing it

Yeah, the discussion feels like it's going in circles with no off ramp. Both have made their point and let's move on.
 
You claimed that it was the protests that brought action. All I'm saying is that it was coming, regardless of the protests and most likely at the next election. All the protests did was push the legislature to act now rather than allow it to go to a vote.

Maybe, just maybe the legislature decided they don't trust the voters to decide this again and saved Mississippi from a 2001 result. It's bad enough that Mississippi is last at doing something right again.
 
Maybe, just maybe the legislature decided they don't trust the voters to decide this again and saved Mississippi from a 2001 result. It's bad enough that Mississippi is last at doing something right again.
That's exactly the point I tried to make. Rather than the people of the state voting on it and it being a healing moment for the state & the country as a whole, it has the appearance of being forced through. If you're a black person, how much better does it feel if a white majority votes for a change rather than the 'only reason it happened was the state government caved under outside pressure and didn't trust the voters?' It almost makes this change meaningless, which disappoints me greatly. Nobody really believes that we wanted to change it, so what does it really matter? Black people don't have to look at it anymore, but does that make them feel any better about their white neighbors? I doubt it. If I were a black person I'd still believe that the overwhelming majority would rather see the stars & bars because that's what they last saw 20 years ago.

And yes, maybe they did save us from the same result, but I don't believe that and now we'll never know.
 
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That's exactly the point I tried to make. Rather than the people of the state voting on it and it being a healing moment for the state & the country as a whole, it has the appearance of being forced through. If you're a black person, how much better does it feel if a white majority votes for a change rather than the 'only reason it happened was the state government caved under outside pressure and didn't trust the voters?' It almost makes this change meaningless, which disappoints me greatly. Nobody really believes that we wanted to change it, so what does it really matter? Black people don't have to look at it anymore, but does that make them feel any better about their white neighbors? I doubt it. If I were a black person I'd still believe that the overwhelming majority would rather see the stars & bars because that's what they last saw 20 years ago.

Yeah, I'm sure that the black community is just devastated that they protested and made their voices heard across the country, made sweeping inroads with social awareness and drastically shifted perception, and got a bunch of racist **** banned. That they were able to rise up and take control of the narrative and create one of the largest social movements of my lifetime, hand in hand with white people, brown people, and everything in between.

I bet they get absolutely no satisfaction from that because they didn't wait around for a bunch of racist white people to change the flag on their own accord and say "look here! see what we gave you!"

You're really nailing the whole "try to put yourself in their shoes" thing. Keep it up. :winkthumb:
 
I’m “attending” this Zoom panel conference right now. There are 700+ of us in the call.

I’ve said before that we need to listen. And I know that’s not always easy because a lot of us don’t have real authentic contact with Black people and communities.

And social distancing has made this harder.

except where it’s made this easier. There are all sorts of distance opportunities that are out there. Like this one.

a panel of black scholars and academics, whose backgrounds are in social work and policing and law and incarceration and education and other fields.

but also as Black Americans who are living through this right now as Black Americans.



so, I am not under the delusion that anyone will read this. But as I listened to the four panelists and facilitator - all Black, 2 males and 2 females and the panel chair was female - I took some notes.

I do *NOT* like conferences. Mainly because I hate people and have social anxiety. So a Zoom conference like this is something I can get with. I posted these notes over at MAP, but thought I'd follow up here.

Again, I know most people probably will scroll past, but for my own sense of closure, I'm gonna paste my notes here.

I couldn't really capture the entire Zoom panel, but I wanted to try and list a few of the topics that they hit on that were worth mentioning as they came up:

  • it opened with each panelist talking about how the individually, emotionally talked about their responses to the current situation
    • to summarize, roughly, there was this bittersweet tension between hope and optimism and fatigue and anger. The positives that is this is a moment not seen since the Motown movement and, before that, the fight for emancipation. That so many people, from so many walks of life opening their minds to listen and see the racism. But also anger that it should not have taken this long. Fatigue from fighting this for so long, by themselves.
  • The history of agreements between district attorneys and prosecutors with law enforcement to get deals that oppress Black Americans
  • a focus on how prison systems and staff extend the racist arm of the law. Examples cited included:
    • sexual assault perpetrated against Black inmates by white staff members
    • relationships of cooperation between white staff members and incarcerated white supremacists
    • the rumor-mongering of Blacks threatening white supremacists, even when unfounded, to lead to instances of physical harm against Black inmates
    • security staff members equipping white supremacists with actual weapons while Black inmates are having to fashion their own, cruder weapons (e.g. shanks)
  • A reference to reading James Baldwin's "Fifth Avenue, Uptown"
  • a reference to Connick vs. Thompson (New Orleans case)
  • a really interesting point that white people want to be the victims and the oppressors - white people in the US having a tendency to want it all, across all facets of society. And even this - which is a sort of arrogance on the part of white people. The need to be victims, oppressors, and saviors. One panelist found this odd and frustrating.
  • The role that police unions and fraternal orders of police play in protecting these officers
  • the reality that these organizations receive preferential treatment by default in local and state negotiations, as if they are not at fault and don't have to 'prove themselves' as worthy or even competent
  • Reparations in society - discussions around education, material support. Attacking homelessness and houselessness and healthcare. These are bare expectations.
  • Reparations re: defunding in law enforcement - look at the funding agencies to transform punishment to rehabilitation. Moving away from punishment and torture designs to things that can work through knowledge and building up when possible
  • research partnerships established with police themselves - publicly funded support needs more access to publicly funded services, like education and the police. But the police are the most resistant to this
    • one example that was specifically cited was the disinclination and refusal to participate in studies to examine the efficacy of body camera usage in policing
  • Shaming and "internet justice" isn't really justice. It doesn't do anything for the marginalized peoples but it contributes to a sense of justice that whites external to the trauma and punishment of Blacks feel is happening, but doesn't actually impact on the oppression and marginalization
  • State and local legislatures need to be a bigger focus - not just Federal, which dominates too much of the discussion
  • Emphasis on jails rather than prisons when it comes to the racialized nature of the systemic injustice
  • The debates over Confederate Monuments - let's talk about not just taking down, but what merits going up. Why can't abolitionists be memorialized? This could be reparations. Because it's not just a discussion about what comes down but also what goes up. That's inspiring.
  • A police officer responsible for the torturing of over 100 Black men becoming part of the Chicago school curriculum, so that AP US History includes things like that and lynching - that history about these things exist. Lynchings as terrorism. The frame of "white criminality" is part of curriculum reparations
  • The history of police protecting "stuff" and defending "stuff" and investigating the recovery of "stuff" and this is usually white capital and property, as opposed to feeling like the police, as an institution, is not protecting Black People - it's wielded against Black people, in fact, often in favor of white people's "stuff." So the hierarchy is that white people's 'stuff' is more important than Black people
  • Police culture > police individuals. The state (law and policy), the legal (lawyers who manage it) combine to create a system is 'reinvigorated' through a line of knowledge - even created and re-created by academics. We need to understand the current context and what rebellion would look like (it's not 1799 in Haiti). You can be amicable with a police officer - even a Black one in their community - but the individual is also separate from the system and the culture. We are trying to address the latter, not the latter
  • Good cops vs. Bad cops - what do good cops look like? Are they whistle blowers? Then where are they? And if they cannot step forward out of fear - which is the assumption - that's the problem. How can we argue the good outnumber the bad?
    • example: a group of retired Black officers and members of the Fraternal Order of Police took a knee, symbolically, and there was no white officer who supported them
  • People are too focused on the killings of cops but we need to look at things like the 13th amendment and it's about the wider sense of what the word "law" means and what it refers to - law as horizon rather than a set of tactics
  • Discussion on what a post-abolition world would look like for each of the four panelists
    • one example is that we turn to institutions to trust rather than people, and we trust the political structure and the legal structure and the law enforcement structure, but we don't look at individuals and their stories. Because we don't 'trust and care' in one another - instead, we trust institutions
    • but a couple of panelists said that we don't know and that's the toughest challenge - we've never had it, we've never really seen it. And, as a result, without a vision or a goal, it is difficult to work toward something specifically
    • there was a collective skepticism when it comes to 'The State'
Alright, I tried to capture as much as I could, but it was difficult to listen and record some impressions.

Thanks.
 
so, I am not under the delusion that anyone will read this. But as I listened to the four panelists and facilitator - all Black, 2 males and 2 females and the panel chair was female - I took some notes.

I do *NOT* like conferences. Mainly because I hate people and have social anxiety. So a Zoom conference like this is something I can get with. I posted these notes over at MAP, but thought I'd follow up here.

Again, I know most people probably will scroll past, but for my own sense of closure, I'm gonna paste my notes here.

I couldn't really capture the entire Zoom panel, but I wanted to try and list a few of the topics that they hit on that were worth mentioning as they came up:

  • it opened with each panelist talking about how the individually, emotionally talked about their responses to the current situation
    • to summarize, roughly, there was this bittersweet tension between hope and optimism and fatigue and anger. The positives that is this is a moment not seen since the Motown movement and, before that, the fight for emancipation. That so many people, from so many walks of life opening their minds to listen and see the racism. But also anger that it should not have taken this long. Fatigue from fighting this for so long, by themselves.
  • The history of agreements between district attorneys and prosecutors with law enforcement to get deals that oppress Black Americans
  • a focus on how prison systems and staff extend the racist arm of the law. Examples cited included:
    • sexual assault perpetrated against Black inmates by white staff members
    • relationships of cooperation between white staff members and incarcerated white supremacists
    • the rumor-mongering of Blacks threatening white supremacists, even when unfounded, to lead to instances of physical harm against Black inmates
    • security staff members equipping white supremacists with actual weapons while Black inmates are having to fashion their own, cruder weapons (e.g. shanks)
  • A reference to reading James Baldwin's "Fifth Avenue, Uptown"
  • a reference to Connick vs. Thompson (New Orleans case)
  • a really interesting point that white people want to be the victims and the oppressors - white people in the US having a tendency to want it all, across all facets of society. And even this - which is a sort of arrogance on the part of white people. The need to be victims, oppressors, and saviors. One panelist found this odd and frustrating.
  • The role that police unions and fraternal orders of police play in protecting these officers
  • the reality that these organizations receive preferential treatment by default in local and state negotiations, as if they are not at fault and don't have to 'prove themselves' as worthy or even competent
  • Reparations in society - discussions around education, material support. Attacking homelessness and houselessness and healthcare. These are bare expectations.
  • Reparations re: defunding in law enforcement - look at the funding agencies to transform punishment to rehabilitation. Moving away from punishment and torture designs to things that can work through knowledge and building up when possible
  • research partnerships established with police themselves - publicly funded support needs more access to publicly funded services, like education and the police. But the police are the most resistant to this
    • one example that was specifically cited was the disinclination and refusal to participate in studies to examine the efficacy of body camera usage in policing
  • Shaming and "internet justice" isn't really justice. It doesn't do anything for the marginalized peoples but it contributes to a sense of justice that whites external to the trauma and punishment of Blacks feel is happening, but doesn't actually impact on the oppression and marginalization
  • State and local legislatures need to be a bigger focus - not just Federal, which dominates too much of the discussion
  • Emphasis on jails rather than prisons when it comes to the racialized nature of the systemic injustice
  • The debates over Confederate Monuments - let's talk about not just taking down, but what merits going up. Why can't abolitionists be memorialized? This could be reparations. Because it's not just a discussion about what comes down but also what goes up. That's inspiring.
  • A police officer responsible for the torturing of over 100 Black men becoming part of the Chicago school curriculum, so that AP US History includes things like that and lynching - that history about these things exist. Lynchings as terrorism. The frame of "white criminality" is part of curriculum reparations
  • The history of police protecting "stuff" and defending "stuff" and investigating the recovery of "stuff" and this is usually white capital and property, as opposed to feeling like the police, as an institution, is not protecting Black People - it's wielded against Black people, in fact, often in favor of white people's "stuff." So the hierarchy is that white people's 'stuff' is more important than Black people
  • Police culture > police individuals. The state (law and policy), the legal (lawyers who manage it) combine to create a system is 'reinvigorated' through a line of knowledge - even created and re-created by academics. We need to understand the current context and what rebellion would look like (it's not 1799 in Haiti). You can be amicable with a police officer - even a Black one in their community - but the individual is also separate from the system and the culture. We are trying to address the latter, not the latter
  • Good cops vs. Bad cops - what do good cops look like? Are they whistle blowers? Then where are they? And if they cannot step forward out of fear - which is the assumption - that's the problem. How can we argue the good outnumber the bad?
    • example: a group of retired Black officers and members of the Fraternal Order of Police took a knee, symbolically, and there was no white officer who supported them
  • People are too focused on the killings of cops but we need to look at things like the 13th amendment and it's about the wider sense of what the word "law" means and what it refers to - law as horizon rather than a set of tactics
  • Discussion on what a post-abolition world would look like for each of the four panelists
    • one example is that we turn to institutions to trust rather than people, and we trust the political structure and the legal structure and the law enforcement structure, but we don't look at individuals and their stories. Because we don't 'trust and care' in one another - instead, we trust institutions
    • but a couple of panelists said that we don't know and that's the toughest challenge - we've never had it, we've never really seen it. And, as a result, without a vision or a goal, it is difficult to work toward something specifically
    • there was a collective skepticism when it comes to 'The State'
Alright, I tried to capture as much as I could, but it was difficult to listen and record some impressions.

Thanks.

Fwiw, I did read this over in MAP. Thanks for posting. Zoom doesn't work for me, so the recap was great. Thanks!
 
Yeah, I'm sure that the black community is just devastated that they protested and made their voices heard across the country, made sweeping inroads with social awareness and drastically shifted perception, and got a bunch of racist **** banned. That they were able to rise up and take control of the narrative and create one of the largest social movements of my lifetime, hand in hand with white people, brown people, and everything in between.

I bet they get absolutely no satisfaction from that because they didn't wait around for a bunch of racist white people to change the flag on their own accord and say "look here! see what we gave you!"

You're really nailing the whole "try to put yourself in their shoes" thing. Keep it up. :winkthumb:
Is there a reason why almost every response from you is an attempt to ridicule or discredit me? Is there something particular that I did to you to warrant all of the negativity? I expressed a satisfaction with the changing of the flag and a disappointment that it wasn't the people of the state who were able to change it and a disappointment in that the black people of this state didn't have the satisfaction of knowing that we were capable of changing without it being forced. Is there really something wrong with that that you have to keep attacking?

Apologies to the admins and others here as well, I said I would move on and I haven't, but I will now. I'm out of this thread and out of these discussions altogether. Nothing I'm posting is receiving a positive response and therefore, I believe, distracting from the intent of the threads.
 
Is there a reason why almost every response from you is an attempt to ridicule or discredit me? Is there something particular that I did to you to warrant all of the negativity? I expressed a satisfaction with the changing of the flag and a disappointment that it wasn't the people of the state who were able to change it and a disappointment in that the black people of this state didn't have the satisfaction of knowing that we were capable of changing without it being forced. Is there really something wrong with that that you have to keep attacking?

Apologies to the admins and others here as well, I said I would move on and I haven't, but I will now. I'm out of this thread and out of these discussions altogether. Nothing I'm posting is receiving a positive response and therefore, I believe, distracting from the intent of the threads.

I think you're being extraordinarily disingenuous about your motives and what's in your heart and I don't like people who are like that. That's about it.

I think there are some people interacting with you that are being more patient and civil than I am and I'd encourage you to keep interacting with them. I don't believe you're actually listening, but perhaps some of it will rub off on you. So I'll give you this; I just won't respond to your posts on this type of thread, because I want others to have the opportunity to make an attempt, if they wish. I don't want your "LC is so mean" pity party to prevent you from being exposed to good information.
 
so, I am not under the delusion that anyone will read this. But as I listened to the four panelists and facilitator - all Black, 2 males and 2 females and the panel chair was female - I took some notes.

I do *NOT* like conferences. Mainly because I hate people and have social anxiety. So a Zoom conference like this is something I can get with. I posted these notes over at MAP, but thought I'd follow up here.

Again, I know most people probably will scroll past, but for my own sense of closure, I'm gonna paste my notes here.

I couldn't really capture the entire Zoom panel, but I wanted to try and list a few of the topics that they hit on that were worth mentioning as they came up:

  • it opened with each panelist talking about how the individually, emotionally talked about their responses to the current situation
    • to summarize, roughly, there was this bittersweet tension between hope and optimism and fatigue and anger. The positives that is this is a moment not seen since the Motown movement and, before that, the fight for emancipation. That so many people, from so many walks of life opening their minds to listen and see the racism. But also anger that it should not have taken this long. Fatigue from fighting this for so long, by themselves.
  • The history of agreements between district attorneys and prosecutors with law enforcement to get deals that oppress Black Americans
  • a focus on how prison systems and staff extend the racist arm of the law. Examples cited included:
    • sexual assault perpetrated against Black inmates by white staff members
    • relationships of cooperation between white staff members and incarcerated white supremacists
    • the rumor-mongering of Blacks threatening white supremacists, even when unfounded, to lead to instances of physical harm against Black inmates
    • security staff members equipping white supremacists with actual weapons while Black inmates are having to fashion their own, cruder weapons (e.g. shanks)
  • A reference to reading James Baldwin's "Fifth Avenue, Uptown"
  • a reference to Connick vs. Thompson (New Orleans case)
  • a really interesting point that white people want to be the victims and the oppressors - white people in the US having a tendency to want it all, across all facets of society. And even this - which is a sort of arrogance on the part of white people. The need to be victims, oppressors, and saviors. One panelist found this odd and frustrating.
  • The role that police unions and fraternal orders of police play in protecting these officers
  • the reality that these organizations receive preferential treatment by default in local and state negotiations, as if they are not at fault and don't have to 'prove themselves' as worthy or even competent
  • Reparations in society - discussions around education, material support. Attacking homelessness and houselessness and healthcare. These are bare expectations.
  • Reparations re: defunding in law enforcement - look at the funding agencies to transform punishment to rehabilitation. Moving away from punishment and torture designs to things that can work through knowledge and building up when possible
  • research partnerships established with police themselves - publicly funded support needs more access to publicly funded services, like education and the police. But the police are the most resistant to this
    • one example that was specifically cited was the disinclination and refusal to participate in studies to examine the efficacy of body camera usage in policing
  • Shaming and "internet justice" isn't really justice. It doesn't do anything for the marginalized peoples but it contributes to a sense of justice that whites external to the trauma and punishment of Blacks feel is happening, but doesn't actually impact on the oppression and marginalization
  • State and local legislatures need to be a bigger focus - not just Federal, which dominates too much of the discussion
  • Emphasis on jails rather than prisons when it comes to the racialized nature of the systemic injustice
  • The debates over Confederate Monuments - let's talk about not just taking down, but what merits going up. Why can't abolitionists be memorialized? This could be reparations. Because it's not just a discussion about what comes down but also what goes up. That's inspiring.
  • A police officer responsible for the torturing of over 100 Black men becoming part of the Chicago school curriculum, so that AP US History includes things like that and lynching - that history about these things exist. Lynchings as terrorism. The frame of "white criminality" is part of curriculum reparations
  • The history of police protecting "stuff" and defending "stuff" and investigating the recovery of "stuff" and this is usually white capital and property, as opposed to feeling like the police, as an institution, is not protecting Black People - it's wielded against Black people, in fact, often in favor of white people's "stuff." So the hierarchy is that white people's 'stuff' is more important than Black people
  • Police culture > police individuals. The state (law and policy), the legal (lawyers who manage it) combine to create a system is 'reinvigorated' through a line of knowledge - even created and re-created by academics. We need to understand the current context and what rebellion would look like (it's not 1799 in Haiti). You can be amicable with a police officer - even a Black one in their community - but the individual is also separate from the system and the culture. We are trying to address the latter, not the latter
  • Good cops vs. Bad cops - what do good cops look like? Are they whistle blowers? Then where are they? And if they cannot step forward out of fear - which is the assumption - that's the problem. How can we argue the good outnumber the bad?
    • example: a group of retired Black officers and members of the Fraternal Order of Police took a knee, symbolically, and there was no white officer who supported them
  • People are too focused on the killings of cops but we need to look at things like the 13th amendment and it's about the wider sense of what the word "law" means and what it refers to - law as horizon rather than a set of tactics
  • Discussion on what a post-abolition world would look like for each of the four panelists
    • one example is that we turn to institutions to trust rather than people, and we trust the political structure and the legal structure and the law enforcement structure, but we don't look at individuals and their stories. Because we don't 'trust and care' in one another - instead, we trust institutions
    • but a couple of panelists said that we don't know and that's the toughest challenge - we've never had it, we've never really seen it. And, as a result, without a vision or a goal, it is difficult to work toward something specifically
    • there was a collective skepticism when it comes to 'The State'
Alright, I tried to capture as much as I could, but it was difficult to listen and record some impressions.

Thanks.
I read it. Yeoman's work there Oye. I just tweeted the professor too, so I could see if they recorded it. I'd like the boy to listen to this and maybe share with his friends. They were all about the protest, and I like the point about how it makes you feel like you got justice, when you didn't do anything. That's what I told him. ha.
 
Not buying their "fear of imminent harm" excuse
==========================================
A husband and wife brandished firearms at protesters outside their St. Louis home during a demonstration protesting both police brutality and recent actions by Mayor Lyda Krewson, authorities said Monday.

The incident unfolded at 7:23 p.m. CT on Sunday at the foot of Portland Place in the affluent St. Louis neighborhood of West Central End, officials said.

Police described the armed man, 63, and woman, 61, as "victims" of trespassing and fourth-degree assault.

"The victims stated they were on their property when they heard a loud commotion coming from the street," the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department said in a statement. "When the victims went to investigate the commotion, they observed a large group of subjects forcefully break an iron gate marked with 'No Trespassing' and 'Private Street' signs."

The neighborhood has streets with limited access that are considered private property.

"Once through the gate, the victims advised the group that they were on a private street and trespassing and told them to leave," the police statement said. "The group began yelling obscenities and threats of harm to both victims. When the victims observed multiple subjects who were armed, they then armed themselves and contacted police."

Albert Watkins, a lawyer for the couple — husband-and-wife attorneys Mark and Patricia McCloskey — insisted his clients were "in fear of imminent harm."...………………………..

 
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