Pinker parodies himself

We’re in a time of crisis, when a sense of injustice is acute, when communities are in flames and people march in protest, when white supremacists run the country and the police have willingly become a tool of fascism. What we really need right now is some clueless dweeb from Harvard to come along and reassure us that it’s all an illusion, the country is really becoming less racist, therefore all you white bigots out there can relax and not feel guilty because the statistics say you are all becoming better angels, even if you’ve institutionalized social norms that allow black concerns to be minimized even as you’re throwing huge numbers of them into an inhumane prison complex. That dweeb is the self-appointed guru of white denial, Steven Pinker. You can always count on him to show up at a cataclysmic failure of the system to let us know that this terrible event doesn’t really expose an ugly reality. Everything is getting better, don’t you know. So he takes to twitter to make his usual Pollyannaish pronouncement.

Good god. He’s a psychologist. He has to know that people are really good at rationalization, making self-reported attitudes difficult to trust. Look at this one graph he shows (as if a graph is more powerful than one photo of a cop with his knee on a black man’s neck):

What, exactly, is that supposed to demonstrate? That white people have become less racist since the 1970s, or that racists have been shifting their rationalizations since the 1970s? Are “Inequality is due to lower motivation among blacks” and “Inequality is due to lower ability among blacks” the only two excuses white people give for discrimination, so those two responses encompass the totality of the rationalizations? Has he even considered that both responses are pretty damned racist and are centered on explaining the othering of black people? Has he considered that a shift in what is socially acceptable to say in public doesn’t necessarily imply a shift in underlying attitudes?

Also, wow, over half the white respondents are making those two equally racist arguments. I don’t find this at all reassuring.

Pinker is referencing a black social psychologist (also a big shot at Harvard, which ought to be a caution to anyone reading their work — he’s black, but also in a highly privileged position) who is also cautiously optimistic about the future, but isn’t trying to bury the lede in happy-clappy noise.

We had all thought, of course, that we made phenomenal strides. We inhabit an era in which there are certainly more rank-and-file minority police officers than ever before, more African American and minority and female police chiefs and leaders. But inhabiting a world where the poor and our deeply poor communities are still heavily disproportionately people of color, where we had a war on drugs that was racially biased in both its origins and its profoundly troubling execution over many years, that has bred a level of distrust and antagonism between police and black communities that should worry us all. There’s clearly an enormous amount of work to be done to undo those circumstances and to heal those wounds.

Pinker really is the Norman Vincent Peale of our generation. We don’t need some racist-leaning, evo-psych-loving, IDW-associated professor telling us that everything will just get better gradually over time if we’re patient and wait for white people to become more tolerant. Action is the agent of change. Every incremental shift is the result of people standing up, speaking out, shoving reality in the face of the complacent and demanding change. There is no magic internal trend towards less racism, especially not among the people who hold all the power.

If this is restraint, just wait until the cops are unleashed

All of you prophets out there — who among you predicted that in the final (we hope) year of Trump’s presidency, the country would be crippled by a pandemic, the police state would run wild, our cities would be on fire, protesters would overrun the White House lawn, and Trump would be hiding in a bunker? Anyone?

Over four centuries of slavery, colonialism, and exploitation are finally coming home to roost and we’re going through a well-earned paroxysm of pain. The only questions are how much worse is it going to get, and will the nation survive it? We know already that it’s going to get much worse if Trump is left in charge.

As cities burned night after night and images of violence dominated television coverage, Trump’s advisers discussed the prospect of an Oval Office address in an attempt to ease tensions. The notion was quickly scrapped for lack of policy proposals and the president’s own seeming disinterest in delivering a message of unity.

Trump did not appear in public on Sunday. Instead, a White House official who was not authorized to discuss the plans ahead of time said Trump was expected in the coming days to draw distinctions between the legitimate anger of peaceful protesters and the unacceptable actions of violent agitators.

On Sunday, Trump retweeted a message from a conservative commentator encouraging authorities to respond with greater force.

This is precisely what we don’t need. The American police have effectively delegitimized themselves with their brute force tactics and their alignment with white supremacy, and American justice has compromised itself with decades of oppressive laws that mean that 2½ million citizens are now imprisoned, mostly for drug-related crimes, and the law is unequally applied to black and white people. Money has poured into law enforcement to the point where they’re buying army surplus armored cars.

What we need to do is defund the police.

If Congressional lawmakers are serious about reining in abusive policing, there are things they can do at the federal level. They can start by eliminating the Community Oriented Police Services (COPS) office. Created by the 1994 Crime Bill, it has been the central conduit for funds to hire tens of thousands of new police and equip them with a range of surveillance technology and militarized equipment.

One of the projects they currently administer is Operation Relentless Pursuit, the Trump administration’s signature crime fighting initiative, that is set to flood seven major cities with scores of federal agents in partnership with local police to go after his favorite bugaboos of gangs and drug cartels. Congress approved $61 million dollars to pay for it, and that money should be taken out of any future appropriations. They can also take more steps to undo the damage done by the 1994 Crime Bill, like defunding school policing in favor of providing more counselors and restorative justice programs; investing in harm reduction strategies, like safe injection facilities and needle exchanges as well as high quality medically based drug treatment on demand; and rethinking the use of the criminal justice system to manage the epidemic of domestic violence.

It is time for the federal government, major foundations, and local governments to stop trying to manage problems of poverty and racial discrimination by wasting millions of dollars on pointless and ineffective procedural reforms that merely provide cover for the expanded use of policing. It’s time for everyone to quit thinking that jailing one more killer cop will do anything to change the nature of American policing. We must move instead, to significantly defund the police and redirect the resources into community-based initiatives that can produce real safety and security without the violence and racism inherent in the criminal justice system.

Take away their toys. Stop rewarding cowboy cops. End the us-vs-them attitude, don’t attack communities with paramilitary thugs, but do engage with them as fellow citizens. Unfortunately, if you turn on your TV or go to the movies, you’ll discover that the renegade macho cop is valorized, that car chases and crashes are routine, and that every conflict is resolved with a gun. Cops are somehow above the law, and their job involves getting the bad guy even if it means turning a neighborhood into a burning wasteland.

Does this look like “protect and serve” to you?

It’s not like I expect change to happen. Trump is fulminating in his bunker, raving about sending the army to take care of his enemies, and the Democrats are little better — note that the 1994 crime bill, mentioned above, was written by Joe Biden and signed into law by Bill Clinton. The instinctive response of the establishment politician is alway to crack down hard on any threat to their power. We’re going to have to tear it all down first.

We should start at the top and work our way down.

You want to see the problem?

The police are seeing this as an excuse to demand more money to do their job poorly.

If you’re unclear on who the enemy is…

It’s the cops. The protests were a response to unchecked police brutality, and the cops respond with more violence.

So why do the authorities think they can get the situation under control by sending in more squads of black-armored thugs wielding batons and pepper spray? We need institutional change, not more of the same cranked up on more opportunities to abuse civilians. This is the most goddamned stupid, counter-productive response our governments could commit. Next thing you know, they’re going to send in military units to quell the people, and it will get even worse.

These aren’t mere riots. This is an uprising.

Justice only looks like chaos to the unjust

The Washington Post headline this morning was “Chaotic Minneapolis protests spread amid emotional calls for justice, peace”, and it’s illustrated with this photo:

I ask, where’s the chaos? I see a small group of calm people standing victorious before the ruins of a criminal enterprise. The people speaking for the community clearly see where the chaos was coming from.

“There are folks reacting to a violent system,” McDowell said. “You can replace property, you can replace businesses, you can replace material things, but you can’t replace a life. That man is gone forever because some cop felt like he had the right to take his life. A lot of folks are tired of that. They’re not going to take it anymore.”

That’s why, he said, “Minneapolis is burning.”

Chaos is when the people delegated to preserve the peace are murdering people in the street for non-violent offenses. Chaos is heavily armed cops oppressing the communities they’re supposed to safeguard. Chaos is the district attorney waffling over whether to charge a cop for murder when they have video of the man slowly throttling another to death in public. Chaos is the absence of justice.

This is Minneapolis, a pleasant city full of good people trying to get by. It’s not Gotham City, and it never needed a crew of Batman-wannabes to keep the peace.

Maybe the city deserves to burn

There’s been more rioting in Minneapolis, although I’m strongly suspecting that agents provocateur have been at work. Take, for instance, this fellow who was recorded leaving after some AutoZone windows were smashed.

White guy, all in black, with a fancy gas mask, smashing windows with a hammer and then immediately leaving? Sure, that’s normal. I do wonder if he’s a cop trying to stir up trouble to make the murderers on the force look less guilty.

I deplore the destruction of property in South Minneapolis, but even more I deplore the deeply-seated racism and violence in the Minneapolis police. If it takes riots to break the back of the criminal enterprise that we call “law enforcement”, let it be so. Let it burn until the moneyed interests that hold all the power realize that letting a goon squad control the city is not profitable, since that seems to be all they care about. Rise up, good merchants, and let City Hall know that these assholes have to be removed, the police have to be demilitarized, and there has to be a major change in how crime is controlled.

Stripping the police of power and privilege is a good start. My university is making a few changes in how they interact with the police. President Joan Gabel:

Today I am announcing two immediate changes regarding our relationship with MPD.

First, I have directed Senior Vice President Brian Burnett to no longer contract with the Minneapolis Police Department for additional law enforcement support needed for large events, such as football games, concerts, and ceremonies.

Second, I have directed University Police Chief Matt Clark to no longer use the Minneapolis Police Department when specialized services are needed for University events, such as K-9 Explosive detection units.

We have a responsibility to uphold our values and a duty to honor them. We will limit our collaboration with the MPD to joint patrols and investigations that directly enhance the safety of our community or that allow us to investigate and apprehend those who put our students, faculty, and staff at risk.

It’s about time that someone realized that the MPD as structured is a detriment to the peace and safety of our communities.

Also relevant:

I was in that store once before! It was strangely laid out, and it was awkward navigating in there, unlike the suburban Targets I’m more familiar with. That explains a lot.

Also important: the Minnesota Freedom Fund accepts donations to help bail out citizens held by the Minnesota Persecution Department.

A politician finally asks the obvious question

We should be asking this kind of question after every instance of police brutality. They need to be put on a tighter leash. Arresting the responsible policemen and charging them with a crime is a start…although even there, I expect our corrupt justice system would let them off eventually.

“Why is the man who killed George Floyd not in jail?” Frey asked. “If you had done it or I had done it, we would be behind bars right now.”

“We cannot turn a blind eye,” Frey said, calling on Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman to file charges against the officer two days after the incident.

There is also a security cam video at the link of the moments before he was murdered, in which he is dragged out of the car and put in handcuffs. He’s clearly unhappy and distressed and is passively resisting, but there’s nothing in his behavior that warrants police violence or murder.

POLICE VIOLENTLY RIOT IN MINNEAPOLIS!

No surprise, the police are violent everywhere. But they’re selectively violent, and it shows. When hundreds of unarmed citizens gathered to protest the police murdering a citizen, they got the usual response: police in riot gear marching out and hitting them with rubber bullets and tear gas.

Protesters filled the intersection where Floyd died, carrying banners that read, “I can’t breathe” and “Jail killer KKKops.”

They later marched to a police station where officers in riot gear confronted them and deployed tear gas and fired projectiles. As rain fell, some protesters kicked canisters toward police.

The protesters made the classic error of not showing up with shields and AR-15s and rocket launchers. If they had, the chickenshit police would have stayed in hiding in their station. It’s open season on peaceful protests, especially ones that criticize our thin-skinned cops.

Oh, also, they weren’t white. Terrible mistake. Never protest while brown, because the police are agents of a white supremacist government.

Quick followups

The woman who accused a man of threatening her life in Central Park: FIRED.

By the way, the victim of that accusation was Christian Cooper.

Cooper has written stories for Marvel Comics Presents, which often feature Ghost Rider and Vengeance. He has also edited a number of X-Men collections ,and introduced the first gay male character, Yoshi Mishima, in a Star Trek comic. Previously he was president of the Harvard Ornithological Club, in the 1980s, and is currently a senior biomedical editor at Health Science Communications.

Sounds like the kind of guy — you know, Harvard graduate, bird-watcher, writer for comic books, science editor — who would wander the parks terrorizing innocent white women.

The cops who participated in the murder of a man on the Minneapolis streets: FIRED. Four of ’em.

The Minneapolis mayor had a few words to say.

“Being black in America should not be a death sentence,” Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said in a Tuesday press conference. “For five minutes, we watched a white officer press his knee into a black man’s neck. Five minutes. When you hear someone calling for help, you’re supposed to help. This officer failed in the most basic, human sense. What happened on Chicago and 38th last night is awful. It was traumatic. It serves as a reminder of how far we have to go.”

ACAB. Always ACAB.

Don’t watch this video if you’d rather not see a cop slowly murder a man. Minneapolis police responded to a “forgery in progress”, whatever that is, although it sounds like a non-violent crime to me; they found a man sitting in a car, “under the influence”, and we’re still in non-violent territory; the cops then escalated everything, getting him into handcuffs and on the ground. Then, while he’s helpless and handcuffed, surrounded by at least 3 cops, one of Minneapolis’s Finest puts his knee on the man’s neck and pins him there.

I guess they expected to be overpowered by a bound drunk man.

The cop kept pressure on the man’s neck while he moaned and repeatedly said he was in pain and that he couldn’t breathe. He gradually stops moving, apparently stops breathing, and is later declared dead. That cop just kept crushing his neck, even as it was obvious there could be no further resistance.

Our men in blue! Fire ’em all. None of them even suggested to the cop kneeling on the man’s neck that maybe he could lighten up a little.

The one bright spot in this horrific incident are the Minneapolis citizens who record and vocally protest the police violence as it happens. Everyone is still cowed by the armed cops, but as their moral authority continues to erode, as they become nothing but thugs in uniforms, that will change, as long as they continue to think they are above the mere citizenry.

It always embarrassed Samuel Vimes when civilians tried to speak to him in what they thought was “policeman.” If it came to that, he hated thinking of them as civilians. What was a policeman, if not a civilian with a uniform and a badge? But they tended to use the term these days as a way of describing people who were not policemen. It was a dangerous habit: once policemen stopped being civilians the only other thing they could be was soldiers.
Terry Pratchett

Two of the cops have been put on paid leave.

But Amy Cooper is a racist

You’ve probably already heard this story of a woman in Central Park who was letting her dog run off-leash and called the cops on a black man recording her behavior.

“I’m taking a picture and calling the cops,” Amy Cooper is heard saying in the video. “I’m going to tell them there’s an African American man threatening my life.”

That’s become mundane and ordinary. Beckys and Karens expressing their dismay at black people just living ordinary lives is common, it seems.

But this is extraordinary: she offers her excuse.

“I’m not a racist. I did not mean to harm that man in any way,” she said, adding that she also didn’t mean any harm to the African American community.

Wait a minute. That’s patently false. There’s a huge disconnect between what she did, what she says, and how she now rationalizes it.

She explicitly called the police to tell them a black man was threatening her life (he wasn’t). If she wasn’t racist, why even mention that he was black? Because she assumed just the existence of a black man was threatening. She did intend to do him harm; telling the police that someone was threatening your life is requesting the authorities to step in and question and detain and possibly arrest them. That’s doing harm, no question. Using the color of his skin to feed the stereotype of dangerous black people is harming their community.

That’s just as racist and harmful as what Carolyn Bryant did. It’s curious to see how stupidly she denies it.