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To the 4 white male policemen who beat me for checking the health of [detainee]

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Re: To the 4 white male policemen who beat me for checking the health of [detainee]

#91

Post by davesque »

While I basically agree with the argument of this article -- that it's not okay for officers to be so aggressive, abusive, and dishonest -- I don't find the tone to be very helpful for a couple of reasons.

1) The word "white" appeared in a sequence of insults toward the end of the article. It's hard to deny that, while this kind of talk might be broadly accepted, it's still basically racism. Fundamentally, the ethnicity of the officers is irrelevant. The account of what happened didn't even mention the officers calling out the author's race.

2) It's understandable that a person would feel extremely angry after an experience like this. Even so, it seems the author hasn't let much of his anger die down since the time of the event. The tone of the article is not only angry, but quite frankly, a bit juvenile e.g. the talk about hiring a "badass" lawyer.

Either way, I don't feel like much good will come as a result of this incident. I'd feel differently if Mr. Afshar spent his time calmly talking about how he took the officers to court, what kinds of evidence he cited against them, and how others could do the same.

Re: To the 4 white male policemen who beat me for checking the health of [detainee]

#92

Post by pessimizer »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #79
otterley wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure you didn't intend any offense, but for future reference, "colored" is considered archaic and borderline racial-epithet in the U.S. (I realize it's quite normal and non-offensive elsewhere.)

The problem with this bullshit. Yes bullshit . The problem with this bullshit is that the politically correct adjectives seem to change on a daily basis. I can't keep up. What word are we supposed to use in this half-hour period? Clearly the parent commenter didn't mean any harm. Can we all just relax a bit.

Quit with the outrage; colored has not been the term for a half-century. If you're 80 and you don't have a television, I totally get it.

How exactly can you justify being so angry that someone was gently corrected?

Re: To the 4 white male policemen who beat me for checking the health of [detainee]

#93

Post by powertower »

rjn945 wrote: post #60
powertower wrote: post #14

Wait for the evidence, and the other side of the story, before making a judgment. The last 9 out of 10 of these types of stories turned out to be completely hoaxed on the part of the victim.

Do you have a link to an example of hoax story? I haven't seen that.

Take any racial media story...

From the Duke-lacrosse rape case, to the shooting of Michael Brown, the "clock boy", the black woman killed in jail, and everything in-between and beyond.

All proved to be false narratives.

The list is so large that I'm constantly surprised by the opinion that such a thing does not exist.

Re: To the 4 white male policemen who beat me for checking the health of [detainee]

#94

Post by zbyte64 »

davesque wrote: post #91

While I basically agree with the argument of this article -- that it's not okay for officers to be so aggressive, abusive, and dishonest -- I don't find the tone to be very helpful for a couple of reasons. 1) The word "white" appeared in a sequence of insults toward the end of the article. It's hard to deny that, while this kind of talk might be broadly accepted, it's still basically racism. Fundamentally, the ethnic…

The ethnicity is relevant in that these 4 white officers give a bad reputation for other white officers.

Even Jesus acted out of anger, and it was righteous.

Re: To the 4 white male policemen who beat me for checking the health of [detainee]

#95

Post by SwellJoe »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #79
otterley wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure you didn't intend any offense, but for future reference, "colored" is considered archaic and borderline racial-epithet in the U.S. (I realize it's quite normal and non-offensive elsewhere.)

The problem with this bullshit. Yes bullshit . The problem with this bullshit is that the politically correct adjectives seem to change on a daily basis. I can't keep up. What word are we supposed to use in this half-hour period? Clearly the parent commenter didn't mean any harm. Can we all just relax a bit.

So..."can't keep up" isn't a very good excuse for a term that has been considered offensive since before most of us here were born (at least 40 years).

We can be civil about calling attention to terms that are offensive, and hopefully people can accept that advice politely and without taking offense themselves.

"Can we all just relax a bit."

I think that's a great idea. Why don't we all just read the advice not to use "colored" to refer to people, sit with that knowledge (seemingly new for some folks), internalize it, and then move on with our day, with a sincere goal to not use that term in the future? Seems like a pretty relaxed approach to the problem, to me.

After all, that's all anyone usually wants when they call out something like this. When a black person says, "Hey, don't say nigger." They aren't demanding you be arrested on the spot. They're calling out behavior that's problematic, and relying on there being good faith effort on your part to be more polite in the future.

Re: To the 4 white male policemen who beat me for checking the health of [detainee]

#96

Post by morgante »

pessimizer wrote: post #88
rayiner wrote: post #19

This shit has been happening to poor black and Hispanic people for a long time. In a sick way, it's a good thing that it's happening to doctors now. It's easy for comfortable suburbanites to vote pro-police, but now that the cancer has spread and police are brazenly abusing everyone else, it won't be so easy to ignore. We need a system of collective punishment for such conduct. "Good" police officers should fear losi…

> "Good" police officers should fear losing their livelihoods for helping cover up the abuses of "bad" ones. Good police officers do fear losing their lives and their livelihoods for not looking the other way. I'm a strong advocate for hotlines specifically for police officers to report other officers, backed by civilian investigative authorities with no loyalties or connections to the police force, but with the abil…

We really need to develop a parallel prosecutorial system which is only directed towards the police. So the only way to advance within it is to find and punish bad cops. The current incentives are all out of whack.

Re: To the 4 white male policemen who beat me for checking the health of [detainee]

#97

Post by a3n »

WalterBright wrote: post #52

Consider it from the cops' point of view. A random person shows up and wants to "check the health" of their suspect. When asked for id, he wants to debate "why". Does he seriously think they'll let some unknown person who refuses to provide id interfere with their arrest? Would any cop in any country allow this? What he should have done is opened with "I am a licensed physician, here's my license and id. May I check…

Yeah, I didn't read the part where he identified himself as a physician to the officers.

On the other hand ...

>It does appear the cops overreacted, but how could he expect anything but a negative reaction from the way he approached it?

"Stop resisting!" is goes beyond overreaction, it's conspiracy.

Re: To the 4 white male policemen who beat me for checking the health of [detainee]

#98

Post by rayiner »

berntb wrote: post #26
soneil wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's always made me sad. My ex was American - when we moved to Ireland, I made a habit of routinely (once a week or so) asking random policemen for directions to places, just to teach her that they're entirely approachable here. The closest thing we had to a bad experience, was one chap who took it upon himself to walk with us until we could see our destination, just to make sure we found it. I'd only wanted to was…

Weird, it seems counterproductive. Why doesn't the US police in bigger cities try to integrate with the citizens? Is the violence risk so big or are there legal reasons?

US cities are an order of magnitude more violent than cities in other countries, and there is major racial conflict (until fairly recently, police forces in majority black cities like DC were mostly white).

Re: To the 4 white male policemen who beat me for checking the health of [detainee]

#99

Post by [deleted] »

berntb wrote: post #26
soneil wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's always made me sad. My ex was American - when we moved to Ireland, I made a habit of routinely (once a week or so) asking random policemen for directions to places, just to teach her that they're entirely approachable here. The closest thing we had to a bad experience, was one chap who took it upon himself to walk with us until we could see our destination, just to make sure we found it. I'd only wanted to was…

Weird, it seems counterproductive. Why doesn't the US police in bigger cities try to integrate with the citizens? Is the violence risk so big or are there legal reasons?

[deleted]

Re: To the 4 white male policemen who beat me for checking the health of [detainee]

#100

Post by pessimizer »

trungonnews wrote: post #85
trungonnews wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't mean to offend. What word is more appropriate to describe cops who are not white?

I only learned English after 11 year old. What a confusing language... I thought you guys might know some fancy word, but you only switched the words around.

If someone had made up a fancy word, would that have been better for you? Just accept what people want to be called. Calling black people in the US colored is fraught with problems; I'm sure you wouldn't go to Northern Ireland and call people Fenians.
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