If you are someone who likes to watch a lot of cop shows, I want you to ask yourself a few questions.
Why do all TV cops, even the good ones, hate Internal Affairs? Isn’t the job of Internal Affairs to root out the “bad cops”? Isn’t their job to make sure police follow the rules? Why is that presented as inherently evil or antagonistic?
Why do all TV cops, even the good ones, hate defense attorneys? Isn’t the defense attorney’s job to protect the rights of all citizens? Isn’t it their job to make sure police follow the law? Isn’t it their job to make sure everyone is treated fairly under the system? Why is that presented as inherently evil or antagonistic?
Why do all TV cops, even the good ones, get upset when citizens invoke their constitutional rights? Don’t those rights exist to ensure all citizens are treated fairly? Don’t they exist to ensure innocent people are not wrongfully incriminated? Why are citizens who invoke their rights presented as dishonest, untrustworthy, or antagonistic?
To be clear, I’ve watched Brooklyn 99 and enjoyed it. I was watching Elementary the other day. But even when I watch shows I like, I make a mental note every time a cop lies, breaks the law, subverts someone’s basic rights, or just generally acts like an asshole to the people the are meant to serve and protect.
How often are they called out on their behavior? How often are they punished for it? How often is it reinforced as correct by the narrative?
When I tell people to be critical of the media they consume that is what I mean. Not simply calling it terrible and moving on, but actually engaging thoughtfully, asking questions, and forming conclusions about what that media is trying to say to you. Then decide whether you want to keep listening, or if it will be better for you in the long run to move on.
Why do only the guilty people ever invoke their right to an attorney? I would invoke my right to an attorney.
Why are protections of innocent people’s rights only ever framed as “slowing the police down” and preventing them from really catching the bad guy? Why is it that every time an officer has an instinct to break the rules, they’re narratively vindicated?
It’s the same question as “but WHY do her superpowers require her to show so much skin?” A writer put that there.
it’s kind of established that there is no “get out of a beatdown” role you can take other than being a cop yourself, right? media, medics, lawyers, all fair game.
Turns out that cops are just dudes who really like beating the shit out of defenceless people. There’s really no other qualification.
For those who hate lawyers I do want to point out that legal observers are sent by the National Lawyer’s Guild, which is the primary organization providing pro-bono legal defense to protesters and black community leaders who have been jailed to try to derail the movement. So, these are not the lawyers you hate.
Just to reiterate: the entire point of NLG legal observers is to deter unlawful or improper behavior on the part of the police / law enforcement personnel–and to document such behavior, if they aren’t successful in deterring it. In the U.S., they have to be trained and certified. Their job is to help you protest to the full extent of your constitutional rights and with minimal interaction with the criminal justice system. I cannot stress the extent to which they are on your side.
The National Lawyer’s Guild’s motto is “human rights over property interests” and was created as a direct fuck you to conservative and exclusionary bar associations. Their dues are way cheaper than other bar associations and you can join even as a jailhouse lawyer (a prisoner who teaches themselves the law to advocate for others).
And just because this is literally my job: your negative perception of lawyers is literally propaganda. The portrayal of defense attorneys as evil for defending criminals, the idea that suing people is something only rich or very greedy people do, the complete erasure of legal aid as a thing that exists, are all designed to make you afraid to advocate for your legal rights.
Members of the original Anti-Racist Action chapter sit down with their neighbors to talk about their fight against hate in Minneapolis and how that led to the largest anti-racist youth network in North America in the 90s.
Video shows Maryland cops REPEATEDLY pepper spray 15-year-old honor roll student.
5 ft 105 lbs girl, whose name has not been officially released yet, was brutalized by Hagerstown police after she on her bike was hit by a car, but refused medical assistance.
Her family’s attorney says that when police arrived, they grabbed the little girl, lifted her hands above her head and slammed her face into a wall.
“They slammed her against a wall, arrested her for refusing treatment, maced her 4 times in the police car while handcuffed, and took her to the police station instead of the hospital.”
She was put in the car, which is when a bystander began filming the incident. The video shows the 15-year-old with her hands handcuffed behind her back kicking at the police car door and later a cop is heard saying: “Put your feet in, or you’re going to get sprayed!” Officer proceeds to pepper spray her a few times.
The girl can be heard screaming: “I can’t breathe!”
The girl was only taken to hospital when she was released to her parents.
Three hours after being pepper sprayed she was finally able to wash her eyes.
She is now charged with disorderly conduct, two counts of second-degree assault, possession of marijuana and failure to obey a traffic device.
#BlackLivesMatter #StopPoliceViolence
#StayWoke
this is where I live and there’s nothing on the news about it
This is torture. They tortured her for fucking fun.
just keep in mind they took Dylan Roof into custody wearing a bullet proof vest to protect him from anyone that may try to kill him THEN they bought him Burger King to eat after the arrest.
But this is how they treat an innocent child.
This happened in 2016. That explains why your not seeing it on the news right now. Though it is still valid. And it’s still evidence that the Black Lives Matter movement is necessary.
A film about the recovery and identification process of migrants who have perished during their travels through the Arizona desert. This man’s loved one was one of those fortunate cases where the deceased had a possible identifier — a tattoo of his daughter’s name across his chest.
On this day, 8 June 1961, a group of Freedom Riders were arrested in Jackson, Mississippi, including Kwame Ture, Gwendolyn Greene and Joan Mulholland (pictured, l-r). Freedom Riders fought government non-enforcement of the ban on segregation in public transport in the US South by riding in multiracial groups. They faced intense violence from local police and white supremacists, including the Ku Klux Klan, until eventually winning in December that year.
Ture (born Stokely Carmichael) became a central organiser in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and later the Black Panther Party. He was targeted by the FBI’s COINTELPRO operation, and “bad jacketed” – falsely painted as a CIA agent and expelled from the SNCC.
Greene (who later changed her name to Britt) had also been arrested in 1960 for refusing to leave the segregated Glen Echo Amusement Park in Maryland. With others, she confronted counter-protesters from the American Nazi Party and continued picketing until the end of summer. The park then agreed to abolish segregation before reopening the following year.
Mulholland, then aged 19, had participated in numerous civil rights sit ins, for which she was disowned by her family. In 1963, she was travelling with four other activists in Mississippi when their car was attacked by the KKK, who had orders to kill them, but they managed to escape. Mulholland remains active to this day.
Image from the excellent Zinn Education Project https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/1445975942254218/?type=3
This blog is mostly so I can vent my feelings and share my interests. Other than that, I am nothing special.
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