<p>Flossy,</p>
<p>At least I quoted from a well recognized journalistic website and a source from one of the nation’s well-known known anti-racist watchdog groups.</p>
<p>That’s more than I can say for IJReview…</p>
<p>@prezbucky are your parents responsible for your DUI? </p>
<p>I’ve been teaching my daughter how to interact with the police and what her rights are for years. Will retain an attorney for her while she is in college just in case. My relatives taught me not to trust the police. They didn’t need to, I saw for myself how crooked the NYPD was back then. So when NWA released their song, Fu € k The Police, it became an urban anthem. It is unfortunate that the actions of some bad cops have ruined the benevolence of the many.</p>
<p>Um, no, Flossy, the Southern Poverty Law Center is not “sketchy.” </p>
<p>Frugaldoctor, prezbucky is at least 38 years old, based on his post last night that he’s been driving for 22 years. So his parents probably aren’t responsible. </p>
<p>Lasma, the KKK Chapter mentioned in the story’s website is sketchy. It looks like it was built yesterday. As for SPLC, fighting hate by ferreting out the most vile possible anonymous comments and disseminating them in a racially charged environment seems like a very strange strategy. But, maybe that’s just me.</p>
<p>frugaldoctor, why would a college kid (especially a female one) need an attorney on retainer? I have never heard of that before. </p>
<p>“Will retain an attorney for her while she is in college just in case.”</p>
<p>This is one of the more bizarre things I have ever read on CC. </p>
<p>The SPLC keeps tabs on hate groups, not kids’ birthday parties or general acts of goodwill. Of course they are going to highlight concerning statements. </p>
<p>FrugalDoctor, none of the 7 of us kids nor our many kids and friends who have gone to college have ever needed an attorney while in college and if we had, our parents would have retained one as needed NOT had any on retainer. I know of NO ONE who has an attorney on retainer because their kid is in college or grad school–that seems very “over the top” to me, and I am an attorney, as is my dad and two of my brothers, niece and nephew-in-law.</p>
<p>If an attorney is ever needed, it’s best to find one that specializes in the subject area as well as the location where the problem is located rather than just a “general attorney.”</p>
<p>When I was 8, a 19-year-old black man was shot by a police officer in my city. There were race riots that made national headlines and were the largest urban disturbance since the LA riots. In the five years prior to that 15 black men had been killed during confrontations with our city’s police. In that same period, not a single white person and been killed in police custody. One of the black men shot to death by police was mentally handicapped and had been holding a brick. What mortal danger did he pose? What would he have done after he had thrown it? Reload?</p>
<p>The police officer who killed this 19-year-old man moved to a suburban police force, but there were peaceful picket protests for formal charges to be made against him. My father, who was raised in segregated 1950s Alabama, who knew one of the four girls killed in the Birmingham church bombing, took me to these protests.</p>
<p>I grew up in a two-parent, upper middle class home in a nice part of town, with an Ivy League educated mother (whose parents, both black, had Master’s degrees) and with a father who was a mid-level executive at one of the largest companies in the world. Despite my socio-economic situation, I have never believed that the police were on my side. People of color in America, especially black people, do not need to be poor or live in the ghetto or even have done anything bad to be mistreated and killed by police. White people like prezbucky and pizzagirl may never believe this. Black people will state it again and again and again, but they’ll never listen because they don’t see it in their lives and the word of a black person means little to them. They’ll never think we’re doing anything more than pulling the race card, seeing oppression that’s no longer there because we live in a “post-racial” Obama world. The willful ignorance of white conservatives, of even white liberals, no longer shocks me.</p>
<p>Millancad, that’s powerful. </p>
<p>From your perspective, what would help in Ferguson right now?</p>
<p>Milliancad, thanks so much for sharing your insights.</p>
<p>Yes, that is the big question, what would help in Ferguson and even other communities right now to calm things down and longer range to make real improvements in Ferguson and other communities throughout the US. </p>
<p>Our state has PAL–police-sponsored athletic leagues as well as Christmas shopping where the officers take kids from disadvantaged neighborhoods shopping and pay for the purchases selected by the kids for themselves and their families. We have a lot more Native Hawaiians in prison than other ethnic groups, especially since they comprise such a small portion of our population. There is a move afoot to try to decriminalize nonviolent offenses and allow them to be rehabilitated in the community instead of being imprisoned. </p>
<p>These are much longer term solutions, but I am curious about what folks think can be done now and short term to improve things.</p>
<p>The most obvious thing is that a police force has to look like the community. Demographics in Ferguson have shifted over the years and right now the 53 person police force only has 3 black officers. Now, why is that? Did blacks apply? We don’t know. But, it’s a recipe for this kind of problem. If the officer had a black partner at his side that morning things might be very different whatever happened. I haven’t heard anything about any partner. Any partner would be good. LA went to a community-based policing model after the riots. But, it’s a big city. It’s easier.</p>
<p>Anyone see police Captain Ron Johnsons’s speech at the church rally about 1/2 hr ago? Thought he was eloquent and I agreed with much of what he said up until the end when he spoke of his own son. I thought he identified part of what leads to all this senseless stereotyping. CNN.com is featuring the speech.</p>
<p>The Southern Poverty Law Center is sketchy? Good lord.</p>
<p>You’re misreading that exchange.</p>
<p>^^^ Really? He was trying to make people like y’all realize that his son, whom some of you see as nothing more than a stereotype, is HUMAN and someone’s CHILD.</p>
<p>Yes, that’s the question. How can the situation be changed? It’s always been that way, and here we are in 2014, and it’s still the same. </p>
<p>I was in Boston during the Charles Stuart thing in the late 80’s. For those who don’t know, Charles Stuart was a man who shot his very pregnant wife right after a pre-natal class. His story was that a black man had gotten into his car and shot his wife and himself. (He’d shot himself in the abdomen, having previously arranged for his brother to come to the scene of the crime and take the gun away. His brother thought it was going to be an insurance scam having to do with stolen jewelry - apparently this family regularly pulled insurance scams.)</p>
<p>The Boston police pulled out all the stops searching for the “shooter.” They were stopping black men, even middle-aged, well-dressed black professionals driving expensive cars - men who bore no relationship to the description given by Stuart. </p>
<p>This is certainly not on the same level, but I read a story about Barack Obama attending a cocktail party as a new Senator and being taken for a waiter. The story was written by the man who’d made the mistake. </p>
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<p>Flossy, thank you for this. I agree 100% that we need to look at this disparity. It is the same in many communities around the country.</p>
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<p>When I interviewed some Boston/surrounding suburb residents for a poli-sci seminar project and later, did the 2000 Census in parts of South Boston and Dorchester, the racial tension from the Busing crisis of the '70s and '80s and other longstanding issues were still fresh in their minds. </p>
<p>Over 1500 police officers have been killed in the last ten years in the line of duty. No doubt many thousands have been seriously injured. There are way too many guns out there in the hands of the bad guys, and it makes perfect sense that law enforcement officers are sensitive to danger. They may feel that they need to shoot first, and ask questions later in order to survive. I don’t know why they can’t be armed with non lethal weapons that will take anybody down.</p>
<p>For those who think that the police are just chomping at the bit to kill black men, maybe this story will make you feel a little better. My brother in law, a state trooper, was shot in the face and chest at close range with a shotgun about 25 years ago. Since they decided it would be more hazardous to remove all the pellets, they worked their way out of his body over a couple of years. Can you imagine that, sitting there listening to a radio show, and a pellet oozes out of your face. After all the pain, scars and hospitalizations, his wife left him. He is completely blind. There were no protests for him, no riots. I don’t know if there was great satisfaction that a black man did this to a white law enforcement officer, but I’m sure there’s some of you on here that will think this is social justice.</p>