Police #2: Burning down the house

[karaddin]

1 hour ago, Fury Resurrected said:

And I, for one, hope it catches on. Let’s burn a location of a multi billion dollar corporation every time one of or native or trans sisters gets murdered, too.
 

As long as people exist who have fewer protections and less recourse than property, attacking property will be a valid form of protest and you cannot convince me otherwise.

And the more the protests happen, the scarcer the cop resources for brutality will become. I just saw that Seattle has announced it "won't use any more gas" but that the real reason is they're already running out of it anyway. And that they stepped up using gas because they ran out of blast balls, and tried to frame that as a moral gesture too.

On the "Minneapolis police to ban choke holds" thing... Wasn't this knee on the neck move already banned? Not sure why that should be seen as much of a victory when they don't follow their own rules anyway.

[DMC]

1 hour ago, Fury Resurrected said:

And I, for one, hope it catches on. Let’s burn a location of a multi billion dollar corporation every time one of or native or trans sisters gets murdered, too.
 

As long as people exist who have fewer protections and less recourse than property, attacking property will be a valid form of protest and you cannot convince me otherwise.

I don't have much problem with the principle, but the first graph here makes no sense.  I'm going to expand the statement in the following paraphrase, but just a bit, to say you're suggesting every time a minority is murdered "let's burn a location of a multi billion dollar corporation every time," right?  K...forgetting the logistics of that, why?  Collective responsibility is something to emphasize, yes, but the actual implications of this sound like you're the Joker.  The good one, Heath Ledger Joker.  I applaud those that burned down the precinct - but because there was a direct reason for it.  Indiscriminate arson and/or looting?  No.  Not like it's cutting-edge or anything, there've been anarchists around for a very long time.  It's pretty lame, and never works.

Not to mention the obvious fact the more you encourage that behavior the more likely it is people get hurt.  And not just because of unjust police violence.

[polishgenius]

6 hours ago, Martell Spy said:

I wonder how long police immunity will last if they keep attacking white people and cheering about it? Not very smart to send a message that no one is safe from them.

In Chicago they beat up the guy in charge of punishing them if they beat people up.

[BigFatCoward]

20 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

In Chicago they beat up the guy in charge of punishing them if they beat people up.

I shouldn't laugh but I cant help myself. 

[Maltaran]

Hey BFC, is this your opinion too?

https://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/british-policeman-outraged-at-us-police-for-all-the-cool-shit-theyve-got-20200605197268

[Inkdaub]

3 hours ago, DMC said:

I don't have much problem with the principle, but the first graph here makes no sense.  I'm going to expand the statement in the following paraphrase, but just a bit, to say you're suggesting every time a minority is murdered "let's burn a location of a multi billion dollar corporation every time," right?  K...forgetting the logistics of that, why?  Collective responsibility is something to emphasize, yes, but the actual implications of this sound like you're the Joker.  The good one, Heath Ledger Joker.  I applaud those that burned down the precinct - but because there was a direct reason for it.  Indiscriminate arson and/or looting?  No.  Not like it's cutting-edge or anything, there've been anarchists around for a very long time.  It's pretty lame, and never works.

Not to mention the obvious fact the more you encourage that behavior the more likely it is people get hurt.  And not just because of unjust police violence.

Pure opportunists aside, is it really indiscriminate?  These corporations are headed by the people who support and encourage much of the strife in the world.  That includes the almost constant stream of manipulation we are subjected to from the moment we first draw breath.  It includes the support of any and all things that ensure we are focused on each other and not the man behind the curtain.  They didn't invent racism but they definitely benefit from and encourage it.  They definitely support the type of culture our police forces continue to develop and reinforce.  They maintain an alarming amount of control over hundreds of millions of people.  It all goes back to them.  It always does. 

 

[DMC]

23 minutes ago, Inkdaub said:

These corporations are headed by the people who support and encourage much of the strife in the world.

You start advocating burning down building/business that are owned by billions instead of million or thousand dollar corporations, and it will get indiscriminate real quick.  And don't tell me about monopolized corps dominating the message.  Literally on this thread we have people posting tweets of bullshit that isn't true.  Communication has never been as democratized as it currently is, for better and worse.

 

[Maithanet]

I actually think the reason these protests are having more impact that most others is the omnipresent videos of police beating, brutalizing, gassing, and (in the case of Floyd) murdering innocent people.  Not that videos didn't exist before, but they weren't all over the news every day for a week. 

It has really driven home to many Americans that we aren't talking about a few "bad apples", this is a system of violence without accountability.

[BigFatCoward]

1 hour ago, Maltaran said:

Hey BFC, is this your opinion too?

https://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/british-policeman-outraged-at-us-police-for-all-the-cool-shit-theyve-got-20200605197268

I mean, I've never used my asp (other than to smash a window) or my CS spray, wtf would I do with a baton round or fucking flash grenades? knowing us we'd just use them on each other to wake people up when they fell asleep on a carrier (someone set my tie on fire once when I fell asleep). 

[Larry of the Lawn]

19 hours ago, Ran said:

I don't mean to distract from the broader issue, but this bit feels like it's misinformation. I went and searched for more information on this ... and the claim seems to be sourced from a single tweet from some random person without any evidence. Vox's Recode site asked Target about this and they denied it. Do you have any other sources of information about this that supports the allegation or contradicts Target's denial?

The closest thing I can find to "experiments" at that store is this 2011 article about a funneled-queue system they tried out for a few months at that store. No references to loss prevention there in that article.

Whoa Target denied it?  Case closed.

[Fragile Bird]

22 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

I actually think the reason these protests are having more impact that most others is the omnipresent videos of police beating, brutalizing, gassing, and (in the case of Floyd) murdering innocent people.  Not that videos didn't exist before, but they weren't all over the news every day for a week. 

It has really driven home to many Americans that we aren't talking about a few "bad apples", this is a system of violence without accountability.

This. While what Fury Resurrected and karaddin wrote are powerful and resonate as true, I don’t think the violence during protests has moved people as much as the ruthless and heartless violence in the murder video. Seeing the violence used by police against protestors has moved more people to join those protests. That includes corporate executives.

Looting shopping districts didn’t move the NFL to announce Black Lives Matter, seeing the groundswell of support across all their target markets moved them. Charles Barkley is on CNN right now, and he pointed out that just two weeks ago the NFL was bribing teams to hire black coaches by offering an extra draft pick to those who do. They didn’t move from that point to BLM because of burning buildings.

[Guy Kilmore]

6 hours ago, karaddin said:

And the more the protests happen, the scarcer the cop resources for brutality will become. I just saw that Seattle has announced it "won't use any more gas" but that the real reason is they're already running out of it anyway. And that they stepped up using gas because they ran out of blast balls, and tried to frame that as a moral gesture too.

On the "Minneapolis police to ban choke holds" thing... Wasn't this knee on the neck move already banned? Not sure why that should be seen as much of a victory when they don't follow their own rules anyway.

It is a little different, before it was the Minneapolis police department pinky swearing they won't do choke holds.  Now it is the city council mandating it.  But yeah, until we have other fundamental changes this isn't that big of a step.

[Guest]

I've been going back and forth on what makes all of this feel so different this time around (and it's not just me; even Ta-Nehisi Coates says he is feeling some hope).

Here's what I've come up with, in no particular order:

Pandemic- there are tens of millions more people unemployed or working from home now than there have been in modern times. Without a bunch of bored, pissed off people looking for spectacle, I don't think the protests reach the critical mass that they have. Also, this allows people to attend marches on a near-daily basis.

The video - there was simply zero ambiguity to the video. The brutal and sustained nature of it isn't something we normally see. Usually videos are relatively short bursts of action, or police can claim mitigating circumstances. But George Floyd was helpless for the entirety of the video. There is no other even partially convincing description of events.

The right kind of property damage - protesters burned down the precinct. This was different. This was people fighting back and actually winning a battle. 54% of Americans think it was justified! You can't get 54% of Americans to agree on anything except that they hate Trump and that soccer should definitely not be called fucking football. Without the protesters burning down the precinct, I think the media focusing on the ZOMG! LOOTERS!!! drowns out the protests.

Cops being cops - much like Trump, cops haven't been able to get out of their own way. With the corporate media crying crocodile tears over the protests (does anyone think the bigshots at CNN are anything but thrilled that they got to air a 20 minute commercial for CNN when the protesters messed up CNN's headquarters?), it felt like public sentiment was starting to shift against the protesters. But then, even as the protests became more peaceful, cops just kept tripping over their dicks by brutalizing obviously peaceful protesters.

The spate of reporting around Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and Floyd - there were three extremely heinous incidents, all involving bad actions by law enforcement, and 2 of 3 had video of the incident. Given wounds in these communities were already so raw, this likely helped to provide a larger geographical base for protests at the beginning.

Intangibles - I don't know if anyone else has noticed this, but people seem more willing to listen. People in my social network who I had pretty much written off as hopeless, or some of them at least, are actually considering the contextual factors leading up to all this, even after conversations that began as the normal bullshit arguments. I wouldn't characterize it as wide-spread, but it's definitely something I've noticed.

[Guy Kilmore]

6 minutes ago, The Great Unwashed said:

Intangibles - I don't know if anyone else has noticed this, but people seem more willing to listen. People in my social network who I had pretty much written off as hopeless, or some of them at least, are actually considering the contextual factors leading up to all this, even after conversations that began as the normal bullshit arguments. I wouldn't characterize it as wide-spread, but it's definitely something I've noticed.

I have noticed this with some people of the same people, my family is entrenched in a certain point of view.  And to have my, for instance, Mom come out and say that the police did wrong, that there is a point to all of this, and actually have a conversation about race is a huge shift.  I could feel it in the conversation.

[Ran]

1 hour ago, larrytheimp said:

Whoa Target denied it?  Case closed.

Lets not be foolish. There is no evidence, just unsubstantiated rumor sourced from no one in particular.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 hour ago, Fragile Bird said:

Seeing the violence used by police against protestors has moved more people to join those protests. That includes corporate executives.

It's not mere violence that is moving people. It's the lack of need to use violence, but it's used anyways. That old man posed no threat. Why attack him? 

Cops love to call gang members gang bangers, but they're gang bangers too. They enjoy the violence, and their power dynamic. 

[Fury Resurrected]

37 minutes ago, Ran said:

Lets not be foolish. There is no evidence, just unsubstantiated rumor sourced from no one in particular.

Again, it is the experience of the neighborhood. This isn’t a rumor that sprung up afterward, this has been a community criticism of Target since that store has been around. It is the ONLY Target in a community of color or a poor community in the entire state. This is absolute fact, anyone in Minnesota will tell you this. People who shop this target feel they are followed more often than people at other targets do, and that they are arrested for shoplifting more often than happens at other stores. Might that be coincidental instead of Target policy? Sure, but that’s how the people have always felt about this particular store. In shopping there myself, I can absolutely see why. Most Target layouts here are one of two or three floor plans and this one is unique. There aren’t other Targets set up like this one. I’ve seen uniformed loss prevention staff who they dress up to look like cops at a few other stores once or twice, but it’s rare. There was ***always ***one of these standing at the door on Lake St, sometimes more than one, which I have never seen in another store. I avoid shopping at the Lake St one because the selection is more limited despite being just as big a store, and because I don’t enjoy being followed by secret shopper loss prevention staff (which is 100% a thing Target does, I tattooed a Target loss prevention trainer about 3 years ago and he was telling me about his job and it is going to stores and training staff to do this) for being a POC who doesn’t like touching shopping carts (loss prevention client said not using a cart for some reason is a thing they look for). I mean, police say they don’t target POC either but the data doesn’t support that claim which I am sure they even think is true. Target would probably, if they were pressed with arrest numbers about that store, just claim that they experience more loss there and hire more loss prevention. But since it’s the ONLY one in a community of color, this disproportionately impacts POC. And a white loss prevention worker is more likely to suspect a POC of shoplifting for the same reasons George Floyd was even considered for arrest for maybe having a fake $20 while none of the white people I know who’ve been passed a fake (lots of people who get tipped in cash end up with these and I probably have at some point and never knew) had more than a couple questions asked if the cops were called, which is rare. Most people I’ve known just weren’t allowed to spend it and had to use something else and were told by the store to turn it in. What you’re missing is a key element of how systemic racism works unconsciously to the people perpetrating it.

It seems like you’re kind of gaslighting here. Two people from the area are telling you that yes, this is indeed the community sentiment about this store and has been for a very long time. You can’t find anything online about it sure, but how many American stores CAN you find the internal loss prevention information on online? If it was true do you think Target would say so, knowing such an admission might result in another Target burned? Their corporate headquarters is probably less than 3 miles from this location in a glass skyscraper and close to a few things that got smashed into. 

[Fury Resurrected]

And I must add in case you missed the info- it’s the ONLY store in a community of color at all in the state (maybe at all, I don’t know about other states but I’ve never personally seen it when traveling). ***It also just so happens to be across the street from the police station.*** People in the neighborhood feel like people get arrested there for shoplifting a lot. And you somehow don’t understand why the community might not view this particular store favorably? A corporate line of oh we won’t open any stores in poor or black communities except for this one right next to the police station passes the smell test for you?

[Week]

11 minutes ago, Fury Resurrected said:

And I must add in case you missed the info- it’s the ONLY store in a community of color at all in the state (maybe at all, I don’t know about other states but I’ve never personally seen it when traveling). ***It also just so happens to be across the street from the police station.*** People in the neighborhood feel like people get arrested there for shoplifting a lot. And you somehow don’t understand why the community might not view this particular store favorably? A corporate line of oh we won’t open any stores in poor or black communities except for this one right next to the police station passes the smell test for you?

Sounds like a complete random coincidence this happened over the course of months and years of vetting locations, permitting, and building.

/s

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

2 hours ago, Fury Resurrected said:

And a white loss prevention worker is more likely to suspect a POC of shoplifting for the same reasons George Floyd was even considered for arrest for maybe having a fake $20 while none of the white people I know who’ve been passed a fake (lots of people who get tipped in cash end up with these and I probably have at some point and never knew) had more than a couple questions asked if the cops were called, which is rare. Most people I’ve known just weren’t allowed to spend it and had to use something else and were told by the store to turn it in. What you’re missing is a key element of how systemic racism works unconsciously to the people perpetrating it.
 

This is the point I keep coming back to. When I was having, let's say fun, in Uptown, I'd largely pay for everything in cash, because I sometimes didn't know what to even do with it, at least until I could wash it at Mystic. If I was suspected of having a fake bill, I could just give them a different one. No one would call the cops on me, and then I'd go to the bank and ask if it was. No harm, no foul.