A 400-Year-Old Legacy Of Racism

[humble3d]

A 400-Year-Old Legacy Of Racism



As anyone in law enforcement knows, upholding the peace often comes down to making tough, split-second decisions. A police officer must assess his options quickly, especially when faced with resistance from potentially dangerous individuals. But try as we might, bad things sometimes happen in the heat of a 400-year-old legacy of racism.

It’s a situation every officer of the law will inevitably face: tensions escalate during questioning or an arrest when, suddenly, in the commotion of four centuries of bias against racial minorities in the United States, the situation takes a violent turn. When emotions run high, it just takes two seconds following dozens of generations of systemic social, economic, and political discrimination toward non-whites—particularly African-Americans—for things to get way out of hand.

Our officers here in Ferguson know that as well as anyone.

You don’t want violence, of course—no one does. But sometimes when you’re out there, in the middle of longstanding policies denying minority men and women the most basic human rights, you must take decisive measures. We train our officers to behave professionally and respectfully toward the communities that they serve. But no matter how much training and experience they may have, they are human beings who, in the bedlam of decade upon decade of racist enculturation and deeply institutionalized systems of inequality, may be involved in a tragic situation.

But it’s important to remember that for members of law enforcement, it’s life or death out there. Without any warning, an officer of the law can find himself in the mayhem of formal and de facto segregationist policies such as mortgage discrimination and redlining that made it impossible for people in the most dangerous neighborhoods to live anywhere else. One minute you’re pulling up beside a couple of teenagers walking down the street, and the next minute you’re face-to-face with racial disparity that dates back to the 17th century and undergirds our culture to this very moment.

Every person who has put on the uniform has been there. Out of nowhere, you’re confronted with the enduring shadow of slavery and Jim Crow—boom!—just like that, and you simply react.

So at the end of the day, keep in mind that police officers are doing the best they can, even when unfortunate incidents occur. When you’re suddenly in the middle of an inhuman situation that’s repeated itself over and over and over for 400 years, you have to act fast.

Sadly, sometimes you just don’t have a choice.

http://www.theonion.com/articles/sometimes-unfortunate-things-happen-in-the-heat-of,36690/

[stylemessiah]

So its the "in the heat of a situation" "we'll learn from this" argument for like the eleventyith time

Really.....

Call it what it is, institutional racism, and one main reason why America's we're the beacon of freedom bs they spout before they invade another country makes you look like complete assclowns. How about you solve racism, your unbelievable level of poverty (for a rich country) just for two things off the top of my head. Oh and get rid of lobbyists, who throw money at politicans that end up reinforcing the very things you should be trying to rid yourselves of. i mean do Americans even realise that they vote for a leader, and the very next day entire hordes of these lobbyist assclowns go to work to undo and steer politicians away from what you vote for?

Just a thought

[CODYQX4]

So its the "in the heat of a situation" "we'll learn from this" argument for like the eleventyith time

Really.....

Call it what it is, institutional racism, and one main reason why America's we're the beacon of freedom bs they spout before they invade another country makes you look like complete assclowns. How about you solve racism, your unbelievable level of poverty (for a rich country) just for two things off the top of my head. Oh and get rid of lobbyists, who throw money at politicans that end up reinforcing the very things you should be trying to rid yourselves of. i mean do Americans even realise that they vote for a leader, and the very next day entire hordes of these lobbyist assclowns go to work to undo and steer politicians away from what you vote for?

Just a thought

That is why nothing changes for the better.

How are things going to get better when your vote was Obama the spineless puppet who already sold his soul to special interest who has become basically Bush without balls, or Mitt Robme the experienced corporate raider? Nobody gives a 3rd party a chance, even if you vote for them just to not vote for the D and R candidates.

They say whatever to get the vote and do nothing. How can someone make change democratically that way? Short of hanging people in the streets I don't see any message that would be heeded by Congress to stop selling the law and government to the highest bidder.

All the meanwhile people think the left are commies and the right nazis. They are all pretty much the same in USA, slightly different goals but leading to the same end, pretending to be different enough to divide and conquer.

[stylemessiah]

So its the "in the heat of a situation" "we'll learn from this" argument for like the eleventyith time

Really.....

Call it what it is, institutional racism, and one main reason why America's we're the beacon of freedom bs they spout before they invade another country makes you look like complete assclowns. How about you solve racism, your unbelievable level of poverty (for a rich country) just for two things off the top of my head. Oh and get rid of lobbyists, who throw money at politicans that end up reinforcing the very things you should be trying to rid yourselves of. i mean do Americans even realise that they vote for a leader, and the very next day entire hordes of these lobbyist assclowns go to work to undo and steer politicians away from what you vote for?

Just a thought

That is why nothing changes for the better.

How are things going to get better when your vote was Obama the spineless puppet who already sold his soul to special interest who has become basically Bush without balls, or Mitt Robme the experienced corporate raider? Nobody gives a 3rd party a chance, even if you vote for them just to not vote for the D and R candidates.

They say whatever to get the vote and do nothing. How can someone make change democratically that way? Short of hanging people in the streets I don't see any message that would be heeded by Congress to stop selling the law and government to the highest bidder.

All the meanwhile people think the left are commies and the right nazis. They are all pretty much the same in USA, slightly different goals but leading to the same end, pretending to be different enough to divide and conquer.

Dude, im an aussie....so....providing an outsiders view. As to who i would have voted for Obama or Romney (or originally McCain and that waste of human meat Palin, who i have to concede ruined Romneys or any others and the republicans chances for the next decade probably), i would have picked Obama, no doubt.

At least one reason is that there are fewer dead American soldiers since he won office fighting a bad war based on (intentionally) bad intelligence (Iraq). As a former soldier, thats one obvious plus. The republicans would still have you there for the next millenia as they were all getting rich while soldiers bodies were piling up. One day someone will sit down and calculate how many thousands per dead GI George Bush was earning every time one of them died.....that fucker should be in a cell in The Hague