Things that won't save you from "<insert activity>" while black

Discussion in 'Race, Religion, Science and Politics' started by Infinite_loop, Oct 25, 2015.

  1. Infinite_loop

    Infinite_loop Is this thing on?
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    It is delusional to think that "playing fair" and "abiding by the rules" will save you from feeling the wrath of the police, because of your skin color.

    Blavity, one of my fav blogs posted 11 things that won't save you from being black -

    What other activities do you think should be on this list.

    Here's the original:
    For any of you who hold dear a fictional remedy for black oppression— such as “working hard” or “playing by the rules” — here is a small, non-exhaustive list of things that won’t save you from being black.

    1. BEING A VETERAN POLICE OFFICER AND A GOOD SAMARITAN AT THE SCENE OF A CAR CRASH
    Police Veteran Christopher Owens witnessed a car crash and rushed over to aid the victim. When the perpetrator of the crash tried to leave the scene, Owens tackled him. But when officers arrived, they beat and arrested Owens.

    2. BEING THE SON OF SAID VETERAN POLICE OFFICER
    Christopher Owen’s son was also at the scene — he was beaten and arrested after his father.

    3. BEING A CITY COUNCIL MEMBER
    Jonathan Miller, city council member, just finished practicing a step routine with his fraternity brothers in front of his own house when police arrived to question the men about drug activity. Police say Miller was interfering with the investigation and tased him as he kneeled on the ground.

    4. BEING A TENNIS PLAYER
    Harvard-educated retired top-ranking tennis pro James Blake was jumped by a police officer and handcuffed by several more outside his hotel. He was mistaken for a suspect who committed credit card fraud.

    5. BEING A STUDENT AT YALE UNIVERSITY
    Yale University student Tahj Blow was leaving the library when a police officer drew his gun and demanded Blow get on the ground. He matched the description of a burglar.

    6. BEING A BANKER WITH A BMW
    After getting pulled over at a red light for not having her hands on the wheel of her BMW, Banker Kamilah Brock was detained for several hours. She was released without any charges, but when she tried to pick up her vehicle the next day, officers didn’t believe she was the owner. She was admitted into a psychiatric ward for eight days, against her will, where she was “forced to take lithium and injected with heavy sedatives.” Hospital staff tried to force her to admit she was neither a banker nor the owner of the vehicle.

    7. BEING A HOMEOWNER
    Ikenna Njoku was accused of forgery. A Chase bank teller believed Njoku’s cashier’s check (issued by Chase Bank) and his claim of homeownership were fraudulent. Njoku was jailed for four days. While incarcerated, his car was impounded and then auctioned. He also lost his job.

    8. BEING EDUCATED
    Black men with Associate’s degrees are as likely to be hired as white men with only high school diplomas.

    9. BEING LAW-ABIDING
    Black men with no criminal record are as likely to be called for a second interview at low-level jobs as white men just out of prison for felony convictions.

    10. BEING EMPLOYED
    Earl Sampson was arrested for trespassing 62 times over four years. Nearly all of these arrests took place at his own job.

    11. BEING IN THE MIDDLE CLASS
    Black middle-class children are more likely than their white counterparts to be poor as adults. African Americans “have experienced substantially less upward intergenerational mobility and substantially more downward intergenerational mobility than whites.”

    You would be a fool not to know by now — you can do everything “right” and still be all “wrong” (i.e.black).
     
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  2. Nick Delmacy

    Nick Delmacy is a Verified MemberNick Delmacy Da Architect
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    Anecdotal incidents...Can't deny that many police officers are over zealous with power and authority, but I also CAN deny that MOST black people don't experience these kind of altercations with police.

    Black people I know on Facebook keep saying that "they are hunting us down, it's open season on black men." I'm a dude who likes facts and figures, mathematically its preposterous to call police involved killings "genocide," no matter how awful they may be.
     
  3. Dreamwalker

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    Being autopsied
    King: S.C. coroner admits to racist bias during autopsies
     
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  4. Infinite_loop

    Infinite_loop Is this thing on?
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    Oh, there's plenty of data. I like facts and figures as well. I won't go as far as saying it is open season either, but there's no denying that black folks are disproportionally penalized by the police. Here' s another piece of data for you if you have time to read it
    http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/25/u...tViewed&version=Full&src=mv&WT.nav=MostViewed
     
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  5. Nick Delmacy

    Nick Delmacy is a Verified MemberNick Delmacy Da Architect
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    Traffic stops bruh?

    I'm talking about the "sky is falling" White Supremacy incidents that you listed above and #BlackTwitter goes on and on about...

    There are over 40 million black people in America... In 2014, there were (estimated) just over 1,029 law enforcement involved deaths. Even assuming that ALL of those were black people being killed (they weren't)...That's still only 0.0025% of the Black American population being "hunted down" by police.

    My point is these incidents are made to seem like they happen to ALL black people eventually...they don't. It's still a problem, I agree there...but not as widespread as many make it seem.
     
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  6. Infinite_loop

    Infinite_loop Is this thing on?
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    I do believe that the sky is DEFINITELY NOT falling either and things have been steadly improving since the Slavery/ Jim Crow days.

    I will, however address 3 points:

    1. Traffic stops are just one data point, among several other data points proving the widespread marginalization of POC including but not limited to access to education , healthcare , housing/mortgage, etc. I can certainly easily fetch that information on some of the trust internet resources.

    2. Laws enforcement deaths (among other things) should be better analyzed comparatively to other races, not as a percentage of black or white people only , otherwise the analysis wouldn't be fair just looking at raw numbers. For instance according to the NYT article, black people are 5X as likely to be stopped by the police as white people. There are also other comparisons including 5 disturbing stats on black-white financial inequality that show why black people would be more likely to live in low-income areas, thus having more interactions with the police.

    3. To address the law enforcement deaths I will use FBI data from this article The FBI is trying to get better data on police killings. Here's what we know now.
    as you can see black people comprise 13% of the population but 31% of law enforcement fatalities. On the other hand, white people are 63% of the population vs 52% of fatalities.

    1,029 might not seem like a large chunk, but to me 1 death is 1 too many. And if history serves me right, these things are usually cumulative. It won't be long before we get into 100,000 if nothing (at the policy making) is done.
     
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  7. Infinite_loop

    Infinite_loop Is this thing on?
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    My point is we don't have to wait for the sky to fall to do something. It is better to be safe than sorry.
     
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  8. Nick Delmacy

    Nick Delmacy is a Verified MemberNick Delmacy Da Architect
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    No one said that nothing should be done...I just feel like many Blacktivists have a narrow focus and spin facts to support a narrative that doesn't actually hold up to reality.
     
  9. mojoreece

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    Its should bad when people aren't even safe in there own homes and churches. Who would of ever thought people would need to arm themselves in church!
     
  10. ControlledXaos

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    No. 8 really grinds my gears.

    I'm not lazy, I worked hard for my master's. I'm smart. But I'm more educationally decorated than my peers at work and we have the same position and pay. It's very frustrating to see your boss have a bachelor's on the wall and you have more plaques on the wall wondering why they even bothered to hang their stuff up.
     
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  11. Dante

    Dante https://www.gofundme.com/qv7v5dw
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    Very true. The world of employment doesn't care whether you have a college degree or not. Depending where you work, a college degree will matter. However, when you see people with at least one college degree facing underemployment (either position and/or pay) and unemployment, it's like "Okay, what did I do wrong? What am I missing?".
     
  12. Dante

    Dante https://www.gofundme.com/qv7v5dw
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  13. Omega Level

    Omega Level DRACARYS
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    I know the initial post topic was (things that won't save you from "<insert activity>" while black), but I want to add something to Nicks and Infinites back and forth. I agree with many points both of you have, but I have to say I lean more towards Nicks overall perspective of the current climate of us as "Black people vs the police" or our race in this country as a whole.

    I will NEVER try to down play the fact of being black in America takes having to navigate with "finesse" do to social injustice, racism, etc. Many of which we have endured for years and still endure in some aspects. However, I know my people, and while some incidents are definitely disgusting, full out racist acts, I think some of us have also reached a point of playing the BLACK card for EVERYTHING.

    Its funny because I once was in the car with someone speeding and he got pulled over and the first thing he said, "they pulling me over because im black". Im like "negro, you was also SPEEDING". LMAO

    Not to say we are not disproportionately biased against compared to other races. I think we also have to take accountability for our 'ish. Not all black man in jail are criminals, but we know all those dudes aint innocent angels either. And traffic stops, etc. But again, i dont wanna be reaching. I know its not about not taking accountability, I just wanted to throw that our there.

    In the end, when Nick said (MOST black people don't experience these kind of altercations with police) thats a statement I can attest to.

    Im not naive enough nor flat out crazy enough to think that by me being educated and from an upper middle class background negates me from being discriminated against or having the police "mistake" me for whatever. However, I am 37 years old and to this day I;
    • Never had a run in with any police.
    • Never been to jail (dont even know what a jail looks like in the inside. not even to lobby)
    • Never been followed around the store as if im stealing. (that i know of or that made me uncomfortable)
    • Never even been pulled over (the driving while black thing)
    I can go on, but you get my jest. Im definitely not down playing my brothers and sisters that cant say the same and lost their lives in the had of injustice, im just saying that its many of us as black people that are living day to day lives not feeling so much "Pressure" of being black the way media and even other black people make is seem in social media.

    Some of us ALWAYS knew black lives matter, we didnt need the hashtag.
     
  14. Infinite_loop

    Infinite_loop Is this thing on?
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    To me, these two ideals or "both sides of the same coin" can coexist. They are not mutually exclusive. In fact, I would say that for any black person whose socioeconomic background puts them in lower-middle to upper class, the chances of having runnins with the police is slim to none. I can *almost* attest to the same thing(and I will get back to this point). I have NEVER really had any interactions with the police. I have been driving for as long as I have been in the United States(7 years or so) and have never even been had a traffic ticket or stop by the police for anything and I am certainly hoping to keep it this way.

    I used to have the same perspective just any other new African immigrant when I first moved here: certainly, if black people stopped breaking the law so much, the police would leave them alone, right? Well, I went to a very reputable Predominantly White university in the midwest. One incident in particular opened my eyes and changed my perspective. It was finals week, I have been studying non-stop for the past 30 hours and needed to take a breath of fresh air. It was around midnight and I decided to walk around the Quad with a friend(also black).

    The place was very well lit, students were all walking around(this is finals week). A few minutes into our little break, 2 squad cars ring their sirens and stop us. I was petrified, not sure what or why it just happened. I was only a "lil" immigrant here; a small runnin with the law and it can jeopardize everything that I have been building my whole life. Apparently, my friend was well acquainted with this kind of things, so I let him do the talking. His dad is an engineer and his mom, a doctor who moved with their kids 20 years ago from Cameroon. They are well-off, way into upper middle class but according to him: "this kind of thing happens to my friends and I a lot back home(a suburb of Ohio)". We were definitely cooperative, calm, and collected(well, I was more scared shitless LOL but nonetheless calm). The police lady and the other police dude were nice too. Apparently, they had three anonymous calls that there are two suspiciously looking black men walking around the Quad. My friend was 21 and I was 23. It was spring, so we were wearing t-shirts with school logos on them. Definitely nothing differentiating us from the average black dudes at any college.

    Needless to say, I felt violated and disrespected. Like even though, I am on the dean's list every semester, I am involved on campus, and bring "diversity" of thoughts and experiences, I am still not good enough to walk around campus like every other student. So, after that night I started noticing other microagressions and macroagressions like "drive-by" nigger shoutings Uptown, my other friends and I being followed by squad cars when walking around campus, being told "you're cute for a black dude" , "you're different from the others" by white girls or being treated like shit at the Apple store as if I don't have enough money to buy a damn iPad.

    Obviously, my life is going great here and I am very grateful of how things turned out at the end. The good definitely outweight the bad(for me). I just started being more empathetic of other people of color and their experiences, those are not as fortunate as I am when such incidents happen. I am no blacktivist, or "fake deep" Kanye, or "woke", but I do believe that for a large segment of black people, being black is harder than the rest of us can comprehend.
     
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  15. Infinite_loop

    Infinite_loop Is this thing on?
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    Tell me why my manager has only a high school diploma. To his defense, he has been with the company for 20+ years now, but he is managing B.S, M.S., and PhDs in engineering. The "Good Ol' Boys club" is definitely alive and well.
     
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  16. ControlledXaos

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    Well the thing is, I am not taking away from the fact folks have experience but the reason people like that stay with companies is because they don't have any other place they can go that will pay them as much as they are making at that level of education. Meanwhile if you are not entrepreneurs you usually have to over educate yourself to even enter the competition for some jobs. It's part of the reason why black people are so burdened with student loan debt.
     
  17. ControlledXaos

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    Also with the way companies shut down, merge , or downsize I think the "work for x company for decades" is not as guaranteed as it was 10 years ago. The last two places I worked for were big on acquisitions and mergers. Every redundant job gets sliced at the company being absorbed.
     
  18. Infinite_loop

    Infinite_loop Is this thing on?
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    Oh yea, definitely. It is a very common practice in my industry, actually. We go through boom and bust cycles and there are usually like 1-5% layoffs or even more. Sometimes entire departments get cut.
     
  19. BlackguyExecutive

    BlackguyExecutive Je suis diplomate
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    If you want facts and figure, case analysis I encourage you to head over the public library and check out the The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander

    [​IMG]

    I know that Ms. Alexander is highly cited and seems like the go to but she complied empirical evidence that shows some very serious issues.
     
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  20. Naturally10Me

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    It's very sad. Being that I am a dad, I am working on ways to help my little one understand decisions and being at the wrong place. Hell I don't consider myself to safe. I feel ATL has become a police state. I got stopped by the cops and I asked why was I stopped. This dude said just because. Let me go and then followed me 5 more miles. CRAZY
     
  21. Kouncelor

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    That happend to me in Chicago with my daughters in the back seat. They didn't even answer me.. just said "have a good night". I drive a damned Subaru.... so I don't now what that was about.

    A guy I'm talking to got pulled over twice in one night last week... and he drives a Kia.
     
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