2006-05-19

Racist Cops Arrest Couple Asking For Directions

You can expect all manner of race hucksters to assemble in defense of this couple, who got arrested merely for asking some cops for directions, as they were lost trying to get home from a baseball game in Baltimore. They had to spend 8 hours in jail, and they report that the cops were so rude that they refused to provide directions. If this was a white couple, surely the cops would have provided directions and wishes for a happy day. OOPS! This couple was white. Where the cops black? Don't know yet. But since the couple was white, this story will die and be forgotten.

Since cops are unabashad bastards some fraction of the time, can some of this explain some of what gets classified as "racism"? If people who opposed to police abuse would protest even cases against whites, would this help even black people avoid police abuse?

4 comments:

Nadir said...

Paul is more of a race-baiter than Al Sharpton ever was.

You're trying to provoke a race-based argument when it is obviously a typical case of police misconduct.

You always contend that the police are out of control regardless of the race of the victim. This is your chance to offer an example and you turn it into a race question??

Why are you trying to incite racial tension:???

Paul Hue said...

I'm not trying to incide racial tension; I'm trying to quell it, by pointing out that had this couple been black and treated this same way by these officers (assuming that the officers are white), Al Sharpton and Nadir would be swell with indignation about this unjust act constituting racism, and asserting with 100% confidence that "the officers would never have treated a white couple this way."

I have turned your knee-jerk logic against you in order to influence you to question your logic. If people like you and Sharpton only speak out against police injustices directed by white cops against black civilians (or, in some cases -- such as the Dearborn mall incident, where all the race-baiters jumped the gun prior to learning that the guards were black -- saying that the black cops are performing the racist honkeys bidding), and then frame them as acts of racism, you diminish the chance that we will solve the real problem, which is the background incidence of cops of all "races" behaving abhorently towards people of all "races."

I will bet you dinner at my favorite new Mexican restaurant that this story will die, and that Al and Jesse will not speak out; they will wait for the same thing to happen to a black couple (but only if the jerk cops are white).

Nadir said...

I don't use knee-jerk logic. That's your territory.

Why do Jesse and Al have to be the only spokespersons against police brutality? Part of the problem is that white people don't speak out against police brutality when it happens to blacks or to whites.

What stops you from being as vocal about this case as you are about the Duke rape case?

Why aren't you - a victim of police misconduct - an activist against it? If you want the story to be alive, then keep it alive. Fight the good fight.

We need more whites (especially right-wingnuts) to demand that the police end their senseless, combative actions toward all American citizens, regardless of color.

You're a race-baiter.

I'll see your Mexican dinner and raise you two margeritas if YOU become an activist on this case. Put your mouth where your enchilada is.

Paul Hue said...

Nadir: Please first define what you mean by an "activist". My actions on behalf of the Duke case involve only posting assessments and polemics in response to the many daily news updates to this case. Also, that case involves serious charges against three people, whereas this arrest resulted in no charges and the criminal matter has ended.

If the victims here press their rights and consequently create more press, I will continue to comment and support them. The police officers have their case to make as well, and perhaps they will cause me to change my mind, just as I did in the Duke case.

I certainly do not think that Sharpton and Jesse should be the only people who vocally oppose police misconduct. Sadly, they only care about it when it happens to blacks, and always cast it in terms of racism. Many white lefties join in these tactics. Just as sadly, these are the only people who seem to notice police brutality. This leaves us with one activist group, mis-charactorizing it as a subset of racism, and leaving it to have only a portion of its potential national support. Thus brutal black cops have nothing to fear from the public (unless one of the race hucksters starts shouting racism before learning the "race" of the cop), and brutal white cops need only fear brutalizing non-white folks.

As far as I can tell, there exists no movement to expose, address, and remedy rude, unneccessarily brutal, and outright criminal behavior by cops. My days of starting movements ended some time ago, but my days of commenting vigorously on "news of the day" lives on.

This GREAT Mexican restaurant serves no alcohol, but permits us to Bring Our Own (praise be to the Blessed Honkey Virgin, whose image overlooks patrons). I've arranged for us all to meet there at 5pm Saturday. I suppose we can make margarits.