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Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :

Cincinnati Mayor Declares Emergency, Sets Curfew
Riots Follow Police Shooting of Unarmed Black Man

.c The Associated Press

CINCINNATI (April 12) - The mayor declared a state of emergency and announced a citywide curfew as riots over the police shooting of an unarmed black man stretched into a fourth day Thursday.

Only people going to and from work will be allowed on the streets between 8 p.m. and 6 a.m., Mayor Charles Luken said.

''Despite the best efforts of the good citizens of our city, the violence on our streets is uncontrolled and it runs rampant,'' Luken said at a news conference at City Hall.

''The time has come to deal with this seriously. The message ... is that the violence must stop.''

Luken said city officials have considered asking the state to call out the Ohio National Guard, but no decision had been made.

The fatal shooting over the weekend of Timothy Thomas, 19, by a white officer sparked days of unrest, a federal investigation, and calls for accountability. Thomas was killed as he fled Officer Steven Roach, who was trying to arrest him for failing to appear for misdemeanor charges and traffic violations.

A police officer was shot Wednesday night, but his belt buckle caught the bullet and saved him, Luken said. No arrest had been made in that shooting.

Small groups of vandals roamed several neighborhoods, breaking windows, looting stores and assaulting at least one white motorist who was dragged from her car, police said. Others in the neighborhood came to the woman's aid.

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Star Trek Gamma Quadrant
Average Rated 8.32 out of 10 Smileys by Fabrux (with seven eps posted)
***
"Oh, yes, screw logic, let's go for a theory with no evidence!"
-Omega 11:48am, Jan. 19th, 2001
***
I wouln't say that anyone who has ceased to post every time you rant has "realized that they couldn't win" Omega. It's more like "oh, great he comes Mr. conservative frontal lobotomy boy who only hits one note over and over and over and over..."
-Jay, July 15, 2000

Posted by First of Two (Member # 16) on :

Gotta say, it looks as theough the cops screwed up this one royally.

Although the news reports I read also mentioned that the guy had more than a DOZEN warrants out for his arrest for different crimes, and people like that might reasonably be expected to be dangerous enough that a wise man would shoot at the first hint that he might have a gun.

Also, riots are for idiots. attacking uninvolved people will just lend credence to the belief that some people are animals who will use any excuse to run amok.

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The government that seems the most unwise, oft goodness to the people best supplies. That which is meddling, touching everything, will work but ill, and disappointment bring. - The Tao Te Ching

Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :

If a black man kills a white man, and a bunch of white guys go out and lynch him, or something, the white guys will be branded racists (not necessarily an unwarranted assumption, of course).

If a white man kills a black man, and people (I'm gonna take a wild guess they're black?) riot, committing all sorts of violence against a lot of people (another wild guess: the victims tend to be white?), the rioters are "fighting racism".

Don't you just love double standards?

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"Although, from what I understand, having travelled around the Mid-west quite a bit, apparently Jesus is coming, so I guess the choice now is we should decide whether we should spit or swallow."
-Maynard James Keenan

Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :

Not quite that, TSN.

First of all, look at the LA PD as an example that racial discrimination by police departments is still occuring. Cincinnati has had a long history of a racist police department, and Thomas was the fifth black man killed by the police in four months or so.

I mean -- c'mon. A black guy gets sodomized by a plunger in New York, another gets the crap beaten out of him by four LA cops, it's hard not to believe they're not racist.

It's also important to understand that African-Americans are very conscious of their history in this country. For a vast majority of them, slavery and segregation are still very close. I've got friends who get angry when we're walking to the mall because white people in their cars suddenly lean over and lock their doors.

Pretend that racism no longer exists all you want -- you're deluding yourself. Remember that Texaco scandal last year? Ted Danson's "black-face" routine? African-Americans are a bit more sensative to this subject than a white male (which is what most of us* are) can probably imagine.

*Us being the Flare posters

Thomas was wanted on ONE warrant for not appearing for court on a variety of fairly minor midemeanors -- including one for not wearing his seat belt.

And now he's dead. Cincinatti didn't work hard enough to stop or find the cause of the racial tension in their city, and now they're paying the price for it. Hope they get their act together when all is said and done.

Posted by Shik (Member # 343) on :

"And now he's dead. Cincinatti didn't work hard enough to stop or find the cause of the racial tension in their city, and now they're paying the price for it. Hope they get their act together when all is said and done."

Maybe all they wanted was the return of Venus Flytrap. I know MY life hasn't been the same since Johnny Fever left...

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"For people with resources, the right events happen. They may look like coincidences, but they arise out of necessity." --T�rk Hviid

Posted by Cartman (Member # 256) on :

I just hope this doesn't get out of hand any further... there's no way to predict how high tensions will rise again.

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"Cry havoc and let's slip the dogs of Evil"

Posted by Epoch (Member # 136) on :

Actually I wouldn't doubt if things get much worse. These people (the rioters) are looking for an excuse to destroy stuff and release their anger because they are mad at something.

The big question I have is did the individual give the officer a reason to believe that he had a weapon. Cops don't just shot people, no matter what anybody says or thinks. The suspect could have pretended to have a weapon or made a move like he was going for one.

I could say more but my feelings about all of this would make any more of my comments extremely uncalled for and highly provoking so I'll stop here.

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God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the weaponry to make the difference.

Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :

Yeah, I've yet to hear about the REASON they shot the guy. They just point out that he did. You know, that's what caused the Rodney King riots: irresponsibility on the part of the media. They didn't give the whole story, so the rioters started rioting without knowing the facts of the case. If these police officers are found not guilty, then there will be yet MORE riots, unless the media get their collective act together and start reporting facts. All we have now are assumptions.

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"Omega is right."
-Jeff Karrde, March 18, 2001 08:47 PM

Posted by The_Tom (Member # 38) on :

I'm not accusing anyone of being beligently racist, even though posting the following does sort of insinuate that. My apologies. That's not the point I'm trying to make. In fact, though I may disagree with Omega and co. about many political issues, I hold him and others in high regard as a worthy adversary and morally upright people. Please don't misconstrue this as a personal attack in any way.

The point is that a lot of what's just been said above rang a particularly strong bell with me, so I thought I might share a particularly impactfuls scene from a particularly impactful film.

quote:

EXT. VENICE BEACH HOUSE - A RAINY NIGHT - FLASHBACK
As the rain falls, we see the Vinyards sitting at the
table. Stacey and Murray Rosenberg, Doris' then
boyfriend who we met earlier, round out the clan. Stacey sits close to Derek.
DANNY (V/O)
And then came October 4th, 1993.
INT. BEACH HOUSE - THE DINING ROOM
Doris looks wonderful while Murray, mustache and beard,
shakes his head at Derek as he chatters away.
DANNY (V/O)
Things were fine on the homefront. My
Mom had a good job but a below average
boyfriend. We had a four-bedroom
house that Dad left us with. Everyone
was happy.
TIGHT ON DEREK. Shaved head, rolled-up sleeves, tattoos,
loosened tie, LA COPY CENTER name tag from earlier. His
charisma draws their attention as he rambles over the
crackling rainfall.
DANNY (V/O)
Everyone but Derek.
DEREK
Fuck you, Murray. White men don't
cruise the streets of LA killing each
other.
MURRAY
No. You guys make bombs.
Derek stares at the man, eyes filled with homicide.
DEREK
You're so fucking lame. A couple of
cranks in cabins in Montana is not
statistically significant.
(then)
White Americans don't take PCP and
drink and drive a hundred and twenty
fuckin' miles an hour! We pull over
and trust the law.
MURRAY
You're kidding, right?
DAVINA
(sarcastically)
Don't you know, Murray? White people
never break the law. We're perfect
little angels.
DEREK
That's not what I said, Davina.
(to the group)
Three different times Rodney King
comes at those officers with the
intent to hurt them. To hurt them!
Three times! But since we see it on
some fucking tampered videotape...the
bleeding heart media makes you believe
that he only comes at them once. All
we see is Powell, Koon and Wind
hittin' him and--
(busting up laughing)
Briseno kickin' him in the back of the
fuckin' skull with his boot. Still,
the dumbfuck's tryin' to get up and
kick their asses! That's how stupid
that motherfucker is. Those cops used
textbook-solid tactics and if Dad were
still here he'd say the same damn
thing.
DORIS
That doesn't make it right.
DEREK
Yes it does. Yes it does. They're
cops! They are taught to use that
stick and they did.
MURRAY
Excessively.
DEREK
No. Appropriately. Appropriately!
Cops have been granted a certain
amount of authority by society and
white people, unfortunately, are the
only ones who acknowledge it. I
acknowledge a cop's authority.
Davina starts to laugh.
DAVINA
Look who's talking about respecting
the law? Mr. K.K.K. here.
DEREK
That's two errors in one sentence,
Davina, so take a fucking course in
semantics. First error--I didn't say
I respect the law. I said I respect a
cop's authority. Second error...I'm
not a member of the fuckin' low rent,
disorganized, redneck Ku Klux Klan..
Pull your head outta your ass and look
at who you're dealing with.
MURRAY
Don't speak to her that way, Derek.
DEREK
Murray, stay out of it. You're not a
member of this family and you never
will be.
MURRAY
What the hell does that have to do
with anything?
DORIS
(to Derek)
You know...sometimes it's hard to
believe I gave birth to you.
DEREK
Give thanks to the food on the table
and then believe it, Doris.
DORIS
We both put food on this table, fella.
DEREK
True enough. The point is...if Dan
was walking across the street that
night and Rodney King plowed into him--
DORIS
Can we forget about Rodney King for
chrissake?!
DEREK
(fiercely continuing)
--while hopped up on Chivas and
P.C.P...you'd consider the force those
cops used to be justified!
DORIS
He didn't hit anybody!
DEREK
If he did though! If that shithead
killed Dan...you would have believed
the beating to be justified and so
would everybody else. But since he
didn't hit anyone...it's "Hands Across
America" for the son of a bitch.
Derek takes a bite of food.
DEREK
We are still so hung up in this notion
that we have an obligation to help the
struggling black man and all you
contribute to it! Lincoln freed the
slaves a hundred and thirty years ago!
Get off your fucking asses!
STACEY
I'm with you, honey. All the way.
It's one...giant...ploy.
DAVINA
Here we go.
STACEY
I mean...nobody likes Chief whatever
his name is, right?
DAVINA
Gates.
STACEY
Yeah. So here comes this filthy piece
of garbage in his Hyundai. He pulls
over in front of a perfectly lighted
area where a video camera is sitting
there...fucking waiting for him, man.
What happens next? Chief Gates is
dust. It's total--
Davina drops her silverware on the plate with a clatter
and looks at her mother. Everyone stares at Davina.
DAVINA
(to Doris)
May I be excused please?

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"I can be creative when I have a good idea. That just happens way too rarely."
-Omega, April 6

Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :

This would be AMERICAN HISTORY X?

They did report why the cop fired. Apparently, the young man was "fleeing" arrest, so Officer Roach decided to shoot him.

Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :

Fleeing arrest under what circumstances? Heck, for all we know, the cop's finger could have slipped. Wasn't it Blaise Pascal who once said that "God is in the details"?

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"Omega is right."
-Jeff Karrde, March 18, 2001 08:47 PM

Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :

What the fuck was his finger doing ON THE TRIGGER?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't cops trained to keep their fingers OFF the trigger until/unless they're ready to fire? That's no excuse.

Posted by Epoch (Member # 136) on :

I'm sorry but I just don't buy that the officer shot the suspect as he ran away. That goes against everything that they are trained to do. The suspect had to have done something to cause the officer to react the way he did.

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God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the weaponry to make the difference.

Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :

Don't discount it ...

'When is deadly use of force justifiable?'

Under those conditions, Timothy Thomas' death sparked the dry timber of the city's race relations.

Thomas was wanted on 14 misdemeanor warrants: three for driving with an expired license, four for seat belt violations, five for driving without a driver's license and two for obstruction of official business.

In an interview with CNN, Mfume said the warrants did not excuse the shooting.

"This is a young man who didn't have a record. He had warrants on him for not wearing a seat belt and things of that nature," he said. "And the question becomes: When is the deadly use of force justifiable?"

Streicher said the department concluded its own investigation Wednesday but declined to reveal its conclusions. He said a police videotape subpoenaed by the Hamilton County prosecutor showed the officer's approach of the suspect and the shooting.

"So we have a pretty good understanding of what actually did occur," he said, but would not say if Thomas made any threatening gesture toward the officer.

But, he said, the number of African-American deaths at the hands of his officers is "of great concern to us as an agency."

"It's also a great concern to the community here," he said.

Posted by First of Two (Member # 16) on :

Yeah.

People who don't wear their seat belts deserve to die in traffic accidents, but they don't deserve to get shot for it.

Of course, people who run deserve what they get.
Like in the 'America's Most Dangerous Chases' where the guy speeding away from the cops drives into an intersection and gets smuushed by a tractor-trailer coming the other way. That's damned FUNNY!

'Shot while fleeing' incidents are just another one of nature's ways of weeding out the terminally stupid among us.

Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :

If only we could get the police to shoot all of us. Prime time programming would improve, if nothing else.

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"Excuse me, Mr. Rampaging Killer? Why don't you put down the gun and take a look at this hand-held monkey? Does it not have clever little forepaws? It eats gum and sap!"
--
L. Fitzgerald Sj�berg
****
Read three (three!) chapters of "Dirk Tungsten in...The Disappearing Planet" and something pleasent will happen to you. Possibly involving syrup.

Posted by Vacuum robot lady from Spaceballs (Member # 239) on :

But who would win Boot Camp?

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"Instructed by history and reflection, Julian was persuaded that, if the diseases of the body may sometimes be cured by salutary violence, neither steel nor fire can eradicate the erroneous opinions of the mind."

-Edward Gibbons, The Decline and Fall of The Roman Empire.

Posted by Epoch (Member # 136) on :

Deadly force is justifiable when a suspect poses a threat to officers or civilians through their present actions. This means that if they are arresting a known killer they can't just shoot him even though his is known to be dangerous.

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God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the weaponry to make the difference.

Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :

JeffK: Perhaps it would help if you actually paid attention to what I was talking about. I never said the cops in question were or were not racist. I'm tlaking about the rioters. Most likely, the rioters are mostly black, and any specific acts of personal violence by them would be directed at whites. A small group of white guys (the cops) were the alledged racists. Attacking large numbers of innocent white people because of that is still racism, just the other way around. So, if that is how these riots are working (it's how they usually do, yes?), the rioters are, in fact, committing acts of racism in the name of fighting racism. And, when this happens, people tend to accept it, because "it's just the oppressed minority fighting for freedom".

Racism shouldn't be considered a good thing, just because it's being practiced by members of a group that usually falls victim to the same...

Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :

When did I say riots were good?

When something like this happens, it's because one group feels oppressed by another group. It's not like the black community in Cincinnati hasn't had good reason to feel like they've been oppressed, and this is what happens when you light the proverbial match.

I mean, come on now, if you were Jewish in Germany sixty years ago, who would YOU attack during a riot? Other Jews or the Germans who were prosecuting you?

Don't act like it's not understandable why whites are being targeted. I'm not saying it's excuseable, simply that when the black population gets riled up over something like this (which doesn't come out of the blue, mind you, this was just the latest incident of what is viewed by many as blatant racism on the part of the Cincinnati PD), who do you EXPECT them to go after?

This is a good part of the reason why we need better trained cops. It is never acceptable to shoot a fleeing suspect.

[This message has been edited by JeffKardde (edited April 14, 2001).]

Posted by First of Two (Member # 16) on :

>"I mean, come on now, if you were Jewish in Germany sixty years ago, who would YOU attack during a riot? Other Jews or the Germans who were prosecuting you?"

Yeah, except that Jews probably wouldn't have trashed their own people's businesses. They've got a sense of community. THESE rioters are attacking poor black businesses. THOSE are the places being targeted. And they're attacking ANY white people, even those who might be on their side.

Actually, it's also a bad analogy because of what would have happened to the Jews AFTER they rioted. (Can you say 'wholesale slaughter?' I knew you could.)

Speaking of oppressed minorities.. when was the last Native American riot?

Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :

Well, if we had cops who actually knew when to fire and what their jobs were and what-not, we wouldn't have this problem, now would we?

Posted by The_Tom (Member # 38) on :

quote:

Speaking of oppressed minorities.. when was the last Native American riot?

Well, considering riots generally develop in urban areas, and there are no large urbanized populations of Natives, I'd say expecting one is a bit much.

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"I can be creative when I have a good idea. That just happens way too rarely."
-Omega, April 6

Posted by First of Two (Member # 16) on :

Actually, I can recall a few Native American 'uprisings' as it were. Like those ones in Quebec, and the American Indian Movement some time ago.

Wasn't one of the guys Clinton declined to pardon (Pelletier, or something) part of that? Guess his friends didn't donate enough.

>"Well, if we had cops who actually knew when to fire and what their jobs were and what-not, we wouldn't have this problem, now would we?"

Yeah. And if that kid obeyed the law, he wouldn't have had 14 warrants out on him, either. So the cops would never have been after him. So I guess it's just a matter of how far back you want to cast the blame? The lawmakers who made those acts crimes?

[This message has been edited by First of Two (edited April 14, 2001).]

Posted by Epoch (Member # 136) on :

JeffK HOW DARE YOU! You have know idea what you are talking about. I've been sitting here listening to you bad mouth the police with your holyer then thou attitude and frankly I have had enough. You do not know the whole situation and saying that the problem could have been avoided by have cops that know when to shoot and when not to is insulting. Maybe when you have been in there shoes for awhile you could have something important to say but until then why don't you just shut the hell up.

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God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the weaponry to make the difference.

Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :

First of Two,

Wow. So -- what? That cop was justified in killing him because this kid hadn't buckled up a couple of times? That's infuckingexcuseable. News flash: this ain't your dictatorship you're so fond of. When a kid dies because a cop didn't do his job, there is NO excuse.

Hey: Tec. Wake up.

First of all: well, I won't say it. I'm thinking it though. But, to continue: How dare I? How dare you NOT? Just because someone wears blue and a shield it's supposed to justify their actions? Hell no.

My attitude is "holier-than-thou"? No, it's simply understanding that the black community has suffered a lot at the hands of the police departments across this country for decades. Look at the recent scandal in LA PD's Rampart Division. To pretend that the black community isn't aware of this racism is ludicrous. Something like this happens, and it's dropping a match in a gas tank. It's gonna start off a blaze. I'm sorry if this goes over your head.

Officer Roach did NOT do his job. Please explain to me why it is excuseable to shoot a suspect who is UNARMED and FLEEING who is wanted on what amounts to traffic violations? No, please. Because it sounds to me like you're condoning a blatant murder just because the murderer happens to wear a shield.

COPS ARE NOT ABOVE THE LAW. I'm sorry if that's too big of a concept for you to understand, but it's a simple fact. Now, I'm not blaming all cops. They're a lot of good cops out there who wouldn't shoot someone in the back.

Now, I know, I'm just a bleeding heart liberal, but death isn't a punishment for "14 misdemeanor warrants: three for driving with an expired license, four for seat belt violations, five for driving without a driver's license and two for obstruction of official business."

Bullshit. Why are you defending his behavior? Please explain this to me.

[This message has been edited by JeffKardde (edited April 14, 2001).]

Posted by Epoch (Member # 136) on :

I get the situation far better then you might think. First of all you are not the last authority on the matter of cops doing their jobs. As I have already stated you do not have all the facts, who says the suspect was still fleeing. He could have done any number of things to give the officer reason to believe he had a weapon and was going to use it. You were not there and neither was I. I don't trust the media to give all the information for use to really know what happend. So you cannot say that the officer shot a suspect who was unarmed and fleeing. He may have been fleeing but the officer had no way of knowing if he was armed or not.

I never said cops are above the law nor do I believe that they should be. They are there to protect us from ourselves by the laws that we create. They may not be above the law but they are allowed to protect themselves while upholding it.

As I and everyone else sees this a mistake was made, a bad one that caused a young man his life. To just out right blame the police is stupid. We don't know what the mistake was. Was it an officer who reacted poorly to the situation or was it a supsect who gave the officer a reason to believe that he had a weapon and intended to use it.

This young man did not die because of his past record, he died because of his present actions.

All I am saying is to stop attacking the police before you know the whole truth because if you do you become no better then the rioters.

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God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the weaponry to make the difference.

[This message has been edited by Tec (edited April 14, 2001).]

Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :

"I mean, come on now, if you were Jewish in Germany sixty years ago, who would YOU attack during a riot? Other Jews or the Germans who were prosecuting you?"

The latter. I would not, however, attack innocent Germans who had done nothing.

"Don't act like it's not understandable why whites are being targeted."

I never said I didn't understand why they're targeting whites. I understand it perfectly. It's called "racism". And fighting racism w/ more racism is disgusting.

"I'm not saying it's excuseable, simply that when the black population gets riled up over something like this (which doesn't come out of the blue, mind you, this was just the latest incident of what is viewed by many as blatant racism on the part of the Cincinnati PD), who do you EXPECT them to go after?"

Um... Let's see... The police, maybe? Oh, wait, that would make too much sense, wouldn't it?

Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :

Tec,

Well, you don't know that he did anything to PROVOKE the officer now, do you? If the Justice Department is looking into it, it's a pretty clear indication that something BAD happened. The kid was unarmed, what'd he do, scream "BOOO?"

TSN,

How exactly would you distinguish between one German and a Nazi German? Not like people would wear a big sign saying "I'm not a Nazi! Die Hitler, Die!" would it? Look, you wanna talk about how you think you'd react in a certain circumstance, fine. The fact of the matter is, the black community percieves racism. When that perception reaches a boiling point, watch the fuck out.

Posted by BlueElectron (Member # 281) on :

Ultra: "But who would win Boot Camp?"

Yeah, that show is a joke according to my father.

According to him (he believe that he can comment on it because he actually went to the army) real military life is nothing like the show, that drill dude is playing soft on the casts, and that the entire casts are all bunches of wusses who's constant whinning pissed my father off after watching 5 minutes of the show.

Finally, I had to tell my father something like: "it's only a show man, don't get so carry out" ^0^

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What is the difference between a terriorist and your girlfriend?
- With terrorist, there is a chance of negotiation.

Posted by Epoch (Member # 136) on :

JeffK you are obviously not reading what I am saying. I said that neither you or I really know what happend. The suspect could have provoked the officer or the officer may just have fired, we don't know. To provoke this action the suspect could have reached into his pockets or under his shirt. There are many different actions that can make you appear to be going for a weapon. And when it comes right down to it the officer will shoot first. This may seem like a the wrong course to you but that is how they are trained. You swing on an officer he pulls out his nightstick or mace, you pull out a knife he pulls out a gun. That is how they do things.

Also shootings of this nature are almost always investigated no matter what happend, so that is nothing unexpected.

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God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the weaponry to make the difference.

Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :

You're right. They're usually investigated. By the local Police Department, not the Federal Government.

Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :

So basically, you don't care that you don't have the slightest idea what happened, you're gonna blame the cops anyway?

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"Omega is right."
-Jeff Karrde, March 18, 2001 08:47 PM

Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :

Actually, Omega, I do know what happened.

Mr. Thomas was wanted on a warrant. For not wearing a seat belt and things of that nature.

Mr. Roach tried to arrest him, Mr. Thomas evaded capture. Even though Thomas was unarmed, Mr. Roach decided deadly force was required and shot him.

That's inexcuseable, no matter what.

But the simple fact of the matter, and what I'm contending here, is that when a segment of the population (in this case, African-Americans), feels that they are being discriminated against by another group (in this case, the police department), when sometihng like this happens, why are people surprised when there's a riot? It makes no sense for people to be surprised.

The city of Cinncinatti KNEW it had a race problem, and especially with its police department. They knew the black population was getting quite ... disturbed? ... with the actions of the Cincinatti police department. What did the city of Cincinatti do? Not enough, obviously.

Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :

why are people surprised when there's a riot?

Who's surprised? We're condemning it, not surprised by it.

Mr. Roach tried to arrest him, Mr. Thomas evaded capture. Even though Thomas was unarmed, Mr. Roach decided deadly force was required and shot him.

That's inexcuseable, no matter what.

Not true. He could have physically rushed the police officers. He could have tried to attack a bystander, if any. There ARE excuses for shooting unarmed people, if they are or appear to be threats. Since you don't know whether he was a threat to the officers or any bystanders, you do not know the entirety of the situation, and are therefore in no position to judge the propriety of the police officers' actions.

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"Omega is right."
-Jeff Karrde, March 18, 2001 08:47 PM

[This message has been edited by Omega (edited April 15, 2001).]

Posted by Epoch (Member # 136) on :

Jeff you do not know exactly what happend and you never will, neither will the rest of use. Why? Because we were not there. And I wish that you would stop saying that the officer just shot the suspect.

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God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the weaponry to make the difference.

Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :

Yep.
The lack of a weapon does not make one unarmed.
One or two punches to the nose can kill.
A stiff finger or thumb jab to the throat can kill.
A sudden shock to the chest can kill.
A twsit of the head can kill.
The human body makes a great weapon.

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"One's ethics are determined by what we do when no one is looking" Nugget
Star Trek: Gamma Quadrant
Star Trek: Legacy
Read them, rate them, got money, film them

"...and I remain on the far side of crazy, I remain the mortal enemy of man, no hundred dollar cure will save me..." WoV

Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :

Except Mr. Thomas was FLEEING arrest. Not fighting the officer.

Mr. Roach DID shoot the suspect.

Posted by Epoch (Member # 136) on :

You keep coming back to the point of him fleeing. Your information is coming from the media which is known for not telling the whole story. The suspect began this whole thing by running, but that does not mean that he continued to do so.

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God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the weaponry to make the difference.

Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :

Oh, christ. Stop with the "liberal media!" paranoia bullshit.

Posted by Epoch (Member # 136) on :

Why don't you stop the "he was fleeing" bullshit. How many different ways/languages do we have to say this? You or the rest of us do not have all the facts.

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God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the weaponry to make the difference.

Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :

Why don't you just accept that he WAS fleeing? Read CNN or something.

Thomas, who was wanted on 14 warrants for misdemeanors and traffic violations, was unarmed when he was shot while running from police. -- Associated Press

Italics are mine.

[This message has been edited by JeffKardde (edited April 15, 2001).]

Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :

JK:

Stop with the "liberal media!" paranoia bullshit.

Liberal media? Who said "liberal"? It's well documented that the media often does not give the full story, for the express purpose of getting better ratings.

Adam Clymer (NY Times, IIRC) wrote a story last year about how allegations of Bush's supposed drug use refused to die, citing a press conference where an unnamed reporter had asked about it. What he didn't tell you was that HE, Clymer, was the reporter. No one else had asked for quite some time.

The Rodney King riots were precipitated by an irresponsible media only giving one side of the story, not showing the multiple times that King had attacked the police officers, and the high-speed chase that ensued.

During the Elian Gonzales kidnapping, a reporter STARTED a riot by throwing rocks, and then proceeded to report on it as if it had spontaneously occured.

Fleeing could be in reference to the state in which he was found when he proceeded to attack the officers. For example, I could be attempting to avoid capture, and thus be fleeing, and yet when confronted, attack my persuers. I could then be said to have been shot while fleeing in quite an appropriate manner.

Yet further, CNN isn't known to be the most reliable news source in existance, nor is the Associated Press. How many times on election night did the media jump the gun on the Florida call? Show me the video tape. THEN you'll have a case.

Examine all possibilities, Jeff. Admitting that you know nothing is the first step towards wisdom.

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"Omega is right."
-Jeff Karrde, March 18, 2001 08:47 PM

Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :

Must...not...make...easy...joke...

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You know, when Comedy Central asked us to do a Thanksgiving episode, the first thought that went through my mind was, "Boy, I'd like to have sex with Jennifer Aniston."
-Trey Parker, co-creator of South Park

Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :

Paranoia, paranoia ... I'm remembered of a Harvey Danger song. I wonder where I put that CD?

Please explain to me why it is acceptable to SHOOT an unarmed suspect. No one has yet explained this. What, Officer Roach didn't have mace or a nightstick? Look, folks, it is NEVER excuseable to SHOOT an unarmed person. NEVER. Stop spouting off about how the media can't be trusted because they're a bunch of low life liberal biased scum, and explain why it is okay to shoot an UNARMED SUSPECT? It's not like Mr. Thomas had a knife or a gun or a weapon himself. He didn't have any weapon of any type. Please. Explain this. Explain why this isn't lousy police work.

Oh, right, you CAN'T explain it away. Sure, you can argue that Mr. Thomas may have fought with Officer Roach beforehand, but that sure doesn't give ANYONE the right to shoot someone in the back.

And no one has yet responded to my other points. Namely, that the black community feels harrased by police departments. Racial profiling in New Jersey, the shit at LA-PD's RAMPART division. The stuff that had happened in Cincinatti in the past few months -- black youth, killed by police. And then Officer Roach pulls the trigger, and Mr. Thomas dies, and all the suspicion and mistrust and anger overflows and we've got riots. But no one here is willing to talk about this. They'd rather blame the kid for running, and the blacks for burning stuff down and attacking people, and they'd like to call people who don't see the world the way they do "ignorant", or perhaps "left-wing nut." Wow. That really helps the argument.

I most certainly don't see it that way. You hold a group of people down long enough, they're going to explode. "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction." This country has problems. Please stop trying to excuse or ignore them.

APRIL 23, 2001 VOL. 157 NO. 16
NATION
We're All Racial Profilers
Sure, cops see black youths as suspect. So do blacks
BY JACK E. WHITE

Why do episodes of police violence that touch off conflagrations like the one in Cincinnati all seem so depressingly similar? Let's take a little quiz: a black a) homeless woman b) street vendor or c) teenager, armed with a) a screwdriver b) a wallet or c) nothing at all, is killed by cops under circumstances that are a) questionable b) grounds for murder charges or c) the cause of a riot.

All of the above. Margaret Mitchell, a homeless mentally ill black woman, was shot by Los Angeles patrolmen in 1998 after she allegedly lunged at them with a screwdriver. Amadou Diallo was the African street vendor at whom four of New York's finest fired 41 shots after they supposedly mistook his wallet for a gun. (The officers were acquitted of murder.) And Timothy Thomas was the unarmed Cincinnati youth whose fatal shooting by police ignited last week's uprising.

What these cases--and scores of similar ones across the nation--have in common is that the victims did nothing to justify the use of deadly force. Their real crime seems to have been being black in the presence of a cop. That's why I, like many African-American parents, taught my three sons survival tactics that are the mirror image of the racial profiling used by the police. In our version, every white cop is to be considered dangerous and treated accordingly. In cities like New York and Chicago, some blacks are so scared of cops that they hold classes to teach their kids how not to provoke them.

That means no back talk if a cop pulls you over. Looking straight ahead and keeping your hands on the steering wheel where the officer can see them. Asking permission before you reach for your driver's license. And never, ever running away the way Timothy Thomas did, even if you're completely innocent. It's better to be arrested and spend the night in jail than to catch a bullet fleeing arrest.

As terrible as racial profiling is, it can't be abolished as easily as critics like Al Sharpton seem to think. The sad truth is that racist cops are not the only ones who think that young black men are suspect, especially when they're dressed in a certain way and exude a certain attitude. Black cops believe it. Jesse Jackson--who once confessed that he felt relieved when the young man coming up behind him on a dark street in Washington turned out to be Caucasian--believes it. And so do I. Given the large number of violent crimes committed by young black men, it would be crazy not to.

That's one of the issues Attorney General John Ashcroft will have to deal with as he implements President Bush's order to eliminate racial profiling. The solution may lie in making distinctions between the behavior of average citizens, following our hunches as we walk the mean streets, and the conduct of police officers. It's one thing to cross to the other side of the street out of fear of being mugged. It's another for state troopers in New Jersey to pull over black motorists far more frequently than they pull over white motorists in the mistaken belief that blacks are more likely to be carrying illegal drugs. That's not just racist, it's lousy police work. And it's fuel for the black rage that makes outbursts like the one in Cincinnati inevitable.

Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :

Stop spouting off about how the media can't be trusted because they're a bunch of low life liberal biased scum

You said it, not me.

explain why it is okay to shoot an UNARMED SUSPECT

I already did. You keep forgetting that you have to actually read other people's posts to have what we call a "conversation".

What, Officer Roach didn't have mace or a nightstick?

If he had his gun out and was attacked without time to do anything but react, he would and should have pulled the trigger.

that sure doesn't give ANYONE the right to shoot someone in the back.

Unwarranted assumption. I've already explained how he could easily have been bodily attacking the police officers while being consistant with the available information.

They'd rather blame the kid for running

Who's done this?

and the blacks for burning stuff down and attacking people

Well, considering that they're the ones doing it, I'd say they should be blamed, wouldn't you?

You hold a group of people down long enough, they're going to explode.

You have no evidence that anyone is being "held down". You have conjecture, theory, and a fair amount of paranoia.

Margaret Mitchell, a homeless mentally ill black woman, was shot by Los Angeles patrolmen in 1998 after she allegedly lunged at them with a screwdriver.

Again, if you've got no time but to react, that's appropriate in the situation.

Amadou Diallo was the African street vendor at whom four of New York's finest fired 41 shots after they supposedly mistook his wallet for a gun.

The one who yelled "gun" overreacted. The rest followed their training.

the victims did nothing to justify the use of deadly force.

In some cases, true, in others not.

Their real crime seems to have been being black in the presence of a cop.

*L*

Since when does attacking a police officer not constitute a crime?

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"Omega is right."
-Jeff Karrde, March 18, 2001 08:47 PM

Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :

You said it, not me.

Yes, because we all know you've never said the media was biased to liberals.

I already did. You keep forgetting that you have to actually read other people's posts to have what we call a "conversation".

I did read it. It's still inexcuseable. Why have a gun drawn on an unarmed suspect? A nightstick would be a better choice.

If he had his gun out and was attacked without time to do anything but react, he would and should have pulled the trigger.

So you're no longer contending Roach's finger slipped and pulled the trigger by accident?

Unwarranted assumption. I've already explained how he could easily have been bodily attacking the police officers while being consistant with the available information.

Not to my satisfaction. There are levels of responses to any situation. If Mr. Thomas had a knife, a gun would be a reasonable response. Since Mr. Thomas was unarmed, it is unreasonable. Besides, please post something backing up your claim that Mr. Thomas was attacking Officer Roach. Oh, yeah, you don't have anything, do you?

Who's done this?

First of Two, for one. Of course, people who run deserve what they get. Apparently, some aren't enlightened enough to think that a cop should only use deadly force when being fired upon. If you run from a cop, you deserve to die.

You have no evidence that anyone is being "held down". You have conjecture, theory, and a fair amount of paranoia.

The riot is evidence, Omega. Ask a black man how he feels when he walks by a car and the old white lady locks the doors. Or when they're pulled over for driving a nice car in a nice neighborhood. Pretending that Racial Profiling, or racism by Police Departments (this is the third or fourth time I've brought up the Rampart Division in this thread) don't exist is evidence of ignorance. Well, Omega, you sure are ignorant, and that line above proves it.

The one who yelled "gun" overreacted. The rest followed their training.

And the one who yelled gun should be kicked out of the department. Still gotta wonder why they all felt it so neccessary to shoot him so many times. I mean, there's overkill, and then there's overkill.

In some cases, true, in others not.

And in cases where the shooting is unjustified, do you not agree that the officer(s) doing the shooting should be held accountable? Frankly, the whole fact that the FBI is investigating this shooting makes it look bad for Officer Roach.

Since when does attacking a police officer not constitute a crime?

You didn't read that article, did you? You apparently missed the point.

[This message has been edited by JeffKardde (edited April 16, 2001).]

Posted by Epoch (Member # 136) on :

Actually Jeff you seem to be continually missing the point. When a suspect runs an officer will pull out their gun, not their mace and not their nightsticks. Why because as I have already said when it comes down to it the officer is the one who needs to win. This may sound cruel or awful but that is the way it is done. This applies to all suspects not just blacks. Why does the cop need to win, because there are far more criminals in the world then officers and we as a group would rather not see them die.

I have a couple of stories for you. These happend in my home town, and trust me I do know what happend

An officer is jumped by the girlfriend of a man he is arresting. Caught off balance he goes to the ground. If not for the arrival of back up the officer would likely have been severally hurt or even killed.

A man has shot a foster parent, taken his kids back, and has been having a running gun battle with police for over 30 miles. With his tires blown out he gets off the freeway and stops at a gas station. He gets out of his car and stands infront of the building with his assualt rifle. Police have him surrounded. The suspect begins to raise his weapon and is fired on by 5 officers each firing several rounds. The suspect is killed.

An officer has come on to the scene of 2 white teenagers, a boy and a girl. They have locked their keys in their car. The officer decides to pick the lock for them to help them out. As he is doing this a call over the radio in his squad car says that 2 teenagers have just escaped from the detention center. The officer doesn't hear this, but the teens do. The boy pulls out a knife and stabs the officer in the back repeated times. The 2 then flee the area and the officer dies.

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God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the weaponry to make the difference.

[This message has been edited by Tec (edited April 16, 2001).]

Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :

When a suspect runs an officer will pull out their gun, not their mace and not their nightsticks. Why because as I have already said when it comes down to it the officer is the one who needs to win. This may sound cruel or awful but that is the way it is done.

That IS cruel and awful. So it doesn't matter if a suspect doesn't fight back -- if he runs, the cop gets to execute him? Beg your fuckin' pardon? This is the US, not the Soviet Union or China where such things would be viewed as common place. The incident you describe is MURDER, and I'm really saddened that you think it is excuseable.

I think you're missing the point. The only time it's legal to use deadly force is if an officer is under attack. Now, if the suspect isn't armed and is attacking, then a nightstick or mace might be a better choice of weapon. BUT A RUNNING, UNARMED SUSPECT? Not that you apparently give a fuck. Run from a cop, get a piece of lead in yo' ass. I don't fucking think so. There's no excuse for any officer to shoot an unarmed, fleeing person, and I think it's sad and ignorant that some people on this Board think that it's okay.

As for the other examples, they're different circumstances. Someone, explain to me why it's a-okay to shoot an unarmed fleeing suspect, please?

[This message has been edited by JeffKardde (edited April 16, 2001).]

Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :

Yes, because we all know you've never said the media was biased to liberals.

Not in the context of this discussion.

Why have a gun drawn on an unarmed suspect?

Because you don't know that he's not armed. Obviously, Jeff.

A nightstick would be a better choice.

Not if there's any chance that the suspect has a gun.

So you're no longer contending Roach's finger slipped and pulled the trigger by accident?

I am contending that it is a possibility, as it is also a possibility that the victim was attacking the officers. There are an infinite number of possibilities, and you would be foolish to discount any of them until you obtain more information.

There are levels of responses to any situation. If Mr. Thomas had a knife, a gun would be a reasonable response. Since Mr. Thomas was unarmed, it is unreasonable.

Unless, of course, the police officers did not know he was unarmed, in which case any response would be reasonable.

please post something backing up your claim that Mr. Thomas was attacking Officer Roach

Who claimed that? I simply stated it to be a possibility. You are making unwarranted assumptions. In reality, you have a plethora of possible scenarios from which to choose. You simply refuse to see any but the worst, because that's the one that justifies your flawed positions.

Me: You have no evidence that anyone is being "held down".

Jeff: The riot is evidence

No, the riot is evidence that people THINK that they are being held down, not that this is, in fact, true.

Ask a black man how he feels when he walks by a car and the old white lady locks the doors.

Oh, can't offend a black man, now can we? Did it ever occur to you that some people do this when ANYONE walks by their car? I certainly do.

And in cases where the shooting is unjustified, do you not agree that the officer(s) doing the shooting should be held accountable?

Of course. IF you can show the shooting to be unjustified.

Frankly, the whole fact that the FBI is investigating this shooting makes it look bad for Officer Roach.

...so?

The only time it's legal to use deadly force is if an officer is under attack.

Not quite. It's legal if the officer has legitimate reason to think that he, or someone else, is under threat.

Someone, explain to me why it's a-okay to shoot an unarmed fleeing suspect, please?

No one's said it was, Jeff. Read.

Well, except Rob, but then, I don't think he's serious.

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"Omega is right."
-Jeff Karrde, March 18, 2001 08:47 PM

Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :

Actually, Tec just joined in that assumption, Omega. How sad. Anyway ...

No, the riot is evidence that people THINK that they are being held down, not that this is, in fact, true.

Look at the NJ Racial profiling scandal. LA PD's RAMPART problem. This recent thing. Racism exists, and it's being demonstrated by police departments. To pretend that these incidents don't exist is to ignore a cancer. These incidents also, to me at least, prove that it is, in fact, true. Certainly not to the extent it was decades ago, but not nonexistant, either.

Posted by Epoch (Member # 136) on :

Personally I'm getting sick and tired of you putting words in my mouth. I never said that the officer could just shoot the suspect. I said that they will have their guns drawn. A gun is always far more intimedating then a nightstick or mace. With it out a suspect is more likely to give up then continuing to fight or flee. In most cases I would rather see a captured unharmed suspect then a dead one. Yes I in some instances I could care less if the suspect is killed or not but those are special cases, such as a murderer.

You really need to get off of the whole "A RUNNING, UNARMED SUSPECT". We know that he was unarmed, that much was proven when he was searched. As for running, when the officer shot him was he still running or did he turn on him. We don't know what happend at this point so stop acting like you do.

As for my stories they, I put them up to let you have a little glimpse at what cops deal with everyday. With their lives on the line they are going to do what they feel is necessary to make it through the day. It is easy for you to sit back and point at all the wrongs, but until you have actually experience the fear that comes with being a cop you really can't say much.

We have explained in as many different ways as possible the situations that could have caused the officer to shoot the suspect. Since you refuse to listen to them stop asking the question, cause you will never get an answer.

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God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the weaponry to make the difference.

Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :

When a suspect runs an officer will pull out their gun, not their mace and not their nightsticks. Why because as I have already said when it comes down to it the officer is the one who needs to win.

That's what you said. How is the cop NOT going to win if he doesn't shoot the suspect to prevent them from fleeing, eh? Maybe you need to think about what you type ...

Yes, you certainly provided lots of instances where cops draw their weapons when there is a legitimate threat. Believe me, I'm not the kind of guy to cry about racism when an armed cop shoots a black male holding a knife (an incident which occured a few years back at Lexington Market here).

But when there's a blatant, unjustified shooting, yeah, I wanna see the SOB cop get his sweet reward. Especially when it provokes a violent uprising from the black community!! I'm sorry if you want to ignore today's social problems, but I just can't do that. Now, all the information we have, is that Mr. Thomas was unarmed and fleeing. If you've got contrary evidence, please, share it. As it stands, Officer Roach deserves some jail time.

Now, certainly, cops are under a lot of stress. But that's still not an excuse for shooting an unarmed man (although, apparently you think it should be). I'm sorry if you feel otherwise. But I'm not as callous about life as you apparently are. Yes, I have cop friends, and yes, many of them have had to pull their guns on people. One shot and killed a beligerent drunk who came at him with a knife. But these are completely different situations. They all agree that shooting a suspect in the back who is running isn't just bad-police work, but criminal.

[This message has been edited by JeffKardde (edited April 16, 2001).]

Posted by Epoch (Member # 136) on :

Who said anything about the cop needing to kill the suspect to "win" the situation. I sure as hell didn't. I know exactly what I am typing, you are just not reading it. The suspect does not need to be shot or killed for the officer to have succeeded in ending the situation. Why do you think that if an officer pulls his weapon he is going to shoot somebody.

I am not ignoring todays social problems. I am just sticking to the topic of your problem with the way police handle situations. I am fully aware that there is racism in this country and that blacks as well as other minorities are treated fairly poorly. I'm not disagreeing with any of that. The thing you seem to be forgetting is that cops make mistakes, why because they are human just like the rest of use.

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God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the weaponry to make the difference.

Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :

You did say that, Tec. I suggest you re-read it. Why would an officer pull their gun if the suspect is running? Wouldn't it make more sense to, oh, I don't know ... run AFTER him? "the officer is the one who needs to win" ... by shooting the guy in the back? I really don't see how anyone who reads this:

When a suspect runs an officer will pull out their gun, not their mace and not their nightsticks. Why because as I have already said when it comes down to it the officer is the one who needs to win.

Can come to any other conclusion that they're advocating shooting fleeing suspects.

We're not TALKING about other situations. I do recognize that cops have to take appropriate actions to end varying situations. HOWEVER I do not believe drawing a gun was the right action in THIS situation. Please read what I'm posting here, 'cuz I'm tired of saying the SAME things over, and over, and over, and over again. You're worse than Omega.

The thing you seem to be forgetting is that cops make mistakes, why because they are human just like the rest of use.

Um. Do you even read ANYTHING I've written? I DO understand this. I DO think Officer Roach made a mistake. The difference is, I think when cops make mistakes of this magnitude, they need to be punished!

[This message has been edited by JeffKardde (edited April 16, 2001).]

Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :

And the thing you seem to be forgetting is that, in cases such as these, when cops make mistakes, someone dies.

One of your parents has been taken into hospital for an operation. They die. The doctor comes out and says "sorry, but we made a mistake during the operation." For some reason, I can't see you saying "fair enough. You're only human."

During the "gay" threads, we've had a couple of homsexuals come forward and present their POV. Strange how everyone arguing here seems to be white.

Posted by Epoch (Member # 136) on :

The gun is pulled when a suspect flees because they have now become a danger to everyone around. Why, because a fleeing suspect may use anything or anyone around him to continue fleeing. The gun is the officers ultimate protection. He doesn't necessarialy have it out to stop the suspect from fleeing but to keep him from attacking. I have never once said that an officer should shoot a suspect in the back. That is totally wrong, if Roach did that then yes he needs to be punished. However, we don't know if he did shoot Thomas in the back. And yes Roach probably did give chase.

My point on this whole matter is this.
Don't just attack the cops without fully knowing what happend. If you do it makes you no better then the rioters.

I have been reading what you are saying. You believe that from the way you see the situation that the use of the guy was excessive. If it happend that way, yes the use of a gun is excessive. I am saying that we don't know what happend and that the officer may have been given a reason to use his gun.

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God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the weaponry to make the difference.

Posted by Vacuum robot lady from Spaceballs (Member # 239) on :

"BE: Yeah, that show [Boot Camp] is a joke according to my father."

Although I'm sure it is the fun questioning the validity of the methods of the Boot Camp, I was merely referring to it's flagrant act of being TV which is not good.

I can't comment on the actual Boot Camp itself, because I am not in the military. My Dad is not. My Mom is not. I am not married to military personnel (Singular and/or plural), I am not sleeping with a member of the Military, I am not surgically reconstructed into a supersoldier.

And most of all, I do not currently hold the rank of Major. I am not allowed to think of such things until that day.

-Edward Gibbons, The Decline and Fall of The Roman Empire.

Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :

Don't just attack the cops without fully knowing what happend. If you do it makes you no better then the rioters.

That has got to be the most idiotic statement I've ever heard in my life. And I've heard a lot of stupid stuff.

Did I run into the street and start beating the crap out of a cop? No. Did I walk into police HQ, draw a machine gun, and massacre a couple desk sergeants? No.

I made the simple assertion that it is not very correct to shoot an unarmed, fleeing suspect.

Besides which, my assertion is protected by the First Ammendment. I have not caused physical harm to anyone, although it's possible I've caused emotional damage by demanding that the simple concept that police are not above the law be recongized.

There's a big difference between throwing a TV through someone's window and expressing an opinion on a BBoard.

[This message has been edited by JeffKardde (edited April 16, 2001).]

Posted by Vacuum robot lady from Spaceballs (Member # 239) on :

Question:

Did that last sentence = Necessary?
W bashing is getting really old. And not matured old, little kid old.

-Edward Gibbons, The Decline and Fall of The Roman Empire.

Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :

Quite right. Edited.

Posted by Epoch (Member # 136) on :

You need to take your own advice. You total missed what I was saying. I did not mean physically attacking somebody. I'm talking about not jumping to conclusions about anybody or anything. Don't just start verbally attacking. Wait until you know what has really happend and then make up your mind. The rioters just jumped to the conclusion that Thomas was shot because he was black and running from the cops. What if it turns out that he tried to fight the cop or grab somebody near by. If this were to be the case suddenly everything changes.

I am saying that without all of the facts decisions are very rarely made correctly.

You are right in feeling that it is wrong to shoot a suspect who is still running away in the back. However the point remains was he shot in the back, that is what I'm trying to get out.

And yes I seriously doubt if anybody will disagree with the fact that the police are not above the law. They are part of the law and they make mistakes. When they make mistakes something bad usually happens and appropriate actions needs to be taken.

The big question is Did Roach make a mistake and fire on a none aggressive suspect or Did Thomas give him sufficent reason to shoot. That is the question, not if he should be punished if he is in the wrong or shooting a suspect in the back is wrong. We know the answers to those questions already.

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God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the weaponry to make the difference.

Posted by Gman on :

JeffK I think you need to understand something. At the time of the shooting the officer had no way of knowing if the suspect was armed or not. He can't take that chance. If the suspect makes a threating motion, like reaching under his shirt or in a pocket the officer must protect himself, because he is the protection for the people. As it has been said the many outway the few. The safety of the majority must be consider. Granted Thomas wasn't under arrest for anything serious, but people do stupid things under stress. Just look at the idiots who get pulled over for speeding, they have no past crimes yet they run and kill people. That is why an officer will shoot if a suspect makes a threat, because if he is killed other innocents could die. Think about this, what if Thomas had a weapon and the officer didn't shoot and was killed or injured. Then Thomas, now wanted for murder or assaulting an officer, takes a hostage and a standoff insues. During this the hostage is killed. The officer would be hated for not stopping him in the first place. The officer must protect the many.

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Aaahhh Worf, eat any good books lately - Q from Q less

Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :

Well, what if Roach was a racist and said to himself, "I'm gonna shoot me a nigger" and shot him dead? Don't engage in hypotheticals. What evidence do you have that Thomas may have resorted to violence? Nothing of what he was wanted on was a violent charge.

And I'm sorry you don't realize this, but if a cop shoots someone because of a what if? running through his mind, that doesn't neccessarily justify the shooting.

Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :

Don't engage in hypotheticals.

Why not? There's nothing wrong with presenting hypothetical situations. We're trying to get it through your head that there ARE possibilities other than the one you're stuck on. Open your mind, Jeff. There's a whole big world of possibilities out here.

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"Omega is right."
-Jeff Karrde, March 18, 2001 08:47 PM

Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :

Well, once again I come late to a thread, and yes, I feel honour-bound to summarise what I've learnt.

1. Timothy Thomas, a black teenager in Cincinatti, Ohio, was about to be arrested for a large-ish (14, in fact) number of warrants pertaining to what were, for the most part, minor offenses.

2. Thomas resisted arrest in some as-yet-determined manner, whether it was threatening violence to the police or just attempting to evade them. This led Officer Steven Roach to shoot and kill him.

3. Since then there have been riots in the city, largely by other black youths who have destroyed local businesses (ironically owned by other black people) and targeted any white people in the vicinity.

4. Police forces in the US have a history of racism which shows in many examples of brutality and excessive force.

5. Despite this, the circumstances which led to Roach shooting Thomas could have involved a) Thomas giving them the impression he was armed, when he wasn't; b) him attacking them in such a manner, or with such a degree of ferocity, that they immediately feared for their lives, or had no opportunity to attempt other less-lethal means of subduing him; c) Roach accidentally pulling the trigger, which is a pefectly acceptable accident, regardless of the fact that firearms training usually recommends keeping your finger off the triger until you clearly intend to shoot.

6. However, there is NO POSSIBILITY WHATSOEVER that the circumstances might have involved a) racism on the part of Roach or any other officers present, or b) blood-lust on their parts. This is because they were all good decent officers who were apparently unaffected by any racist attitudes in their department.

7. The life of one law enforcement official is worth several times that of an anonymous black teenager. Far better that several essentially innocent people die than one police officer be killed.

8. Lots of blacks rioting is a far greater crime than a few white middle-aged men shooting one black man. And that black man didn't do his seatbelt up, which makes his life forfeit anyway.

9. Just about everyone who posts here is a white male. Just about anyone else who's ever been here who isnt - be they female, or any other race, have left. Can't imagine why.

10. This thread is a slanging-match between Fo2, Omega and Tec (police are the thin blue line protecting us from the black hordes; they may have a few bad apples but, omelettes and eggs) versus JeffK (police should be accountable for what they do, no exceptions). No-one else is really getting a look-in.

11. It's OK for Omeychops to contradict himself - context is very important.

12. I still don't like the FlameBoard very much.

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"It strikes me that there are enough episodes of the Simpsons that people could speak entirely in Simpsonese, using references from the show to explain or describe an endless series of situations. Nelson and Apu . . . at Tinagra.

But now I�ve brought Star Trek into it again, haven�t I. Sorry."

- James Lileks, 09/04/2001

Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :

Omega,

I do understand that. I addressed that in an earlier post -- didn't you advise me to read other posts? Maybe you should take that advice. And if you want to engage in hypotheticals, what about the explanation that Roach just thought, "hey, I got some dumb nigger runnin', this is a good time to take 'im out." BANG!

See the problem?

There's no evidence that Thomas made any hostile moves. Do you have any? No, you don't.

Now, with the FBI looking into this, I'm tending to suspect it's because of strong evidence that the shooting WASN'T justified.

Nicely said, Vogon

[This message has been edited by JeffKardde (edited April 17, 2001).]

Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :

with the FBI looking into this, I'm tending to suspect it's because of strong evidence that the shooting WASN'T justified.

So basically, you know nothing, so you're going to assume the worst. Fine, just so long as we're clear on that.

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"Omega is right."
-Jeff Karrde, March 18, 2001 08:47 PM

Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :

Omega: "Open your mind, Jeff. There's a whole big world of possibilities out here."

I'm sure he's doing this on purpose, just to torture me. Damn him.

Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :

Yes, I do believe he is.

Omega, I do know!

I know that an unarmed man was shot while running from police.

Tell me, what do YOU know?

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Star Trek Gamma Quadrant
Average Rated 8.32 out of 10 Smileys by Fabrux (with seven eps posted)
***
"Oh, yes, screw logic, let's go for a theory with no evidence!"
-Omega 11:48am, Jan. 19th, 2001
***
"I think this reason why girls don't do well on multiple choice tests goes all the way back to the Bible, all the way back to Genesis, Adam and Eve. God said, 'All right, Eve, multiple choice or multiple orgasms, what's it going to be?' We all know what was chosen" - Rush Limbaugh, Feb. 23, 1994.

Posted by Saltah'na (Member # 33) on :

Open your mind, Jeff. There's a whole big world of possibilities out here

I hate to say this, but I have not seen you do the same thing. Therefore, you cannot tell Jeff to do something you yourself have not done (AFAIK, that is).

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"In a completely unrelated news story, I have a date tomorrow night."
- Omega, in trying to explain why pigs are now flying, why Microsoft products are now working perfectly, hell freezing over, and George W Bush giving a flawless speech. 04/06/01, 12:17AM

Posted by Epoch (Member # 136) on :

Vogon first of all I am offended that you think I believe that police are the thin line between us and the "black horde". By saying that you have implied that I am a racist and I am not. I don't spend my days thinking about how to get rid of all the non whites. I am friends with/work with/ live next to many people who are not white and I enjoy being around them. Police are out there protecting all of us from the criminal horde. I am just trying to get everyone to look before they leap. The last time I looked this country ran on the idea that you are innocent until proven quilty, however it seems to me that Jeff feels that Roach is guilty skip the trail and go straight to the hanging.

I've said this once and I will say it again for all of you who a) didn't read it the first time b) ignored it

The police are not above the law and I don't think they should be. If Roach made a mistake it will be found out. If he did it on purpose out of hate it will be found out. If either of these turn out to be true I hope that he is punished to the full extent of his crime.

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God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the weaponry to make the difference.

Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :

I hate to say this, but I have not seen you do the same thing.

Pardon? I did acknowledge that NASA might qualify as constitutional once someone proposed a way in which it might be, you know.

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"Omega is right."
-Jeff Karrde, March 18, 2001 08:47 PM

Posted by Gman on :

JeffK, I admit that we don't know for fact that Thomas made any threating move towards the police. The problem is that we don't know that he didn't either. That is what will make the difference in this arguement. Who knows if Roach shot him because he thought "yeah I want to shoot me a nigger", or if he did it to protect himself. It just seems to me that you want to blame Officer Roach before all the evidence is in. You assume that because the FBI is involved it means that it wasn't justified. However, the FBI could be involved because this is such an explosive situation. The government may have felt that they needed to make a large show of force to find the truth and that is why the FBI is involved, who knows.

You said earlier that it makes no sense that Thomas would become a threat because he was only wanted on minor charges. But one fact we do know and all agree on is that he attempted to evade police. This means that his stress level has gone up as well as other chemicals in his body such as adrenaline. Adrenaline affects the mind making it hard to think rationally. It is called the fight or flight response. Thomas was afraid, he ran. Maybe he got cornered, I don't know, but it is possible that he thought "all I have to do is knock the cop down and I can get away" and that would be a threating move towards the officer who does not know if the suspect is armed and given a choice between lives the suspect loses in that situation. I know that sounds harsh, but that is the way it is.

If you don't like this fact you can move to another country, say, Russia where they would have just gone to his families place and beat them until he gave up, or to Germany where the second he tried to run they would have shot him with assault rifles. Suddenly America doesn't sound so bad.

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Aaahhh Worf, eat any good books lately - Q from Q less

Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :

*raises eyebrow extremely high*

In England, they'd have hung him in the Tower of London. And if it was France, he'd have been sent straight to the guilettine. And in Canada, he'd have been beaten to death with hokey sticks.

Thank god for the US, where people running only have to worry about getting shot in the back with pistols. And thank god that people in the US have TV to tell them what other countries are really like. Dirty communist bastards.

Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :

Dear fuckin' christ.

Okay, first of all, my original statement has been that riots are inevitable when police deparartments are racist. Deny this all you want, many PDs have a history of racism. Suffice to say, things like this are inevitable.

Second, yes, I've said REPEATEDLY that police must use neccessary force in situations. There's no evidence that Roach needed to use more force. Do you have any? Then shut up. As we know more, we'll learn more. As it stands, it would seem to, well, just about everyone here, that Roach was unjustified. I'm sorry if it's difficult to understand this, but I'm sick and tired of your morons screaming about the same damn thing. Read my posts please.

Gman, I'm going to forgive you for your post about me moving to another country. I'm the one who wants the police to be responsible for their actions, while you seem to be the one who doesn't give a damn what they do. So, why don't you fuckin' move? Now, I don't know if you're an American or not, but if you are, I'm shocked at your ignorance of the basic precept of "free speech" which we so called "worship" in this country. Of course, we also worship individual rights, and you don't seem too keen on that either.

Omega: see, you're contradicting yourself again! Didn't you say that other threads had no context in this one? Thank you very much! Now, look, I'm sorry that you wanna keep telling me that "we don't know what happened you big left wing nut!" But the fact of the matter is, we've got a dammed good idea what happened, and YOU just refuse to accept it, prefering to believe that Mr. Thomas provoked Mr. Roach. Face it: Roach was most likely wrong to fire. Otherwise, please present your evidence.

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Star Trek Gamma Quadrant
Average Rated 8.32 out of 10 Smileys by Fabrux (with seven eps posted)
***
"Oh, yes, screw logic, let's go for a theory with no evidence!"
-Omega 11:48am, Jan. 19th, 2001
***
"I think this reason why girls don't do well on multiple choice tests goes all the way back to the Bible, all the way back to Genesis, Adam and Eve. God said, 'All right, Eve, multiple choice or multiple orgasms, what's it going to be?' We all know what was chosen" - Rush Limbaugh, Feb. 23, 1994.

Posted by Gman on :

Psyliam, Excuse me, but who said that he was shot in the back. And my sources for what happens in other countries doesn't come from the tv. I know several people who have lived in both countries for years, some of whom are natives of those countries, and that is how it is done. So before you jump to conclusions, try getting fact.

JeffK, I do care what the police. I whole disagree with police who abuse there power and position. What I am trying to get across is the fact that you want to burn this man at the stake without evidence. Nothing has been set in stone. I'm not going either way on this issue. If he is guilty, then punish him, if he isn't then he will go free. I just want it known that we can't condemn a man without all the facts at hand. As for your comment

Of course, we also worship individual rights, and you don't seem too keen on that either.

What about the Officers individual rights to a fair trial? Now I usually don't take offense to personal attacks and now is no exception. But I would like to know why. I have done nothing to you yet you seem to want to attack me now, saying I don't care about individual rights and free speech. That is way off base and a little rude. If you keep that up it may look as if you are just looking for people to be mad at and to blame for things wrong in this country. As for my comment about moving, I don't want you to move. I just want people to think about how good this country is before they start bad mouthing parts of it.
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Aaahhh Worf, eat any good books lately - Q from Q less

[This message has been edited by Gman (edited April 17, 2001).]

Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :

What facts do you bring to the table? You even read the news about what happened?

I admit that we don't know for fact that Thomas made any threating move towards the police.

So, maybe you should stop assuming that he did?

It just seems to me that you want to blame Officer Roach before all the evidence is in. You assume that because the FBI is involved it means that it wasn't justified

Well, of course the FBI is involved because it's an explosive situation. They also have all the evidence. Any officer shooting is investigated, usually by the local IAD, true. The FBI is looking into it because of the Civil Rights violation.

Now, look, you Right-Wing "All Cops Are Angels!" Fanatics. If you've missed where I said that certain responses to certain situations are required, then I'm sorry that yer blind. If you've missed where I said cops have to be held responsible when they use TOO MUCH force, then I'm sorry. If you've missed where I said, "hey, seems like Mr. Roach used a bit too much force, and he needs to go to jail for it." Well, this seems your point of contention, and instead of showing WHY he didn't use too much force, you engage in hypotheticals. Wow. How cool.

Sheeeesh.

GMAN -- edited your post, ya' bastard Now I gotta clarify some stuff.

I don't want to burn Roach at a stake. I WANT him to go on trial. Please show where I didn't say that? When officers break the law, they need to be punished. Trial is one of the ways in which it can be determined if he is guilty of breaking the law. Please don't rush to conclusions.

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Star Trek Gamma Quadrant
Average Rated 8.32 out of 10 Smileys by Fabrux (with seven eps posted)
***
"Oh, yes, screw logic, let's go for a theory with no evidence!"
-Omega 11:48am, Jan. 19th, 2001
***
"I think this reason why girls don't do well on multiple choice tests goes all the way back to the Bible, all the way back to Genesis, Adam and Eve. God said, 'All right, Eve, multiple choice or multiple orgasms, what's it going to be?' We all know what was chosen" - Rush Limbaugh, Feb. 23, 1994.

[This message has been edited by JeffKardde (edited April 17, 2001).]

Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :

German cops with those damned sticks, swing once and be pummeled several times....

Stationed there in 1988 to 1990...

------------------
"One's ethics are determined by what we do when no one is looking" Nugget
Star Trek: Gamma Quadrant
Star Trek: Legacy
Read them, rate them, got money, film them

"...and I remain on the far side of crazy, I remain the mortal enemy of man, no hundred dollar cure will save me..." WoV

Posted by MC Infinity (Member # 531) on :

Okay, let's see now, either you're being lied to, or you happen to be the perfect example of the stereotype of a "dumb american" I've been trying so hard to find.
By this I am not saying that all Americans are dumb, or that you are dumb, but there is a certain stereotype about the US that is very popular in other countries, and I beleive your are a perfect example of it.

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"Well if it's gonna be that kind of a party, I'm putting my dick in the mashed potatoes!"

-Nimrod 16/4/2001

Posted by MC Infinity (Member # 531) on :

*previous post directed at Gman*

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"Well if it's gonna be that kind of a party, I'm putting my dick in the mashed potatoes!"

-Nimrod 16/4/2001

Posted by Epoch (Member # 136) on :

So we are morons for trying repeatadly to get our point across to you, and you're not one even though you have been doing the samething.

Excuse me while I laugh my ass off
hahahahahahahahaha

There now that I've gotten that out of the way.

Jeff you need to take a serious chill pill cause you have stopped listening to what we are saying. Nobody is saying that the cops are angels and that what ever they do is ok. Also nobody has said that racism doesn't happen in Police departments. We are saying that until all of the facts about the incident come out we cannot determine if Roach used excessive force or not. He may have then again he may not have. Also you say that we should stop assuming that Thomas made an agressive move, then you need to stop assuming that he didn't. We are not saying that he did, we are saying that that is one possibility.

You are the only one basing your argument on hypotheticals. We are say "Hey lets think about this for a second instead of jumping to a conclusion."

You can say that "Roach shot a fleeing suspect" as many times as you like, it just doesn't make it true. If it turns out that it did happen that way then Roach needs to be punished.

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God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the weaponry to make the difference.

Posted by Epoch (Member # 136) on :

Infinity, so you know he has been lied to how.

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God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the weaponry to make the difference.

Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :

Well of course, he needs to be punished, wow. King of the obvious answeres, ain't you? Bet you even knew the sun was yellow!

Are you forgetting your earlier post that the cops need "to win at any cost!" That sounded more like a defense of the shooting then a "let's wait and see" attitude you adopted later ...

Have you read ANY of my posts? I guess not.

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Star Trek Gamma Quadrant
Average Rated 8.32 out of 10 Smileys by Fabrux (with seven eps posted)
***
"Oh, yes, screw logic, let's go for a theory with no evidence!"
-Omega 11:48am, Jan. 19th, 2001
***
"I think this reason why girls don't do well on multiple choice tests goes all the way back to the Bible, all the way back to Genesis, Adam and Eve. God said, 'All right, Eve, multiple choice or multiple orgasms, what's it going to be?' We all know what was chosen" - Rush Limbaugh, Feb. 23, 1994.

[This message has been edited by JeffKardde (edited April 17, 2001).]

Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :

I think he ment that in a confrontation the police need to win, and using excessive/dealy force when not needed makes the cop a danger for society and needs to be taken care of.

------------------
"One's ethics are determined by what we do when no one is looking" Nugget
Star Trek: Gamma Quadrant
Star Trek: Legacy
Read them, rate them, got money, film them

"...and I remain on the far side of crazy, I remain the mortal enemy of man, no hundred dollar cure will save me..." WoV

Posted by Epoch (Member # 136) on :

Wow and you must be the king sarcasm. I've read your posts the questions I have are
A)Have you read mine
B)If you did read them, do you even care

It seems to me that you are now just lashing out at everyone and everything. I don't know why you are doing this but it has become very old. I also don't understand why it is that you refuse to see the different possibilities that exist in this incident. You have turned everything any of us have posted into something completely different. Yes I did say that an officer needs to win the situation, why do you feel that I mean he needs to shoot. My whole point the entire time has been to nut judge until we know all the facts. You have not gathered this yet so I'm under the impression that you won't. We have choosen to see your point of view but you refuse to see ours.

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God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the weaponry to make the difference.

Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :

Tec,

I did read your posts. Including the one where you said that a fleeing suspect deserved what he got because "the cop needs to win."

I do understand what you're saying. Have you not read my posts? BUT, when an officer uses excessive force, they NEED to be punished. How difficult a concept is this?

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Star Trek Gamma Quadrant
Average Rated 8.32 out of 10 Smileys by Fabrux (with seven eps posted)
***
"Oh, yes, screw logic, let's go for a theory with no evidence!"
-Omega 11:48am, Jan. 19th, 2001
***
"I think this reason why girls don't do well on multiple choice tests goes all the way back to the Bible, all the way back to Genesis, Adam and Eve. God said, 'All right, Eve, multiple choice or multiple orgasms, what's it going to be?' We all know what was chosen" - Rush Limbaugh, Feb. 23, 1994.

Posted by Epoch (Member # 136) on :

I did not say that he deserved what he got. I was giving you a reason as to why an officer will have his weapon drawn when chasing a suspect.

Yes I have been reading your posts, how many times do I have to say that if he was wrong in shooting Thomas he needs to be punished. He being wrong means that he did it on purpose cause he is a racist or that he used excessive force for some reason.

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God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the weaponry to make the difference.

Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :

Huh?

He being wrong means that he did it on purpose cause he is a racist or that he used excessive force for some reason.

Mind clarifying that, because, honestly, I have no idea what you're trying to say.

------------------
Star Trek Gamma Quadrant
Average Rated 8.32 out of 10 Smileys by Fabrux (with seven eps posted)
***
"Oh, yes, screw logic, let's go for a theory with no evidence!"
-Omega 11:48am, Jan. 19th, 2001
***
"I think this reason why girls don't do well on multiple choice tests goes all the way back to the Bible, all the way back to Genesis, Adam and Eve. God said, 'All right, Eve, multiple choice or multiple orgasms, what's it going to be?' We all know what was chosen" - Rush Limbaugh, Feb. 23, 1994.

Posted by Gman on :

Ok JeffK I will try to talk about this idea that the black community feels harassed by the police. This is a very tough question. I would have to say that yes the black community is being harassed in places by police. However, I don't feel that this happens, for the most part, because of any racial hatred. I know that there are racist cops out there and that is a problem that will not go away. What I don't agree with is the way the black community reacts to this pressure. Riots and beatings are not acceptable forms of outcry. They need to deal with this in a better way. There are many minority groups out there that don't riot when they are harassed or seem to be oppressed. I think a good example of this is actually the police. The police in itself is a minority group. Every day police are yelled at, spit at, threatened verbally, some are shot, some are beat and assaulted, yet they don't go running into the streets burning buildings and beating every person that looks like a criminal. You have to admit that police take the same kinds of abuse that the black community accuses them of. I guess what I'm trying to say is that even if they are harassed there are ways to deal with it. I'm not saying "buck up" and "have a stiff upper lip" they shouldn't have to, but they aren't alone in this idea of harassment. If they really want to change what is going on, maybe they should look at how their community treats the police and accept that this problem is a two way street.

------------------
Aaahhh Worf, eat any good books lately - Q from Q less

Posted by Epoch (Member # 136) on :

What I was trying to say is that if he was wrong in shooting Thomas he should be punished accordingly. By this I mean if he just got scared and shot for no reason he needs to be punished for involuntary manslaughter. If he did it on purpose he needs he needs to be punished for murder.

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God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the weaponry to make the difference.

Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :

Tec,

Then we agree that police need to held responsible when they use excessive force.

G-Man,

Actually, riots and violence are acceptable forms of outcry. The American revolution was violent. The Watt riots were important in the Civil Rights movement. However, suspects being sodomized with a plunger (which happened in NYC last year) is not acceptable. While the officers who shot that black man forty times may have felt that their reaction was appropriate, it clearly was not. Both incidents fuel the feeling within the black community that the police are "out to get them." Similarly, the death of Mr. Thomas does the same.

Now, certainly, the vast majority of police aren't racist. But, you know the saying, "a few bad apples ruin the bunch." I don't know if you're aware of this, but in New Orleans during Mardi Gras a few years back, a drunken man was beaten nearly to death by four police officers after he walked into one of their horses. In Philidelphia a few months back, a suspect was beaten severely by Police. The beating became excessive when the suspect was clearly restrained, yet other officers continued to strike and kick the suspect. Police give into the same primal reactions which fuel riots.

Again, look at the infamous Racial Profiling. That doesn't do a lot to make the black community think the police aren't specificly out to get them. Or, even worse, LA PD's Rampart scandal. Anyone remember the song "Cop Killer"? Vice President Quayle lashed out at it, calling it horrible and immoral. What Quayle didn't realize -- but a large community of blacks did -- was that in this case, the police were being horrible, and immoral.

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Star Trek Gamma Quadrant
Average Rated 8.32 out of 10 Smileys by Fabrux (with seven eps posted)
***
"Oh, yes, screw logic, let's go for a theory with no evidence!"
-Omega 11:48am, Jan. 19th, 2001
***
"I think this reason why girls don't do well on multiple choice tests goes all the way back to the Bible, all the way back to Genesis, Adam and Eve. God said, 'All right, Eve, multiple choice or multiple orgasms, what's it going to be?' We all know what was chosen" - Rush Limbaugh, Feb. 23, 1994.

Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :

How many people are cops, then are many do things like these incidents that cause people to go ape? It seems to me that there are fewer 'bad apples' than what people believe.
Yes, a lot of cops do racial profiling, but the question is, how is this habit developed, even by minority officers. Once we learn why it happens we can do something about it.

So, what are the possible reasons for racial profiliing?

------------------
"One's ethics are determined by what we do when no one is looking" Nugget
Star Trek: Gamma Quadrant
Star Trek: Legacy
Read them, rate them, got money, film them

"...and I remain on the far side of crazy, I remain the mortal enemy of man, no hundred dollar cure will save me..." WoV

Posted by MC Infinity (Member # 531) on :

Looky here, the cops may not be racist, but they fall prey to stereotypes. An example of this would be the age old : "If you see a black man in a Benz, you KNOW he stole it!"
And although a lot of people try NOT to be racist, there is no escaping the stereotypes. Other groups affected by stereotypes are teens, bikers, goth people, and any others that have been depicted in movies as "freaks"
Beleive it or not, Thomas is a victim of the media, and so are millions of other people that don't fit "the norm"

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"Well if it's gonna be that kind of a party, I'm putting my dick in the mashed potatoes!"

-Nimrod 16/4/2001

Posted by First of Two (Member # 16) on :

Did anybody see that show Denis Leary was in, I think it's called "the Job?"

There's this scene (admittedly, I barely remember it) in which he stops and questions this black guy, and the guy goes off on him like "I know what this is, this is racial profiling! (yadda-yadda-yadda)"

And Leary's character says, essentially "yeah, well, the warrant is out on a black guy in his mid twenties wearing jeans. If it was a Puerto Rican dressed as a nun, I wouldn't be bothering you."

You go with what you know. Out on the interstates where I live, cops watch for young (teens-20's) guys in sportscars. Because some young people people out here run drugs, and they tend to spend their drug money on fancy cars, which they take with them on their drug runs. It's not discriminatory, it's LEARNED by EXPERIENCE.

Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :

Thank you First, that is the answer I was looking for.

------------------
"One's ethics are determined by what we do when no one is looking" Nugget
Star Trek: Gamma Quadrant
Star Trek: Legacy
Read them, rate them, got money, film them

"...and I remain on the far side of crazy, I remain the mortal enemy of man, no hundred dollar cure will save me..." WoV

Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :

"I'm eager to respond to the president's charge," Ashcroft told reporters following the meeting. "I believe racial profiling is an unconstitutional deprivation of equal protection under the Constitution and I think we should do what we can to stamp it out," he said. -- CNN

****
Driving While Black

Racial Profiling
On Our Nation's Highways
By David A. Harris,
University of Toledo College of Law

An American Civil Liberties Union
Special Report
June 1999

INTRODUCTION

On a hot summer afternoon in August 1998, 37-year-old U.S. Army Sergeant First Class Rossano V. Gerald and his young son Gregory drove across the Oklahoma border into a nightmare. A career soldier and a highly decorated veteran of Desert Storm and Operation United Shield in Somalia, SFC Gerald, a black man of Panamanian descent, found that he could not travel more than 30 minutes through the state without being stopped twice: first by the Roland City Police Department, and then by the Oklahoma Highway Patrol.

During the second stop, which lasted two-and-half hours, the troopers terrorized SFC Gerald's 12-year-old son with a police dog, placed both father and son in a closed car with the air conditioning off and fans blowing hot air, and warned that the dog would attack if they attempted to escape. Halfway through the episode � perhaps realizing the extent of their lawlessness � the troopers shut off the patrol car's video evidence camera.

Perhaps, too, the officers understood the power of an image to stir people to action. SFC Gerald was only an infant in 1963 when a stunned nation watched on television as Birmingham Police Commissioner "Bull" Connor used powerful fire hoses and vicious police attack dogs against nonviolent black civil rights protesters. That incident, and Martin Luther King, Jr.'s stirring I Have a Dream speech at the historic march on Washington in August of that year, were the low and high points, respectively, of the great era of civil rights legislation: the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

How did it come to be, then, that 35 years later SFC Gerald found himself standing on the side of a dusty road next to a barking police dog, listening to his son weep while officers rummaged through his belongings simply because he was black? I feel like I'm a guy who's pretty much walked the straight line and that's respecting people and everything. We just constantly get harassed. So we just feel like we can't go anywhere without being bothered... I'm not trying to bother anybody. But yet a cop pulls me over and says I'm weaving in the road. And I just came from a friend's house, no alcohol, nothing. It just makes you wonder � was it just because I'm black?"

quote:
I feel like I'm a guy who's pretty much walked the straight line and that's respecting people and everything. We just constantly get harassed. So we just feel like we can't go anywhere without being bothered... I'm not trying to bother anybody. But yet a cop pulls me over and says I'm weaving in the road. And I just came from a friend's house, no alcohol, nothing. It just makes you wonder � was it just because I'm black?"
� James, 28, advertising account executive

Rossano and Gregory Gerald were victims of discriminatory racial profiling by police. There is nothing new about this problem. Police abuse against people of color is a legacy of African American enslavement, repression, and legal inequality. Indeed, during hearings of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders ("The Kerner Commission") in the fall of 1967 where more than 130 witnesses testified about the events leading up to the urban riots that had taken place in 150 cities the previous summer, one of the complaints that came up repeatedly was "the stopping of Negroes on foot or in cars without obvious basis."

Significant blame for this rampant abuse of power also can be laid at the feet of the government's "war on drugs," a fundamentally misguided crusade enthusiastically embraced by lawmakers and administrations of both parties at every level of government. From the outset, the war on drugs has in fact been a war on people and their constitutional rights, with African Americans, Latinos and other minorities bearing the brunt of the damage. It is a war that has, among other depredations, spawned racist profiles of supposed drug couriers. On our nation's highways today, police ostensibly looking for drug criminals routinely stop drivers based on the color of their skin. This practice is so common that the minority community has given it the derisive term, "driving while black or brown" � a play on the real offense of "driving while intoxicated."

One of the core principles of the Fourth Amendment is that the police cannot stop and detain an individual without some reason � probable cause, or at least reasonable suspicion � to believe that he or she is involved in criminal activity. But recent Supreme Court decisions allow the police to use traffic stops as a pretext in order to "fish" for evidence. Both anecdotal and quantitative data show that nationwide, the police exercise this discretionary power primarily against African Americans and Latinos.

No person of color is safe from this treatment anywhere, regardless of their obedience to the law, their age, the type of car they drive, or their station in life. In short, skin color has become evidence of the propensity to commit crime, and police use this "evidence" against minority drivers on the road all the time.

DRUG TRAFFICKERS ARE NOT "MOSTLY MINORITIES"

Racial profiling is based on the premise that most drug offenses are committed by minorities. The premise is factually untrue, but it has nonetheless become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Because police look for drugs primarily among African Americans and Latinos, they find a disproportionate number of them with contraband. Therefore, more minorities are arrested, prosecuted, convicted, and jailed, thus reinforcing the perception that drug trafficking is primarily a minority activity. This perception creates the profile that results in more stops of minority drivers. At the same time, white drivers receive far less police attention, many of the drug dealers and possessors among them go unapprehended, and the perception that whites commit fewer drug offenses than minorities is perpetuated. And so the cycle continues.

This vicious cycle carries with it profound personal and societal costs. It is both symptomatic and symbolic of larger problems at the intersection of race and the criminal justice system. It results in the persecution of innocent people based on their skin color. It has a corrosive effect on the legitimacy of the entire justice system. It deters people of color from cooperating with the police in criminal investigations. And in the courtroom, it causes jurors of all races and ethnicities to doubt the testimony of police officers when they serve as witnesses, making criminal cases more difficult to win.

quote:
When we make a stop, it's not based on race or gender or anything of that nature. It's based on probable cause that some law is being broken, whether it's traffic or otherwise. We have to have a reason."
� Lincoln Hampton, spokesman for the Illinois State Police (Chicago Tribune 4/4/99

Yet despite overwhelming evidence � including the police department's own statistics on traffic stops � officials in law enforcement continue to deny the reality of racial profiling on our nation's highways. Some deny that the phenomenon of racial profiling even exists, while others declare with indignation that their officers do not stop motorists on the basis of skin color.

Still others argue without apology that making disproportionate numbers of traffic stops of African Americans and other minorities is not discrimination, but rational law enforcement. But as one officer learned, such "honesty" can be a dangerous counterpoint to official denials of profiling.

Carl Williams, New Jersey's Chief of Troopers, was dismissed in March 1999 by Governor Christine Todd Whitman soon after a news article appeared in which he defended profiling because, he said, "mostly minorities" trafficked in marijuana and cocaine. Williams' remarks received wide media attention at a time when Whitman and other state officials were already facing heightened media scrutiny over recent incidents of profiling and public anger over police mistreatment of black suspects.

Whitman and her attorney general, Peter Verniero, recouped from Williams' remarks somewhat when they issued a statistical report on April 20, 1999, acknowledging that the problem of racial profiling is, as Verniero put it, "real, not imagined." The credibility of that admission was seriously undermined, however, when Whitman told The New York Times that evidence of racial profiling is "not something [the state] had any reason to anticipate."

Surely Whitman had not forgotten that, for the past five years, her legal department had fought a court ruling that a policy of racial profiling was in operation on the New Jersey Turnpike? The court had lambasted the "utter failure by the State Police hierarchy to monitor and control... or investigate the many claims of institutional discrimination." Can it be a coincidence that only a few hours before Whitman and Verniero issued their April 20 report � and one week before the state's appeal was to be argued in court � word came suddenly that the state had dropped its appeal?

As events in New Jersey demonstrate, even when faced with a lawsuit, statistical evidence from independent experts, public pressure and intensive news coverage, officials in law enforcement and government are not eager to acknowledge the problem of racial profiling.

The ACLU believes that addressing the problem will require a multi-faceted effort. Our state affiliates and other civil rights advocates have brought lawsuits based on showings of discrimination by law enforcement agencies, but legal action is only a beginning; these cases are always difficult, long-term efforts that take considerable resources and plaintiffs of unusual fortitude. For instance, a lawsuit filed in Oklahoma earlier this month on behalf of SFC Gerald and his son may take years to resolve.

Legislation at the federal and state levels and local voluntary efforts can advance the momentum to collect accurate data on the problem and rein in overzealous � and sometimes illegal � law enforcement practices.

Fighting crime is surely a high priority. But it must be done without damaging other important values: the freedom to go about our business without unwarranted police interference and the right to be treated equally before the law, without regard to race or ethnicity. "Driving while black" assails these basic American ideals. And unless we address this problem, all of us � not just people of color � stand to lose.

THE ROAD TO "DRIVING WHILE BLACK"

The pervasiveness of racial profiling by the police in the enforcement of our nation's drug laws is the consequence of the escalating the so-called war on drugs. Drug use and drug selling are not confined to racial and ethnic minorities in the U.S.; indeed five times as many whites use drugs. But the war on drugs has, since its earliest days, targeted people of color. The fact that skin color has now become a proxy for criminality is an inevitable outcome of this process.

quote:
"It is totally unacceptable to engage in racial profiling of any kind. We're proud of the record we have. It is really shocking that our department would be singled out as some kind of test case."
� Bob Ricks, Oklahoma Department of Public Safety Commissioner

The latest escalation of the war on drugs was declared officially in 1982, when President Ronald Reagan established the Task Force on Crime in South Florida under Vice President George Bush's direction. The primary mission of the Task Force was to intensify air and sea operations against drug smuggling in the South Florida area, but it was not long before the Florida Highway Patrol entered the fray. In 1985, the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles issued guidelines for the police on "The Common Characteristics of Drug Couriers." The guidelines cautioned troopers to be suspicious of rental cars, "scrupulous obedience to traffic laws," and drivers wearing "lots of gold," or who do not "fit the vehicle," and "ethnic groups associated with the drug trade." Traffic stops were initiated by the state troopers using this overtly race-based profile.

The emergence of crack in the spring of 1986 and a flood of lurid and often exaggerated press accounts of inner-city crack use ushered in a period of intense public concern about illegal drugs, and helped reinforce the impression that drug use was primarily a minority problem. Enforcement of the nation's drug laws at the street level focused more and more on poor communities of color. In the mid- to late-1980s, many cities initiated major law enforcement programs to deal with street-level drug dealing. "Operation Pressure Point" in New York was an attempt to rid the predominantly Hispanic Lower East Side of the drug trade. Operation Invincible in Memphis, Operation Clean Sweep in Chicago, Operation Hammer in Los Angeles, and the Red Dog Squad in Atlanta all targeted poor, minority, urban neighborhoods where drug dealing tended to be open and easy to detect.

The goal of these inner-city efforts was to make as many arrests as possible, and in that respect, they succeeded. Nationwide, arrests for drug possession reported by state and local police nearly doubled from 400,000 in 1981 to 762,718 in 1988. Comparable figures for arrests for drug sale and manufacture rose from 150,000 in 1981 to 287,858 in 1988. Minorities were disproportionately represented in these figures.

According to the government's own reports, 80 percent of the country's cocaine users are white, and the "typical cocaine user is a middle-class, white suburbanite." But law enforcement tactics that concentrated on the inner city drug trade were very visibly filling the jails and prisons with minority drug law offenders, feeding the misperception that most drug users and dealers were black and Latino. Thus a "drug courier profile" with unmistakable racial overtones took hold in law enforcement.

The profile, described by one court as "an informally compiled abstract of characteristics thought typical of persons carrying illicit drugs," had been used in the war on drugs for some time. The first profile was reportedly developed in the early 1970s by a Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Special Agent named Paul Markonni while he was assigned to surveillance duty at the Detroit Metropolitan Airport. By 1979, Markonni's drug courier profile was in use at over 20 airports. The characteristics of the Markonni profile were behavioral. Did the person appear to be nervous? Did he pay for his airline ticket in cash and in large bills? Was he going to or arriving from a destination considered a place of origin of cocaine, heroin or marijuana? Was he traveling under an alias?

In the 1980s, with the emergence of the crack market, skin color alone became a major profile component, and, to an increasing extent, black travelers in the nation's airports and found themselves the subjects of frequent interrogations and suspicionless searches by the DEA and the U.S. Customs Service. These law enforcement practices soon spread to train stations and bus terminals, as well.

Sometimes the discriminatory nature of profile stops and searches was so blatant that judges took notice. In the early 1990s, one New York City Criminal Court judge, in dismissing the charges against an African American woman who had been stopped and searched in the Port Authority Bus Terminal, wrote: "I arraign approximately one-third of the felony cases in New York County and have no recollection of any defendant in a Port Authority Police Department drug interdiction case who was not either black or Hispanic."

In 1986, a racially biased drug courier profile was introduced to the highway patrol by the DEA. That year the agency launched "Operation Pipeline," a little known highway drug interdiction program which has, to date, trained approximately 27,000 police officers in 48 participating states to use pretext stops in order to find drugs in vehicles. The techniques taught and widely encouraged by the DEA as part of Operation Pipeline have been instrumental in spreading the use of pretext stops, which are at the heart of the racial profiling debate. In fact, some of the training materials used and produced in conjunction with Pipeline and other associated programs have implicitly (if not explicitly) encouraged the targeting of minority motorists.

The consequences of these law enforcement practices and sentencing policies are painfully evident today in the demographics of our prison population. According to an April 1999 report prepared for the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights by The Sentencing Project, there are now an estimated 400,000 inmates in the U.S. either awaiting trial or serving time for a drug offense, out of a total inmate population of 1.7 million. "The combined impact of increased drug arrests along with harsher sentencing policies has led to a vast expansion of drug offenders in the nation's prisons and jails," the report explains. "As these policies have been implemented, they have increasingly affected African American and Hispanic communities. The African American proportion of drug arrests has risen from 25 percent in 1980 to 37 percent in 1995. Hispanic and African American inmates are more likely than non-Hispanic whites to be incarcerated for a drug offense."

Today, blacks constitute 13 percent of the country's drug users; 37 percent of those arrested on drug charges; 55 percent of those convicted; and 74 percent of all drug offenders sentenced to prison.

WHREN v. U.S.: THE SUPREME COURT UPHOLDS PRETEXTUAL TRAFFIC STOPS

At the same time that racial profiling by law enforcement was expanding, the Supreme Court's sensitivity to Fourth Amendment rights was contracting. The constitutionality of pretexual traffic stops � using a minor traffic infraction, real or alleged, as an excuse to stop and search a vehicle and its passengers � reached the U.S. Supreme Court in 1996 in a case called Whren v. U.S.

quote:
Let me make this crystal clear. The Maryland state police has not ever, does not ever and will not ever condone the use of race-based profiling. It's against the law, and it will not be tolerated."
� Col. B. Mitchell, Maryland State Police Chief (The New York Times, 6/5/98)

The question before the Court was, is a search constitutional if it would never have taken place if the police were not looking for an excuse to get around the requirements of the Fourth Amendment? In its friend-of-the-court brief, the ACLU argued that pretextual searches violate the core principles of the Fourth Amendment, and warned that to sanction such searches was to "invite discriminatory enforcement." The Court did not heed our warning, however, and instead declared that any traffic offense committed by a driver was a legitimate legal basis for a stop, regardless of the officer's subjective state of mind.

In practice, the Whren decision has given the police virtually unlimited authority to stop and search any vehicle they want. Every driver probably violates some provision of the vehicle code at some time during even a short drive, because state traffic codes identify so many different infractions. For example, traffic codes define precisely how long a driver must signal before turning, and the particular conditions under which a driver must use lights. Vehicle equipment is also highly regulated. A small light bulb must illuminate the rear license plate. Tail lights must be visible from a particular distance. Tire tread must be at a particular depth. And all equipment must be in working order at all times. If the police target a driver for a stop and search, all they have to do to come up with a pretext for a stop is follow the car until the driver makes an inconsequential error or until a technical violation is observed.

Since Whren, the Court has extended police power over cars and drivers even further. In Ohio v. Robinette, the Court rejected the argument that officers seeking consent to search a car must tell the driver he is free to refuse permission and leave. Maryland v. Wilson (1997) gave police the power to order passengers out of stopped cars, whether or not there is any basis to suspect they are dangerous. And in Wyoming v. Houghton, decided on April 5, 1999, the Court ruled that after the lawful arrest of the driver, the police can search the closed purse of a passenger even though she had nothing to do with the alleged traffic infraction and had done nothing to suggest involvement in criminal activity.

NATIONWIDE COVERAGE OF A NATIONWIDE PROBLEM

Media coverage of racial profiling as a phenomenon in law enforcement has been simmering slowly over the past decade; in 1998 it finally began to boil over.

In the past year, front-page stories, editorials and columns have appeared in every major national newspaper and countless local dailies. The phrase "driving while black," used with bitter familiarity for years in magazines and newspapers targeted for African Americans, can now be found in the pages of Esquire, Newsweek and TIME.

Of course, media fascination with a social problem does not necessarily make it "real," any more than lack of media coverage makes it nonexistent. But the dozens of stories in the press and on the airwaves, combined with the statistical reports, the lawsuits, and recent legislative action, make a powerful argument that "driving while black" is not just an occasional problem.

It's time for our national leaders to realize that this is not about a few "bad apples." It's about the whole tree, right down to the roots. The following stories are just a small sampling:

In Arizona, the Phoenix New Times told the story of Larrel Riggs, a 42-year-old marketing executive who was pulled over on a highway by two officers from the Scottsdale Police Department in 1997. The police demanded to see his driver's license and registration. When Riggs handed over the documents, he was told to wait in the car. Then, instead of walking back to their car in the normal way, the officers slowly backed away from Riggs, watching him, hands on their guns. "I really got a fright," said Riggs. "It's broad daylight, I'm being polite, I've given them the information, I've complied with everything they asked me to do, and still they're treating me like a criminal."

In the end, Riggs received a citation for "an illegible license plate" and they let him go. The entire process had taken about a half-hour, and Riggs was so badly shaken that he couldn't sleep that night. "I feared for my life. It was nerve-racking. They looked like they'd have pulled their guns if I'd so much as sneezed." Source: Phoenix New Times

In California in 1997, San Diego Chargers football player Shawn Lee was pulled over, and he and his girlfriend were handcuffed and detained by police for half an hour on the side of Interstate 15. The officer said that Lee was stopped because he was driving a vehicle that fit the description of one stolen earlier that evening. However, Lee was driving a Jeep Cherokee, a sport utility vehicle, and the reportedly stolen vehicle was a Honda sedan. Source: San Diego Union Tribune

In 1996, two officers in police cruisers followed George Washington and Darryl Hicks as they drove into the parking garage of the hotel where they were staying in Santa Monica. The men were ordered out of the car at gun point, handcuffed and placed in separate police cars while the officers searched their car and checked their identification. The police justified this detention because the men allegedly resembled a description of two suspects being sought for 19 armed robberies and because one of the men seemed to be "nervous." The men filed suit against the officers and the court found that neither man fit the descriptions of the robbers and that the robberies had not even occurred in the City of Santa Monica. Source: The Los Angeles Times

In Colorado, officials in Eagle County paid $800,000 in damages in 1995 to black and Latino motorists stopped on Interstate 70 solely because they fit a drug courier profile. The payment settled a class-action lawsuit filed by the ACLU on behalf of 402 people stopped between August 1988 and August 1990 on I-70 between Eagle and Glenwood Springs, none of whom were ticketed or arrested for drugs.

One of the plaintiffs, Jhenita Whitfield, who is black, said she and her sister, who is in the Navy, were stopped May 5, 1989, while driving through Eagle County from San Diego with four small children. She said she was told that she failed to signal properly before changing lanes. The deputy then asked to search her car. She consented. "I didn't want any hassle," she said. "I didn't feel I had a choice. The kids were hungry and one had to go to the bathroom. I figured, let's do it and get the hell out of here."

The agreement called for the case's dismissal and required that police not stop, seize or search a person "unless there is some objective reasonable suspicion that the person has done something wrong." Source: Rocky Mountain News

In Connecticut, the issue of DWB has arisen in several incidents. Most prominent, perhaps, was the disclosure last year of a 1993 memo by the chief of an all-white police force in Trumbull, a suburb of Bridgeport. In the memo, Chief Theodore Ambrosini advised officers of a series of armed robberies in town and urged them to take the offensive. "One form of deterrence might be to develop a sense of proclivity toward the type of persons and vehicles which are usually involved in these crimes,'' the memo said. "Not only is it our obligation to enforce the motor vehicle laws, but in doing so, we are provided with a profile of our community and those who travel within its boundaries."

One prominent victim of the Trumbull profiling was Alvin Penn, an African American Bridgeport Democrat who is deputy president in the state Senate. On Mother's Day in 1996, a Trumbull police officer stopped Penn as he drove in a van through this predominantly white, suburban town, and asked to see his license and registration. As the officer gave the license back, he asked Penn if he knew which town he was in. Bridgeport, the state's largest city where blacks and Hispanics comprise 85 percent of the population, borders Trumbull � which is 98 percent white. "I asked why I was being stopped and why I needed to be aware of which town I was in. I wanted to know what difference that made,'' Penn said, recalling how he got lost and was turning around on a dead-end street when the officer blocked his van with a patrol car. "He told me he didn't have to give a reason for stopping me and said if I made an issue of it he would give me a ticket for speeding," Penn said.

Trumbull, which is now under investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Justice, is not the only Connecticut community to experience profiling. In suburban Avon, for example, former police officers corroborated the existence of the long-rumored "Barkhamsted Express," a slang term for the routine stopping of black and Hispanic motorists traveling through town from Hartford to the Barkhamsted reservoir. Sources: The Hartford Courant and The Boston Globe

In Florida in 1997, Aaron Campbell was pulled over by Orange County sheriff's deputies while driving on the Florida Turnpike. The stop ended with him being wrestled to the ground, hit with pepper spray and arrested. It turned out that Campbell was a major in the Metro-Dade Police Department and had identified himself as such when he was pulled over for an illegal lane change and having an obscured license tag. Said Campbell, "The majority of people they are searching and humiliating are black people. That's why I was so angry. I went from being an ordinary citizen and decorated officer to a criminal in a matter of minutes." Source: The Washington Times

In Indiana, Sgt. David Smith, an African American police officer, was pulled over while driving an unmarked car in the City of Carmel in 1997. Sgt. Smith was in full uniform at the time, but he was not wearing a hat which would have identified him as a police officer. According to a complaint filed with the ACLU, the trooper who stopped Smith appeared to be "shocked and surprised" when Sgt. Smith got out of the car. The trooper explained that he had stopped Smith because he had three antennas on the rear of his car and quickly left the scene. Source: The Indianapolis Star

In Kentucky, DeJuan Wheat, a former University of Louisville basketball star, was pulled over while driving in downtown Louisville late one night in 1998. The officers, who claimed they were looking for a truck like his, made Wheat get out of his vehicle while they searched it and ran warrant checks. When a black officer recognized Wheat, tensions eased and the officers let him go. Source: The Courier-Journal

In Maine, the Portland Press Herald last year reported that the city's minority residents feel the pressure of police bias. In a front-page article, the newspaper told the story of Michael Stovall, a 35-year-old lawyer who passed a police officer going in the opposite direction on a city street and watched as the patrolman did a U-turn and pulled up behind him. Stovall was followed for several blocks while the officer spoke into his radio. Finally, the newspaper said, the patrolman left, leaving Stovall to wonder.

Another African American, Judith Hyman, said she was stopped by a Portland police officer while driving on a city street with her son, who is black, and his girlfriend, who is white. "The officer pulled us over to see if we had our seat belts on," Hyman said. "We all were wearing seat belts and I wasn't speeding, so, really, why were we stopped?"

The newspaper also told the story of Mutima Peter, an immigrant from Congo and pastor of the African International Church, who said he was once questioned by an officer after parking his car. "When I got out, an officer asked me for my driving license and asked me who is the person I know in Portland," Mutima said. "I told him I know [Police Chief Michael] Chitwood and he said 'OK' and left. People said I should speak out, but this is a general thing for many people." Source: The Portland Press Herald

quote:
"I was like, 'Why are you guys handcuffing me about some tickets?' They had me standing outside with all these people passing by. It was so humiliating. I figured if I said anything, if I moved, that would just give them permission to beat me. And I did not want that to happen because I have a little boy."
� Karen, early thirties, licensed social worker

In Maryland, in 1997, Charles and Etta Carter, an elderly African American couple from Pennsylvania, were stopped by Maryland State Police on their 40th wedding anniversary. The troopers searched their car and brought in drug-sniffing dogs. During the course of the search, their daughter's wedding dress was tossed onto one of the police cars and, as trucks passed on I-95, it was blown to the ground. Mrs. Carter was not allowed to use the restroom during the search because police officers feared that she would flee. Their belongings were strewn along the highway, trampled and urinated on by the dogs. No drugs were found and no ticket was issued. The Carters eventually reached a settlement with the Maryland State Police. Source: The Daily Record

In 1998, Nelson Walker, a young Liberian man attending college in North Carolina, was driving along I-95 in Maryland when he was pulled over by state police who said he wasn't wearing a seatbelt. The officers detained him and his two passengers for two hours as they searched for illegal drugs, weapons, or other contraband. Finding nothing in the car, they proceeded to dismantle the car and removed part of a door panel, a seat panel and part of the sunroof. The officers found nothing and in the end handed Walker a screwdriver, saying, "You're going to need this," as they left the scene. Source: The Raleigh News-Observer

Gary D. Rodwell repeatedly refused to consent to a search of his vehicle when he was stopped for three hours on I-95 in 1998. He said that the officer threatened to arrest him and called in a canine unit to search the vehicle. When no drugs were found, the officer accused Rodwell of lying, took his keys and called a tow truck to impound the Pontiac Bonneville Rodwell was driving. Rodwell had to pay the tow truck driver to get his car back. He is now a part of a lawsuit brought by the ACLU of Maryland. Source: The Baltimore Sun

In Massachusetts, speaker after speaker, including black doctors and lawyers, testified before a legislative committee in April 1999 about being stopped by police officers, apparently because of the color of their skin. The speakers were supporting a bill that would require the state to collect traffic stop statistics to see if blacks were being stopped inordinately. "This is not a new thing for anyone that is black in this city," said Ajibola Osinubi, 44, a native of Nigeria who heads his own advertising and public relations firm in Boston. Source: Associated Press

Yawu Miller, a black reporter with the Bay State Banner, decided to find out how long two black men could drive at night in Brookline, a predominantly white community, before being pulled over by the police. It happened almost immediately. Three cruisers with flashing blue lights appeared in Miller's rear view mirror. One cruiser drew up along side Miller's car and asked, "Are you lost?" When Miller replied in the negative, the officer said, "You're from Roxbury. Any reason why you're driving around in circles?" Source: Bay State Banner

In Michigan last year invited officials African Americans and other minorities to air their grievances about police mistreatment at an all-day forum. Among those telling their stories was Alicia Smith of Oak Park, a 19-year-old African American who was driving to a movie with friends in her hometown when two white officers stopped her without explanation and asked where she was going. "There was no probable cause," said Smith, who wasn't ticketed. "It was just harassment."

Another African American woman told of her husband's experience of being stopped and warned about a "tilted license plate." Paul Worthy, a 59-year-old retiree, said he was stopped � and released without a ticket � by white officers in Detroit while driving a Cadillac. "I'm no criminal," Worthy told the Detroit News. "I worked at GM as a skilled tradesman for $25 an hour. I worked everyday just like that police officer did." Source: The Detroit News

In Nebraska, the Omaha Human Relations Board released a series of recommendations last year for improving relations between police and minority communities. Among the recommendations, the Omaha World-Herald reported, were that the Mayor's Office and City Council address complaints that police target minorities for traffic stops and subject them to other forms of harassment. Ron Estes, an African American firefighter, told of visiting a model home in a west Omaha subdivision. Although the homes were closed, Estes told the Human Relations Board that he spoke to a resident of the subdivision for about 30 minutes while sitting in his Chevrolet Blazer. A few days later, he stopped by his fire station to pick up his gear when he overheard an Omaha police officer asking other firefighters questions about his truck, which had a personalized license plate that read BSICBLK. Estes said he later learned that the subdivision resident he had talked with was a police officer who reported his visit as suspicious. Shortly thereafter, Estes bought a new personalized license plate. It reads SUSPECT. "That just lets you know how they look at us, as a threat, as a suspect, without even really knowing us," Estes said of some white police officers. Source: The Detroit News

In New Jersey in 1998, four young men � three African Americans and one Hispanic � en route to a basketball clinic in North Carolina were shot on the New Jersey Turnpike after their van was stopped for speeding and suspected drug trafficking. The men contend that they were not speeding, but were stopped because of their race. The two officers involved in the Turnpike shooting was subsequently indicted for falsely listing black motorists as white in their reports. Source: Emerge Magazine

In New York, Collie Brown was driving from Albany to Bethlehem with his young daughter asleep in the car in 1997 when he noticed that his headlights were dimming. He stopped the car and got out to see what was causing the problem. A Bethlehem police car pulled up behind him with its lights flashing, and the officer asked if he needed any help. When Brown replied that he did not need any assistance, the officer told him to get behind the car and proceeded to handcuff him. The officer informed Brown that the car had been reported as stolen, which was true. Brown had reported the car stolen many months earlier after it had been hot-wired in front of his home in Albany. The Albany police had recovered the car a week after it was reported stolen. At no point was Brown ever asked for his registration or driver's license prior to being handcuffed. The officer eventually retrieved Brown's wallet from the car and discovered that the car did belong to him, and Brown was released. Source: The Albany Times Union

In North Carolina, which recently became the first state in the nation to adopt legislation to help quantify the DWB problem, an analysis by the Raleigh News and Observer found that a highway drug unit ticketed black men at nearly twice the rate of other police units. In most cases, the newspaper reported, the drivers were charged with minor traffic violations and no drugs were found.

The story of Robert Gardner was typical. In 1995, Gardner was stopped while driving a 1990 Lexus on I-85. A laboratory technician at North Bronx Hospital in New York, Gardner was driving with his cousin to visit family in South Carolina when he was pulled over for speeding. The officer asked him to sit in the patrol car and peppered him with questions: Where are you going? What is your job? When are you going back? Then the officer went to Gardner's car and asked the same questions of his cousin, Sharon. He then got permission from Gardner to search his car.

"I thought he was just going to look in my glove compartment and trunk," Gardner said. But, he said, the officer opened the alarm system and compact disc player. He removed door panels, molding and seats. He let air out of the tires and rapped on them. Then he deflated the spare and bounced it on the road. He found nothing. Gardner told the newspaper that he left the scene with a $25 seat-belt ticket, an annoying vibration in his Lexus and the belief that he had been treated unfairly. "He claimed I was speeding, but never gave me a speeding ticket," Gardner said. "I think they stopped me because I'm black." Source: Raleigh News-Observer

In Pennsylvania, Jonny Gammage was pulled over while driving his cousin's Jaguar at 2 A.M. in 1996. As Gammage pulled over, a total of five Brentwood police cars arrived on the scene. One of the officers said that Gammage ran three red lights before stopping after the officer flashed his lights at him. The officer ordered Gammage out of the car and saw him grab something that was reportedly a weapon, but in reality was just a cellular phone. The officer knocked the phone out of Gammage's hand and a scuffle followed. The other officers beat Gammage with a flashlight, a collapsible baton and a blackjack as one put his foot on Gammage's neck. Jonny Gammage died, handcuffed, ankles bound, facedown on the pavement shortly after the incident began. He was unarmed. source: People Magazine

In Rhode Island, the Providence Journal-Bulletin reported last year that as far back as 1990, the Rhode Island ACLU has been investigating complaints from Hispanics that they were being unfairly targeted on I-95. At the time, U.S. attorney Lincoln Almond (now Governor of Rhode Island) claimed that Hispanics were dominating the cocaine and heroin trades in the United States and were defendants in more than 90 percent of drug cases.

A bill to explore whether minorities are targeted by police failed last year in the state legislature, but has been reintroduced. While the state police oppose the measure, saying it is a waste of their time, the Rhode Island ACLU and the Urban League of Rhode Island are aggressively lobbying for its passage. Source: Providence Journal-Bulletin

In Oregon, leaders of the State Police, along with 23 Portland-area police departments and police unions, recently signed a resolution taking a strong stand against race-based profiling. Portland Police Chief Charles Moose said the resolution was intended to reassure citizens that race-based policing would not be allowed.

Another chief, Ron Louie, told the Portland Oregonian that in his 25 years as a police officer, he's seen the hurt and resentment in the faces of minority motorists who feel they've been stopped because of their race. And as a Chinese American, he told the newspaper, he understands those feelings. "I know what it was like to be with a carload of kids in San Francisco," he said, "and get yanked over by police officers because we all had black hair."

LeRon Howland, the Oregon State Police Superintendent, said that the resolution means that "if you have a police officer out there who uses his badge for racially motivated conduct, it will not be tolerated by police agencies or the leadership of the unions." Source: The Portland Oregonian

In Oklahoma, the ACLU filed a lawsuit last month on behalf of Sgt. First Class Rossano V. Gerald, 37, and his son Gregory, 13, claiming violations of federal civil rights law and of their constitutional rights to equal treatment and to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. SFC Gerald, whose story is chronicled in the opening pages of this report, said he is bringing the lawsuit to assure his son that authority figures who abuse their power are brought to justice. "I'm an authority figure myself," said SFC Gerald, a career Army officer who received a Bronze Star for his outstanding performance in Desert Storm. "I don't want my son thinking for one minute that this kind of behavior by anyone in uniform is acceptable."

In South Carolina, La-Prell and Tammie Drumming were driving down a street in January 1999, when they noticed a vehicle closing in on their bumper. Moments later, a man with a baton was smashing 26-year-old La-Prell's car window and dousing her with pepper spray. "I absolutely feared for my life," said La-Prell, saying she suffered a concussion after being hit by the officer's baton three times. "You expect this kind of thing in Atlanta, but not in a small, quiet town like Aiken." The police officer, who was off-duty at the time of the incident, was fired by the Aiken Public Safety Department after the incident. Source: The Augusta Chronicle

In Tennessee, at a May 1999 meeting with the Nashville Human Relations Commission, Mansfield Douglas, a Metro councilman, reported that two months earlier he had been pulled over by a police officer in the very district he represents. "He told me there were a lot of people in this area driving without valid licenses and he wanted to make sure mine was valid," Douglas said. "There was no reason at all for him to have done that anyway. It really gives you a sense of outrage, but it can be stopped."

In Texas, a 1995 analysis of more than 16 million driving records by the Houston Chronicle found that minority drivers who strayed into the small white enclaves in and around the state's major urban areas were twice as likely as whites to be ticketed for traffic violations. The study found that Hispanics were ticketed most often, though blacks overall faced the sharpest disparities, particularly in the suburbs around Houston where they were more than three times as likely as whites to receive citations. Bellaire, a mostly white city surrounded by southwest Houston, had the widest disparity in ticketing minorities of any city statewide, with blacks 43 times more likely than whites to receive citations there. Source: The Houston Chronicle

In Wisconsin, a hearing in Madison in 1996 on the issue of racially biased traffic enforcement turned into an emotional outpouring, as African American residents shared accounts of harsh experiences with the Madison police. "It's a lot deeper than a ticket," Semell Williams told members of the city's Equal Opportunities Commission. Williams said that the previous summer he had been followed from the Darbo neighborhood by a convoy of police cars that grew to 11 by the time he was pulled over. Before the crowd that had gathered to watch, he was forced to lay face-down in the street as officers trained their guns at him. "Do you know how belittling that was?" asked Williams. "And to have 11 guns drawn on you for traveling through the city � I could have been dead." Although the police eventually gave him permission to leave, they offered no explanation or apology, nor was any citation issued. Source: Capital Times (Madison, WI)

THE DATA ARE IRREFUTABLE

To date, the ACLU has filed lawsuits challenging the police practice of racial profiling in eight states. The statistical evidence collected in the course of this litigation shows a clear pattern of racially discriminatory traffic stops and searches. In some instances, the law enforcement agency sued has denied the ACLU's allegations and has vigorously defended the lawsuit. But the numbers tell a different story. A detailed description of the data from three of the lawsuits is described below.

Chavez v. Illinois State Police

This class action lawsuit was originally filed in federal court in 1994 after the ACLU of Illinois received hundreds of complaints from black and Hispanic motorists who believed that the Illinois State Police were singling them out for highway drug searches. The case is still in litigation, and in April 1999, the ACLU submitted to the court several analyses completed by a team of statistical experts who analyzed databases maintained by the Illinois State Police. The experts concluded that state troopers, especially those assigned to a drug interdiction program called "Operation Valkyrie," singled out Hispanic motorists for enforcement of the traffic code:

A) While Hispanics comprise less than eight percent of the Illinois population, and take fewer than three percent of the personal vehicle trips in Illinois, they comprise approximately 30 percent of the motorists stopped by ISP drug interdiction officers for discretionary offenses such as failure to signal a lane change or driving one to four miles over the speed limit. For example, in ISP District 13, which covers seven counties southeast of St. Louis, Hispanics comprise less than one percent of the local driving-age population, yet they represent 29 percent of all people stopped by these officers for speeding less than five miles above the speed limit.

B) Troopers assigned to Valkyrie teams stop Hispanic motorists for traffic violations two or three times more frequently than other ISP troopers patrolling the same highways and charged with enforcing the same laws. This problem is particularly severe in the case of discretionary offenses such as failure to signal. One example is warnings for improper lane use in ISP District 17, where Hispanics comprise less than three percent of the local driving-age population. Hispanics make up 25 percent of the persons stopped by Valkyrie officers for the offense, while the rate for non-Valkyrie officers is only eight percent.

When it comes to searches of vehicles, the state's data did reflect the races of those searched. Analysis of the data reveals that the state troopers single out Hispanic and African Americans motorists for searches of their vehicles:

A) While Hispanics comprise less than eight percent of the Illinois population, and take fewer than three percent of the personal vehicle trips in Illinois, they comprise 27 percent of the searches conducted by Valkyrie officers. This problem is severe in many ISP districts. For example, in District 11, the area surrounding East St. Louis where Hispanics comprise less than one percent of the local driving-age population, they comprise 41 percent of the searches.

B) While African Americans comprise less than 15 percent of the Illinois population and take approximately 10 percent of the personal vehicle trips in Illinois, they comprise 23 percent of the searches conducted by Valkyrie officers. In District 4, where African-Americans comprise 24 percent of the local driving-age population, but are the targets of 63 percent of the searches.

C) While troopers ask a higher percentage of Hispanic motorists than white motorists for consent to search their vehicles, they find contraband in a lower percentage of the vehicles of Hispanic motorists. This demonstrates that searches are based on race, not results.

Minorities Stopped on Illinois Highways Based on field reports filed from 1987-1997

NAACP v. City of Philadelphia

In the early 1990's, the U.S. Justice Department began an investigation into the systematic abuse perpetrated by a number of white police officers in the 39th Police District of Philadelphia based on evidence that these officers were planting drugs on African Americans, assaulting them during arrest, and wrongfully obtaining their prosecution and conviction. Ultimately, six officers were tried, convicted and incarcerated for their criminal activities.

The ACLU of Pennsylvania believed that the problem in Philadelphia was considerably larger than the actions of six police officers, and that racial bias in law enforcement was rampant. Under threat of ACLU litigation, the city entered into negotiations which, for the first time in the country, required a detailed racial analysis of police data. A case filed in federal court resulted in a settlement which required the city to record information about all vehicle stops, including the reason for the stop, any police action taken, and the race of the driver stopped.

In July 1998, the ACLU issued its Fourth Monitoring Report: Pedestrian and Car Stop Audit. The report was based on data derived from all incident reports of car stops initiated by the Philadelphia police in four specific police districts during the week of October 6, 1997, and by the officers of the Narcotics Unit during the month of August, 1997.

The police districts chosen for analysis encompassed communities that are relatively integrated. The incident reports disclosed that where a reason is given for a car stop, in virtually all cases the precipitating event was an alleged traffic violation.

According to the 1995 census, Philadelphia's population is 42.2 percent African American, 54.1 percent Caucasian, and 19.6 percent Latino. The minority population that operates motor vehicles in Philadelphia is highly unlikely to be any greater than these numbers, and in all likelihood is less. The Philadelphia suburbs are predominantly white and many suburban drivers come into the city on a daily basis. Notwithstanding this and other possible factors, the ACLU assumed that driving patterns were consistent with population (by race).

Since there is no study or data that supports the view that racial minorities violate traffic laws in any greater number than whites, one would expect that traffic stops in Philadelphia would be largely consistent with the census race data, and that no more than 40-45 percent of the stops would be of African Americans and roughly no more than 60 percent of all minorities.

The data, however, reflect stops of minority drivers at a highly significant disparate rate. For the week of March 7, 1997, of the 516 incident reports which were generated pursuant to police car stops, 262 contain racial and/or ethnic data about the individual(s). Of these 262 stops, 85.9 percent were of minorities as shown below:

All Car Stops With Known Race of Suspect for the Week of March 7, 1997

Asian Afr. Am. Latino White Total
11 207 7 37 262
4.2% 79.0% 2.7% 14.1% 100.0%

With slightly twice as much data to work with for the week of October 6, 1997 (as a result of requesting incident reports from an additional district), of the 1,083 car stops, race was recorded for 524 instances. Of these 524 stops, 71.1 percent were of minorities as shown below:

All Car Stops with Known Race of Suspect for the Week of October 6, 1997

Asian Afr. Am. Latino White Total
14 233 125 152 524
2.7% 44.5% 23.9% 29.0% 100.0%

Wilkins v. Maryland State Police

In 1993, the ACLU brought a class-action lawsuit against the Maryland State Police (MSP) on behalf of Robert L. Wilkins, an African American attorney who was stopped, detained and searched by the MSP for no apparent reason. A court decree was entered in settlement of the lawsuit which included a requirement that the state maintain computer records of motorist searches so as to permit monitoring for any patterns of discrimination.

In November 1996, the ACLU of Maryland asked the court to hold the MSP agency in contempt of court on the grounds that the state police were violating the earlier court decree by continuing a pattern of race discrimination in drug interdiction activities carried out along the I-95 corridor. With the assistance of Dr. John Lamberth, a Temple University Professor of Psychology with extensive expertise in statistics, the ACLU presented the following analysis of its traffic survey to the court:

A. Traffic Survey Results

Five thousand, seven hundred and forty one cars were observed in a "rolling survey" designed to identify the race of the driver over the course of approximately 42 hours2. In the vast majority of cases, 96.8 percent, it was possible to identify the race of the driver of the vehicle. Nine hundred and seventy three, or 16.9 percent of the cars, had black drivers. Four thousand three hundred and forty one, or 75.6 percent of the cars, had white drivers. The great majority of drivers � 5,354 of 5,741, or 93.3 percent � were violating traffic laws and thus were eligible to be stopped by State Police. Of the violators, 17.5 percent were black, and 74.7 percent were white.

Between January 1995 and September 1996, the Maryland State Police reported searching 823 motorists on I-95, north of Baltimore. Of these, 600, or 72.9 percent, were black. Six hundred and sixty-one, or 80.3 percent, were black, Hispanic, or other racial minorities. Only 19.7 percent of those searched in this corridor were white. Most of the I-95 searches � 646, or 85.4 percent � were conducted by 13 troopers.

Based on his analysis of the data, Professor Lamberth concluded:

"The evidence examined in this study reveals dramatic and highly statistically significant disparities between the percentage of black Interstate 95 motorists legitimately subject to stop by Maryland State Police and the percentage of black motorists detained and searched by MSP troopers on this roadway. While no one can know the motivations of each individual trooper in conducting a traffic stop, the statistics presented herein, representing a broad and detailed sample of highly appropriate data, show without question a racially discriminatory impact on blacks and other minority motorists from state police behavior along I-95."

THE PERSONAL AND SOCIETAL COSTS

quote:
"When I see cops today, I don't feel like I'm protected. I'm thinking, 'Oh shoot, are they gonna pull me over, are they gonna stop me?' That's my reaction. I do not feel safe around cops."
� Emmanuel, early 30's, financial services executive

Race-based traffic stops turn one of the most ordinary and quintessentially American activities into an experience fraught with danger and risk for people of color. Because traffic stops can happen anywhere and anytime, millions of African Americans and Latinos alter their driving habits in ways that would never occur to most white Americans. Some completely avoid places like all-white suburbs, where they fear police harassment for looking "out of place." Some intentionally drive only bland cars or change the way they dress. Others who drive long distances even factor in extra time for the traffic stops that seem inevitable.

Perhaps the personal cost exacted by racially-biased traffic stops is clearest in the instructions given by minority parents to their children on how to behave if they are stopped by police, regardless of economic background or geographic region. African American parents know that traffic stops can lead to physical, even deadly, confrontations. Karen, a social worker, says that when her young son begins to drive, she knows what she'll tell him:

"The police are supposed to be there to protect and to serve, but you being black and being male, you've got two strikes against you. Keep your hands on the steering wheel, and do not run, because they will shoot you in your back. Let them do whatever they want to do. I know it's humiliating, but let them do whatever they want to do to make sure you get out of that situation alive. Deal with your emotions later. Your emotions are going to come second � or last."

quote:
Each one of those stops had nothing to do with breaking the law. It's like somebody pulls your pants down around your ankles. You're standing there nude, but you've got to act like there's nothing happening. The worst thing you can do in a situation like that is to become emotionally engaged, because if you do something, maybe they're going to do something else to you. It doesn't make a difference who you are. You're never beyond this, because of the color of your skin."
� Michael, 41, chief executive of municipal agency

Christopher Darden, the African American prosecutor in the O.J. Simpson case, says that to survive traffic stops, he "learned the rules of the game years before... Don't move. Don't turn around. Don't give some rookie an excuse to shoot you." The perspective of Mr. Darden � who spent 14 years working closely with police to prosecute accused criminals � is not unique. And for people of color, it continues to be reinforced by far too many real-life experiences.

Widespread DWB practices deeply undermine the legitimacy � and, therefore, the effectiveness � of the criminal justice system. Pretextual traffic stops fuel the belief that the police are not only unfair and biased, but untruthful as well. Each pretextual traffic stop involves an untruth, and both the officer and the driver recognize this. The alleged traffic infraction is not the real reason that the officer has stopped the driver. This becomes obvious when the officer asks the driver whether he or she is carrying drugs or guns and seeks consent to search the car. If the stop was really about enforcement of the traffic code, there would be no need for a search. Stopping a driver for a traffic offense when the officer's real purpose is drug interdiction is a lie � a legally sanctioned one, to be sure, but a lie nonetheless.

What happens when law enforcement embraces a tactic that is based on the systematic and transparent deception of overwhelmingly innocent people? And, what happens when that tactic is employed primarily against people of color? It should surprise no one that those who are the victims of police discrimination regard the testimony and statements of police with suspicion. If jurors don't believe truthful police testimony, crimes are left unpunished, law enforcement becomes much less effective, and the very people who need the police most are left less protected.

Pretext stops capture some who are guilty but at an unacceptably high societal cost. The practice undermines public confidence in law enforcement, erodes the legitimacy of the criminal justice system, and makes police work that much more difficult and dangerous.

PUTTING AN END TO RACIAL PROFILING

Although this decades-old problem cannot be solved overnight, it is time to launch an all-out frontal assault on DWB. The ACLU calls on the U.S. Justice Department, law enforcement officials and state and federal legislators to join us in a comprehensive, five-part battle plan against the scourge of racial profiling.

FIRST: End the use of pretext stops

Virtually all of the thousands of complaints received by the ACLU about DWB � and every recent case and scandal in this area � seem to involve the use of traffic stops for non-traffic purposes, usually drug interdiction. Although the U.S. Supreme Court failed to declare searches subsequent to a pretextual stop unconstitutional, that does not mean that such a tactic is wise or effective from a law enforcement perspective.

It is time for law enforcement professionals to use their own best professional judgment in scrutinizing the wisdom of the pretextual stop tactic. All the evidence to date suggests that using traffic laws for non-traffic purposes has been a disaster for people of color and has deeply eroded public confidence in law enforcement. Using minor traffic violations to find drugs on the highways is like asking officers to find needles in a haystack. In 1997 California Highway Patrol canine units stopped nearly 34,000 vehicles. Only two percent of them were carrying drugs. Law enforcement decisions based on hunches rather than evidence are going to suffer from racial stereotyping, whether conscious or unconscious.

SECOND: Pass the Traffic Stops Statistics Study Act

At the beginning of the 105th Congress, Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) introduced H.R. 118, the Traffic Stops Statistics Act, requiring the collection of several
categories of data on each traffic stop, including the race of the driver and whether a search was performed. The Attorney General would then conduct a study analyzing the data. This would be the first nationwide, statistically rigorous study of these practices. The idea behind the bill was that if the study confirmed what people of color have experienced for years, it would put to rest the idea that African Americans and other people of color are exaggerating isolated anecdotes into a social problem. Congress and other bodies might then begin to take concrete steps to channel police discretion more appropriately.

quote:
Do you know how belittling that was? And to have 11 guns drawn on you for traveling through the city � I could've been dead."
� Semell, 25, salesman

The Act passed the House of Representatives in March of 1998 by a unanimous vote and was then referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee, but the Committee never voted on the measure or held any hearings.

In April 1999, Congressman Conyers reintroduced the Traffic Stops Statistics Study Act (HR 1443), sponsored in the Senate (S.821) by Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) and Russell Feingold (D-WI). Passage of the Act should be viewed as a first step toward addressing a difficult problem. While it does not regulate traffic stops, set standards for them, or require implementation of particular policies, it does require the gathering of solid, comprehensive information, so that discussion of the problem might move beyond the question of whether or not the problem exists, to the question of how to fix the problem.

THIRD: Pass Legislation on Traffic Stops in Every State

Even if the Traffic Stop Statistics Study Act does not become federal law, it has already inspired action at the state and local level. The ACLU calls upon legislators in every state to pass laws that will allow the practice of traffic enforcement to be statistically monitored on an ongoing basis.

In North Carolina, a bill requiring data collection on all traffic stops was passed by overwhelming majorities in both houses of the state legislature and signed into law by the governor on April 21, 1999. This became the first law anywhere in the nation to require the kind of effort that will yield a full, detailed statistical portrait of the use of traffic stops.

Similar bills have been introduced in Pennsylvania, Illinois, Virginia, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Maryland, Arkansas, Texas, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Florida, and California. Efforts are under way in a number of other states to have bills introduced this year.

FOURTH: The Justice Department Must Take Steps to Ensure that Racial Profiling is Not Used in Federally Funded Drug Interdiction Programs

quote:
I'd be having lawsuits ad nauseam at me... If we're the 'good ol' boys,' some people make us out to be... they should look at the statistics."
� Col. David B. Mitchell, Maryland State Police Superintendent (The Washington Post 5/5/98)

The U.S. Department of Justice has a moral and legal responsibility to ensure that Operation Pipeline, and every other federally funded crime fighting program, is not encouraging or perpetuating racially biased law enforcement. Drug interdiction goals � important as they may be � do not outweigh the government's obligation to root out racially discriminatory law enforcement practices. Attorney General Reno has stated it is "very important to pursue legislation" on data collection. But to date, the Justice Department has not taken a position on the pending federal bills. The Justice Department should actively support the passage of the federal Traffic Stops Statistics Study Act and take the following additional steps:

Restrict future federal funding for Operation Pipeline and other highway drug interdiction programs to local, state and federal agencies that agree to collect and report comprehensive race data on who they stop and who they search.

Conduct a systematic and independent review of Operation Pipeline and all other drug interdiction training programs supported directly or indirectly with any federal funding, to root out any implicit or explicit racial references that encourage improper profiling.

Restrict future federal funding for Operation Pipeline and other highway drug interdiction programs to agencies that agree to implement a series of preventive measures, such as an early warning system that tracks officer behavior and identifies officers who engage in discriminatory practices, a ban on extending the length of a non-consensual traffic stop in order to have drug-sniffing dogs brought to the scene, and the use of written "consent to search" forms that inform drivers of their right to refuse consent to a search.

FIFTH: The 50 Largest U.S. Cities Should Voluntarily Collect Traffic Stop Data

Jerry Sanders, San Diego's Chief of Police, announced in February of this year that his department would begin to collect race data on traffic stops without any federal or state requirement or any threat of litigation. In March, Chief William Lansdowne of the San Jose Police Department announced that his department would follow suit, and in April, Portland Police Chief Charles Moose spearheaded an anti-profiling resolution signed by 23 Oregon police agencies � including the State Police � that included a commitment to gather traffic stop data.

These efforts should be replicated in all 50 of the largest cities in the U.S.

CONCLUSION

In April of this year, the ACLU of Northern California established a statewide toll-free hotline for victims of discriminatory traffic stops. The hotline number has been publicized on billboards and through a 60-second radio spot. In the first forty-eight hours, the hotline received 200 calls. As of this writing, the count stands at over 1,400.

In mid-May, the national ACLU set up a nationwide DWB hotline � 1-877-6-PROFILE. Although the number is just beginning to be publicized through an ad in Emerge magazine and the airing of a radio public service announcement, the calls have started to pour in.

Although some police officials are still in denial, we have presented strong and compelling evidence, of both an anecdotal and statistical nature, that racial profiling on our nation's roads and highways is indeed a nationwide problem. As such, it demands a nationwide solution.

The ACLU will continue to monitor incidents of racial profiling closely and will, where appropriate, bring new cases to court. But elected and police officials would be wise to act sooner rather than later. The steps towards a solution are clear:

End the use of pretext stops as a crime-fighting tactic;
Pass the Traffic Stops Statistics Study Act;
Pass remedial legislation in every state;
Ban racial profiling in all federally funded drug interdiction programs;
Collect city-by-city traffic stop data on a voluntary basis.

ENDNOTES

Because the races of those stopped were not recorded by the Illinois State Police, this analysis was performed by calculating the incidence of Hispanic surnames among those who were stopped. This data cannot be analyzed for African Americans since they do not comprise a cohesive set of surnames.

Observers rode in cars at a constant 55 or 65 miles per hour (depending upon the posted speed limit) northbound from exit 67 of I-95 to the last exit in Maryland, exit 109. They were instructed to count the cars they passed (i.e., non-speeders) and classify them as non-violators, unless they were violating some other traffic law. They were also to classify each car as to the race of its driver.

Credits

This report has been prepared by the American Civil Liberties Union, a nationwide, nonpartisan organization of 275,000 members dedicated to preserving and defending the principles set forth in the Bill of Rights.

Driving While Black: Racial Profiling on our Nation's Highways was written by David Harris, Professor of Law at the University of Toledo College of Law. Professor Harris has authored numerous scholarly articles on the subjects of racial profiling and search and seizure. He is currently working with Members of Congress and state legislators throughout the country on solutions to the problem of "driving while black."

Additional reporting was provided by John Crew, Director of the Police Practices Project of the ACLU of Northern California; Phil Gutis, Director of Legislative Communications for the ACLU Washington National Office; Loren Siegel, Director of Public Education for the ACLU; and Emily Whitfield, Media Relations Director for the ACLU.

Prepared by the Department of Public Education, Loren Siegel, Director; Rozella Floranz Kennedy, Editorial and Marketing Manager; Sara Glover, Graphic Designer.

American Civil Liberties Union 125 Broad Street
New York, NY 10004
(212) 549-2500

122 Maryland Avenue, N.E.
Washington, D.C. 20002
(202) 544-1681

Nadine Strossen
President

Ira Glasser
Executive Director

Kenneth B. Clark
Chair, National Advisory Council

ACLU & Racial Profiling

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Star Trek Gamma Quadrant
Average Rated 8.32 out of 10 Smileys by Fabrux (with seven eps posted)
***
"Oh, yes, screw logic, let's go for a theory with no evidence!"
-Omega 11:48am, Jan. 19th, 2001
***
"I think this reason why girls don't do well on multiple choice tests goes all the way back to the Bible, all the way back to Genesis, Adam and Eve. God said, 'All right, Eve, multiple choice or multiple orgasms, what's it going to be?' We all know what was chosen" - Rush Limbaugh, Feb. 23, 1994.

Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :

I feel obliged to apologize to people for the length of that post. However, I don't think racial profiling can be just pushed away as easily as First of Two suggests.

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Star Trek Gamma Quadrant
Average Rated 8.32 out of 10 Smileys by Fabrux (with seven eps posted)
***
"Oh, yes, screw logic, let's go for a theory with no evidence!"
-Omega 11:48am, Jan. 19th, 2001
***
"I think this reason why girls don't do well on multiple choice tests goes all the way back to the Bible, all the way back to Genesis, Adam and Eve. God said, 'All right, Eve, multiple choice or multiple orgasms, what's it going to be?' We all know what was chosen" - Rush Limbaugh, Feb. 23, 1994.

Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :

That was very interesting, though even I can't help but wonder whether any of the cases cited were investigated to see if anyone stopped matched in some way suspects the police were on the look out for.

But now I�ve brought Star Trek into it again, haven�t I. Sorry."

- James Lileks, 09/04/2001

Posted by MC Infinity (Member # 531) on :

Jeff, I am on your side and I appreciate your comments, and I apologize, but I really can't read all that

Racial Profiling is a problem, it may happen to be efficient, but it is also discriminatory. This IS people we're talking about, not correllations in data.

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"Well if it's gonna be that kind of a party, I'm putting my dick in the mashed potatoes!"

-Nimrod 16/4/2001

Posted by First of Two (Member # 16) on :

Riddle me this, then...

Is it considered 'racial profiling' when a decision is made to admit a person to college based upon their race? And if not, why not?

Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :

Er, are there actually colleges in the US that discriminate against students based on skin colour?

Posted by First of Two (Member # 16) on :

Of course. I know of several cases in which people were denied entry to a college because of their skin color. They even had higher QPA's and SAT scores than the people who WERE admitted.

Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :

Isn't that all affirmative action is, racial profiling to attempt to integrate businesses, educational institutions, and the government.

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"One's ethics are determined by what we do when no one is looking" Nugget
Star Trek: Gamma Quadrant
Star Trek: Legacy
Read them, rate them, got money, film them

"...and I remain on the far side of crazy, I remain the mortal enemy of man, no hundred dollar cure will save me..." WoV

Posted by The_Tom (Member # 38) on :

11,565 words. I think we have to start keeping records.

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"I can be creative when I have a good idea. That just happens way too rarely."
-Omega, April 6

Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :

You know, it's sometimes very easy to forget that the civil rights movement happened in the US, for all the good it did.

How do they know the skin colour of the applicants? From my hazy memory of filling in my UCAS form (UK university application), I don't think it asked for your skin colour. Or a photo.

[This message has been edited by PsyLiam (edited April 18, 2001).]

Posted by Epoch (Member # 136) on :

Actually they do ask for what you are ie. Caucasion, Asian, Hispanic,...
Right or not they do it.

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God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the weaponry to make the difference.

Posted by Vacuum robot lady from Spaceballs (Member # 239) on :

I think the simple solution to all this is don't be black.

-Edward Gibbons, The Decline and Fall of The Roman Empire.

Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :

The_Tom, it's extremely scary that you counted all of those words ...

There's a difference between Racial Profiling and Affirmative Action. The difference being that Racial Profiling is the continued perpetuation of racism against blacks and hispanics; while Affirmative Action is an attempt to heal the wounds of racism in this country.

Personally, I think Affirmative Action was needed, but it's time has mostly gone (although, I think companies and schools which still practice racism -- Texaco, Bob Jones University -- could still benefit from it). As I understand it, it's been abolished in California already. It's also time to take the "Mark Your Race" off all these forms, and abolish the practice that certain schools (etc.) have of including a photo of yourself.

At the same time, I think it's very short sighted of people to chastise women and minorities for the economic dislocation of white men.

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Star Trek Gamma Quadrant
Average Rated 8.32 out of 10 Smileys by Fabrux (with seven eps posted)
***
"Oh, yes, screw logic, let's go for a theory with no evidence!"
-Omega 11:48am, Jan. 19th, 2001
***
"I think this reason why girls don't do well on multiple choice tests goes all the way back to the Bible, all the way back to Genesis, Adam and Eve. God said, 'All right, Eve, multiple choice or multiple orgasms, what's it going to be?' We all know what was chosen" - Rush Limbaugh, Feb. 23, 1994.

[This message has been edited by JeffKardde (edited April 18, 2001).]

Posted by MC Infinity (Member # 531) on :

What if you are extremely ugly? People are gonna wanna know before they let you in.
Just kidding on that last one.
As for The_Tom I beleive(and hope) that he used MS Word's Word Count for that, instead of counting all the words himself

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"Well if it's gonna be that kind of a party, I'm putting my dick in the mashed potatoes!"

-Nimrod 16/4/2001

Posted by The_Tom (Member # 38) on :

Infinity guessed right, I'm afraid.
Reports of my boredom have been greatly exaggerated.

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"I can be creative when I have a good idea. That just happens way too rarely."
-Omega, April 6

Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :

Isn't that all affirmative action is, racial profiling to attempt to integrate businesses, educational institutions, and the government.

Of course, Ritten, but you have to realize that the system is racist. See, there don't have to be racist PEOPLE in the system for the system to be racist, and thus creating another racist system to combat an existing one is "OK".

JK:

Then we agree that police need to held responsible when they use excessive force.

Of course we do. That is not the issue. The issue is that we don't know whether the officer in this situation did, in fact, use excessive force, all your statements to the contrary notwithstanding. We know nothing, and until we do, we won't know the appropriate remedy.

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"Omega is right."
-Jeff Karrde, March 18, 2001 08:47 PM

Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :

Affirmative action is under attack. The backlash against meaningful efforts to achieve full citizenship for all Americans that first arose in the early 1970s has been fueled anew by a combustible mix of changing demographics, political exploitation of racial tensions and economic instability. Early contenders in next year's Presidential race have been strident in their criticisms of affirmative action. Voters in California will probably confront a ballot initiative in 1996 to repeal all affirmative action laws in that state. And even the United States Supreme Court, formerly the principal architect of this legal remedy for discrimination, has issued decisions in recent years that diminish its role in correcting the pervasive underrepresentation of women and people of color in many spheres of education and the world of work.

Nevertheless, opinion surveys show that most Americans still support the goal of equal opportunity in employment and education. A recent Gallup poll showed that 73 percent of Americans approve of companies making conscientious efforts to identify and recruit qualified women and people of color. Clearly, then, during the years that we have lived with affirmative action, we have learned its lessons. Most Americans now understand that discrimination is wrong. All people deserve equal access to the means of fulfilling their potential, and equal opportunity to be judged solely on their abilities and on "the content of their character."

Affirmative action is not a "quota" system, not "preferential treatment," not a club for bludgeoning employers and educational institutions into accepting unqualified workers and students. It's a strategy for curing what ails our society's institutions, which are still plagued with discriminatory attitudes and practices that exclude millions of qualified and deserving people from the American mainstream. Affirmative action is an instrument of inclusion, a means of bringing all Americans into society's mainstream as equal competitors in the race of life.

Affirmative action is still needed. Although women and people of color have come a long way in the decades since the Civil Rights Act was passed, discrimination persists. In 1991, President Bush and Congress appointed a 21-member Federal Glass Ceiling Commission to identify barriers that block the advancement of women and people of color into decision making positions. In March, the commission reported back: "Today's American labor force is gender and race segregated -- white men fill most top management positions in corporations."

Affirmative action does not penalize white males. Fairness requires ending biased practices, not perpetuating them, and that includes ending the unjust advantages traditionally enjoyed by whites and white men. The conscientious effort to hire or admit women and people of color is a way for employers and schools to break their habit of favoring whites and males, and a way to facilitate the transition to nondiscriminatory practices. Restructuring a discriminatory status quo to create a nondiscriminatory environment isn't "reverse discrimination," but it may feel that way because something is being lost: White people are losing the favoritism they so long enjoyed in a system that discriminated on the basis of color and sex.

--The ACLU

A few years old. But I think it makes a good point. Awww, we're poor white males. Awww, we don't get everything as easily as we used to. Let's scream about racism and throw a fit.

::sigh::

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Star Trek Gamma Quadrant
Average Rated 8.32 out of 10 Smileys by Fabrux (with seven eps posted)
***
"Oh, yes, screw logic, let's go for a theory with no evidence!"
-Omega 11:48am, Jan. 19th, 2001
***
"I think this reason why girls don't do well on multiple choice tests goes all the way back to the Bible, all the way back to Genesis, Adam and Eve. God said, 'All right, Eve, multiple choice or multiple orgasms, what's it going to be?' We all know what was chosen" - Rush Limbaugh, Feb. 23, 1994.

[This message has been edited by JeffKardde (edited April 19, 2001).]

Posted by First of Two (Member # 16) on :

Let's postulate a high-stakes, very competitive game. For humor's sake, let's call it Gonzo Wizzard Game. It requires skill, planning, and coordination.

Let's assume that if you've been playing hard, for a long time, and are especially talented at it, you become a Gonzo Wizzard Game Master. And there's a limited number of Gonzo Wizzard Game Master spots available.

If every (or almost every) Gonzo Wizzard Game Master was left handed, would we assume that the Gonzo Wizzard Gamer's Association was prejudiced against right-handers, or would we assume that left-handers tend to be BETTER Gonzo Wizzard Game players?

And suppose someone then created "new Rules" to "force" the promotion to Gonzo Wizzard Game Master of some right-handed players, whether or not they are as qualified as the left-handed Gonzo Wizzard Game Masters.

Would that increase or decrease the quality of the game? And is it entirely unreasonable to assume that the left-handed players would see something wrong about that? And would that solution REALLY serve to improve the playing skills of the right-handers?

[This message has been edited by First of Two (edited April 19, 2001).]

Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :

Ah. So, since Texaco's upper management were all white male, one might assume that only white males were suited for the position? Even though I remember a scandal where racism was shown to be employed by Texaco's high-ups to promote whites and keep blacks "in their place." Remember that? Just a couple of years ago that was. Pretending racism in the workplace doesn't exist is ... well, imaginative.

"Awww ... I'm a white male. Society wants to make blacks and hispanics and women equal to me. Boo-hoo."

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Star Trek Gamma Quadrant
Average Rated 8.32 out of 10 Smileys by Fabrux (with seven eps posted)
***
"Oh, yes, screw logic, let's go for a theory with no evidence!"
-Omega 11:48am, Jan. 19th, 2001
***
"I think this reason why girls don't do well on multiple choice tests goes all the way back to the Bible, all the way back to Genesis, Adam and Eve. God said, 'All right, Eve, multiple choice or multiple orgasms, what's it going to be?' We all know what was chosen" - Rush Limbaugh, Feb. 23, 1994.

Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :

No, no, they're already equal, by virtue of their creation. Society (or rather, the liberals that think that they're mainstream) wants to make them superior. Unacceptable.

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"Omega is right."
-Jeff Karrde, March 18, 2001 08:47 PM

Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :

No, no, they're already equal, by virtue of their creation. Society (or rather, the liberals that think that they're mainstream) wants to make them superior. Unacceptable.

That is the stupidest, most ignorant -- most racist -- remark I've ever heard.

Equal by creation? Gee, now, if racism didn't exist, that would be a valid response. You ignore basic human nature, you also ignore the fact that blacks didn't gain their civil rights by vitue of God "creating" them. Do you ignore slavery, now? Social liberals in government (JFK & LBJ lead among them) fought for those rights. Liberals in the community -- Martin Luther King, jr., lead among them -- fought for those rights.

You think the system of segregation in the South would be gone now if NOT for the intervention of the government to ensure that it ended? You think U. Miss's medical school would've admitted certain black students if not for Government intervention? Maybe you remember when US Marshalls stood armed guard to protect a black student against whom U. Miss had REFUSED to admit based on the color of his skin.

Interesting, isn't it? For centuries, white males have been superior throughout the world. This country fought a civil war to begin to change that. But it wasn't until the 1960's that true change began. And now that the white male is no longer quite so superior, who is that cries that they are being surpressed? Why, the white male. Intriguing, is it not? No longer king of the hill, no longer looking only to other white males to provide competition, but also to blacks, Hispanics, Asians, and women!

Why do you cry so loudly about equality, Omega? 'Fraid you won't get a job when you graduate college?

Affirmative Action did what it was supposed to. It's pushed assimilation of minorities within the workplace. Is it time for it to go? Leave that up to the individual states.

But to pretend that it wasn't needed is ludicrious.

Are rights equal? In law, yes. In practice? Not yet. But we're a hell of a lot closer. And it hasn't been thanks to fundies like you.

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Star Trek Gamma Quadrant
Average Rated 8.32 out of 10 Smileys by Fabrux (with seven eps posted)
***
"Oh, yes, screw logic, let's go for a theory with no evidence!"
-Omega 11:48am, Jan. 19th, 2001
***
"I think this reason why girls don't do well on multiple choice tests goes all the way back to the Bible, all the way back to Genesis, Adam and Eve. God said, 'All right, Eve, multiple choice or multiple orgasms, what's it going to be?' We all know what was chosen" - Rush Limbaugh, Feb. 23, 1994.

[This message has been edited by JeffKardde (edited April 19, 2001).]

Posted by MC Infinity (Member # 531) on :

You shouldn't blame Omega, it's not his fault he's that way. Infact most people like being that way, it makes them feel secure and superior. Just because they are being mean to everyone else thorough their actions and statements, that doesn't mean that they will stop, or that they WANT to stop.

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"Well if it's gonna be that kind of a party, I'm putting my dick in the mashed potatoes!"

-Nimrod 16/4/2001

Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :

::shrug::

Quite true. But when Omega wants to hold on to insane views, I feel obligated to point them out to him.

Honestly, the guy must've ignored all of American history to believe people have been treated equally irregardless of skin color! Did he forget slavery, segregation? Equal rights didn't just appear when people were born, they were fought for. And now that they've been won ...

Well, let's make sure they don't get lost again.

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Star Trek Gamma Quadrant
Average Rated 8.32 out of 10 Smileys by Fabrux (with seven eps posted)
***
"Oh, yes, screw logic, let's go for a theory with no evidence!"
-Omega 11:48am, Jan. 19th, 2001
***
"I think this reason why girls don't do well on multiple choice tests goes all the way back to the Bible, all the way back to Genesis, Adam and Eve. God said, 'All right, Eve, multiple choice or multiple orgasms, what's it going to be?' We all know what was chosen" - Rush Limbaugh, Feb. 23, 1994.

Posted by First of Two (Member # 16) on :

Actually, it could be easily argued that the "Rich White Boys" in power GAVE the rights away because it was inconvenient to fight a war on two fronts (Vietnam and at home.) Really, they didn't have to. It wasn't out of altruism that they did it. It was political expedience.

FORTUNATE expedience, since to go the other way WOULD have been to deny everything that the US stood for, and since without it, such a war might very well have happened. If it hadn't been for Vietnam, it might have turned out differently. In the US's fear of the 'Red Menace' it had already begun a slide in that direction.

It's interesting when we talk about 'superior' and 'inferior,' since they're such subjective terms.

Certainly, most other cultures would be GLAD to have our problems, don't you think?

I mean, this could be Rwanda. Or the Congo. Or Albania. Or Tibet. Or Afghanistan. Or Kashmir.

You know, it WAS dead white males who came UP with 'all men are created equal' as a workable concept, even if we DO have some problems keeping it an ideal. Everywhere the idea sprang up since, it has done so because of OUR influence, and the last time it was tried before here was ancient Greece.

Posted by The_Tom (Member # 38) on :

Yeah, but while the US was quick off the mark, it fell behind almost immediately. The British Empire was probably more egalitarian than the US by the 1850s, and it didn't even have one-of-those life-saving Constitution thingies.

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"I can be creative when I have a good idea. That just happens way too rarely."
-Omega, April 6

Posted by Epoch (Member # 136) on :

One thing I find funny about all this talk of affirmative action is that a year ago on my college campus there was a rally/discussion about how affirmative action is really nothing more then government passed racism. The leaders of this rally said that this was racism because it was saying that blacks are not good enough to get jobs themselvs so they have to rely on laws to give them jobs.

I personally believe that it really is necessary to have AA out there, not because I don't think they can't get their own jobs but because there are people out there who still base everything on the color of your skin.

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God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the weaponry to make the difference.

Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :

Yeah, how many? A few thousand? Not enough to make it worth violating the rights of everyone else. I want to be judged on my MERITS, not on the color of my skin. You libs out there don't seem to grasp this basic concept: the government's job is NOT to eliminate existing unfairness. The government's duty is to ensure basic rights, and treat everyone fairly itself. Beyond that, what I do is not any of its, or your, business. The basis of AA, the basis of "progressive" tax schemes, the basis of "slavery reperations", is always the idea that certain people need to be treated differently to obtain the same result. Well, fellas, that's called communism, and it don't work. Deal with it.

Yeah, I'm whining that I'm not being treated fairly. You know why? Because I'M NOT! Look at it this way:

Say my grandfather owned a business. Say he needs someone to do a job. Say a black man and a white man apply for this job, and that the black man is far more qualified. Yet, my grandfather hires the white man, simply because of his race. This would be called racism, no?

Now, say the tables are reversed. I'm applying for a job, for which I am well-qualified. A black person, not nearly as qualified, applies for the same job. The black person gets the job, simply because of his race. It's the EXACT SAME SITUATION, so why would you not call this racism as well?

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"Omega is right."
-Jeff Karrde, March 18, 2001 08:47 PM

Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :

It's amazing how upset people get about a program designed to attempt to right the inequalities of the past. It truly fascinates me to NO end.

First of Two: it should also be noted that those people who came up with "all men equal" also had no problem not abolishing slavery right then and there. And, er, Thomas Jefferson was a slave owner, no? I think what they meant was all white men are created equal, and we in more modern times have expanded that.

Please, Omega, do you have studies to back up what you're saying? And I don't mean, "Hi, I'm Frank, and I'm against Affirmative Action because some nigger got my job and we all know he don't know right from left, so it's unfair."

Look, I think you're under the mistaken impression that just because the Civil Rights Act passed, that all of a sudden minorities started being treated equally just sort of happened. It didn't! You think some CEO is going to start hiring black people just because some "damn libs" passed a law giving 'em equal rights? HELL no. So the Government went in, and said, "hey, buddy, listen up. This is whatcher gonna do, and yer gonna like it."

Affirmative Action has, for the most part, done it's job. Minorities are in positions previously held only by white males! I have yet to hear anything bad about AA that's not personal influence: "Well, they passed me up for the promotion and gave it to some woman 'cuz they needed to fill their quota." Well, can you prove that? Or are you just trying to cover up for your own inadequecies on the job? Got any reliable studies on this, Omega?

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Star Trek Gamma Quadrant
Average Rated 8.32 out of 10 Smileys by Fabrux (with seven eps posted)
***
"Oh, yes, screw logic, let's go for a theory with no evidence!"
-Omega 11:48am, Jan. 19th, 2001
***
"I think this reason why girls don't do well on multiple choice tests goes all the way back to the Bible, all the way back to Genesis, Adam and Eve. God said, 'All right, Eve, multiple choice or multiple orgasms, what's it going to be?' We all know what was chosen" - Rush Limbaugh, Feb. 23, 1994.

Posted by The_Tom (Member # 38) on :

quote:
You libs out there don't seem to grasp this basic concept: the government's job is NOT to eliminate existing unfairness. The government's duty is to ensure basic rights, and treat everyone fairly itself. Beyond that, what I do is not any of its, or your, business. The basis of AA, the basis of "progressive" tax schemes, the basis of "slavery reperations", is always the idea that certain people need to be treated differently to obtain the same result. Well, fellas, that's called communism, and it don't work. Deal with it.

Says who? Limbaugh? Bush? Reagan? Jefferson? God Almighty?

Can anyone?

*gets out his broadsword*
Omega, I hereby dub you unqualified to make blanket statements such as that.

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"I can be creative when I have a good idea. That just happens way too rarely."
-Omega, April 6

Posted by Vacuum robot lady from Spaceballs (Member # 239) on :

This is it, I think (repeated, for emphasis):

Say a black man and a white man apply for this job, and that the black man is far more qualified. Yet, my grandfather hires the white man, simply because of his race. This would be called racism, no?
Now, say the tables are reversed. I'm applying for a job, for which I am well-qualified. A black person, not nearly as qualified, applies for the same job. The
black person gets the job, simply because of his race. It's the EXACT SAME SITUATION, so why would you not call this racism as well?

Unless there's some seeming underlying hidden 'Guns For All' message embedded in this, I'd have to agree. Not with Omega, but these sentences.

Your forefathers (And mine too, perhaps, even though I only have one), mistreated black peoples and violated human rights. Undeniable fact, assuming you're not a historical revisionist.

The Civil Rights movement, to the best of my knowledge, (Which isn't astounding, consisting of how to make cheese puffs, why frolicking naked in the rain is bad, and to stay away from the Man Train) was an effort to bring recognition of rights of minorities, to the majority (being the white man).

By equal, the assumption is made that decisions and such matters aren't to be made by racial distinction. Yet, apparently we do have work quotas and student quotas and any number of other quotas for any number of things.

I would argue that programs like Affirmative Action create special status for minorities and while I disdain using buzzwords, equal employment opportunities , in theory, are a tremendous practice. However, to use an example, Say I were running a business called SleepSheep, creating inflatable sheep novelty toys for farmers and Charles. I want to hire 10 people. I look at 10 resumes and pick the ten best applicants. They are all white. Or all Black. Am I racist? Should I lower the quality of my product by allowing the second-best candidates in, because they're black, or because they're white?

I would imagine that quality of the SleepSheep would be the top concern.

Equal Employment Opportunities to me, mean that the best people get the best jobs. Logical, I believe.

(I understand and am aware of the parallel argument to this; that of black children perhaps not getting proper education, due to their situation. That is another can, presumably filled with worms.)

Slavery isn't alive and well in the Free World today. Racism is, undoubtledly, but not as proficient as it was, and is, by all accounts, decreasing due to education and exposure.

There comes a time where it is unfair to cast blame on us, on our generation, far removed from those that committed atrocities in the past. We can never forget, but it makes little sense for us to atone.

-Edward Gibbons, The Decline and Fall of The Roman Empire.

[This message has been edited by Ultra Magnus (edited April 20, 2001).]

Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :

Nicely put UM.

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"One's ethics are determined by what we do when no one is looking" Nugget
Star Trek: Gamma Quadrant
Star Trek: Legacy
Read them, rate them, got money, film them

"...and I remain on the far side of crazy, I remain the mortal enemy of man, no hundred dollar cure will save me..." WoV

Posted by Epoch (Member # 136) on :

Actually UM saying that our forefathers mistreated blacks and violated human rights just because we live in the US isn't really true. Not every american has had family live here since the time of slavery. I know for a fact that not one of my relatives owned slaves.

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God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the weaponry to make the difference.

Posted by Vacuum robot lady from Spaceballs (Member # 239) on :

I understand that Tec, and I didn't necessarily mean to conclude that the Ancestors of all Americans were Slave Keepers.

My Lineage is solidly German/Southern Russian, and knowing my Great Grandparents, I'd say the same thing if someone were to say that all Germans circa 1930 were Anti-Semitic, or something similar.

Putting disclaimers and qualifiers into work here would have made my post longer than this thread already is, and I all know how we love to read long flameboard arguments.

-Edward Gibbons, The Decline and Fall of The Roman Empire.

[This message has been edited by Ultra Magnus (edited April 20, 2001).]

Posted by Epoch (Member # 136) on :

Good point

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God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the weaponry to make the difference.

Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :

JK:

It's amazing how upset people get about a program designed to attempt to right the inequalities of the past.

Another thing you've never understood: INTENTION IS IRRELEVANT. Effect is all that matters. You can't right inequalities of the past, because the people who were treated wrongly, and the people who treated them wrongly, are mostly DEAD. What would you think if we held all black people responsible for the actions of Shaka Kahn? Or all Asians for Mao? Because you're suggesting that we hold all white people responsible for the actions of a few, and that is wrong.

So the Government went in, and said, "hey, buddy, listen up. This is whatcher gonna do, and yer gonna like it."

So basically, the government took away the rights of the company to hire whomever it pleases. Thank you for admitting that. I'm collecting quite a file for future reference.

Minorities are in positions previously held only by white males!

And you have what evidence that this has anything to do with affirmative action?

Tom:

To which part do you refer? The US Constitution says that it's not the government's job. As for communism not working, pick up a history book some time.

*ignites lightspork*

Unqualified, am I?

Tec:

I know for a fact that not one of my relatives owned slaves.

Same here.

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"Omega is right."
-Jeff Karrde, March 18, 2001 08:47 PM

Posted by First of Two (Member # 16) on :

>"First of Two: it should also be noted that those people who came up with "all men equal" also had no problem not abolishing slavery right then and there. And, er, Thomas Jefferson was a slave owner, no? I think what they meant was all white men are created equal, and we in more modern times have expanded that."

If you'd ever read Jefferson's writings, or studied the history of the Constitution and Declaration, you'd know that Jefferson very much wanted to end slavery, and attempted to add anti-slavery clauses to both documents, but was voted down because the Southern states wouldn't go along with it.

Jefferson was worried about the very thing that DID happen after the Civil War happening: Thousands upon thousands of just-freed slaves, uneducated, untrained for anything except manual labor, and unwanted, devolving into a second-class citizenry. He wanted slaves to be educated and trained in useful skills before they were freed, and hoped that the South would follow that example.

Unfortunately, they didn't, and even clamped down on those who DID try to educate and train the slaves, so when the Civil War finally came and the slaves were freed, nothing had changed and they were ill-adapted to take a place as equals, and so the power base in the South managed to oppress them for another hundred years.

But certainly early black leaders (and some less-popular of today's black leaders) always knew that the true key to success was education, training, and hard work.

Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :

Jefferson's wants are irrelevent. For someone who wanted to end slavery, he didn't have much of a problem owning them, did he? Sounds like a hypocrite to me. Of course, his whole POV also sounds akin to (albeit, a much tamer version) "the best place for black people is in slavery."

Yes, I'm aware that the Founders put off abolishing slavery right then and there because they knew that if they tried to do it, half the colonies would leave. But for an individual to say that he opposed slavery, yet still owned slaves ... I don't see how that can be justified. I mean, it would be like me saying in public I think water should be the only legally acceptable drink to drink at any time, then going home and drinking milk.

Omega, that's why I think AA has run it's course and should be stopped. However, when it was first implemented, "people who treated them wrongly, [were] mostly" ALIVE. Honestly, do you even bother reading my posts? I mean this as a legitimate question. Did you read my posts, or just assume that my defense of AA in the past was a defense of it in the future? I'm curious.

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Star Trek Gamma Quadrant
Average Rated 8.32 out of 10 Smileys by Fabrux (with seven eps posted)
***
"Oh, yes, screw logic, let's go for a theory with no evidence!"
-Omega 11:48am, Jan. 19th, 2001
***
"I think this reason why girls don't do well on multiple choice tests goes all the way back to the Bible, all the way back to Genesis, Adam and Eve. God said, 'All right, Eve, multiple choice or multiple orgasms, what's it going to be?' We all know what was chosen" - Rush Limbaugh, Feb. 23, 1994.

[This message has been edited by JeffKardde (edited April 20, 2001).]

Posted by First of Two (Member # 16) on :

Actually, it's justifiable when the alternative is considered equally bad.

I'll give you another example, one you should be intimately familiar with.

I don't like guns.
I think the gun is a cowardly, morally reprehensible weapon.
I don't want to own a gun.

But I do.

Why?
Because the people I don't trust to feel the same way as I do have them, and I'm keeping the playing field level. Because I believe that my personal and property safety is better insured by owning one.

If that were to change, if by some miracle all the weapons in all the hands of all the untrustworthy people were to magically disappear (and it would take magic), I'd get rid of mine, too. But until then,I'm keeping it.

See, people always assume that all slaveowners were 'Deep South', overseeing, hang-em-for-whistling bastards. And many of them were. And that is justly reprehensible and indefensible. But there WERE some cultured men like Jefferson, who kept slaves well-treated, with a fairly high standard of living... moreso than the average poor free black of the time. Jefferson's papers and letters indicate that while he found the concept of owning a person as property personally abhorrent, he felt that unless these people were trained and educated, they would actually fare better under his 'care' than they would if they were 'free.'

Now the fact of the matter is, freedom is better than servitude, all things being equal. But educated, trained freedom is better than uneducated, skill-less freedom. And when you compare educated, trained servitude, to uneducated, unskilled freedom.. things start to get fuzzy.

IF Jefferson had been listened to, if the entire country THEN had begun to make an effort to train and educate its black population, (and in fact, many in the North did just that.. look at the accomplishments of Frederick Douglass)instead of fearing them and retreating into the opposite social condition, things might have turned out much better than they did.

(Hmm, that sounds like an interesting "What If?" universe. Maybe I should call Harry Turtledove)

Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :

So he called himself a "care-giver" and not a "slave-owner?"

It's one thing to preach about educating freed people and disdaining slavery. It's another thing to educate property and disdain slavery. If he felt as he did, why not free his slaves and give them a choice in the matter?

There's no explanation for someone abhorring slavery as much as he claimed to and yet owning slaves. They're incompatible.

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Star Trek Gamma Quadrant
Average Rated 8.32 out of 10 Smileys by Fabrux (with seven eps posted)
***
"Oh, yes, screw logic, let's go for a theory with no evidence!"
-Omega 11:48am, Jan. 19th, 2001
***
"I think this reason why girls don't do well on multiple choice tests goes all the way back to the Bible, all the way back to Genesis, Adam and Eve. God said, 'All right, Eve, multiple choice or multiple orgasms, what's it going to be?' We all know what was chosen" - Rush Limbaugh, Feb. 23, 1994.

[This message has been edited by JeffKardde (edited April 20, 2001).]

Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :

No, they're not, as Rob explained. I can do something that I find morally abhorent, if the alternative is even moreso. Jefferson had two choices. The first was that he could simply release all his slaves immediately, and let them fend for themselves with no education or skills. The second was to educate them so that they COULD fend for themselves, and THEN release them. And, guess what. That's exactly what he did.

Which one seems like the better outcome for the slave?

------------------
"Omega is right."
-Jeff Karrde, March 18, 2001 08:47 PM

Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :

http://www.newsmax.com/commentarchive.shtml?a=2001/4/20/010616

Interesting. Out of the fifteen black males killed by Cincinnati police in the last six years, twelve of them were attacking or otherwise threatening an officer. Heck, one had already shot one THREE TIMES. Out of the remaining three, two of them involved black officers. Told you the media were irresponsible.

Still care to contend racism on the part of the police department?

------------------
"Omega is right."
-Jeff Karrde, March 18, 2001 08:47 PM

Posted by MC Infinity (Member # 531) on :

Is anyone here black? I would really hate to think that there is an argument going on with the involvement of only white males.

------------------
"Well if it's gonna be that kind of a party, I'm putting my dick in the mashed potatoes!"

-Nimrod 16/4/2001

Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :

And do you have stats for whites shot by the Cincinnatti PD, Omega? How many resisted? How many didn't? Do you dispute that blatantly racist practices such as Racial Profiling or the conduct of LA-PD's Rampart Division influence blacks across the nation, including in Cinncinatti?

Which one seems like the better outcome for the slave?

The age old cry of the oppressor. "They're better as slaves then free men." Thankfully, we put that attitude behind us.

You might want to reconsider your position on this, Omega. Since when is slavery better than freedom?

And Jefferson didn't free his slaves until after his death. While his "goals" might be considered laudable by some, his application of his goals is not. One does not improve another's life by keeping them as a piece of property. I still don't see how he's anything but a hypocrite, and frankly, I can't understand why people are defending his keeping of slaves.

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Star Trek Gamma Quadrant
Average Rated 8.32 out of 10 Smileys by Fabrux (with seven eps posted)
***
"Oh, yes, screw logic, let's go for a theory with no evidence!"
-Omega 11:48am, Jan. 19th, 2001
***
"I think this reason why girls don't do well on multiple choice tests goes all the way back to the Bible, all the way back to Genesis, Adam and Eve. God said, 'All right, Eve, multiple choice or multiple orgasms, what's it going to be?' We all know what was chosen" - Rush Limbaugh, Feb. 23, 1994.

[This message has been edited by JeffKardde (edited April 20, 2001).]

Posted by First of Two (Member # 16) on :

Maggie Lena Mitchell Walker, the daughter of a freed slave, put herself through school, joined a fraternal organization, increased its treasury from $31.61 to $3,480,540.19, helped establish a tuberculosis sanitarium and a home for delinquent girls, helped found a community center, an educational loan fund, and became the first woman founder and president of a chartered bank, The Consolidated Bank and Trust Company, in 1803. (A bank which flourished during the depression and is still around today.)

And she did it ALL long before AA, before "Civil Rights," before all that.

A Quote:
"I have worked all day and all night, and whatever has come to me in these days has come because I worked... worked before I married, worked after I married, and I am working harder now than ever in my life."

If SHE could do it THEN...

Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :

Much as I admire Jefferson for many things, I do still wonder about his slave ownership. Were his slaves allowed to leave any time they wanted? Even if he wanted to educate them, you can't force someone to learn if they don't want to. If he made them stay and work while "educating" them, w/o giving them the option to go fend for themselves if they wanted, he's just like the man who beats the shit out of his children, claiming that it's for their own good. Much as Jefferson may have wanted to help people, slavery still lacks freedom...

Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :

I dunno. As long as he was treating them okay, then there is an "it's for their own good" arguument. Which is still assuming you know best, but in Jefferson's case, it might have held. You tell your uneducated kids what to do, and say it's for their own good. If Jefferson did want the slaves to be free, he might have realised that a bunch of educated black people are going to find it slightly easier to get by than a bunch of black people who can barely read, write, or speak.

Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :

Oh, I like that analogy. Intellectually, they were children. It would be irresponsible for him to simply release them out into the world without preparing them, first.

------------------
"Omega is right."
-Jeff Karrde, March 18, 2001 08:47 PM

Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :

Irony?

Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :

Now I've heard everything. Omega defending slavery.

I don't know WHY I'm surprised about this.

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Star Trek Gamma Quadrant
Average Rated 8.32 out of 10 Smileys by Fabrux (with seven eps posted)
***
"Oh, yes, screw logic, let's go for a theory with no evidence!"
-Omega 11:48am, Jan. 19th, 2001
***
"I think this reason why girls don't do well on multiple choice tests goes all the way back to the Bible, all the way back to Genesis, Adam and Eve. God said, 'All right, Eve, multiple choice or multiple orgasms, what's it going to be?' We all know what was chosen" - Rush Limbaugh, Feb. 23, 1994.

Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :

Oh, yes.

Thomas Jefferson spoke out against slavery. Thomas Jefferson owned slaves. How does this make him NOT a hypocrite?

First of Two: your gun analogy is flawed. While you may view guns as immoral (etc)., you don't go around preaching to everyone to get rid of them and secretly prancing around your home at night hoping to shoot a robber dead. Well, not that you do that now (prancing around, I mean), but I think you see the difference?

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Star Trek Gamma Quadrant
Average Rated 8.32 out of 10 Smileys by Fabrux (with seven eps posted)
***
"Oh, yes, screw logic, let's go for a theory with no evidence!"
-Omega 11:48am, Jan. 19th, 2001
***
"I think this reason why girls don't do well on multiple choice tests goes all the way back to the Bible, all the way back to Genesis, Adam and Eve. God said, 'All right, Eve, multiple choice or multiple orgasms, what's it going to be?' We all know what was chosen" - Rush Limbaugh, Feb. 23, 1994.

Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :

Er, I was the one defending slavery. Not Omega. Unless he wasn't using irony (I couldn't quite tell). Try not to leap down his throat at every opportunity.

Anyway, I wasn't defending it. I ws just trying to present another point of view. And I was just suggesting that if a load of uneducated slaves were suddenly released back then, the segregation between the races that exists in the US might be even bigger than it is now.

Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :

A handful of slaves wouldn't make a big difference, Liam. And specificly, I was refering to Omega's defense of Jefferson keeping slaves. Now look, I understand the arguement ya'll are making, but ...

a) Slavery is inexcuseable for any reason

b) it still doesn't make Jefferson any less of a hypocrite.

Intellectually, they were children. I'm also wondering about this line. Does Omega truly believe this? I sure hope not. People have become adults in this world for millennia without knowing how to read or write -- I don't see why it's suddenly become a qualification for blacks 300 hundred years ago. Sounds like a defense of slavery, to me. I'm sure you've heard "the best place for blacks is as slaves!" before.

I know I have.

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Star Trek Gamma Quadrant
Average Rated 8.32 out of 10 Smileys by Fabrux (with seven eps posted)
***
"Oh, yes, screw logic, let's go for a theory with no evidence!"
-Omega 11:48am, Jan. 19th, 2001
***
"I think this reason why girls don't do well on multiple choice tests goes all the way back to the Bible, all the way back to Genesis, Adam and Eve. God said, 'All right, Eve, multiple choice or multiple orgasms, what's it going to be?' We all know what was chosen" - Rush Limbaugh, Feb. 23, 1994.

[This message has been edited by JeffKardde (edited April 21, 2001).]

Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :

You're still thinking two-dimentionally, Jeff. Slavery was wrong, and thus needed to end. You know it, I know it, Jefferson knew it. The question, however, was HOW to end it. The slave was the one who'd had his rights violated. Thus, the appropriate question would be "What would be best for the slave?" Obviously, it was better for the slave to be released when he's as prepared as he could be for the real world, than to be released when he wasn't. Exactly what Jefferson did.

------------------
"Omega is right."
-Jeff Karrde, March 18, 2001 08:47 PM

Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :

"People have become adults in this world for millennia without knowing how to read or write -- I don't see why it's suddenly become a qualification for blacks 300 hundred years ago."

Because the world had changed. Come on, just because people USED to be able to get by without reading and writing, doesn't mean that it's true now. The blacks were stuck in the US. To get by in US society, reading and writing are very useful skills to have.

If you want to get by without reading and writing, fine. But don't expect to be treated the same as other members of society.

Posted by The_Tom (Member # 38) on :

*takes the feed from Liam*

quote:
To get by in US society, reading and writing are very useful skills to have

The President seems to manage just fine...

But back to the topic at hand. I'm studying Rousseau at the moment for my Western Civilization final on Monday, and from what I know about Jefferson, he was very much in adherence to this school of thought. Some of the stuff Rousseau says about the role of women in Emile is, to say the least, quite objectionable, and yet this guy was the leading advocate of emancipation and human rights.

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"I can be creative when I have a good idea. That just happens way too rarely."
-Omega, April 6

[This message has been edited by The_Tom (edited April 21, 2001).]

Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :

If a hand full of people don't make a difference, look at;
1. The Founding Fathers of America
2. The few bad cops compared to the good ones.
3. The handful of EMS Techs in any city, compared to the population.

Harriet Tubman, George Washington Carter, Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks..... They made a difference, and they are only four....

How many are in a handful anyway???

------------------
"One's ethics are determined by what we do when no one is looking" Nugget
Star Trek: Gamma Quadrant
Star Trek: Legacy
Read them, rate them, got money, film them

"...and I remain on the far side of crazy, I remain the mortal enemy of man, no hundred dollar cure will save me..." WoV

Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :

Reading and writing weren't necessary to do, say, farm work back then. If Jefferson's slaves had left uneducated, they probably still could have gotten jobs doing what they were doing before (except not as slaves).

I think the adult slaves were capable of deciding whether they wanted to leave or not. They may have had the education of children (or less), but they still had the reasoning abilities of an adult. And if a reasoning adult chooses to leave, and someone holds them back, saying it's for their own good, that's still wrong. Sure, maybe they were better off tending Jefferson's land. But that should have been their decision, not his.

Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :

Slavery = Evil

That's all I gotta say on the matter. Thomas Jefferson owned slaves, yet said owning slaves was bad. I'm inclined to call him a hypocrite. Why should I not ... ?

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Star Trek Gamma Quadrant
Average Rated 8.32 out of 10 Smileys by Fabrux (with seven eps posted)
***
"Oh, yes, screw logic, let's go for a theory with no evidence!"
-Omega 11:48am, Jan. 19th, 2001
***
"I think this reason why girls don't do well on multiple choice tests goes all the way back to the Bible, all the way back to Genesis, Adam and Eve. God said, 'All right, Eve, multiple choice or multiple orgasms, what's it going to be?' We all know what was chosen" - Rush Limbaugh, Feb. 23, 1994.

Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :

From a novel called The Diamond Age:

"That we occasionally violate our own stated moral code does not imply that we are insincere in espousing that code."

Posted by Nim (Member # 205) on :

Haha, well thank fuc* for that! It's always good to have a loophole! Now if only we could divert our gazes to the places in the world where slavery still exists!

------------------
Don't kill me, I'm charming!

Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :

Thomas Jefferson owned slaves, yet said owning slaves was bad.

No, no, NO. SLAVERY, as a condition, was bad, not the action of owning slaves. Yes, owning slaves could PERPETUATE the condition of slavery if done by one who didn't have the slave's best interest at heart, but that doesn't apply to Jefferson. Yet again, the question is, "What's the best way to free the slave?" A question Jefferson answered correctly with the way he lived.

He had to chose the least among three evils.

1) He could have bought the slaves and kept them ignorant.

2) He could have not bought the slaves at all, thus relegating them and their descendants to perpetual ignorance and slavery through his inaction.

3) He could have bought the slaves, educated them so that they could take care of themselves, and then freed them once they could do so.

Which seems like the best option for the slave? Which did Jefferson do?

------------------
"Omega is right."
-Jeff Karrde, March 18, 2001 08:47 PM

Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :

No, no, NO. SLAVERY, as a condition, was bad, not the action of owning slaves.

I'm thinking of making this my new sig.

So, slavery is bad, but owning slaves isn't? Someone's going to have to explain this to me. Because, quite frankly, I don't understand how anyone can defend the owning of slaves.

And, er, Omega ... ? It STILL doesn't make Jefferson any less of a hypocrite.

------------------
Star Trek Gamma Quadrant
Average Rated 8.32 out of 10 Smileys by Fabrux (with seven eps posted)
***
"Oh, yes, screw logic, let's go for a theory with no evidence!"
-Omega 11:48am, Jan. 19th, 2001
***
"I think this reason why girls don't do well on multiple choice tests goes all the way back to the Bible, all the way back to Genesis, Adam and Eve. God said, 'All right, Eve, multiple choice or multiple orgasms, what's it going to be?' We all know what was chosen" - Rush Limbaugh, Feb. 23, 1994.

Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :

I have a question....

If Jefferson bought the people from Mr. Slaver, took them home and said, "I have bought you your freedom, but now I'd like you to repay me by working in my fields, but, as an added bonus, I will also teach you to read, write, and do basic math. Now you can't come and go as you please, because the other Mr. Slavers will grab you and sell you to someone that doesn't give a rats ass about you, so you will need to pretend that I am your owner, till you can fend for yourself up North.", would it have been acceptable??

Now, did he tell the 'slaves' what he was doing? If he did then he didn't own 'slaves', but had people working to repay a debt.

------------------
"One's ethics are determined by what we do when no one is looking" Nugget
Star Trek: Gamma Quadrant
Star Trek: Legacy
Read them, rate them, got money, film them

"...and I remain on the far side of crazy, I remain the mortal enemy of man, no hundred dollar cure will save me..." WoV

Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :

No.

Why not simply set them free? You can't make slavery acceptable by paying your slaves, whether you pay them in education or money.

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Star Trek Gamma Quadrant
Average Rated 8.32 out of 10 Smileys by Fabrux (with seven eps posted)
***
"Oh, yes, screw logic, let's go for a theory with no evidence!"
-Omega 11:48am, Jan. 19th, 2001
***
"I think this reason why girls don't do well on multiple choice tests goes all the way back to the Bible, all the way back to Genesis, Adam and Eve. God said, 'All right, Eve, multiple choice or multiple orgasms, what's it going to be?' We all know what was chosen" - Rush Limbaugh, Feb. 23, 1994.

Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :

Why not simply set them free?

Becuase they'd just be made slaves again by someone else. Unless, of course, they've been taught how to fend for themselves. Obviously, Jeff. Think, for once.

------------------
"Omega is right."
-Jeff Karrde, March 18, 2001 08:47 PM

Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :

Actually, Omega, once "freed", slaves could not be made slaves again. Not by "law" abiding citizens, at any rate. They (for the most part) were still adults, and had adult reasonings (the "most part", of course, refers to any children Jefferson may have owned, who would not have adult reasoning -- because, well, they're not adults).

Very few people had an "education" at that time, you know. It's not like you heard of a bunch of college students getting mad because John lost the duel and burning their school to the ground. Lack of an education doesn't make an ex-slave unable to "fend for themselves."

In either case, Jefferson is still a hipocrite. And I find the defense of the slave trade -- no matter the reason -- to be racist in its very nature.

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Star Trek Gamma Quadrant
Average Rated 8.32 out of 10 Smileys by Fabrux (with seven eps posted)
***
"Oh, yes, screw logic, let's go for a theory with no evidence!"
-Omega 11:48am, Jan. 19th, 2001
***
"I think this reason why girls don't do well on multiple choice tests goes all the way back to the Bible, all the way back to Genesis, Adam and Eve. God said, 'All right, Eve, multiple choice or multiple orgasms, what's it going to be?' We all know what was chosen" - Rush Limbaugh, Feb. 23, 1994.

[This message has been edited by JeffKardde (edited April 22, 2001).]

Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :

Racist? You've taken a whole lot of steps there Jeff.

Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :

I see slavery as a racist act (especially within this country's history).

Therefore, I see those who defend it as racist.

I'm sorry if this offends anyone, but I honestly DO NOT understand how anyone can defend one human being owning another.

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Star Trek Gamma Quadrant
Average Rated 8.32 out of 10 Smileys by Fabrux (with seven eps posted)
***
"Oh, yes, screw logic, let's go for a theory with no evidence!"
-Omega 11:48am, Jan. 19th, 2001
***
"I think this reason why girls don't do well on multiple choice tests goes all the way back to the Bible, all the way back to Genesis, Adam and Eve. God said, 'All right, Eve, multiple choice or multiple orgasms, what's it going to be?' We all know what was chosen" - Rush Limbaugh, Feb. 23, 1994.

Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :

People defend marriage all the time Jeff.....

------------------
"One's ethics are determined by what we do when no one is looking" Nugget
Star Trek: Gamma Quadrant
Star Trek: Legacy
Read them, rate them, got money, film them

"...and I remain on the far side of crazy, I remain the mortal enemy of man, no hundred dollar cure will save me..." WoV

Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :

------------------
Star Trek Gamma Quadrant
Average Rated 8.32 out of 10 Smileys by Fabrux (with seven eps posted)
***
"Oh, yes, screw logic, let's go for a theory with no evidence!"
-Omega 11:48am, Jan. 19th, 2001
***
"I think this reason why girls don't do well on multiple choice tests goes all the way back to the Bible, all the way back to Genesis, Adam and Eve. God said, 'All right, Eve, multiple choice or multiple orgasms, what's it going to be?' We all know what was chosen" - Rush Limbaugh, Feb. 23, 1994.

Posted by Jay the Obscure (Member # 19) on :

I do love it when I see the same rationalizations and justifications for slavery that the slave owners used themselves so long ago.

Good one. Now we just have to include what Paul wrote in the Bible, and we'll have their religious justification to round out the bunch.

Now, if anyone wants to talk about the practical application of keeping slaves slaves, go read the laws that outlawed teaching slaves to read and write. And then go read about all the social and cultural justification about the uneducated "childlike" status of slaves.

Slavery was not just a circumstance, but a system that kept one people in its place for the service and economic growth of another people. And it is intellectually dishonest to write of slaves a being mere children and therefore bound to their lives as property when the culture and laws prevented them from anything but.

Jefferson was part of that systemic effort.

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I'll kill you, you bloated museum of trechery!
~ C. Montgomery Burns

[This message has been edited by Jay (edited April 23, 2001).]

Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :

Even though he did everything he could to end it? Riiight...

------------------
"Omega is right."
-Jeff Karrde, March 18, 2001 08:47 PM

Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :

Sure he did, Omega. He was so determined to end it, he kept 'em himself.

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Star Trek Gamma Quadrant
Average Rated 8.32 out of 10 Smileys by Fabrux (with seven eps posted)
***
"Oh, yes, screw logic, let's go for a theory with no evidence!"
-Omega 11:48am, Jan. 19th, 2001
***
"I think this reason why girls don't do well on multiple choice tests goes all the way back to the Bible, all the way back to Genesis, Adam and Eve. God said, 'All right, Eve, multiple choice or multiple orgasms, what's it going to be?' We all know what was chosen" - Rush Limbaugh, Feb. 23, 1994.

Posted by Nim (Member # 205) on :

Yes, better him having all the slaves than one who thrashes them! Or if he did thrash them, better him than someone who rapes slave virgin.
No, better yet...

------------------
Don't kill me, I'm charming!

Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :

Actually, Omega's arguement makes about as much sense as:

"Hi. My name is Bob, and I joined the KKK to stop racism."

------------------
Star Trek Gamma Quadrant
Average Rated 8.32 out of 10 Smileys by Fabrux (with seven eps posted)
***
"Oh, yes, screw logic, let's go for a theory with no evidence!"
-Omega 11:48am, Jan. 19th, 2001
***
"I think this reason why girls don't do well on multiple choice tests goes all the way back to the Bible, all the way back to Genesis, Adam and Eve. God said, 'All right, Eve, multiple choice or multiple orgasms, what's it going to be?' We all know what was chosen" - Rush Limbaugh, Feb. 23, 1994.

Posted by MC Infinity (Member # 531) on :

There is no right or wrong slavery, the concept of slavery itself is not acceptable by any modern standards

------------------
"Well if it's gonna be that kind of a party, I'm putting my dick in the mashed potatoes!"

-Nimrod 16/4/2001

Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :

Hm... Is that like "Fighting for peace is like fucking for virginity"? *L*

Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :

"...the concept of slavery itself is not acceptable by any modern standards"

Hmm. You mean "Modern American standards", don't you? Because there are several countries that would disagree with you.

Anyway, I'm not an expert on US history, but Jefferson's time doesn't really count as "modern", does it?

Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :

Well, to Jefferson it was 'modern' times.....

------------------
"One's ethics are determined by what we do when no one is looking" Nugget
Star Trek: Gamma Quadrant
Star Trek: Legacy
Read them, rate them, got money, film them

"...and I remain on the far side of crazy, I remain the mortal enemy of man, no hundred dollar cure will save me..." WoV

Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :

There was a growing sense of anti-semitism in the US back in the thirties and forties, but I'm not going to defend the Holocaust.

Likewise, while a great many of our Founding Fathers owned slaves, people shouldn't make excuses for them. When they do that, they're slapping the faces of all those who died to end slavery, who fought for the civil rights movement. Don't make excuses for the immorality of the men you worship so -- see them as they truly are.

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Star Trek Gamma Quadrant
Average Rated 8.32 out of 10 Smileys by Fabrux (with seven eps posted)
***
"Oh, yes, screw logic, let's go for a theory with no evidence!"
-Omega 11:48am, Jan. 19th, 2001
***
"I think this reason why girls don't do well on multiple choice tests goes all the way back to the Bible, all the way back to Genesis, Adam and Eve. God said, 'All right, Eve, multiple choice or multiple orgasms, what's it going to be?' We all know what was chosen" - Rush Limbaugh, Feb. 23, 1994.

Posted by Vacuum robot lady from Spaceballs (Member # 239) on :

You do better when you know better. Seeing 'them' as they 'truly' are, apparently means taking our 2001 values, judgements and paradigms and using them to determint wether a person from hundreds of years ago is right, wrong or justifiable.

Of course it's not justifiable. Now. Jefferson and his compatriots in Slavery didn't have the Civil Rights movement, the Emancipotato Proctolimisation, or the Beaumont Freedom writ to enlighten their judgement.

20 years ago, seatbelts weren't used. Or weren't in wide use. If we postulate that 'The people didn't know seatbelts could help you not die, as they were relatively new', are we defending reckless driving?

20 years from now, when we're all impotent from Cell Phones, are people going to say 'Cell Phones weren't, at that time, proven to be hazardous' defending the practice of irradiating sperm?

You can not take what you know now, take somebody who didn't know that then, and condemn them for it.

Noone here has defended slavery. The closest I've seen is someone defending the way Jefferson kept slaves. In 2001, Slaves = Horrible. In 1977, or whenever Jeffermason was President, Slaves = Common. Common <> Right, but 1977 knowledge <> 2001 knowledge.

-Edward Gibbons, The Decline and Fall of The Roman Empire.

Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :

Erm. 1977?

But here's the kicker. Jefferson was apparently opposed to slavery ... yet he owned slaves. Even way back in the '70's (the seventeen 70's), I'm pretty sure that's still hypocracy.

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Star Trek Gamma Quadrant
Average Rated 8.32 out of 10 Smileys by Fabrux (with seven eps posted)
***
"Oh, yes, screw logic, let's go for a theory with no evidence!"
-Omega 11:48am, Jan. 19th, 2001
***
"I think this reason why girls don't do well on multiple choice tests goes all the way back to the Bible, all the way back to Genesis, Adam and Eve. God said, 'All right, Eve, multiple choice or multiple orgasms, what's it going to be?' We all know what was chosen" - Rush Limbaugh, Feb. 23, 1994.

[This message has been edited by JeffKardde (edited April 23, 2001).]

Posted by Vacuum robot lady from Spaceballs (Member # 239) on :

Jefferson wasn't president in 1977? Back to the History books for me.

-Edward Gibbons, The Decline and Fall of The Roman Empire.

Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :

Was he against slavery, or against the ill treatment of slaves??? Therein would lie the diference....

------------------
"One's ethics are determined by what we do when no one is looking" Nugget
Star Trek: Gamma Quadrant
Star Trek: Legacy
Read them, rate them, got money, film them

"...and I remain on the far side of crazy, I remain the mortal enemy of man, no hundred dollar cure will save me..." WoV

Posted by MC Infinity (Member # 531) on :

Name a country where people find slavery acceptable, and stop showing off, you're not special, other countries abolished slavery long before you did, and the rest of the civilized world abolished capital punishments, I've yet to see you do that.

------------------
"Well if it's gonna be that kind of a party, I'm putting my dick in the mashed potatoes!"

-Nimrod 16/4/2001

Posted by MC Infinity (Member # 531) on :

Damn, posted that a bit too late, forgot to refresh
The message was directed at Liam
All references "you" are meant to the USA unless obviously put otherwise.

------------------
"Well if it's gonna be that kind of a party, I'm putting my dick in the mashed potatoes!"

-Nimrod 16/4/2001

Posted by Vacuum robot lady from Spaceballs (Member # 239) on :

Liam's a giant fan of the Baseball, Hot Dogs and the NRA. I heard he was an All-American Tight End for the University of Tuxford, until his End loosened up in a terrifying Train Accident.

I've yet to miss him regale us with his fanciful tales of Fourth of July picnics, and he sent me some nice photos of him in front of Mount Rushmore the other day.

So, you'll have to excuse Liam, for he's a tried and true patriot, and nationalism is his game.

-Edward Gibbons, The Decline and Fall of The Roman Empire.

Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :

I'm fairly 100% sure that Liam's British.

Speaking of which, why do you folks drive on the wrong side of the road?

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Star Trek Gamma Quadrant
Average Rated 8.32 out of 10 Smileys by Fabrux (with seven eps posted)
***
"Oh, yes, screw logic, let's go for a theory with no evidence!"
-Omega 11:48am, Jan. 19th, 2001
***
"I think this reason why girls don't do well on multiple choice tests goes all the way back to the Bible, all the way back to Genesis, Adam and Eve. God said, 'All right, Eve, multiple choice or multiple orgasms, what's it going to be?' We all know what was chosen" - Rush Limbaugh, Feb. 23, 1994.

Posted by Jay the Obscure (Member # 19) on :

I would not say that Jefferson was pro-slavery on an intellectual level as evidenced by his wolf by the ears reference regarding slavery. Yet, he did little if anything to move southern attitudes away from their peculiar institution. Certainly not everything in his power as implied in a previous post.

UM you are right to say that race based slavery was common in the United States during Jefferson's lifetime. However he had to be well aware of the arguments and the of growing anti-slavery movements. And he had to have been cognizant of the incredible debate that took place in the Constitutional Convention over the very issue of slavery.

I can't imagine for a second that he could escape irony of his famous all men are created equal phrase of the DOI working in direct philosophical opposition to the actuality of the 3/5ths clause of the American Constitution and the cultural and legal system designed to subjugate a race of people.

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I'll kill you, you bloated museum of trechery!
~ C. Montgomery Burns

Posted by Vacuum robot lady from Spaceballs (Member # 239) on :

Well, that was a labour of Sisyphus.

Er, JeffK's post. And mine. In different ways.

-Edward Gibbons, The Decline and Fall of The Roman Empire.

[This message has been edited by Ultra Magnus (edited April 23, 2001).]

Posted by Nim (Member # 205) on :

And I feel like I live in ancient times, and the "real" time is what someone will experience in 20 years.
Even now, I'm preparing my "I remember, back in the day..."

Psy: "Modern american standards"? The slavery ban goes for pretty much all of the western worlds.
In fact, the only places I've heard of confirmed slavery is in northern africa, south america and some parts of asia. There's probably more, though.

The report I heard on south america mostly involved forced child labor, like using 10-year old's for construction work. Without filter masks or other protective gear, of course.

The construction site looked kinda like "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom"...

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Don't kill me, I'm charming!

Posted by First of Two (Member # 16) on :

For Infinity, who said: "Name a country where people find slavery acceptable."

Sudan.

There, that took all of an eighth of a second, and it was just the first place I thought of where slavery is still practiced today.

Of course, there are also varying degrees of 'slavery' as well, who remembers 'indentured servitude' from school? Or the time-honored practice (and one of the things that started the War of 1812) of 'impressment?'

Of course, we're not supposed to remember those things, because they were white folks being pressed into service, and we're supposed to think that slavery was, and has always been, entirely about race.

Except that it isn't. Slavery has been practiced at one time or another in every culture in the world, most often against its own people. The 'liberal' for the time Ancient Greeks believed slavery was a natural condition. The Israelites and other ancient middle-eastern cultures owned slaves. Native Americans took slaves. Africans took slaves (some still do) LONG before the first white guys showed up.

If you want to blame the Europeans for something, blame them for taking advantage of a previously existing trend. The idea that slavery is abhorrent is a fairly recent one. It may just be a cultural 'fad.'

Personally, I think that enforced and regulated slavery might be a better way of punishing people than prison. "Okay, you stole from that guy, we caught you, tried you and found you guilty, you're now his slave for the next year. He can order you to do anything that doesn't cause you physical injury, or isn't illegal."

Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :

Slavery in any way, shape, or form is unnacceptable.

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Star Trek Gamma Quadrant
Average Rated 8.32 out of 10 Smileys by Fabrux (with seven eps posted)
***
"Oh, yes, screw logic, let's go for a theory with no evidence!"
-Omega 11:48am, Jan. 19th, 2001
***
"I think this reason why girls don't do well on multiple choice tests goes all the way back to the Bible, all the way back to Genesis, Adam and Eve. God said, 'All right, Eve, multiple choice or multiple orgasms, what's it going to be?' We all know what was chosen" - Rush Limbaugh, Feb. 23, 1994.

Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :

Jeff: Then, playing off what Rob just said, we'll have to empty all the prisons. After all, those prisoners are being held against their wills. They have no freedom to leave of their own accords. In some cases (I assume this is still true, anyway), they're even made to perform manual labor. Essentially, imprisoning criminals is slavery. Are you willing to take all those prisoners into your home to save them from this "bondage"?

Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :

I've forgotten who posted this, and too lazy to checl, but...

Someone questioned me saying that slavery is unacceptable by modern US standards, and said that almost the entire world had banned it. Then listed exceptions, one of which was South America.

Is an entire continent not enough for you? Or do they not count?

I actually used to know why we (and a few other countries. Although I can only think of New Zealand at the moment) drive on the left. I think it has something to do with horse-drawn carriages. Or not.

Posted by The_Tom (Member # 38) on :

Most people are right-handed. Therefore, in days of yore, swords would traditionally be scabbarded(?) on one's right side. If one was to pass someone in a carriage one wasn't particularly fond of, if the oncoming traffic was on the right the driver (sitting on the right side of the carriage) would find it easy to pull and swing and slice and dice. Likewise, however, the guy coming the other way would have a fair chance at defending himself. The British liked this method of doing things. The French decided to do the opposite. At the time of the American and French revolution, French stuff = better than British stuff as far as the Yanks are concerned, so to the right hand side of the road it was for them.

Or so the legend goes. *goes to check straightdope*

Edit: yup, check this

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"I can be creative when I have a good idea. That just happens way too rarely."
-Omega, April 6

[This message has been edited by The_Tom (edited April 24, 2001).]

Posted by Vacuum robot lady from Spaceballs (Member # 239) on :

We all apparently missed my wonderful self.

"I heard he was an All-American Tight End for the University of Tuxford, until his End loosened up in a
terrifying Train Accident."

This deserves a pulitzer.

-Edward Gibbons, The Decline and Fall of The Roman Empire.

Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :

TSN,

Big difference between someone being a slave and someone in jail, IMHO.

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Star Trek Gamma Quadrant
Average Rated 8.32 out of 10 Smileys by Fabrux (with seven eps posted)
***
"Oh, yes, screw logic, let's go for a theory with no evidence!"
-Omega 11:48am, Jan. 19th, 2001
***
"I think this reason why girls don't do well on multiple choice tests goes all the way back to the Bible, all the way back to Genesis, Adam and Eve. God said, 'All right, Eve, multiple choice or multiple orgasms, what's it going to be?' We all know what was chosen" - Rush Limbaugh, Feb. 23, 1994.

Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :

JeffK: The Almighty One has spoken, eh? News flash, Jeff: your opinion does not equate to fact.

Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :

A huge difference, in fact, but facts are so boring and hyperbolic screeds are so readily available.

Screed may not be a word, but it should be.

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OH NO< THE OLD MAN WALKS HIS GREEN DOG THAT SHOTS PINBALLS!~!!!
--
Jeff K
****
Read three (three!) chapters of "Dirk Tungsten in...The Disappearing Planet" and nothing at all will happen.

Posted by Nim (Member # 205) on :

LazyPsy: It was me, and I was not trying to excuse slavery by making it sound contained and not widespread. The current amount of worldwide slavery is totally unacceptable, as is exploiting children.

When you said "american standards" I just reacted since more than the US is slave free. But perhaps you meant that they think of the US as the standard that others should be compared to and aspire for?

I'm just trying to be clear on this, no intended yankbashing.

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Don't kill me, I'm charming!

Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :

News flash, Jeff: your opinion does not equate to fact.

I'm sorry if you don't see the difference of being imprisoned because of a crime you committed as opposed to becoming property because of the color of your skin.

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Star Trek Gamma Quadrant
Average Rated 8.32 out of 10 Smileys by Fabrux (with seven eps posted)
***
"Oh, yes, screw logic, let's go for a theory with no evidence!"
-Omega 11:48am, Jan. 19th, 2001
***
"I think this reason why girls don't do well on multiple choice tests goes all the way back to the Bible, all the way back to Genesis, Adam and Eve. God said, 'All right, Eve, multiple choice or multiple orgasms, what's it going to be?' We all know what was chosen" - Rush Limbaugh, Feb. 23, 1994.

Posted by Daniel (Member # 453) on :

The reason people are placed in jail is because they have violated the law. Most people who take their time to violate the law are fully aware they are doing it and know the consequences. These consequences include the abridgement of a person's rights, if it is so deemed neccessary. In some states and some cases, the abridgement of ALL a person's rights, including that of life, is held neccessary as punishment.

A slave, in the sense of which we are speaking is "a human being who is owned as PROPERTY by another and is absolutely subject to his/her/their will." People in jail are NOT the "property" of the state. They are in confinement as punishment for a crime. If they are forced to do hard labor as part of their sentence, then so be it, their rights have been taken away because of the repercussions of their own actions.

**(Please understand, I do realize some people are wrongly incarcerated, but IMO, the majority are not.)

Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :

"When you said "american standards" I just reacted since more than the US is slave free. But perhaps you meant that they think of the US as the standard that others should be compared to and aspire for?"

Oh lord no. I only said that because I thought people might pick me up and say that there are other countries in the world that don't have a problem with it. And I said American standards because this argument seems to be more about how the US treated slaves than how other countries did.

JeffK: Making blanket statements doesn't contribute to the conversation and helps no-one. You'd have a go if Omega did it.

Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :

200...

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"One's ethics are determined by what we do when no one is looking" Nugget
Star Trek: Gamma Quadrant
Star Trek: Legacy
Read them, rate them, got money, film them

"...and I remain on the far side of crazy, I remain the mortal enemy of man, no hundred dollar cure will save me..." WoV

Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :

It's amazing, isn't it? I make an outrageous statement to say "What you said leads logically to this conclusion. This conclusion is silly.". Then, everyone starts acting like the silly conclusion is actually my opinion. Is everyone here just flame-happy, or what? They don't care what the excuse is, as long as they get to argue w/ someone.

I'll make my point as clear as I possibly can. If you still don't understand it afterward, I can't help you. I guess you'll just have to sit back and wait for brain transplant surgery to become feasible.

Jeff said "Slavery in any way, shape, or form is unnacceptable.". I'm pointing out that imprisonment is slavery. This can't be argued, really. By definition, it's true. However, I don't think Jeff or anyone else here will claim that imprisonment as punishment for crimes should be wholly stopped this instant. Therefore, slavery is acceptable in this particular way/shape/form. Thus, my point is that Jeff's original statement was false.

Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :

I disagree that someone in jail is a slave. It's not a type of slavery at all. It's imprisonment. Look at Daniel's post, he says it quite well.

Essentially, someone who goes to jail goes through the due process of law. Arrest, trial by jury, a lawyer ...

Very few slaves (if any) got the same advantages.

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Star Trek Gamma Quadrant
Average Rated 8.32 out of 10 Smileys by Fabrux (with seven eps posted)
***
"Oh, yes, screw logic, let's go for a theory with no evidence!"
-Omega 11:48am, Jan. 19th, 2001
***
"I think this reason why girls don't do well on multiple choice tests goes all the way back to the Bible, all the way back to Genesis, Adam and Eve. God said, 'All right, Eve, multiple choice or multiple orgasms, what's it going to be?' We all know what was chosen" - Rush Limbaugh, Feb. 23, 1994.