I shouldn't be jumping into this thread but screw it. Time for a long post about this bullshit. Sorry if I'm just stating the obvious.
Re: Ramble Karen
So the question was raised whether or not this whyte woman wanted another black man to die at the hands of the police. Can we definitively say she wanted this man to die? No. Can we say that she was weaponizing the man's race against him? Yes. Can we say that she was aware that calling the police and screaming "an African American man was threatening" her life would be perceived as a threat by the man as well as the police? Yes. Can we say that she was aware of the threat posed by the police to Black men? Yes.
So, whether or not she wanted the man to die is irrelevant. She knew what she was doing and she was aware of the myriad of potential outcomes. None of which, particularly mattered to her as long as she got whatever she was perceiving she wanted.
Speculating further, was this woman stress related to her ignorance in this instance? Irrelevant. Is what we don't see prior to the beginning of the video relevant? In my mind, No. Because what is clear in the video is that the person holding the camera has a non-threatening tone, while the woman being filmed is threatening the man behind the camera.
Is this woman a white supremacist? probably not. Is she a bigot? maybe. Is she racist? absolutely. Does she think of herself as racist? almost certainly not, but people who actively weaponize their privilege to physically or mentally injure someone of a different race who lacks that privilege is absolutely guilty of racism. It's the same racism that is institutionalized, that our nation, economy, and identity are founded upon.
Re Minneapolis police:
The FOP is also a racist institution. Are all of its members racists? Probably not. Do they serve and protect an inequitable and unjust system that is intended to protect the people who have from those who have not? Most definitely.
Both police unions in Minneapolis and St. Paul are headed by known racists. The Minneapolis Union is headed by Bob Kroll, an avid Trumpy and known white supremacist, who has faced many excessive force and racial complaints over his years as an officer. Minneapolis is a very liberal city, as you might imagine, yet its police union is headed by someone who has beat African and African Americans while using racial slurs. This is also the same place (different municipality) where Phialndro Castile was murdered and just a few weeks ago while the Ahmed Arbuery news was breaking a young white man from a suburban county, murdered a black man who he was in a fender bender with in St. Paul.
As to the use of the knee to choke (and kill) a man in handcuffs: If you ever do any digging on police training, use of force guidance, and the people behind these things you'll quickly find some disturbing trends. As Lester Holt once said "follow the money." Police officers are taught to sacrifice the lives of the people they are engage with for their own. The perception that their lives are always under threat regardless of the reality combined with again institutionalized if not outright white supremacist views leads to incidents like this where a cuffed suspect is being detained by choking him to death. Similarly to Ramble Karen, did they want him to die? Who knows? Did they care if he did? No.
Until white Americans start putting the well-being of other races, especially African Americans, ahead of their own to begin to move towards something that resembles an equitable society we will continue to all be complicit in these failures. btw putting the public's lives ahead of their own is exactly what the police should be doing (in theory).
This is why if you vote for Trump or don't vote against him (even though Biden is an old white guy idiot who will continue to promote capitalistic driven class, race, and gender inequity) you are at minimum tacitly furthering racially motivated inequity, and at maximum promoting if not actively participating in white supremacist ideals. Not only that you are tacitly promoting a propaganda machine that is having and will continue to have incredible long-term implications for our society.
These stories are not new. Black men have been getting profiled and murdered for being black men for a long time, but what is different now is how easily visible it is to white people who can see it all from the safety of their privilege. It's recorded, it's on video, it's reported on (often inappropriately), and it's weaponized for political gain and power. If we choose to ignore what is so easily visible we are all complicit.
www.thecut.com
www.meandwhitesupremacybook.com
