Positive News from the USA

[rsingh]

Sir what do you think other 99% of posts on this thread. We do not see you often here.

[Singha]

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015 ... nd-suicide

[Karan M]

as I though, a patriot of convenience.

you can think?
so, yer favored patriots like stormfront and the KKK (cuz they know how to keep 'em heathen, commie loving brownies in check, yeehaw) teach thinking?
who wud have thunk!
amongst all the raging at the russian loving brown heathens on BR who send you into a tizzy, suddenly, we have a spark of life appear.
or was it the shame shame stuff that made you start this activity?
hallelujah!

[Skanda]

An interesting article that traces the history of segregation in Swimming Pool.

McKinney, Texas, and the Racial History of American Swimming Pools

In 2009, McKinney was forced to settle a lawsuit alleging that it was blocking the development of affordable housing suitable for tenants with Section 8 vouchers in the more affluent western portion of the city. East of Highway 75, according to the lawsuit, McKinney is 49 percent white; to its west, McKinney is 86 percent white. The plaintiffs alleged that the city and its housing authority were “willing to negotiate for and provide low-income housing units in east McKinney, but not west McKinney, which amounts to illegal racial steering.”

As African Americans fought for desegregation in the 1950s, public pools became frequent battlefields. In Marshall, Texas, for example, in 1957, a young man backed by the NAACP sued to force the integration of a brand-new swimming pool. When the judge made it clear the city would lose, citizens voted 1,758-89 to have the city sell all of its recreational facilities rather than integrate them. The pool was sold to a local Lions’ Club, which was able to operate it as a whites-only private facility.

Whatever took place in McKinney on Friday, it occurred against this backdrop of the privatization of once-public facilities, giving residents the expectation of control over who sunbathes or doggie-paddles alongside them. Even if some of the teens were residents, and others possessed valid guest passes, as some insisted they did, the presence of “multiple juveniles…who do not live in the area” clearly triggered alarm. Several adults at the pool reportedly placed calls to the police. And none of the adult residents shown in the video appeared to manifest concern that the police response had gone too far, nor that its violence was disproportionate to the alleged offense.

To the contrary. Someone placed a sign by the pool on Sunday afternoon. It read, simply: “Thank you McKinney Police for keeping us safe.”

American White exceptionalism indeed.

[sanjaykumar]

Why the special treatment for TSJ? Is it acceptable on this forum?

[TSJones]

Why the special treatment for TSJ? Is it acceptable on this forum?

then why is it that i can be personally attacked but am not allowed to reply in your opinion?

[sanjaykumar]

Fragile egos. Vulnerabilities. Power inequalities of affiliated nation states.

I have no problem in hearing an unapologetic American view; if we can dish it out we should also be able to take it.

[Karan M]

Why the special treatment for TSJ? Is it acceptable on this forum?

then why is it that i can be personally attacked but am not allowed to reply in your opinion?

says the guy who has been spending a lot of time cursing, spitt(l)ing away at this forum and its members.

if you behaved with dignity & weren't such a "insert word of choice", folks wouldn't respond in kind with a size 12 boot.

TSJ sez

[1]Well, the latest word is that Hinduism is *NOT* a religion. The brighter lights of the Hindutvas insist it is a unique culture and philosophy. Never mind that a number of Hindus lie down and prostrate themselves in front of religious objects or they fold their hands together and bow. Sure looks like worshiping to me. Could have fooled me. So we can't call Hindutvas religious fanatics?

[2]Just wondering: do you think Modi's gay? I know he is married but he doesn't seem to hang around any females. And he digs the clothes thing. Just idle thoughts. Doesn't make any real difference. Hitler seemed to have problems with females. Never married although he had a girl friend.

[3why are the Hindutvas so colonialized they can't even accept crticisim from other Indians without blabbing on about the US? Why not their fck buddies the Russians? Compare yourselves to them. That's about your level, amigos.

PS to those who rush to TSJs defence, all the above are wrt BR/BR discussions.

PPS: Brown people speak advanced langwidge. Ooh the horror

[member_22733]

Re: The pool party mess in Texas

Here is a general note from my observation:

The moment there has been an excess and a violation of rights of a non-white person by a white backed authority, the white "dirt-digger" industry kicks in with full force to paint the non-white person as "deserving" of the violation of his or her rights.

Even today these things keep echoing around: "Trayvon was a thug.. so he deserved to die", "12 year old boy playing with guns, his parents should have known better", "Brown was a 7 feet 10 900 lb giant.... and he got what he deserved", "THe pool kids were a bunch of angry black kids creating ruckus in an otherwise serene white neighbor hood, hence they deserve to be abused the way they did".

This is due to the "Just World Hypothesis" : http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre ... ble-person

The classic experiment demonstrating the just-world effect took place in 1966, when Melvyn Lerner and Carolyn Simmons showed people what they claimed were live images of a woman receiving agonizing electric shocks for her poor performance in a memory test. Given the option to alleviate her suffering by ending the shocks, almost everybody did so: humans may be terrible, but most of us don’t go around being consciously and deliberately awful. When denied any option to halt her punishment, however – when forced to just sit and watch her apparently suffer – the participants adjusted their opinions of the woman downwards, as if to convince themselves her agony wasn’t so indefensible because she wasn’t really such an innocent victim. “The sight of an innocent person suffering without possibility of reward or compensation”, Lerner and Simmons concluded, “motivated people to devalue the attractiveness of the victim in order to bring about a more appropriate fit between her fate and her character.” It’s easy to see how a similar psychological process might lead, say, to the belief that victims of sexual assault were “asking for it”: if you can convince yourself of that, you can avoid acknowledging the horror of the situation.

Similarly the "narrative" that the latent white supremacists is that the blacks who get murdered and violated by law enforcements and vigilantes "asked for it". According to their naive, ignorant thinking, they dont see anything other than a just system that punishes those who commit "something illegal".

They do not have the mental capacity to realize that it is because such things never impact them. Even if they do realize it, they keep quiet, because its an easy thing to do.

If every pool party fight in America (I am sure by the time I typed this atleast a few would have gone down), was broken down in the manner shown by the cops in that town and those were pearly white kids writhing in pain under a cops knees, you would see a very different reaction to it. Instead what we see is dirt and FUD about "how those kids deserved to be treated like animals".

[member_28638]

It's 'Cos They're Krap

They claim Japan is xenophobic. But that's not the same as the sheer nastiness of Anglos against humans. Yet another attack on african Amerikans is reported: A Texas police officer has been placed on leave after video emerged of him throwing a 14-year-old African American girl to the ground, kneeling on her back and pointing his gun at teenagers who protested at her treatment.
. . .
“He hit me, he hit me for no [reason],” she says. “Call my mom.”

Another voice is heard saying: “He hit me too. He hit me in the face.”
. . .
“A fight between a mom and a girl broke out and when the cops showed up everyone ran, including the people who didn't do anything,” Brandon Brooks wrote on the YouTube page.

“So the cops just started putting everyone on the ground and in handcuffs for no reason. This kind of force is uncalled for especially on children and innocent bystanders.”
- Texas police officer placed on leave after video shows him throwing 14-year-old African American girl to the ground

It's like the slaughter of native Americans by the Anglos, justifying their savage (actually barbaric) behaviour by claiming that their victims were the ones who were savages.

Blacks had a higher rate of literacy DURING SLAVERY though, so you have to wonder if the old anglo dirty trick of imposing a cultural bias (similar to their citizenship test) has been applied to their IQ tests.

Whether or not Japan is xenophobic, it doesn't appear to be out of sad little ********: Ufot Ekong has won numerous academic awards from the university

A Nigerian student has broken a 30-year-old maths equation and achieved the highest grades at a university in Japan for 50 years.

Ufot Ekong, who studied at Tokai University in Tokyo, achieved a first class degree in electrical engineering and scored the best marks at the university since 1965, the Flotilla Magazine reported.

He began his success early at the university, solving a 30-year-old maths equation in his first semester.

Throughout his university career Mr Ekong has won six awards for academic excellence.

The brilliant mathematician worked two jobs alongside his studies to pay his way as a student.

Mr Ekong also speaks English, French, Japanese and Yoruba and won a Japanese language award for foreigners. He is currently working for Nissan and already has two patents for electronic car design to his name.
- Nigerian student Ufot Ekong solves 30-year-old maths equation and breaks academic record at Japanese university

by gork (http://bbs.chinadaily.com.cn/thread-893460-83-1.html)

[Gus]

cop will be reinstated per evidence below. he will argue that he responded to threat.
https://imageshack.com/f/p5ZDd5Doj

[Gus]

the girl was promoting this cookout/pool party



and the DJ promoting this as well



dozens of high school kids from elsewhere started crashing in to the community pool. community pool is paid for by residents and only allow residents and two guests.

when things escalated and the pool security could not control entry, residents and partiers got into verbal and one physical fighting.

this is what prompted the call to police.

not the "black kids showed up in white pool" as it is portrayed. pool is paid for by residents. it is not for public use.

when police showed up, the white kids, who were few in numbers, stood still and did not run.

the black kids, presumably fearing cases for trespassing, started running. this is why you will see in the clip, only black kids detained and not the white kids who complied by either standing still or moving to sidewalk.

And yes, the girl thrown to the ground is the one who organized the party.

[Aditya_V]

GUs, given the US track record and especially State Department perifidy I prefer the US racist notion to stick. If thier propaganda organs can claim Chittisinghpura in 99 was an Indian intelligence operation. I think all of them are guilty of racism until proven innocent.

[johneeG]

wonderful to learn about such advanced methods to train "holding in one hand his rifle and his d*ck in the other,to march around the parade ground shouting:

"This is my rifle,this is my gun,
This is for fighting,this is for fun!"

how many years have you sacrificed for your country?

So, do you actually believe that being a soldier requires holding d*ck and marching around?

This kind of training is imparted to dehumanize people. And its effects are seen all over the place with suicides, rapes, unnecessary aggression and psychotic drugs.

Is this kind of training now being imparted to cops also? Because there seems to be too many positive news items.

Anyway, the basic question is: what kind of pervertion is this? Which civilized society trains its soldiers to march holding their d*cks?

Of course, the same advanced country also likes to probe the ass-h*les of people for drugs...

All this would have been funny if it weren't so real.

[Singha]

http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/08/us/albert ... e-ordered/

[Multatuli]

Former U.S. House Speaker Hastert to appear on federal charges

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Dennis Hastert, a former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, was due to be arraigned Tuesday in federal court in Chicago on charges of trying to hide large cash transactions and lying to the FBI about it.

According to an indictment, Hastert, 73, was trying to evade detection of $3.5 million in payments he had promised to make to someone from his hometown of Yorkville, Illinois, to conceal past misconduct against the person.

Law enforcement officials have said Hastert was trying to cover up was sexual contact with a male, according to several media reports.

The Illinois Republican, who has not made any statements since he was indicted on May 28, was a high school teacher and wrestling coach at Yorkville High School in the 1960s and 1970s.

...

Hastert led the House for eight years before leaving Congress in 2007. He was the longest-serving Republican speaker.

...

According to the indictment, Hastert withdrew $1.7 million in cash from his bank accounts from 2010 to 2014. He is charged with "structuring" $952,000 of those withdrawals, taking the funds out in increments of under $10,000 to evade the requirement that banks report large cash transactions.

...

The person receiving the payments has yet to be identified. But another possible victim has emerged. The sister of a student at Yorkville High School told ABC News on Friday Hastert had sexually abused her brother, who is now deceased.

http://news.yahoo.com/former-u-house-sp ... 57394.html#


Exclusive: Doctor who trained U.S. troops suspended for macabre techniques

Since retiring from the U.S. Army in 2000, Dr. John Henry Hagmann has helped train thousands of soldiers and medical personnel in how to treat battlefield wounds. His company, Deployment Medicine International, has received more than $10.5 million in business from the federal government.

The taxpayer-funded training has long troubled animal rights activists, who contend that Hagmann’s use of live, wounded pigs to simulate combat injuries is unnecessarily cruel.

But an investigation by Virginia medical authorities alleges that pigs weren’t the doctor’s only training subjects.

During instructional sessions in 2012 and 2013 for military personnel, Hagmann gave trainees drugs and liquor, and directed them to perform macabre medical procedures on one another, according to a report issued by the Virginia Board of Medicine, the state agency that oversees the conduct of doctors.

Hagmann, 59, is accused of inappropriately providing at least 10 students with the hypnotic drug ketamine. The report alleges Hagmann told students to insert catheters into the genitals of other trainees and that two intoxicated student were subjected to penile nerve block procedures. Hagmann also is accused of conducting “shock labs,” a process in which he withdrew blood from the students, monitored them for shock, and then transfused the blood back into their systems.

The report alleges that Hagmann also “exploited, for personal gain and sexual gratification” two participants who attended a July 2013 course at his Virginia farm.

...

Earlier today, PETA sent to U.S. Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter a summary of an undercover video it says it took during a 2013 training session by Hagmann’s company. The group also asked the Pentagon to cease contracting with DMI. Goodman said the video depicts gratuitous violence against the wounded pigs, and racist and sexist jokes by course instructors.

...

In one case detailed by investigators, Virginia authorities allege that Hagmann boasted to a student “about his proficiency with rectal exams” and took the student to a warehouse on his property. There, the report claims, the two “continued to consume beer” and Hagmann asked the student “about the effect (the student’s) uncircumcised penis had on masturbation and sexual intercourse.” The student told investigators “that he was inebriated and felt that he could not refuse Dr. Hagmann’s request … to examine, manipulate and photograph his penis.”

Read further: http://news.yahoo.com/exclusive-doctor- ... 55888.html

[Gus]

GUs, given the US track record and especially State Department perifidy I prefer the US racist notion to stick. If thier propaganda organs can claim Chittisinghpura in 99 was an Indian intelligence operation. I think all of them are guilty of racism until proven innocent.

i am sorry i can't do that. group crime and group punishment only apply to pakis. they are the one exception to my rule. truth should be pursued regardless of personal biases and prejudices. i have no idea why we need to mix up state dept with domestic racism issues of US.

read this in full

http://www.theblaze.com/contributions/b ... he-police/

If you live near McKinney, Texas and you like to party, you might have been aware of the Dime Piece Cookout before it went down this past Friday.

It was advertised heavily on Twitter for a full month leading up to the event, and organized by a professional promoter named Tatiana Rhodes. Rhodes is a grown woman who, apparently along with her mom, put together this party primarily as a means to sell tickets to another event, Make It Clap Pt 2, which was supposed to happen in late June.

This was a massive blowout held in a private community, fully equipped with a DJ, advertised on social media to hundreds of people, but never once cleared with the local homeowners association. It was also promoted as a pool party (hence the giant image of a pool on the flyer), even though the pool is off limits to non-residents, unless they are guests of residents. Residents have a limited number of friends they can invite. I’m not sure what the number is, but I assume it’s somewhere south of 100.

The organizers claim they got permission, but the HOA confirmed to local media that they neither sought it nor received it. This fact is essential, because it confirms two things: 1) The people who threw this party did not care about respecting the clearly outlined rules of the community, and 2) They don’t mind lying.

It’s important to note that this was both designed and advertised as a loud and ruckus affair, held — again without permission — in the middle of a community, utilizing private resources, right next to a private pool where parents bring their young children.

It’s also perhaps relevant that the party goers were not innocent little children attending a “Dora the Explorer” themed birthday bash at Chuck E. Cheese. These were teens looking to get drunk and hookup:

https://twitter.com/NasiaChristine/stat ... 0481642496

The liberal media has since presented this as an “innocent children’s pool party,” but I’ve never encountered a children’s party where people go to meet “fine ass n*ggas.”

In fact, I’ve never heard of children’s parties with terms like “Dime Piece” and “Make It Clap” in the title. For those mercifully uninitiated, the former is a slang term for attractive women. “Dime” as in a 10-out-of-10 on the sexy scale, and “piece” is short for “piece of ass.” The latter, “make it clap,” refers to a girl twerking on the dance floor and making her butt cheeks clap together.

One can only imagine why a mother would help her daughter put together a “dime piece” and “make it clap” party for underage teens, but one possible theory is that she’s irresponsible and immature (at best). Irresponsible and immature parenting is a theme we should keep in mind when analyzing this story.

So we have an unsanctioned, heavily promoted, loud, sexually charged teen party right in the middle of a neighborhood filled with parents and children of all different races. This party is being organized by people who have shown themselves to be both loose with the facts and unconcerned with respecting the peace, privacy, and rules of the community. And we have no adult supervision — save for a few alleged grown ups who see no problem with a bunch of bikini-clad 14 year olds playing the role of ”dime pieces.”

This is called “context,” my friends.

And with this context, we can now take another look at the latest racial outrage surrounding this event in McKinney, Texas over the weekend.

You’ve likely been made vaguely aware of some butchered, half-cocked version of something that approximately resembles a few of the facts related to the incident in McKinney. Nevertheless, if you operate like so many in our country these days, you’ve formed a full and unchangeable opinion on the matter.

If you’re in that crowd — the Oblivious and Proud Club — you know that at some point during the Dime Piece party, cops were called. You know that amidst a lengthy attempt to control the mob and investigate the situation, a seven-minute sliver of a small part of the overall scene was captured on video. You know the footage shows Officer Casebolt running around and yelling at a group of uncooperative teens. You know that he curses at the teens — no doubt causing lasting emotional scars by introducing them to the F word for the first time in their lives – and generally acts unpleasantly towards them. And you know that eventually he ends up throwing a teenage girl to the ground and drawing his weapon.
By the standards of the peanut gallery and their ringleaders in the media, that’s all you need to know. The girl was black, the cop was white. Racism. Period. End of discussion. Time to protest.

But, being that I’m dumb enough to care about the full truth, I can’t help but wonder if our judgments should be based on more than an isolated, momentary glimpse of an out-of-context scene.

I’ve been informed repeatedly that such thoughts stem from my bigotry, which is odd, because I never knew “bigot” means “guy who refrains from jumping to baseless conclusions.”

So maybe it’s my bigotry talking, but when I look at the video, even before taking anything else into account, I’m not sure I see immediate evidence of racism and brutality. Indeed, we’re told that the officers only singled out the black partiers, but what I see is most everyone, black and white, being told to leave. A few are instructed to sit on the ground and wait for the cops to come talk to them. With what little we can view of the whole scenario, I can easily spot at least one white kid among the ones told to sit.

I see a number of others running away. Many in the court of public opinion seem to take issue with the police pursuing them, but I don’t understand that criticism. The police were called to the scene because residents reported that laws were being broken. They arrived, and immediately a number of potential suspects fled. Are the police supposed to have some policy that says all you have to do to evade arrest is run? Because — what — running from the cops is a human right?

Finally, I see Casebolt attempting to detain the girl in the bikini. You can’t tell what happens in the moments leading up to this altercation, but that hasn’t stopped most everyone from conclusively determining that the poor girl “did nothing wrong.” Maybe that’s true, maybe it isn’t. At a minimum we know she failed to follow instructions and leave along with the rest of the crowd. She could have, but she chose not to. That was her decision, and a bad one.

Casebolt tries to get the girl to sit on the ground, but she does not cooperate. There is a struggle, and eventually she is slammed down. I don’t like watching a teenage girl get thrown to the sidewalk, either, but of all the hand-wringing over it, nobody has suggested what else an officer is supposed to do when a person — teenage girl or otherwise — refuses to comply. Just let them walk away? Keep asking nicely? Tickle them into submission?

At this point, a group of men rush up to the officer as if to intervene. One guy can clearly be seen in the video reaching towards his waistband. Casebolt draws his weapon and the courageous man runs away. Two other officers pursue, and Casbolt reholsters.

He never points the gun at the girl, or at anyone else.

He draws. The guy runs. The end.

And, even if you haven’t been paying attention to this story, you know what happens next.

The video goes viral, sans context, and the nation erupts in another round of racial outrage. It’s immediately decided that the cop was racist, the “children” were all innocently attending an innocent pool party and had done nothing at all to provoke the police response, and yet again the police war on black America has reared its ugly head.

The media ran with it, as usual. Liberal bloggers and commentators added to their volumes of “white cops are evil” literature. Last night, protests were staged. The cop was suspended, and many called for him to be arrested on assault charges. The whole debacle is again portrayed as entirely the fault of the police, who victimized a group of entirely blameless and entirely innocent black people.

Like always, those who wish to fit this incident into the liberal narrative have gone embarrassingly overboard. Just as they called the violent thief Michael Brown a “gentle giant,” they speak about these teenage party goers as if they were toddlers decked out in floaties and Spongebob swim trunks.

After I briefly addressed this controversy on my Facebook yesterday, I was greeted with predictable accusations of racism and white supremacy. One woman sent me a private email echoing the sentiments of many commenters:

“Matt, you are a racist! How dare you take the side of the cop who VIOLENTLY assaulted INNOCENT CHILDREN who just wanted to come and share some special moments with their friends! How would you like it if YOUR KIDS were beat up by police just for wanting to have fun?”

Well, my kids are two, not 17. I probably won’t be taking them to a Dime Piece party anytime soon, or ever. And to say these kids were “beat up” for “having fun” is so absurd and childish that it makes me question the sanity of anyone who suggests it. What is this, Footloose? A bunch of curmudgeon adults were angry to see “children” dancing and having a wholesome good time? I guess that’s possible. I suppose it’s technically a possibility that the cops dispersed the crowds because of reports of “fun” and “special moments,” but as a rational adult, and someone who has both encountered teenagers and been one, that wouldn’t be the first conclusion I’d jump to.

Especially given the story the resident of the community are telling.

According to their accounts, there were over 100 teens blasting loud, vulgar music, drinking, smoking pot, and trespassing on private property, as actual children played nearby. One black adult resident has stated unequivocally that the police response was not about racism, but about out-of-control teenagers. Another community member reports that the teens — excuse me, “children” — were scaling the fence to enter the private pool that is only available to residents.

Some of the kids who went to the party claim that white people were standing around shouting racial slurs, but most of the people in the community seem to dispute that charge. The teens say their peaceful, family friendly fun was interrupted by frothing-at-the-mouth racist honkies, but the actual homeowners who witnessed the whole scene vehemently disagree. And while the teens call the cop a racist, adult members of the community have commended him.

We are left with the word of teens who are mad that their “ain’t no turn down” party got summarily turned down, versus the word of adult community members, both black and white, who say the whole thing was unlawful, disruptive, violent, and fueled by drugs and alcohol. Call me prejudiced, but I tend to believe the latter group in that scenario. Not because the former is comprised of black people, but because it’s comprised of teenagers, who, I’m told, will sometimes resort to untruths in order to cover up misbehavior. Shocking, I know.

Another video has surfaced, taken before the footage of Officer Casebolt, showing a violent altercation between a white woman and a group of party goers. Tatiana Rhodes, the party promoter, says the white woman told her to “go back to her Section 8 home,” called her a “black f**ker”, chastised her white friend for consorting with black people, then punched Tatiana in the face. All of this, according to Rhodes, was unprovoked.

There is no evidence of any of this — only her word. Maybe she’s telling the truth. Maybe not. As we already established, she has shown a willingness to lie, but that doesn’t mean she was being dishonest in this case. It just means she’s lost the right to be taken at her word.

Likewise, the girl in the bikini has spoken out, claiming she didn’t do anything to cause Officer Casebolt to detain her. Again, maybe this is true. Maybe it isn’t. Either way, is there any chance she’d say anything other than, “it wasn’t my fault”?

I can recall during the Ferguson ordeal when I suggested that a number of the “eye witnesses” were lying. I was crucified for saying it, but guess what? Turns out they were lying. Why did they lie? Maybe because they don’t like cops. Maybe because they were trying to cover up their own indiscretions. Maybe because human beings are sometimes inclined to blame the other person instead of themselves.

Or maybe because telling the truth in these situations can get you killed. Indeed, just like in Ferguson, residents who have spoken out in McKinney have been rewarded wutg death threats and vandalism.

Could self-interest, bias against police, threats of reprisals, and just general dishonesty cause people to give skewed and inaccurate accounts? You’d be an idiot to reject the notion.

That’s why it’s best to hear both sides. And once both sides are in, apply a little common sense and reason to the proceedings. I will admit that I don’t know for sure what happened. But given the background of this party, the eye witness accounts, the police response, and my general understanding of how teenage parties work, I have a hard time dismissing the idea that this was an out-of-control situation, and the real culprits are the human beings — teenage or otherwise — who chose to act out and cause this disturbance in the first place.

Does that let the officer off the hook? Not necessarily. I can agree that he shouldn’t have cursed at these kids, though it’s hard for me to cry tears over it considering they were just blasting vulgar music. But, still, he should have remained calm. Of course, it’s easy for me to say this, as I’ve never had to almost single handedly control a rowdy mob of 100 teenagers who are predisposed to dislike me because of my profession. Have you?

Whether he had reason to detain the girl is impossible to know at this point. I do know that if she’d walked away as she was told, this could have been avoided. I also know that making her into a martyr only validates her behavior. And if she disobeyed a lawful order, then she brought this completely on herself. To say otherwise is to suggest that she ought to be allowed to do whatever the hell she wants, which is precisely the attitude many of these teens had, and precisely the attitude a mature and grown up society would try to break, not encourage.

Finally, it seems clear that the cops showed up because people were breaking the law, refusing to follow the rules, and being obnoxious and disrespectful. If they’d acted properly, this would not have happened. It is their fault. Not the police. Not society. Not the system. Not racism. Put the blame on the individuals for once.

As far as how much blame the individual officer in the video should get, I’ll have to rely on those closer and more equipped to investigate the situation in its entirety and come to that conclusion. I’d hope that verdict will be fair, but considering the implicit and explicit threat of riots and chaos if this officer isn’t publicly flogged for what he did, it seems fairness will be difficult to recognize or attain.

That’s the environment we’re living in.

A lot of anger, a lot emotion, a lot of assuming, a lot of threatening, but little concern for the truth.

This just the latest example.

Next week there will be another one, and another one, and another one, with no end in sight.

God help us.

[Tuvaluan]

Err..this is the positive news thread, just like all the positive news about India that shows up in the US, no? So what's with all this eagerness to be fair and just -- white teens in steubenville did far worse things and the entire incident and the criminal behaviour was covered up for years.

The point here is the asymmetric response of an inherently racist society to bad behavior of teenagers, by cops who have a history of shooting unarmed young citizens of the wrong colour and that too very recently. Like the above article where a lot of hairs are being split on the bald head of american justice -- yes, so these teens trespassed and behaved badly and the cops showed up, and we all supposed to assume that there was no racist element in the response of the people in the neighbourhood?

why give that benefit of the doubt to a society and country that does far less when it comes to how it portrays India? Sort of the reason why this thread was started IIRC.

Nothing wrong with insisting that the dangling thing from the hole in Captain America's Undies is truth and justice, but this may be the wrong thread for it..just saying. Maybe the India-US relations thread is the right one to get indignant about how USA's fair name is being soiled by heathens.

[member_22733]

i am sorry i can't do that. group crime and group punishment only apply to pakis. they are the one exception to my rule. truth should be pursued regardless of personal biases and prejudices. i have no idea why we need to mix up state dept with domestic racism issues of US.

That is a very noble position to take, and I respect you for taking that position because it is also a brave position to take and that is because it will never ever be the case when one of us browns are on the receiving end. Even in the face of overwhelming evidence pointing to the fact that a member Indian society acted correctly and humanely, we will always be painted as casteist heathens who deserve to be punished and civilized. The very reason this thread came into being.

[UlanBatori]

Thanks, Gus. This did it for me:

no doubt causing lasting emotional scars by introducing them to the F word for the first time in their lives

Shall refrain from opening mouth further in a mob environment.

[Singha]

The bully cop has now resigned ....

[Rony]

The bully cop has now resigned ....

without apology i may add

[Rony]

For the souls worrying about "truth" and all that, little bit of more truth here.

What was the police officer in McKinney thinking?

Video imagery doesn’t get much worse than a white police officer throwing an African American girl in a bikini to the ground, kneeling on her back as she cries and drawing his gun on other teenagers.

What in God’s name is wrong with our cops?

I should say, what was wrong with McKinney, Tex., police Cpl. Eric Casebolt, the officer in the video? Would that this were an isolated case, but we’ve seen other videos in the past year or so involving police officers, mostly white, whose aggressive tactics resulted in death or injury to unarmed, black victims. (Casebolt resigned late Tuesday.)

While it’s necessary to qualify that most cops are good and risk their lives to protect our safety, nothing justifies what millions of Americans witnessed in the latest viral video described above.

The 15-year-old girl reportedly was mouthing off; Casebolt may have felt flustered as he faced dozens of teenagers after a fight he didn’t yet understand; the moment may even have felt dangerous to him. We don’t know.

What has been reported is that the original melee, which had ended by the time police arrived, may have been prompted by two white women hurling racial slurs when a crowd of teens, mostly black, arrived for a cookout at the private, planned-community pool.

“Go back to [your] Section 8 home,” one of them reportedly said, according to the party’s host, a teenager who lives in the pool’s neighborhood.

Most anyone can understand the women’s irritation at the suddenly overcrowded scene but not their resort to cruel and inflammatory language. Some of the teens apparently were shouting at the gate to be let in, while others scaled the wall. The mixed-race community has strict rules that residents can bring only two guests to the pool.

A fight eventually erupted and the police were called. This would have been a daunting situation for anyone, but Casebolt couldn’t have picked a less appropriate individual to subdue as an example to others. Many have asked: Didn’t he realize he was being filmed? As though, if only he’d known, he would have behaved better. The more compelling question to me is: What in the world was he thinking?

Obviously, Casebolt felt he had to take command of what appeared to be a chaotic situation. But we’ve reached a point where something has to be done, not only to better monitor police behavior but also to quell inevitable racial tensions.


Were Casebolt’s actions racially motivated? A black resident said no; a white resident said yes, according to CNN. The white teen who filmed the incident, partygoer Brandon Brooks, said police were targeting blacks. Benét Embry, a 43-year-old black resident, said the incident was not racially motivated.


Yet the image of a black girl pinned down by a white cop is impossible to shake and brings to mind the closing defense argument in the film “A Time to Kill.” The attorney, whose black client had killed his little girl’s rapists and torturers, described the scene of the broken, nearly dead child to the all-white jury.

“I want you to picture that little girl. Now imagine she’s white.”

It was a chilling, convincing moment.

Does anyone think that Casebolt would have treated a bikini-clad white girl with long blond hair the same way?

Recent debate has focused on body cameras for police. Although cameras can positively modify actions, they capture only what happens, not what motivates behavior. It seems our greater concern should be getting at those motivations with a greater focus on in-depth psychological testing and monitoring.

Even if some departments do background checks and take other measures, they’re apparently not doing enough. The Cleveland officer who shot and killed a 12-year-old boy in November had been cited in a previous job for emotional immaturity, yet the Cleveland department didn’t review those records before hiring him.

Many officers come from the military. Have they seen battle? Do they suffer from post-traumatic stress? Casebolt was a former military police officer in the Navy, which may mean nothing, but he brought that experience to the job. Were there factors therein?

It was clear from the footage that Casebolt had lost his cool. He was angry. Maybe anybody would have been under the circumstances. But a police officer shouldn’t be just “anybody.” Armed with a gun and the authority to use it, he should always be the exception to ordinary human behavior.

[member_22733]

If you watch the video Casebolt was about to lose his bolts and that would certainly have happened if the other officers around him hadn't rushed in to intervene, you can see him protesting against one of the cops who held his shoulder.

If Casebolt did end up loosing his bolts , and killed one or two of those boys, he will have walked free. Note that if there was indeed a threat, the other two cops also should have drawn their guns but they did not, and instead they rushed in to disperse the kids and stop this loon. So there was no threat in reality, the officer perceived a threat where there was none.

But even with that evidence he would have walked without spending a single day in prison had he shot those kids. You can easily guess why. Had he shot those kids, what we would be hearing is not the merits of that particular case, but how those kids got high 2 weeks back and how they were dealing drugs and how their dad's left them when they were 2. They would become the "thugs who deserve to die".

Regardless of the behavior of the kids in the pool and the racist crazies who started the fight, this was certainly a very scary situation that would have escalated into atleast a couple of seriously injured or dead teenagers. Entering into a "no trespassing" area (like the pool) does not mean that your spine should be snapped by a 200lb lunatic pressing against it with his knee. Also note the escalation ladder: Kids approach to talk/yell yields reponse: guns drawn in an offensive position. Not only that he escalated even more by chasing them with the gun. That is, just because of a non-existent but imagined danger, the cop upped the escalation ladder and moved a few rungs higher.

The arguments about white kids not running: The default advice to black kids in the US about cops is simple: They are out to kill you, and they WILL kill you. Every black parent I know tells some form of this to their kids. The fear is not unfounded as this thread chronicles. So they just run, that is their default reaction. They are running from a force that has oppressed them for a few 100 years. The white kids are in no such danger, more importantly the white kids are advised to "trust the police", although now things are slightly changing.

I just pity the desi folks who think this kind of stuff wont happen to them or their children.

[ramana]

Re: The pool party mess in Texas

Here is a general note from my observation:

The moment there has been an excess and a violation of rights of a non-white person by a white backed authority, the white "dirt-digger" industry kicks in with full force to paint the non-white person as "deserving" of the violation of his or her rights.

Even today these things keep echoing around: "Trayvon was a thug.. so he deserved to die", "12 year old boy playing with guns, his parents should have known better", "Brown was a 7 feet 10 900 lb giant.... and he got what he deserved", "THe pool kids were a bunch of angry black kids creating ruckus in an otherwise serene white neighbor hood, hence they deserve to be abused the way they did".

This is due to the "Just World Hypothesis" : http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre ... ble-person

The classic experiment demonstrating the just-world effect took place in 1966, when Melvyn Lerner and Carolyn Simmons showed people what they claimed were live images of a woman receiving agonizing electric shocks for her poor performance in a memory test. Given the option to alleviate her suffering by ending the shocks, almost everybody did so: humans may be terrible, but most of us don’t go around being consciously and deliberately awful. When denied any option to halt her punishment, however – when forced to just sit and watch her apparently suffer – the participants adjusted their opinions of the woman downwards, as if to convince themselves her agony wasn’t so indefensible because she wasn’t really such an innocent victim. “The sight of an innocent person suffering without possibility of reward or compensation”, Lerner and Simmons concluded, “motivated people to devalue the attractiveness of the victim in order to bring about a more appropriate fit between her fate and her character.” It’s easy to see how a similar psychological process might lead, say, to the belief that victims of sexual assault were “asking for it”: if you can convince yourself of that, you can avoid acknowledging the horror of the situation.

Similarly the "narrative" that the latent white supremacists is that the blacks who get murdered and violated by law enforcements and vigilantes "asked for it". According to their naive, ignorant thinking, they dont see anything other than a just system that punishes those who commit "something illegal".

They do not have the mental capacity to realize that it is because such things never impact them. Even if they do realize it, they keep quiet, because its an easy thing to do.

If every pool party fight in America (I am sure by the time I typed this atleast a few would have gone down), was broken down in the manner shown by the cops in that town and those were pearly white kids writhing in pain under a cops knees, you would see a very different reaction to it. Instead what we see is dirt and FUD about "how those kids deserved to be treated like animals".

Very important observation. Just narrative.

Was used in Mai Lai too.

[member_22733]

Run Black-Kid Run!

[member_22733]

The "other" side of the pool party story:
https://abagond.wordpress.com/2015/06/08/mckinney/

The pool party took place in a gated White neighbourhood. Teenagers that BuzzFeed spoke to said that they attended the party using guest passes. Despite that, adults told the Black children to leave and return to “Section 8 [public] housing.”

[Singha]

meantime ... on MSNBC:

Conservative talk radio host Michael Berry can be heard comparing teens who attended a now infamous pool party last week in McKinney, Texas, to “jungle animals,” in audio from his Monday show posted online by Media Matters.

The party gained national exposure after footage went viral showing a white police officer confronting attendees, many of whom were black, and wrestling a 15-year-old black girl in a bikini to the ground, as well as drawing his gun. McKinney Police Chief Greg Conley said officers who arrived on the scene “encountered a large crowd that refused to comply with police commands.” According to Conley, 12 officers in total arrived on the scene and there were no official reports of injuries.

“You’ve got a ready-made crowd of people who don’t have day jobs that are ready to storm the streets and threaten the cops,” Berry said on his eponymous show on Houston’s KTRH, which is an iHeartRadio network station. “Let me suggest that for the people who end up getting in fights with the cops: Shut your mouth!” NBC News cannot be certain the audio was not edited.

“Let me ask you, how many among you would put on a badge and a police uniform today?” he added. “How many of you would put on a badge, police uniform and be the first to respond — by yourself — to a crowd of teenagers, amped up — watch ‘em! Man, they’re screaming! ‘Get outta here! Who are you?! You don’t know what you! You go! You get! Who are you?! You can’t do that! No man, we gon’ get you! You bet!’ I mean you’re talking about, like, jungle animals. I mean this is wild, crazy, out of control.”

On his Monday broadcast, Berry also defended the “probably white” people who called police to the scene at the pool party, saying they were “scared to death” because “there’s a bunch of black people and they’re out on the streets and they’re fightin’ and carryin’ on and they’re playing that music from Jay-Z.”

Msnbc reached out to KTRH for comment but has not heard back at this time.

Berry has a history of using incendiary, racially insensitive rhetoric. When plans were revealed in 2010 to potentially build a mosque in close proximity to the site of the World Trade Center in New York City, he said on his show, “I hope somebody blows it up … I hope the mosque isn’t built, and if it is, I hope it’s blown up, and I mean that.” Those remarks led to an FCC complaint from the Council on American-Islamic Relations. Berry has also been an unapologetic Obama birth certificate conspiracy theorist.

The officer involved in the McKinney incident resigned on Monday evening and an investigation is currently underway into what took place. “The excessive force on an unarmed 14-year-old girl clad only in a bikini by an officer wearing a uniform and a gun was particularly troubling,” said Cornell William Brooks, president of the NAACP, on Monday. “These teens appeared to be simply attending a pool party and deserved respectful treatment under the law.”

During a press conference on Tuesday, McKinney Police Chief Greg Conley came out against the officer’s actions. “His actions are indefensible,” he said. “Our policies, our training, our practice do not support his actions. He came into the call out of control and, as the video shows, was out of control during the incident.”

[Singha]

'tough cops' also tend to pick on preppy college kids these days including rich whites...bullying them, ordering them, shaking them down for some minor stuff. plenty of videos on youtube......a unwarranted arrest followed by having to get lawyer and post bail can break the back of a poor family living on one parent and low income.....this is another way of keeping them on the run.

[sanjaykumar]

“Let me ask you, how many among you would put on a badge and a police uniform today?” he added. “How many of you would put on a badge, police uniform and be the first to respond — by yourself — to a crowd of teenagers, amped up — watch ‘em! Man, they’re screaming! ‘Get outta here! Who are you?! You don’t know what you! You go! You get! Who are you?! You can’t do that! No man, we gon’ get you! You bet!’ I mean you’re talking about, like, jungle animals. I mean this is wild, crazy, out of control.”


Whoa dispensing with the dog whistle niceties are we?

[Singha]

i wonder what happened to the indian grandpa whose spine was broken somewhere in the south. he was bedridden and in need of some surgery iirc. unconfirmed reports spoke of the city sponsoring his long medical care...but his tourist visa would long expire

[Gus]

The "other" side of the pool party story:
https://abagond.wordpress.com/2015/06/08/mckinney/

The pool party took place in a gated White neighbourhood. Teenagers that BuzzFeed spoke to said that they attended the party using guest passes. Despite that, adults told the Black children to leave and return to “Section 8 [public] housing.”

utter BS.

it is not gated.

and with about 100 black kids, and only 2 guests for a resident, it cannot be a "gated white neighborhood" if they all had guest passes.

[Gus]

the ONLY thing in dispute is whether the cop's actions were justified or not and could it have been handled differently.

what is NOT in dispute are these facts

it was an unauthorized party. HOA has released statement that they did not give approval.

it is not a gated community. but it is a gated pool, paid for by HOA dues from residents. not a public pool.

the promoter of the party was promoting this for a month, had a DJ and invited a lot of people with "free admission" when she was not in a position to make that offer. she can only admit 2.

passes were handed out through fences and when security objected, kids started scaling fences.

DJ was blasting songs with swear words. this is not a "kids in a chuck e cheese" party.

dimepiece is slang for hot ass. same promoter was doing clap parties - buttclap if you don't know what it means. condoms were found as well. these are NOT kids.

my thumbrule is if you are making kids, you are definitely not a kid.

i don't agree with cop subduing her that way, but why there is no looking at what the girl did (she is 19 yo it seems, not really a kid)..she was asked to leave. did not. she was asked to get down..she did not. she resisted.

there is no right to resist. that is the basis of police authority. at that point what was the cop supposed to do? tickle her as the author of that article puts it?

oh, and his fingers were not the in the trigger well at any point. look at frames of pictures online. it was a show to get the boys to back away when they moved to him.

whether that is appropriate to draw or not is another question....but exaggerating this to real cop overreach issues and plain murder like ferguson, b'more etc undermines those issues.

[Singha]

a lot of these situations do not need the police to swoop down with full tactical gear with a black helicopter overhead.
usually if a couple cops show up in a friendly way, ask people to turn down music, stop drinking, check id and slowly disperse they will comply. knowing the well earned rep of the US police, few if any are going to defy them. just a couple of cars parked next to the pool with lights flashing would have taken the wind out of the party and 75% would have decamped in a few mins.

but problem is they enter the stage at a few levels up the ladder already and try to impose a instant solution.

[UlanBatori]

the promoter of the party was promoting this for a month, had a DJ and invited a lot of people with "free admission" when she was not in a position to make that offer. she can only admit 2.

Small observations:

1. Invitation may have been sent out by one person, but that doesn't mean there weren't a lot of resident families participating: why would that person herself live in a KKK neighborhood, hain? This is called a 'mixed' nbd. I estimate 400+ apartments. They don't call it 'mixed' if there are only 2 AA families and 398 'other community'. So I estimate that there are maybe 100 AA families. IMO when there is a pool party at such a nbd, ALL residents who are interested would join. Let's say there were kids from 30 resident families at 1.5 kids per family - that's 45 kids from the community, who had every right to invite 2 guests each. Or maybe its 2 guests per family, and maybe all 100 AA families would gladly count themselves in as inviting guests. So the number of guests per resident was not 50 - it may well have been closer to say, 1 or 2.
So the claim that a lot of uninvited nbd gangs came barging in, is the first sign of racist xenophobia.

2. There is a reason why ppl like me would try to live as far away as possible from the Pool and Tennis Courts, and why others rush in to live as close as possible to them. That is, precisely, these Parties. Parties are noisy, or else they are utter failures. Yes, there will be parking congestion. Ppl parking on the grass, Roads half-blocked. Drunks on the road (mostly happy). LOUD bands going thumpa-thumpa and resonating with the old bones in one's body. Beer bottles on the ground. In pieces. Plenty of vomit all round. Half-eaten hamburgers rotting in the sun. Smell of biss. Assorted underwear lying around. Assorted underwear-clad bodies lying all round. Forget any images you have of suave long-skirted, mohtermas swishing around in a drunken stupor carrying a conical Margarita glass of pure Bulgarian crystal at a Wodehousian Brish1t Party and only doing it discreetly under the stately oak trees or inside barns. OK, the drunken mohterma part is right, but mostly Dig-Ambara.

So ppl complaining about **NOISE** from an apartment pool party are just being ornery b1tches. Racist. I bet there are parties there EVERY weekend, every night in summer. Mostly of (one community) kids, whose noise and fa*ts are so elegant that they don't disturb the two white mohtermas who came out to Protect the Sanctity of The Community and started the riot. Dim-witted racist turds.

3. Ppl call police to parties all the time, it's sort-of expected, so the police would ordinarily just come and park outside so they can catch the drunks driving out and make a good income for the city. My new nbrs in Ulan Bator, poor things, moved from some such place. Were planning a party, so they left notes in all nbrs' mailboxes, saying 'please don't call the police' and giving their phone # etc. Explained to them that (a) inside our cave with triple-insulated windows, v can't even hear thunderstorms or the sireens announcing tornados. (b) parties are expected on weekends.

Calling police to an apt pool party unless murders have been committed or the entire nbd set on fire, is again bloody spoil-sport. Racist.

4. Went to check out a nbd park preparatory to International Yoga Day: they were setting up for a Fraternity Party. Sole Sponsor in evidence was Jack Daniels Rooh Afza, and that was already flowing. So all this SHOCK at the TEENAGE DRINKING is again so much pakistan. Racist.

5. As 4 the language used in rap music - from anecdotal experience, the jacked-up SUVs blasting rap that shake neighboring vehicles, are most likely to be driven by 'one community' as much as 'another community'. And if you listen to them "dime-piece" is so innocuous as to merit only a Rap may have been originally 'one community' but kids of all communities enjoy and participate in it.

6. Observation on the "other side": Anyone know what it's like to be caught in a 'Freaknik' traffic jam?

[SaiK]

Gus, I'm going -- neutral -- on you, and doing a bojitive on others. we need to make mountains outta molehills here.

this will happen until the khaans stop being a world cop, and create truth to satisfy their "statefool" agenda.

[panduranghari]

I just pity the desi folks who think this kind of stuff wont happen to them or their children.

Why is that the case? Is it cognitive dissonance or something else?

[Gus]

1. Invitation may have been sent out by one person, but that doesn't mean there weren't a lot of resident families participating: why would that person herself live in a KKK neighborhood, hain? This is called a 'mixed' nbd. I estimate 400+ apartments. They don't call it 'mixed' if there are only 2 AA families and 398 'other community'. So I estimate that there are maybe 100 AA families. IMO when there is a pool party at such a nbd, ALL residents who are interested would join. Let's say there were kids from 30 resident families at 1.5 kids per family - that's 45 kids from the community, who had every right to invite 2 guests each. Or maybe its 2 guests per family, and maybe all 100 AA families would gladly count themselves in as inviting guests. So the number of guests per resident was not 50 - it may well have been closer to say, 1 or 2.
So the claim that a lot of uninvited nbd gangs came barging in, is the first sign of racist xenophobia

sir, why the contrived fancy maths.

fact is - people were trespassing. this is not a public pool. this is a community pool. non-residents cannot barge in there, as they don't pay for it. a simple count on pool pass swipes can establish that. HOA has released statement that party was not approved anyways. pool cleaning is expensive.

so now trespassing is to be handwaved.

So ppl complaining about **NOISE** from an apartment pool party are just being ornery b1tches. Racist. I bet there are parties there EVERY weekend, every night in summer. Mostly of (one community) kids, whose noise and fa*ts are so elegant that they don't disturb the two white mohtermas who came out to Protect the Sanctity of The Community and started the riot. Dim-witted racist turds.

really..

so a bunch of non-students crash into your auditorium and setup a party there and you would be smiling approvingly? and if kaalij sekoority cannot control it and cops are called, you become a dim witted racist turd spoil sport xenophobic?

[arshyam]

^^ Gus saar, it doesn't matter. The point is the video, and it shows a white cop throwing a black girl to the ground. That's enough. Positively enough. The details are internal issues within the US. Just like the broken window in a church in India (detail was that a drunk vandal had a fight and did so), but the narrative was made into you know what, as the details were an internal issue within India.

I salute your persistence in being fair, like in that incident of AP police shooting, but in this case this is an issue being looked at from an international prism (BRF has an Indian prism), and fairness can take a hike. Or at least, till the great khan stops lecturing the rest of the world on how to live. Till then, we will continue to hold a mirror to the narrative building efforts, cherry picking facts to suit our narrative. After all, we are following the template developed by the great khan onlee, don't they say imitation is the best form of flattery?

Let the great khan dismantle the USCRIF and Berkeley CCR and assorted beings, then we can think of vasudeva kutumbakam and all that w.r.t. khanate.

[Gus]

a racist xenophobe witness

link has video of said racist speaking

http://www.breitbart.com/video/2015/06/ ... bout-race/

In an appearance on CNN’s “Outfront” on Monday, Benét Embry, host of the “Benét Embry Radio Show,” explained that it was his view that a pool party that went awry and led to a confrontation between several black teenagers and local police wasn’t about race.

He blamed “seven knuckleheads” for ruining what was about kids “there just having a good time.”

“I do not believe that this was about race,” Embry said. “What this was a teenage party that got out of control. It was about 130 kids there, 100 good kids there just having a good time. Out of the 130, predominantly African-American, seven knuckleheads ruined the whole thing for everybody. That’s what this is all about. I don’t think — I do not believe that officer showed up to the subdivision with the intention, ‘I’m going to go out and swing black kids around.’ I do not believe that. That’s not the way the community is set up. That’s not the community we live in. So, amidst death threats that I have received and the banning of my radio show, my neighbor had to send his son away because he is receiving death threats.”