Rachel Maddow on the record of racial disparity in Ferguson

“Let’s make the jail cells more colorful.” This shit that’s happening in Ferguson, right now, is by no means new. The problem, if you’re not paying attention or only paying attention to the more odious parts of the so-called news media your country pretends is super serious and not at all partisan, is those blacks rioting. If you ARE paying attention, though, the problem is the systemic brutalization of blacks by white establishment power. The white establishment is absolutely terrified that they may have gone just slightly too far by murdering a young black boy who was unarmed and whom witnesses claim was 35 feet away from the police officer who murdered him. And they’re expressing this terror by creating a paramilitary presence to gas and attack and try to frighten the living bejeezus out of the people who dare say “yeah, murdering that boy WAS a little too far over the line, thanks.”

This ISN’T fifty years ago. This is NOW.

Pic of riot cop line 50 years ago, and today
Pic of riot cop line 50 years ago, and today

Meanwhile, Ryan J Reilly of Huffington Post and Wesley Lowrey of Washington Post were just arrested at a McDonalds for “not packing their bags fast enough”, then let go when someone realized the cops had just arrested two high profile reporters and told the mayor, whose response was “Oh God”.

This situation is spinning very rapidly out of control as a massive armed response has appeared today to pacify the peaceful protests by pointing guns at law-abiding peaceful protesters and throwing reporters into windows and soda machines.

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Rachel Maddow on the record of racial disparity in Ferguson
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10 thoughts on “Rachel Maddow on the record of racial disparity in Ferguson

  1. 4

    I wonder how white people can maintain this fear that all the non-whites will get up and oppress them. I’m white (well, according to most people.) To me, minorities in the US give white people a lot more credit and trust than we deserve. On top of that, people who have been pissed and shat on really don’t tend to seem inclined to want to do the same thing to others.

    Though I guess I’m a white person who has no problem acknowledging racism, and whose social circle includes a fair number of Black people (who I have to worry about cops profiling and such.)

  2. 5

    By the way, the Maddow show transcript is now up:

    Record of racial disparity (video may autoplay at link)

    Transcript of the August 12 show

    For months, someone signing the name Lone Wolf had written a series of
    anonymous letters to the St. Louis County police chief. The letters
    started in December 2012, and they said that a powerful and well-connected
    lieutenant in that police department had been directing uniformed St. Louis
    County police officers that they should specifically arrest black people.
    That they should specifically target black people for arrest in specific
    shopping areas in southern St. Louis County.

    Lone Wolf, this whistleblower, said that this lieutenant would make
    these claims out in the open. At roll call with the other officers
    present, the lieutenant would say things, like, quote, “Let`s have a black
    day. Let`s today stop everybody with a tan. Let`s stop everybody black at
    the mall.” Quote, “Let`s make the jail cells more colorful.”

    […]

    But the investigation did happen, though, and that investigation did
    give other officers on the force a chance to corroborate these allegations.
    And sure enough, by the time the county police chief fired that lieutenant,
    in St. Louis County, it was because that police chief, through the internal
    affairs investigation, was able to find not one, not two, but at least nine
    other officers who said, yes, that stuff that the guy was alleging, that
    actually did happen.

    The letter from county police chief to the lieutenant ultimately
    firing him, that letter was leaked to the “St. Louis Post-Dispatch.” It
    said in part, quote, “You were heard by at least nine officers on multiple
    occasions directing enforcement actions on persons with black, tan, or
    colored skin without any reference to probable cause.”

  3. 6

    smrnda:

    On top of that, people who have been pissed and shat on really don’t tend to seem inclined to want to do the same thing to others.

    I’m a queer person of color, and although I haven’t experienced what many PoC’s or queer people have, I’ve still experienced a few things and I’m aware of a lot of really horrible shit. As you say, I wouldn’t do the same to others, nor would I want anything similar done to people. That doesn’t make things better in the world. I want a world where that shit doesn’t happen to anyone, rather than a world where that shit doesn’t happen to me.

  4. Ted
    7

    I’m old, I know, but could you please stop referring to an 18 year old African American MAN, as the ‘black boy’. Young man works fine. But that particular phrase has a very racist past with regards to adult MEN. He wasn’t killed because he looked like a sweet little boy, he was killed because white society is afraid of black people generally and black MEN in particular. This is an important fact. Trayvon was no different. Racial profiling is about the way a person looks. You do no one any favors by trying to elicit sympathy this way.

  5. 9

    Ted: I think it’s actually fairly worth pointing out that this “young man” — honestly, a boy, at 18, despite perhaps striking a figure that’s imposing enough that it struck fear into the heart of the man firing a gun repeatedly at him — was incorrectly profiled as a major threat, and that he was snuffed out so early in his life. You have a point in that he was killed for looking like a big scary black man. But the story should elicit sympathy precisely because he may have been big, and scary to a certain person because black, but he was certainly not yet a man in full flower.

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