Running racism in America thread

The one cop who did try to help him was pushed too.

 

Those cops did not resign their jobs. They quit the Tac unit, presumably because someone dared to call their bullshit. It's a gesture of defiance.

 

I just read that one of the three cops who stood by as George Floyd was killed was new on the job. The officer who kneeled on Floyd's neck was his training officer. He'd been on the job for ten days.

He also had a criminal record and a slew of traffic tickets.

 

Eeeeeeewwwwwwwww

 

So does this mean Roger is going to kneel for the anthem now that he wants "to personally protest with you"?

 

Only one of them was standing by. The other two were helping hold Floyd down.

 

Perhaps I was out of line in saying GG was lying. The thing is, in my experience, when someone says "I'm not trying to justify this but..." they are trying to justify it.

Every time a black person has been killed like this, some people find it necessary to dig into their past and dig up anything that makes them somehow responsible for their own murder. Even if there is a kernel of truth in anything they find, it's blown way out of proportion to make it look like "He was no angel." I've heard people complain about the choice of photos of the deceased. Why did they use a photo of a 12-year-old Trayvon Martin? Why didn't they use a more menacing one?

Why the fuck does any of that matter? George Floyd may have done some bad things in his life but what am I supposed to do with that information? What does that have to do with how he ended up being murdered?

One person stated that he held a gun to a pregnant woman's stomach. I don't know if it's true or not. Given than if some people learn that about him and might think his death was some sort of karma, maybe it's best that that information not be out there.

Many years ago, when I was working at a convenience store I was chatting with the manager about the death penalty. I was very much against it (Today, I'm not completely for it but not completely against it but that's another discussion for another day). I told her that I was concerned that someday an innocent person might be executed. She replied that if someone could be in a position where they could be wrongfully convicted of murder, common sense tells you at some point in their life they've done something to deserve it. Am I the only person who thinks that line of thinking is really fucked up?

OK, he didn't deserve to die for passing a phony $20, but maybe that pregnant woman feels a little better. Does that make it OK?

The Candace Owens video I referenced was viewed 34 million times, so I guess she does meet some sort of threshold of significance. She says she hopes George Floyd and his family get justice then goes on to spend 18 minutes pissing on the guy's grave. She also used statistics that were either cherry-picked or made up to claim there is no problem, that more white people are killed by police and black people commit more crime.

She makes a really good living making bigots feel better about their bigotry.

I guess I just don't understand why it's necessary to trash the victim?

This is never done with white victims, either.

Why is there always a "but" when someone says "I'm not trying to justify this"?

 

"I'm not a racist but..."

 

That guy might be the second most hated man on twitter this week.

 

Does his conviction matter in terms of his death? No.

Should it matter to news people writing about it, and him, in the wake of his death? Yes, if it's a far-ranging overview piece that's to be complete, which is what I would expect of a major, professional, serious news organization. How ever his family may have wanted Floyd to be remembered and portrayed, they were not the ones writing/generating this news article. CNN was.

And make no mistake, it was news -- to me, to Smallpotatoes, and let's be honest, probably to most of us. This is a news-writing issue, and for better or worse, it's one about writing on the life of a man who is now a public figure, a historical figure, and yes, a figure toward whom we can and should be sympathetic with regard to his death. But that shouldn't change our responsibility as journalists.

Am I thinking less of Floyd now? No, actually.

Because I'm an intelligent person who can parse things, and a trained former journalist who can separate and stand back a bit and just report and would want to inform, accurately and completely. I'd like to think I would present such a picture as I know it if I'm ever involved in such an event/article.

That little fact about Floyd even potentially adds to the police picture, and might have informed the arresting cops' views and actions. It doesn't excuse them, but it might have informed them (which still has nothing to do with us as journalists). Think about it. It seems likely that the police probably already had done some kind of background check and had some prior information on Floyd before he was ganged up on and before he hit the ground. In all likelihood, they knew they were dealing with a guy who hadn't just possessed counterfeit money. He was a guy who'd been convicted of a serious crime, involving deadly weaponry. They probably knew that at the time, even if we didn't. And you'd be a fool to think that, when the police are involved and have stopped you, your past doesn't matter.

The arrest for that prior offense doesn't/wouldn't have changed my feelings about Floyd, or my approach to writing something that was to be presented as, essentially, a biography of him. But I can certainly see how it might make the police view him: i.e. a little differently than they might a mere counterfeiter being stopped for the the first time.

Does anything involving his past tilt the scales toward him being more deserving of being killed? No, of course not.

The officers did wrong, and went too far, with tragic and wrong consequences. There's no doubt about it. But that doesn't mean journalists should have a glaring omission in a story that I'd think they'd want to be complete and accurate.