James Blake Takedown in New York--How Safe is a Law-Abiding Black Male in this Society?

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The latest from CBS News:

Blake: “I don’t think this person should ever have a badge or a gun again…I don’t think it’s too much to ask…I think that that kind of police officer tarnishes the badge, which I have the utmost respect for and I believe that the majority of police officers do great work and they’re heroes,” Blake told the AP. “So this person doesn’t ever belong in the same sentence with the heroes that are doing the right kind of police work and keeping the public safe.”

Patrick Lynch: “…on Friday, Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association President Patrick Lynch said Blake’s arrest was made ‘under fluid circumstances where the subject might have fled, and the officer did a professional job of bringing the individual to the ground’ .”

Blake–a class act. Lynch…not so much.

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Not disagreeing with your experience, Zekesima. There is racism and suspicion everywhere. I just thought it was an interesting take and an interesting juxtaposition.

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I think the problem in Israel is that many White Jews have not fully embraced Ethiopians as true brethren in the faith. The stereotype of the opportunistic and parasitic black “so-called” Jew still persists, and therefore stirs suspicion and distance. A different problem than in the US, yes, but could result in similar tensions between law enforcement and black males.

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Patrick Lynch is the head of NYC’s PBA, and is very much in the “Thin Blue Line” Mentality, according to him whether a cop is dirty, or a cop does something wrong, or gets drunk and runs someone down and kills them, they are above reproach, but then the same guy runs around whining about the image cops have, when he himself is a big contributor to protecting the low lifes, the dirty cops, the ones who cover up for fellow cops and the like. Yes, it is the union’s job to support their members when things happen, but Lynch saying this was justified just tells you his mentality.

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I agree. Until the balance of the decent police officers stand up to the abusers in their midst the entire profession will pay for that with society losing faith in all of them.

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@Lergnom https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAi2fIZNqyQ

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Zekesima, not to make this about Israel but to explore the aspects of race, I think the issue is also that a) some of the European Jews are bluntly racist, particularly many of the older Russians because they came from a closed, intolerant society and b) many of the Jews from the Arab world - the plurality in Israel, for anyone who doesn’t know - have certainly absorbed the Arab world’s racial intolerance. Hatreds are complex.

As a side note to this migration, I saw an article in which an Israeli reporter asked Syrian migrants to Europe about Israel. They not only expressed the typical junk but seemed completely oblivious to the concept of “belonging” because the Jews, well, they don’t belong there even as these migrants seek …

As to police officers, I have to disagree with Tom1944 and others. Most Americans by far and I mean by far support the police and that’s without adding in racial issues. They are not losing faith in the police because their dealings with the police are not like what black men experience. And they’re aware enough of what the police do to realize that we see the acts of a few - and, bluntly, they tend to over-state the extent of crime (in part because TV presents things from across the country as though it were right here right now). Back in the closed politics forum, I tried several times to present data that shows absolutely that crime has dropped tremendously in the US and in particular along the border, with El Paso being the safest city in the lower 48. I even collected county by county data in AZ and TX.

As to the police themselves, a huge problem is money and emphasis in training. Our Town has a lot of training - and an expensive simulator I’ve used - and runs all sorts of training protocols for “public safety” AND has certified citizen volunteer programs which involve the police with the community to help the elderly, to provide emergency response, etc. That’s impossible in most places where there is less money and more crime and where they have trouble getting enough officers out on patrol and where a lot of time is lost in court dates and follow-up to arrests. NYC, as detailed in the New Yorker profile of Bratton, is hiring 1300 more police, 300 more than requested, so they have the extra people to provide 3 more days of training to all. Think of the expenses in that: 300 more people plus the training time and overtime, etc. and all the attendant costs. How does that happen in Detroit where they’re trying to get police to crime calls within a rational time? Or a place like Baltimore? Or a small, poorish place like Ferguson, MO? Raise taxes on the poor who already can’t pay their taxes? Somehow magically conjure money out of the state legislatures? They’re not getting money out of a Congress that can’t manage to pass a basic budget.

Add to this the culture within police is similar to that of a team: you are on the inside with them or you are on the outside. The first loyalty is to other officers. When you deal with the police regularly, they will admit they’re glad x or y got canned because he/she was a terrible cop, but they don’t volunteer that and they’re not going to push publicly for this or that officer to get fired because that’s not being part of the team.

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@consolation, @katliamom: I would not say that raising a young Black male is frightening, or a horribly anxiety-ridden proposition.

Rather, when I think of the recent spate of specific instances where man-on-the-street/police interaction has shown that others will not perceive my child the way I experience him, then I am moved to think of strategies and a working philosophy that will help to ensure that he survives such an encounter.

In an every day sense, when things don’t come to the fore, I don’t even think about it. Unfortunately, when I do think about it, I realize that too many others may look at my afroed, dimpled darlin’ and register “thug”.

It is in those moments that I wish for a new transmission of the images of young Black men, both at dinner tables around this nation, as well as on the news and in the entertainment media.

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Interestingly, in both Israel and the US, active trouble with enemies from without (i.e. Al Qaida and ISIS for us, Arabs in general for them) are usually a force that unites Israelis of all stripes and Americans of all stripes to see themselves as a team. When that trouble subsides for a time, blacks and whites tend to retreat back to an us vs. them mentality. Internal suspicions and strife come back to the forefront.

This thinking is what is eroding black people’s trust in law enforcement in the both countries. The cops close ranks against black people as the enemy and see themselves as a team in a conflict with them, and black people distrust the cops and see them as the enemy. I remember when I was a little kid in LA, whenever a cop car rolled by, we kids would run and hide. I ran because the bigger kids ran. We were afraid of the police; we felt threatened by them. Even as little kids, we understood that they were not on our side, that they weren’t one of us. People talk about community policing as the solution to this problem. Well, something along these lines has to happen to change this dangerous us-vs-them perspective.

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@zekeshima:
The real irony is that often black police officers share the image of the communities they are policing, I believe several of the cops in the Gray case in Balltimore were black themselves, so it is a very strange racism (not unheard of), where someone ostensibly of the same race shares a jaundiced view of others. Funny you mention LA, Joseph Wambaugh in several of his books, talked about black cops who looked down on the people in the communities they were policing, I remember in one of the books this racist, redneck cop (something the LAPD was known for for many years after WWII) finally realizing his partner was black, because his partner hated blacks as much as he did…it tells a lot to police culture and the us versus them I think.

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Not just the profession. All law abiding citizens will lose if they cannot rely on the police to catch criminals without abusing law abiding citizens. Note that abusers will lead to distrust of police, which will lead to less cooperation between law abiding citizens and police, leading to lower likelihood that criminals will be caught, leading to higher crime.

Crime has been trending down over the past few decades, but there is the possibility that decreasing trust in the police may be reversing this trend in some places.

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Black police are police. While in some circumstances they of course see themselves as part of x and y community, they identify with their “team”, which is the police or the force - a revealing word, isn’t that, the “police force” usage is taken for granted.

I think in this country black people tend to speak up in large numbers about the myriad of unfair acts they face only from time to time. It’s a version of the “unite in the face of peril” conception. A problem: the loudest voices tend to be overly-strident or attention-seekers. I’m thinking Tawana Brawley and the old version of Al Sharpton as a race-baiting camera-seeking publicity hound, and there are many other examples. No group picks the people who get air time and yet the majority will naturally tend to identify those random leaders as exemplars and they naturally tend to focus on the fools, on the violent, on the absurd. For example, back when I was a child, the civil rights movement fractured into strains of non-violent/inclusionary and a mix of black power/separatism/anti-white haranguing/etc. I remember as clear as day the rift between generations, with Bobby Seale shackled and gagged in a New Haven federal courtroom. It’s very difficult for people to articulate as a group what they want when so many want to say it for them and people are torn in different ways. So the spurts of protest fade out in bursts of useless blame and sometimes violence that’s driven, in part, by the difficulty of keeping protest alive without those sparks of violence and stupidity.

In the current BLM movement, for example, not only is attention drawn to the bleeps who bring weapons to Ferguson, etc. but also the way some of its leaders feel a need to start involving themselves in condemning Israel and other overseas issues which aren’t the issue in the US and which they show next to no understanding of outside of having ingested the same kind of propaganda they decry here. The idiots with weapons aren’t the fault of minorities who want better treatment - and it’s impossible to figure out how shooting at people will get that - and the lack of focus on what is at issue here in the specifics of police conduct only pulls apart any sense of movement. That was another MLK strength: the consistent message, repeated and repeated, that black people - then “the negro” of course - wanted to be treated as a US citizen with the rights and privileges of a US citizen.

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Re: profiling from Black police officers mentioned above–since the inception of the “hashtag”, I have always believed that “Black Lives Matter” is an affirmation that we African Americans, ourselves, need to hear and believe the most. Yes, stereotyping from the wider community affects the way we see ourselves, the way we value ourselves and our children, how we parent those children, and shapes the expectations we develop for those children. “Black Lives Matter” (not the resulting movement and organization so much as the concept) would have its greatest impact if we African Americans fully, truly believed and embraced it. Unfortunately, many of us don’t. We can become our own worst enemies when this happens.

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I’m quite aware of all that. Unfortunately for your “theory”, the magnitude of the injustice that exists doesn’t explain what we see. Moreover, considering the gargantuan leaps we’ve made through Civil Rights and other social improvements with little gain in this area, it doesn’t bode well for the future.

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As usual, I’m sure it depends on whose definition of ‘abusive’ is being used. Police officers are often found doing a dangerous and difficult job. What’s ‘wide latitude’ on the street is quite different from the same thing in your office. They also have strong unions. I’m sure you can appreciate how that works.

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I agree and as I posted earlier if that action in that arrest does not meet the definition of abusive they need to correct that very quickly.

I also support strong unions but that does not mean you need to tolerate the mistreatment of people. There should be nothing in their contract or procedural manuals that allow the action that was used against Blake.

Now I have no doubt that they have allowed this practice and will attempt to continue to use it in the future so that is where the problem is. With video and 24 hour news we will see more of this.

All police departments need to learn they do not get to use unnecessary force in making an arrest.

I have watched all the shows I can that discussed this and it is clear that this action has been tolerated and considered okay in the past. The management and experts can not say it because it is so clearly wrong so they dance around admitting it.

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Exactly who are you alleging is tolerating mistreatment?

If the officer is fined and sent into refresher training, does that indicate mistreatment is “tolerated”?

And, what if police departments have already learned they don’t “get” to use unnecessary force, but some officers still aren’t quite there, particularly in understanding what constitutes “unnecessary”?

@-)

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James got a huge standing O when they recognized him during men’s semi’s on Friday. I don’t believe he commented at all about this incident at the Open ( he wasn’t interviewed by anyone from ESPN during broadcast.) but he was on several morning shows Thursday, iirc.

The whole thing sickens me. I don’t understand why the officer didn’t just approach him, identify himself and ask for his identification, etc, given the crime they were investigating was non violent.

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Here is what I expect will happen. This officer will not face any penalty but he will never see the street as an officer again. He will be assigned duties in the office. His weapon will be returned.

The administration will give a wink and nod to fixing how arrests are made and the majority of officers will not abuse people when arresting them. There will be a certain percentage that continue to act like thugs when they arrest African American and minority males and their brothers in blue will turn a blind eye. The minority community will continue to lose respect for police while the white middle class and wealthy community in fewer and fewer numbers continue to support the police. I believe the tide will turn because white America will not be able to deny that there is a community of people that is subject to mistreatment.

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What about their black brothers in blue? What part will they play?