The "my convenience is far more important than your life" people? You talk to them every day.
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Protests happening in Minneapolis and Baton Rouge right now
- Thread starter GK86
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March going on in Liverpool, UK at the moment.
https://www.facebook.com/my.username.here123/videos/vb.1005336778/10209029103177174/?type=2&theater
live: https://www.facebook.com/my.username.here123/videos/10209029503627185/
https://www.facebook.com/my.username.here123/videos/vb.1005336778/10209029103177174/?type=2&theater
live: https://www.facebook.com/my.username.here123/videos/10209029503627185/
DrForester
Kills Photobucket
Has there been any update on this woman? Was she released?
Following tweets are all from Soledad O'Brien:
Soledad O'Brien ‏@soledadobrien
1. Another good story. Black in America launches in 2008. It's a big deal. The network has put lots of money into promoting it.
2. We are to announce at a big conference called TCA-the television critics association. Basically presenting our upcoming doc to tv critics
3. After my presentation, I'm asked several questions: how long did we shoot for? How did we find our 'characters'?
4. One reporter asks me my biggest takeaway. I tell him that our reporting on policing in the black community was most interesting.
5. I tell him that regardless of socioeconomic status, black people have the same, almost verbatim, conversation with their sons at age 13
6. Rich black people. Poor black people. Solidly middle class black people --all tell their 12, 13 year old sons the same thing:
7. "If you are stopped by the police, do not make any sudden movements. Do as he tells you. Don't say anything"
8. I tell the reporter that these parents are trying to save their sons lives, hence the strict instructions. (@RealDLHughley was interv'd)
9. I tell him that this is something the black community has known for a long time--but I think is interesting in this doc.
10. After my panel, my boss (really my boss' boss' boss) takes me aside. He says that story is not true. That white parents tell their sons
11. ..the same thing. To be respectful to the police. I say this is not the same. I have spent almost two years reporting this doc.
12. I tell him black parents are teaching their children how to survive an interaction w the police. It's actually quite different.
13. I am instructed to stop telling that story. (Because it clearly doesn't match the narrative he is comfortable with). So I do.
Soledad O'Brien ‏@soledadobrien
1. Another good story. Black in America launches in 2008. It's a big deal. The network has put lots of money into promoting it.
2. We are to announce at a big conference called TCA-the television critics association. Basically presenting our upcoming doc to tv critics
3. After my presentation, I'm asked several questions: how long did we shoot for? How did we find our 'characters'?
4. One reporter asks me my biggest takeaway. I tell him that our reporting on policing in the black community was most interesting.
5. I tell him that regardless of socioeconomic status, black people have the same, almost verbatim, conversation with their sons at age 13
6. Rich black people. Poor black people. Solidly middle class black people --all tell their 12, 13 year old sons the same thing:
7. "If you are stopped by the police, do not make any sudden movements. Do as he tells you. Don't say anything"
8. I tell the reporter that these parents are trying to save their sons lives, hence the strict instructions. (@RealDLHughley was interv'd)
9. I tell him that this is something the black community has known for a long time--but I think is interesting in this doc.
10. After my panel, my boss (really my boss' boss' boss) takes me aside. He says that story is not true. That white parents tell their sons
11. ..the same thing. To be respectful to the police. I say this is not the same. I have spent almost two years reporting this doc.
12. I tell him black parents are teaching their children how to survive an interaction w the police. It's actually quite different.
13. I am instructed to stop telling that story. (Because it clearly doesn't match the narrative he is comfortable with). So I do.
freeofgreed
Member
LOL!!!!!!!
kame-sennin
Member
In NYC, they arrested at least a dozen for 'standing on a prohibited roadway' when they shut down the FDR last night.
Spring-Loaded
Member
Isn't more hazardous than shooting someone in their car with a kid in the back seat.
And no one's saying "everyone who is annoyed is racist." Read that comment section, and then try downplaying the racism within.
Willfully ignoring or downplaying the reasons why this protest is happening to complain about traffic problems does display a lack of empathy for the people protesting, and the people who were killed which sparked said protest.
Its a protest. Its SUPPOSED to be an inconvenience to people. If they let them go along with their day as planned they would IGNORE the issue at hand even if there were a thousands of black folks with signs and everything on the sides of the highway for miles and miles. Them standing in the street obstructing traffic is the whole point as otherwise their message gets brushed aside like the thousands of time in the past.
TheLostBigBoss
Banned
That's in-fucking-sane.
You want to see the complete disconnect between police and community? Shit like this, acting like it's an urban warzone where aiming a rifle at a group of protestors point blank is insanity and shows how so many departments have nice shiny toys without the training to use them.
At least some other cops had the sense to tell her to back the hell off and get behind the line so she wasn't pointing her gun at everyones faces.
This is a more understandable situation if he didn't do the stupid thing and try and drag two people away with only his partner for back up.
If you feel threatened enough to draw you gun to try and tell a group of people to back up, and they aren't backing up as you like, why would you think it's smart to drag people away and completely escalate the situation when you don't have any chance having control of the situation if it continues to escalate?
Stupid, stupid shit.
Giant Panda
Member
Nothing you said explains how it is a good idea.
There's a difference between inconvenience and hazard. When you obstruct emergency vehicles and cause potential accidents on an interstate freeway, you're not gaining sympathizers. Instead you're feeding annoyance and apathy to the people you're trying to reach.
There are better places to protest that can receive the same amount of attention without putting lives at risk. Not very many consider the latter noble. And no, that's not saying the actions leading up to the protests are justified, but just that if this is the route you take to protest, you lose from the start. You just receive more hate.
Alligatorjandro
Banned
So it's ok for a cop to point a rifle at protesters it seems
WoolyNinja
Member
Accidental post sorry
Poor Nana Ruth. If only those protesters protested on the sidewalks instead of one road out of many, she hypothetically might have been here with us today.
A Link to the Past
Banned
How does one cause a potential accident
So it is better to have people be annoyed with you than ignore you? You'd think ideally they would want people supporting their cause not pissed off at them.
GoldenEye 007
Member
We are a country built in part on protest and pissing the other side off. There are plenty of examples and proof throughout history.
Easystride
Member
I agree. I know it is an unpopular opinion, but I used to work in Minneapolis, and it seems like there was a protest by some group at least once a week, and this was long before BLM. The last thing I want to do is be stuck in traffic for 2 hours after working a 12 hour day. I'm just a working class guy trying to get by, and this just made me frustrated. Oh well, glad I don't work in Minneapolis/St. Paul anymore.
Stay safe protesters.
Poor Nana Ruth. If only those protesters protested on the sidewalks instead of one road out of many, she hypothetically might have been here with us today.
You can poke fun at the notion, but there's a reason why it's illegal to begin with and why it's receiving such a negative reaction from people. If the goal was to get the message across, that's failed from the start.
Think really hard about this one, and I'm sure you can come up with something. You're obstructing vehicles on an interstate freeway. Whether it's in attempt to start the protest or in result of the sudden halt, there's a very obvious risk of accidents.
"Oh, boo hoo, I'm going to be late for work, they are being an inconvenience and annoying."
Meanwhile, those protestors are far more likely to get pulled over and killed by cops because they're black and they have to live their lives in fear almost everyday. Yeah, sorry, their lives matter far more than convenience. If them blocking traffic pisses someone off, they might need to reevaluate themselves a bit here and understand why they're blocking traffic.
Worked before.
7DollarHagane
Banned
True but the local law enforcement also has the right to arrest anyone blocking a highway. Try parking your car sideways on a bridge and refusing to move. You will be arrested and car towed. Thats the law and that's their job.
Just because it's a protest doesn't mean there's no consequences or the local laws don't apply. It's the price of protesting sometimes.
I'm not saying the cause isn't just. More power to them if they can cause change without the broad support of the community.
Sho_Nuff82
Member
Protesting that can potentially cause life threatening injuries to innocent parties is downright stupid. There are dozens of ways to get attention that don't involve stepping in front of 70 mph vehicles.
EdibleKnife
Member
Emergency vehicles are deal with blockages and are diverted literally every week. From standard traffic to game days to parades and other accidents. It's nothing new yet somehow I've heard this complaint more when it comes to protests for civil rights than I have at literally any other day of the week. This is all ignoring the common sense fact that ambulances that encounter obstructions commonly switch hospital destinations and protests that are actually face to face with emergency vehicles are not cruel enough to not allow them to pass.
At the end of the day, anyone that's annoyed or pissed off at a traffic obstruction by people pushed to their limits seeking to be treated equally was not on the side of progress. If your allegence to fighting for black life is so flimsy you should start to consider what you actually think equality is worth because there are multiple examples throughout history that show unequivocally that the journey to it is loud and messy and it gets louder and messier the longer people are denied it.
GoldenEye 007
Member
Disrupting civil services via protesting has been proven as a very effective method of getting things done in the US. We were in part founded on it. Protesting in a manner that nobody notices accomplishes nothing.
Giant Panda
Member
And you can do so in a way that people notice without putting people in danger.
I think it is one thing to block regular roads, but an interstate really is dangerous for everyone in involved. This is a place where individuals are usually traveling at a high rate of speed, and then on top of that you have it being evening/night hours where visibility is even more limited. There is a very real chance some idiot would plow through any barricade and hit cops and/or protesters, or cause a wreck further back.
Then again, maybe I am biased since I am from the Houston area. Even on a good "light" traffic day, I try to avoid the freeways if at all possible. Drivers are downright nuts lately, usually fussing with cell phones or driving erratically and not paying attention to what is going on around them.
Then again, maybe I am biased since I am from the Houston area. Even on a good "light" traffic day, I try to avoid the freeways if at all possible. Drivers are downright nuts lately, usually fussing with cell phones or driving erratically and not paying attention to what is going on around them.
GoldenEye 007
Member
Do you have any proof emergency vehicles were actually blocked? Or are we still talking about Nana Ruth here?
PeterLegend
Member
What is all of this going to accomplish? What is the end game result?
Some cops are bad, they clearly are not comfortable being around black folks and should be prosecuted for their crimes. I have no issue with this.
The stigma of black lives matter is anti-police and violence (which it isn't) but instances where violence breaks out doesn't help their cause...
So the next time a black man is shot during a traffic stop or when loitering in a parking lot, will more officers get killed???
Some cops are bad, they clearly are not comfortable being around black folks and should be prosecuted for their crimes. I have no issue with this.
The stigma of black lives matter is anti-police and violence (which it isn't) but instances where violence breaks out doesn't help their cause...
So the next time a black man is shot during a traffic stop or when loitering in a parking lot, will more officers get killed???
A Link to the Past
Banned
You can't "cause" a potential accident to happen. If it happens, then you've caused an actual accident. That'd be like describing walking in the crosswalk as causing a potential accident, because who knows what could happen.
"Won't somebody think of the hypothetical grandmas"
Yeah, "could have", but it didn't and I never seen cases when it did. Once again, enter Nana Ruth.
biggersmaller
Banned
Yup. All for disrupting services as protest but blocking I-94 could've killed innocent drivers slamming their brakes at 70 MPH.
GoldenEye 007
Member
I mean, do you think people are just dropping from bridges in the middle of traffic to start it?
How do people cope with the normal everyday traffic jams, then?
EatinOlives
Member
What is ANY protest going to accomplish? You can go up to any protest, even the ones through the ages and ask "but was the end result??"
It says more about you than it says about the protests themselves. They've existed for thousands of years and have different impacts throughout their respective eras.
Except the difference is very obvious to everyone who isn't being deliberately ignorant of the dangers. Yes, if no accident happened, it didn't cause an accident, did it? Congratulations with that true statement. But the potential -- hence the choice of the word -- is there, and not everyone takes that lightly.
What you are witnessing is what happens when a problem goes unchecked, and all peaceful means have been ignored. Get used to it. Its happening until it stops.
People shouldn't need to do this, but its because of the mindset behind Nana Ruth as well as claiming this is no way to get a message across. Keep blocking traffic as long as all other efforts until the message: police murdering people, is stopped. As left on your own, with that mindset, the nation has done fuck all. If you have to be convinced of that message, again, keep blocking that traffic. You had a chance to be part of the conversation, and the nation ignored it.
The same nation can blow up a wrong country 1000 times over because someone in the middle east is mean to their own people!?!? Yet, have to be "convinced" over police brutality with HD video around the clock.
People shouldn't need to do this, but its because of the mindset behind Nana Ruth as well as claiming this is no way to get a message across. Keep blocking traffic as long as all other efforts until the message: police murdering people, is stopped. As left on your own, with that mindset, the nation has done fuck all. If you have to be convinced of that message, again, keep blocking that traffic. You had a chance to be part of the conversation, and the nation ignored it.
The same nation can blow up a wrong country 1000 times over because someone in the middle east is mean to their own people!?!? Yet, have to be "convinced" over police brutality with HD video around the clock.
TestOfTide
Banned
If it's any consolation, the sort of stress involved with conservatives' anger couldn't possibly be good for their health and as social conservatives make up less and less of the US population they are only going to get more stressed as their bigoted ideology gets increasingly left behind.
To give an example of a protest that the people with Nana Ruth Syndrome wants to have, there was a peaceful protest by college kids outside the University of New Mexico during the day of the shooting of Philando Castile. They were in the sidewalk, not being an inconvenience. Guess what, no matter how loud they were, their voices didn't touch anyone, they came and went, no one was paying attention to it. I just glanced at it for a second really.
What got people's attention? The people who were protesting in the streets, in the interstate, causing disruption to the nation's infrastructure, that's what got their message out and the attention needed. That's the most effective method since the very finding of this nation and history itself
What about designated areas closed off specifically so the protest can take place that are usually busy thoroughfares for travel? Seems like a good compromise vs potentially blocking emergency vehicles and further agitation between law enforcement and protesters.
Silver Arrows
Banned
Poor Nana Ruth. If only those protesters protested on the sidewalks instead of one road out of many, she hypothetically might have been here with us today.
Oh man, I remember that thread. God it was fun lol.
EdibleKnife
Member
What are you talking about? The officers killed were killed by a maniac who stated plainly that he was pissed off by the peaceful route BLM has been using to seek change. They weren't targets of BLM to send any sort of message. Any violence that breaks out breaks out after violence is put upon them by cops pointing guns, throwing tear gas, striking people with batons and arresting peaceful protesters and journalists alike. And the movement is plainly about equality in the justice system. People want to stop being treated like their lives are forfeit when they interact with the judicial system. This isn't just about some bad cops, it's about bad cops that kill unnecessarily, are defended by their departments through subterfuge, and go through the court system only to be let back on the streets despite overwhelming evidence of negligence. When cops stop getting off from killing unarmed people, it stops. When parents no longer need to worry that they'll have to meet their children in a mourge after an hour encounter with an officer scared to death of black skin, then it stops. When I no longer need to think twice before I call 911, then it stops. When departments start kicking out or reporting on officers who display disturbing amounted of bigotry and racial bias instead of doing everything in their power to keep them on, then it stops. When minorities with concealed carry permits actually have the same privileges as white gun owners without fear of some cop cowering with their gun out, then it stops.
As to the point of what this accomplishes, what does any civil unrest accomplish? Civil rights marches, the Stonewall riots, pride parades, the women's lib movement. There are several moments throughout history where change on,y came about through the unrest of the marginalized. I mean for goodness sake, literal days ago we celebrated the US's own historical moment of civil unrest to gain rights they were denied. Acting as thought these marches, hashtags, arrests, meetings, signs, everything going on is some random whining with no purpose is so disingenuous,
A protest shouldn't be aiming to cause complete disruption such as blocking an interstate, they should be marching towards their police HQ or local government.
Also as somebody outside the US, it's scary how eager police are to draw their guns in non-life threatening situations, the threat of lethal force should be a last resort, not waving a gun around to get somebody to move back.
Also as somebody outside the US, it's scary how eager police are to draw their guns in non-life threatening situations, the threat of lethal force should be a last resort, not waving a gun around to get somebody to move back.
Kibbles
Member
Granted a police account but it does actually happen. Ex: https://twitter.com/MassStatePolice/status/555782682740002817
Poor Nana Ruth. If only those protesters protested on the sidewalks instead of one road out of many, she hypothetically might have been here with us today.
At the same time, they found another hospital, which was my other point. "If only those protesters protested on the sidewalks instead of one road out of many..." There's always a backup plan when these things (traffic being blocked) happen, whether a 17 car pile up or a bunch of protesters.
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