Sound advice


So you’re trying to avoid being killed by a bear policeman? Here’s what to do.

You might be tempted to argue that bears policemen should not be killing people in the first place, but don’t bother; you’re asking for something contrary to their nature.

Comments

  1. Akira MacKenzie says

    Of course, most cops won’t bury your carcass to save for later, but…

  2. laurentweppe says

    Of course, most cops won’t bury your carcass to save for later, but…

    Tat’s only because they outsource it to professional morticians

  3. consciousness razor says

    Are park rangers able to hide records about bear attacks from the public and the federal government?

    Or is that one of the privacy rights humans police have and bears don’t: to murder people and not be held responsible for it?

  4. Crip Dyke, Right Reverend Feminist FuckToy of Death & Her Handmaiden says

    @A. R.

    What’s disturbing is that bring white isn’t even a guarantee anymore.

    Fuck off with that shit, RIGHT NOW.

    It’s not funny, it’s not clever. And the most GENEROUS interpretation is that you were trying for those.

  5. rq says

    What’s disturbing is that bring white isn’t even a guarantee anymore.

    Do we need to do a compare-and-contrast? ‘Cause I left all my links at home, but you can also do some reading on Reagan’s Morning thread and its precursors – to make it easier, Ctrl+F for ‘CrimingWhileWhite’ (yes, as one word) for some examples of identical crimes with polarly opposite results.
    Being white is never a ‘guarantee’ but it sure as hell is an amazing insurance policy.
    Being black is a death sentence no matter what you do. That’s your guarantee.

  6. Usernames! (ᵔᴥᵔ) says

    SURVIVING A POLICE ENCOUNTER
    A guide for African Americans

    1. You can’t. If you’re lucky you’ll get off with some insults, a beatdown or a civil forfeiture. If you’re not lucky, you’ll end up in jail, maimed for life or dead.

  7. says

    A.R

    What’s disturbing is that bring white isn’t even a guarantee anymore.

    So that’s what’s disturbing you? Not that about 5 black people get killed by cops every week, but that occasionally white people get killed, too?
    That’s fucking racist.

  8. unclefrogy says

    right or wrong I do those things automatically.
    I am not black but I have not been inside a barber shop since nor used a razor 1968 and am judged as suspicious when I am involved with cops and must act accordingly because they have the guns and they fill out the reports not me.
    uncle frogy

  9. unclefrogy says

    If i am not mistaken what is referenced in “bring white” is not being white but the once useful practice of bringing a white person (not a female) with you if you are black as a sign and a kind of insurance against unwarranted stops.
    That no longer works as well as it did in the past in some places.
    I does appear that there is a widening of the areas of acting with impunity to include class as well. As the lower classes increase in size and the gap between classes increase so does the “authorities” freedom of action.
    Fun times ahead.
    uncle frogy

  10. Akira MacKenzie says

    laurentweppe @ 8

    But formaldehyde really ruins the flavor of the meat…

    …errrrrrr, or so I’m told.

  11. laurentweppe says

    What’s disturbing is that bring white isn’t even a guarantee anymore.

    So that’s what’s disturbing you?

    Actually, it is disturbing: it means the number of people who have reasons to dread corrupt law enforcement is likely to keep going up

  12. Artor says

    What’s disturbing is that bring white isn’t even a guarantee anymore.

    No, what’s disturbing is that it ever was close to a guarantee.

  13. Beatrice, an amateur cynic looking for a happy thought says

    laurentweppe,

    What’s disturbing is that bring white isn’t even a guarantee anymore.

    Compare: “What’s disturbing is that being a man isn’t even a guarantee you won’t be raped any more”
    Don’t both of those statements strike you as wrong?
    They sound callous, they sound like all it’s needed after you read them is Jon Stewart making a face and saying “what has the world come to” in that horrible exaggerated southern accent.

    There are rhetorical places you just don’t go.

  14. rq says

    No, what’s disturbing is that it ever was close to a guarantee.

    Yup. That anyone ever needed a guarantee based on colour – that’s disturbing.
    If the only thing that becomes disturbing is the fact that now white people are in danger from the cops as well (or, if one interprets it along the ‘bring a white person with you’ line, that white people are less protection than they used to be), you have some thinking to do.

  15. A. R says

    *Sigh*

    No, just about everyone here has misinterpreted what I said. Though I suppose spending years in PET and its descendent Facebook groups has made me a bit more complacent about making my statements clear. What I was trying to say is that the police problem is getting so bad that the police feel safer killing white people. The statement was about the police problem getting worse, that’s it.

    Here’s what I didn’t say, made perfectly clear:

    I DID NOT SAY: That police killing PoC is not a problem. It’s a huge fucking problem.
    I DID NOT SAY: That police killing white people is worse than police killing PoC. Police shouldn’t be killing people.
    I DID NOT SAY: That white privilege acting as a shield is a good thing. Because you shouldn’t need a shield against police violence.

  16. chrisv says

    If LEO didn’t carry firearms, they wouldn’t shoot people. Firearms should be made available only as needed. Also, eliminate pensions and the blue wall of silence would evaporate. Finally, it is management’s job to establish and enforce policy and expectations, to promote a desirable culture, to create and promulgate a strong mission statement. That is what is known as “managing”; that’s why they make the big bucks.

  17. Akira MacKenzie says

    At this point, you get the defend of law enforcement coming in to claim how dangerous police work is, how they’re lives are in dagnger every second from the “animals on the streets,” how we civilians don’t understand that it’s a war zone out there, and about a dozen other cliches they gleaned from cop shows.

  18. Akira MacKenzie says

    Sigh… let’s just try that again:

    t this point, you get the defender of law enforcement coming in to claim how dangerous police work is, how they’re lives are in danger every second from the “animals on the streets,” how we civilians don’t understand that it’s a war zone out there, and about a dozen other cliches they gleaned from cop shows.

  19. rq says

    A. R

    What I was trying to say is that the police problem is getting so bad that the police feel safer killing white people. The statement was about the police problem getting worse, that’s it.

    Still not sure how the first statement here isn’t a roundabout way of saying that it’s only bad so much worse if white people are still being killed…?
    I think I get what you’re trying to say, but I don’t think it’s still coming across right. :/
    (Because I think it’s perfectly valid to say that the police problem is getting worse since they’re so coldblooded about killing black folk in broad daylight – does it require a comparison with white people? Does it, really? And if it does, to you, what does that say?)

  20. says

    A.R. @25:

    What I was trying to say is that the police problem is getting so bad that the police feel safer killing white people. The statement was about the police problem getting worse, that’s it

    I can’t speak for anyone else, but this comment comes across as someone who was largely ignorant of the police problem and remained that way until police started treating more and more white people like they’ve treated black people for so long. The police problem existed long before cops started killing white people. It’s *always* been horrible.

  21. unclefrogy says

    look lets get real about this. Cops killing backs is not a new thing. It never was a new thing. It has been like this for a very long time, before slavery was abolished people killed their slaves and I do not think anyone went to jail for it though I would bet some had to pay when they killed someone else’s slave property.
    What is news is the way it is covered in the news and peoples reaction to it.
    What is news is that they are seen to kill people with impunity.
    It happens in public like always but people do not turn away anymore.
    They do not avert their eyes to not get involved to “I do not want to hear about that”
    yes they are also killing white people too but they ain’t killing middle class white folks or rich folks are they. Is it because of racism that some are beginning to put 2 and 2 together maybe so but what ever it takes is what it takes. Is it getting worse that is very hard to tell seeing as how accurate information is very hard to come by both about now and about the past just look who has been keeping the records. What is true is the public is getting less tolerant about it. That is happening at the same time the wealth gap is widening, and media is fragmenting and technology is becoming cheaper and more pervasive.
    uncle frogy
    uncle frogy

  22. laurentweppe says

    The police problem existed long before cops started killing white people. It’s *always* been horrible.

    When american cops abused their (fire)powers against minorities, they were acting as the enforcers of a de facto supremacist order. Ethnic supremacy is built upon an unspoken covenant between the ruling class and dominant ethnicity: “We will treat you better than the rest of the plebs in exchange of your support“.
    When members of the dominant ethnicity start being gunned down for no good reason by law enforcement, it means that either said law enforcement is slipping away from the ruling class’ control (a sign that the ratio of crooked/inept/uncontrollably-violent and unfit to wear the uniform cops has reached unmanageable levels) or that the ruling class is becoming desperate and/or stupid enough to cease accommodating their own power base. Which means that US law enforcement is more likely to undergo a massive systemic failure than to be successfully reformed.

    So yes it’s always been horrible, the thing is, it can, (and probably will) get much worse in the foreseeable future.

  23. rq says

    Cops killing b[l]acks is not a new thing. It never was a new thing.

    I get it. And it has always been a problem. It’s just funny how some people get woke to the problem only when it might start affecting them. Like it only matters once white people feel threatened, when black people have been threatened and targeted for a very long time – why isn’t there the same outrage about that? There should be more because it is such an endemic problem. That it hasn’t been resolved. We shouldn’t be (only) outraged at the new threats, we should be incredibly outraged at all the old threats that haven’t gone away. Those should be enough.
    Why aren’t they?

  24. rq says

    When members of the dominant ethnicity start being gunned down for no good reason by law enforcement, it means that either said law enforcement is slipping away from the ruling class’ control

    To be honest, I doubt the ‘lower’ classes really give a shit about this, if their deaths and assaults have been ignored by the ruling class anyway. I think they’d prefer to be noticed on their own merits, instead of grudgingly acknowledged due to vague similarities with some hurt feelings someone in the ruling class once had.
    Also, class? Not so much a class thing as it is a race thing. Let’s not forget that.

  25. says

    rq @35:

    I get it. And it has always been a problem. It’s just funny how some people get woke to the problem only when it might start affecting them. Like it only matters once white people feel threatened, when black people have been threatened and targeted for a very long time – why isn’t there the same outrage about that? There should be more because it is such an endemic problem. That it hasn’t been resolved. We shouldn’t be (only) outraged at the new threats, we should be incredibly outraged at all the old threats that haven’t gone away. Those should be enough.
    Why aren’t they?

    Because USAmerican culture simultaneously values the lives of white people and devalues the lives of People of Color?

    And you know what, I’m just as guilty as the overwhelming majority of citizens of this country. Me, an African-American man in the United States, went roughly 35 years not knowing the history of racism in this country* (I don’t think I’ve ever actually expressed this). Oh sure, I knew about slavery, and I had some vague idea that Jim Crow laws were bad. I knew about the Civil Rights Movement. But I didn’t care enough about the lives of African-Americans to pay attention to what was going on around me. To my eternal shame, I didn’t start paying attention until George Zimmerman murdered Trayvon Martin. Even then, I was still ignorant of how pervasive racism, police brutality, and a corrupt criminal justice system worked hand-in-hand to maintain a racial hierarchy with white people at the top and everyone else below them. I was still ignorant of how deeply racist this country is. I was still ignorant that the racism in this country isn’t just directed at African-American men. All of that changed in the wake of the death of Michael Brown, Jr at the hands of the murderous ex-police officer and forever-scumbag Darren Wilson. That caused me to sit up and take note. I began to see how deep racism permeates the country. I began to see how black women were affected by racism and police brutality. I began to see how horribly trans women of color were treated by law enforcement officers. I saw that American Indians, Asian-Americans, and Hispanic-Americans also faced tremendous amounts of racism as well.
    So yeah, I get it. I understand that many people, many otherwise kind, empathetic, and compassionate people-people of all races-can be blind to this shit.
    But I’m not blind any longer. My eyes have opened wider. I see that the problem is deeper and more widespread. And I see that many, many citizens of this country are blind to the atrocities that go on around them every day. That’s why I speak out against racism (and social injustice in general)-to do what I can to help remove the blinders from others’ eyes. To help them see that no one should have to put up with social injustice. To help raise awareness about the problems around us. To show that you don’t have to be on the receiving end of injustice to stand up and declare NO MORE.

    *It wasn’t just racism I was ignorant of. I didn’t know the extent to which sexism, misogyny, transphobia, biphobia, and yes, even homophobia, affected the lives of people around me.

  26. unclefrogy says

    make no mistake the amount or quality of justice and fair treatment you receive is a calculus of factors including race & ethnicity, class, sex , sexual preference and dress & appearance. and not to be forgotten money
    it is not blind justice at all levels it seems more a sliding scale in practice.

    The illusion is slipping! The stated ideals do not match the experience.
    The American Experiment is not a finished thing it is a process that needs more work clearly.
    uncle frogy

  27. lakitha tolbert says

    I’ve always noted that whatever social disaster struck the poor Black communities would, in time, be visiting a White suburb. I’ve always argued, since I was a teenager and became aware of this stuff, that White people need to pay attention to what’s happening to our communities,because in ten or fifteen years, they’d be suffering from it too. (From Crack epidemic to Meth epidemic- not surprised, Predatory lending in Black and Brown neighborhoods to the economic fail a few years ago-because lenders began preying on White people, having already devastated PoC’s neighborhoods.)

    At the very least, you’d think they’d try to put systems in place to stop it or something out of sense of self interest, if nothing else. That doesn’t even require caring about what happens to Brown people. But no! They were all very busy sitting up in their comfortable homes, blaming us for whatever happened to us and feeling superior because they don’t have any of those pathologies and for having escaped all that.

    And now, police brutality.

    Whatever the system is doing to Brown people, it’s just practice for doing the same thing to Whites later.

    By that time, it’s too late to get worried.

    After all, according to Neimuller, isn’t that how it goes?