All-purpose news and politics thread: Two Steps Beyond!

[Tendrin]

It's almost like racists are really loud on the internet or something.

Also, the infatalizing of white people by conserfvatives is amazing for all their carping about 'nanny states'.

"stop trying to tell white voters stuff they don't wanna hear! They're incapable of handling it! Also, BLACKS ARE VIOLENT WHAT ABOUT BLACK ON BLACK CRIME GOSH WHY ARE YOU SO TRIGGERED"

[Mister Mets]

I think I read a few years ago a black college professor was arrested for breaking in to his own home (He had forgotten his keys). You'd think the cops could have asked to see his ID and relaxed after seeing the address on the license - or at least merely had him wait to ensure there weren't any restraining orders against him and then helped him enter the house.

That was an interesting mess.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...063001356.html

After coming home from a trip to China, Gates found his front door jammed, so he and his driver began pushing their way in. A neighbor, thinking that the men were breaking into the house, called police.

When Crowley arrived, he found Gates in the house (the driver was gone) and asked him to step outside. Gates refused. When Crowley went into the house, Gates showed his Harvard identification card and his driver's license, which included his address. According to police, Gates then became angry and followed Crowley outside. He was arrested on a charge of disorderly conduct, which was later dropped.

The arrest, which became a kind of national Rorschach test on racial profiling, deteriorated in the "first five nanoseconds," Gates told the committee.

Crowley said that he "had no choice" but to arrest Gates, who said he asked the officer whether he was being mistreated because he was African American. The committee faulted both men, saying Crowley "missed opportunities to find a better outcome." It chided Gates for not immediately stepping onto his porch as initially requested by the officer.

Both Gates and Crowley stood their ground in interviews conducted for the report, refusing to admit error. Crowley believed that Gates was being belligerent and unruly. Gates believed that he was being treated unfairly.

Obama, who initially called the arrest "stupid," ended the furious public debate over his comments by inviting Gates and Crowley to the White House for a beer. Obama said at the time that he believed the incident was a "teachable moment."

Still, the situation essentially remained unresolved with dueling versions about what happened and passionate disagreement among supporters of both men. The committee investigating the arrest, led by Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, was left to sort it all out. . The committee investigating the arrest, led by Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, was left to sort it all out. At the start of the investigation, Wexler said he was doubtful that there were any lessons to be learned.

"There was a certain degree of skepticism," he said. "People on the committee had preconceived ideas about what they thought happened. What really began to happen was we kind of put that aside, and we had to get at the facts."

The committee titled the report "Missed Opportunities, Shared Responsibilities" because "both of the individuals contributed to the outcome unintentionally. Both had opportunities to try to ratchet down the encounter," Wexler said. "They were both looking at the same set of circumstances from different perspectives. They both had a certain degree of fear of each other."

The committee offers 10 recommendations for diffusing that fear, including encouraging police departments to offer training in how to de-escalate tensions when officers are not in danger, which Crowley did not do. Law enforcement officials should also take a hard look at cases where the only victim in a disorderly conduct charge is the police officer, as opposed to cases in which the arrested person had other victims, the committee said.

The report suggests that Crowley could have calmed Gates after he saw proof of the professor's residency and "taken greater pains" to explain the dangers of responding to a possible crime-in-progress.

Gates said that he would not have done anything differently -- except not follow Crowley out of his house, where he was arrested. The committee said Gates could have spoken to Crowley "more respectfully" and should have stepped outside of his home at the beginning of the encounter, as Crowley requested.

Neither Gates nor Crowley has responded to requests for interviews about the report. Gates's lawyer Charles Ogletree, a Harvard law professor and expert on civil rights, released a book on the topic last month titled "The Presumption of Guilt: The Arrest of Henry Louis Gates and Race, Class and Crime in America." Ogletree determined that "the issues of race, class and crime were ever present" and included an epilogue with the stories of 100 prominent black men who have experienced racial profiling.

"To say that both gentleman could have handled it differently ignores the issues of power and control and authority," Ogletree said of the report. "Gates could not control the situation. The officer did."

Cambridge Police Commissioner Robert Haas said last week that the arrest was an aberration that does not affect how the department operates. A report last week by the New England Center for Investigative Reporting found that the department's handling of disorderly conduct cases from 2004 to 2009 was evenhanded. Of the 392 adults arrested for disorderly conduct, 57 percent were white and 34 percent were black. That racial breakdown almost exactly mirrored the racial composition of the population that Cambridge police investigated for disorderly conduct, the center's analysis shows.

[Tazirai]

11 government employees quit after election of first woman mayor in fundamentalist Mormon city

Was about to post this. **** them. The stone ages are gone, and these religious Dinosaurs will learn it one day.

[Tazirai]

It's almost like racists are really loud on the internet or something.

Also, the infatalizing of white people by conserfvatives is amazing for all their carping about 'nanny states'.

"stop trying to tell white voters stuff they don't wanna hear! They're incapable of handling it! Also, BLACKS ARE VIOLENT WHAT ABOUT BLACK ON BLACK CRIME GOSH WHY ARE YOU SO TRIGGERED"

Funny thing the SECOND you even mention that White on White Crime is only 5-8 points lower, they freak out.

[Mister Mets]

Mets -- this dialogue is exactly what my mother meant by "explaining water to a fish".

It's probably not going to happen at this point, so it's best to just move on.

If you really want to learn more, there are plenty of other resources out there that will give you a much better definition of white privilege than the ones you seem to have, or are claiming that others seem to have -- a simple Wikipedia search was all it took to address the very first point that you brought up.

I think you might be arguing against points I haven't made.

I am aware that the official definition of white privilege is things that would apply regardless of social, political, or economic circumstances. I don't need to learn more about the definition.

I've even read 1988 essay in which the term originated.

http://www.ywca.org/atf/cf/%7B6EDE37...20Knapsack.pdf

The point of contention isn't about the definition, or about the merits of the perspective.

[Tendrin]

Funny thing the SECOND you even mention that White on White Crime is only 5-8 points lower, they freak out.

Even bigger freak out when you tell them that if you control for poverty and population density, whites commit crimes at exactly the same rate as blacks :P

[Tendrin]

For the sake of WBE's future without ass cancer, please don't let this be true:

http://www.latimes.com/politics/esse...htmlstory.html

Far-right activist and blogger Mike Cernovich said Thursday he’s thinking about running for Congress in California this year. “It’s looking like a real possibility,” he tweeted to his more than 400,000 followers without revealing which district he might be considering.

[worstblogever]

For the sake of WBE's future without ass cancer, please don't let this be true:

http://www.latimes.com/politics/esse...htmlstory.html

... ugh. Gross.

[Tendrin]

... ugh. Gross.

As soon as I saw it, all I thought was 'oh no, poor WBE'. It's not a profile anyone should have to write. Ever.

[Malvolio]

If people ask me what "white privilege" is, my definition would be it's the things that white people take for granted, but Black people cannot. For instance, when a policeman pulls me over, I take it for granted that he won't ask me to step out of my vehicle. My Black co-workers cannot take that for granted.

[JackDaw]

I think you might be arguing against points I haven't made.

I am aware that the official definition of white privilege is things that would apply regardless of social, political, or economic circumstances. I don't need to learn more about the definition.

I've even read 1988 essay in which the term originated.

http://www.ywca.org/atf/cf/%7B6EDE37...20Knapsack.pdf

The point of contention isn't about the definition, or about the merits of the perspective.

For me...pragmatically..it’s an anti-productive term.

It actually divides peploe on grounds of race, so isn’t a great term to use in the fight against racism.

[Tendrin]

For me...pragmatically..it’s an anti-productive term.

It actually divides peploe on grounds of race, so isn’t a great term to use in the fight against racism.

You can't talk about racism without talking about the divisions we've created in society on account of race.

[JackDaw]

You can't talk about racism without talking about the divisions we've created in society on account of race.

Of course not.

But that still leaves it possible to select different terms. Some terms drop out of use over time because people find them unacceptable..that’s happened to many racist terms.

“White privilege” (I suspect) alienates many decent working class white people , irritates and annoys them...I don’t think it helps.

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

It’s probably better to just call it anti black bias or something that shows how it negatively effects blacks as opposed to how it positively effects whites. Because I can tell you the term just causes more problems than it solves. Right or wrong many whites who aren’t in a good position in life just get offended at the idea that they somehow have it easier. At this point, it just creates divisions and doesn’t have much of a positive impact.

Messaging does have importance and regardless of what the message actually is, it’s getting lost over how it’s perceived.

Also it’s kind of like the term mansplaing. There is a validity behind it. But all too often it’s used as trump card in to try to get some sort of higher ground in discussions and overrule people who don’t see eye to eye with you. Nothings ever accomplished in those.

[JCAll]

For me...pragmatically..it’s an anti-productive term.

It actually divides peploe on grounds of race, so isn’t a great term to use in the fight against racism.

I'm not sure what the point of discourse is at all if the very existence of certain words is enough to immediately shut down a conversation. I'm reminded of the climate change discussion, where people are told not to use the term "climate change" as it's a trigger word that shuts down any debate immediately. That's a problem, but a bigger problem is that before it was "climate change" it was "global warming" that was the trigger word to tear the discussion apart, now it's both. What words can we use? If we can just keep adding words to a list that can't be said, what the point of talking at all, as anyone you disagree with can just add what you just said to the list and walk away.

I say that knowing that no matter how illogical it is, it's still the way people think and there's nothing that can be done about that. I personally think it's better to just keep rolling through pragmatic terms than try to dance around them.