America's hopeless "color line".

Take it away Chauncey DeVega:

"2015 was a whirlwind year, full of miserable happenings and scant hope for those of us who write about and study the color line in America.

 

The Republican Party finally surrendered to the nativism, racism and xenophobia that it nurtured among its base for decades. This toxic mix birthed the ascendance of the proto-fascist Know Nothing Donald Trump.

Freddie Gray, Laquan McDonald and so many other black and brown people had their lives stolen from them by America’s out of control, hyper-violent, militarized, racist police.
The right-wing news/entertainment complex continued to weaponize its followers. Dylann Roof followed through on his programming and killed nine black Americans after they welcomed him into the fellowship of their church community. Robert Dear also heard the drumbeat of hatred and lies turned into truths by Fox News and Republican presidential candidates such as Carly Fiorina when he killed three people at a Planned Parenthood center in Colorado.

The old combination of guns, racism and toxic white masculinity was lethal in 2015. There is no reason to believe that it will be sated in the years to come.

Bill Cosby, once “America’s Dad” and exemplar of “black respectability politics,” was revealed to be a likely sex predator/serial rapist.

President Barack Obama continued to face strident opposition from Republicans. America’s first black president is entering the twilight year of his two terms in office with the lesson now fully reinforced that “hope and change” was beaten back by old fashioned racial bigotry and white racial resentment. For too large a swath of white America, a black man who is president of the United States is illegitimate: his policies, however reasonable, are to be rejected as dead on arrival.
There is an ugly irony in how America’s first black president, the most powerful person in the world, is in many ways a 21^st century Dred Scott, the latter a man deemed by the United States Supreme Court in 1857 as having “no rights which the white man is bound to respect.”

For those of us who study race and politics during a time when white supremacy is resurgent, American empire is in decline, and the inhumanity of neoliberalism is accepted as the natural order of things, it is easy to surrender to racial battle fatigue. To resist this impulse, a person must develop mental and emotional armor. Ultimately, if the worst of human behavior is your object of study, it is easy to become cynical, to no longer be surprised.

Even by those low standards and expectations, the de facto street execution of a 12-year-old black child named Tamir Rice by an incompetent and emotionally unstable white Cleveland police officer, and his subsequent exoneration for such a foul and wicked act, shocked me.

However, the response by conservatives–in the news media, online forums and by at least one of the 2016 Republican presidential candidates–to the killing of Tamir Rice is potentially even more disturbing.

What should be a source of collective outrage and sadness has instead been transformed into an opportunity to lecture black people about “personal responsibility,” a lightning rod for virulent anti-black racism, a showcase for how white racial paranoic thinking always blames the black victim for his or her unjust killing by the State, as well as one more chances to make excuses for a broken American criminal justice system that enables police murder, abuse and violence against people of color, the poor, the mentally ill and other groups marked as the “disposable” Other.

For example, the comment sections at the website Cleveland.com (which is a news aggregator that also features content from the newspaper The Plain Dealer) were so infested with racism and hate speech against Tamir Rice that the site administrators deactivated them at the end of November.
Cleveland.com explained its decision as follows:

So why, a lot of you have asked, have we chosen to turn off all comments on stories about Tamir Rice?  

The simple answer is that we don’t fancy our website as a place of hate, and the Tamir Rice story has been a magnet for haters.  

We tried to maintain the conversation. The Tamir Rice case offers lessons for Greater Cleveland, and hashing out those lessons in an online community forum could be a healthy exercise. A lot of people firmly believe the police broke the law when they shot Tamir, but others feel just as strongly that the shooting was justified. Passions are strong, and because our comments section could provide a place for venting, we allowed comments on Tamir stories for months. We enlisted a small army on our staff to monitor the comments and delete any that violated our standards.  

The trouble was that we couldn’t keep up. Just about every piece we published about Tamir immediately became a cesspool of hateful, inflammatory or hostile comments. Rather than discuss the facts of the case, many commenters debased the conversation with racist invective. Or they made absurd statements about the clothing and appearance of people involved in the story. Or they attacked each other for having contrasting viewpoints. In many cases, well over half of the comments on Tamir stories broke our rules and had to be deleted.  

We ultimately decided that the comments sections of Tamir stories, overrun as they were by wickedness, were not contributing to the needed conversation. In early October, we reluctantly and finally decided to close down the comments on any news story about Tamir..." [More]

DeVega  goes on to talk about the rise of racism in America and the resurgence of white supremacy while the American empire continues to decline.

The state killing of Tamir Rice is just one example of many. Sadly, these types of incidents that continue to divide along racial lines have been the norm and not the exception since the election of Barack Obama.

I suppose we could blame the conservative media and their huge echo chamber, but I suspect that things would be this way if there was no FOX VIEWS and Drudge Reports. What is driving the America's racial divide is the fear in some quarters of the new America that is emerging and the thought that a person of color could actually lead it, again.

Like DeVega, I don't see the color lines in America getting any closer, and I certainly don't see anyone trying to bridge it.

Folks in the majority hate to hear about racism and racial issues because they believe in their hearts that racism no longer exists. And if they didn't, they would have the right-wing media to tell them that it really doesn't.

On the other hand, folks in the minority population see race relations getting worse,  and they believe in their hearts that white resentment and angst is only going to increase as the country becomes more diverse.

Of course we both can't be right.  Fortunately, though,  I think events in the coming years will show us all who is.

*Pic from huffingtonpost.com

 



  

 

No shield for Tamir.

The loved ones of Tamir Rice suffered unspeakable pain yesterday when the grand jury empaneled to decide the fate of the officers who killed the 12 year old decided that they acted properly.

I could get into numerous reasons why this case was handled improperly by prosecutor Tim McGinty,  (11 months?!)but what is done is done, and all the "Monday morning quarterbacking" in the world won't bring this child to life or bring justice for his family.

Every time I watch the video of that child being executed I think of the reckless disregard the officers showed for his life and the way they came out with guns blazing. (Here is an analysis I found quite interesting: "A caller to 911 told the police operator that Rice was pulling a gun out of his pants and pointing it a people, but also said the gun was “probably fake,” and that Rice was “probably a juvenile,” although it appears the dispatcher did not pass this information on to the officers. In dispatch audio released by police, the officers call in the shooting, and identify Tamir as a “black male, maybe 20” years old.

All of this has led people like Moms Demand Action’s Shannon Watts to ask why Rice was shot when it is legal to openly carry firearms, including handguns, in Cleveland. It has also led blogs like Wonkette to wonder why the usually-vocal open carry movement hasn’t been loudly proclaiming the injustice in this case. In a press conference following the shooting, Deputy Chief Edward Tomba said that Rice made no “verbal threats,” and there was no “physical confrontation.” If the police really believed that Tamir Rice was 20 years old, and the pellet gun was really in plain view, then the open carry law would seem to complicate their justification for killing him." )

"The Cleveland Police Patrolmen's Association said it was pleased by what it called the grand jury's "thoughtful decision." But Steve Loomis, the union's president, said the decision not to indict the officers was no cause for celebration.

 

"While there is absolutely no upside to this issue," he said in a statement, "there are lessons that should and will be learned by all."

 

There are lessons that "should" be learned; whether it will or not is a different story.

 

Contrast what happened to Tamir Rice to what happened to Elaine Rothenberg.

 

"Ahead of the non-indictment of the officers involved in the death of Tamir Rice, a woman in Connecticut was reprimanded for a similar offense – only she was not killed. Elaine Rothenberg, 66, was outside of a Torrington police station with a faux weapon, attempting to provoke civilians and officers on Christmas Eve. She later stood near an employee-only entrance and ordered officers, NBC Miami reports.

 

“What are you doing? Shoot me!” Rothenberg told the Torrington police. “Boom, boom, boom.”

A 911 call was placed at about 7:30 p.m. on the night of the incident. Rothenberg reportedly purchased the BB gun with the intent to pass it off as a real weapon."

 

Ms. Rothenberg, if you are trying to commit suicide by cop you are going to have to work a lot harder. Your white privilege shield is just that strong.

 

*Pic from Wikipedia.

 

  

 

 

Two shootings, two different results.

The first incident happened in San Diego, California a little over a year ago.

"SAN DIEGO - A possibly suicidal man waving what appeared to be a gun was wounded Wednesday in an officer-involved shooting near De Anza Cove, authorities reported.

San Diego police got a report that an armed man was making threats and comments about killing himself in the 2800 block of North Mission Bay Drive in Mission Beach shortly after 11 a.m., SDPD public-affairs Lt. Kevin Mayer said.

Officers tried in vain to persuade the man to drop the weapon and surrender.

The photographer who captured video of the man waving the gun spoke with 10News about being in the line of fire.

"I knew he was going to do something," said local photographer Ed Baier.

Baier was one of the first on the scene and one of the only ones to capture every minute of what would turn out to be a standoff that would last for more than an hour.

He was in the middle, less than 100 yards away as the man already negotiating with officers in the park headed back to his car and re-emerged." [Source]

Goof job by the police. They took inventory of the situation and used appropriate force to neutralize the perp.

The second incident took place almost a year ago in Cleveland, Ohio.

"Cleveland police have released a video showing the moment that officers shot a 12-year-old boy in a park on Sunday. Tamir Rice can be seen playing in the snow with a pellet gun before sitting at a bench for three minutes. As the police drive up he can be seen standing up and moving the gun at his waist. Two officers get out with their guns drawn and the boy falls, disappearing behind the car. Rice died of his wounds the following day." [Source]

Besides the obvious things that the two incidents have in common, one glaring thing separates the two. If you said the race of the victims move to the head of the class.  

One victim, predictably, ended up dead. The other, in spite of trying to kill himself, did not.

Now we are learning that the police officers who killed 12 year old Tamir Rice acted "reasonably".

I would ask you to look at the case again and tell me if you agree.

"Like lightning … you see the lightning first, then the thunder. So I saw him go down immediately and then I heard the click the crack of the shot and then that was it," said Baier.
Medics took the suspect to a trauma center. Police say he is serious but stable condition. The officer who shot the man is a nine-year veteran of the force."

At least this man's family will see him again. The family of Tamir Rice is not so lucky.

Pic from thegrio.com

The Monroe Bird story.

So I saw the following story over at Daily Kos, and I thought to myself that it was worth sharing. (h/t to my twitter fam, Shaun King.)

It's important,  because although it's one incident in Oklahoma, I think it speaks to a much larger problem plaguing our society.

"It's no accident that Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice, Mike Brown, and Akai Gurley are dead.

The men who shot and killed them showed them absolutely no compassion after they were fatally wounded. Officer Timothy Loehmann stood and watched 12-year-old Tamir Rice struggle to live and offered him no aid whatsoever. Officer Peter Liang literally called and texted his union reps and stepped over the body of Akai Gurley instead of offering him assistance after shooting him in the stairwell of his own apartment building. You won't see any pictures of Officer Darren Wilson checking the pulse of Mike Brown. Eric Garner, completely unconscious on a Staten Island sidewalk, was virtually ignored by officers who performed no CPR. Baltimore police expressed zero concern for the well-being of Freddie Gray.

In many ways, these dead boys and men are much less dangerous to those who killed them than they would be alive. They can't give their side of the story. We'll never again hear from Tamir Rice or Akai Gurley or Freddie Gray.

As George Zimmerman, the Florida asshole/neighborhood watch volunteer who racially profiled, chased, confronted, and shot teenager Trayvon Martin in his own neighborhood, continues to abuse women and pile up mugshots all over Florida, we'll never be able to hear from Trayvon Martin. Zimmerman made sure of it.

The many mugshots of George Zimmerman. But a case with a living survivor shot by an overzealous wannabe cop in his own neighborhood is out there, a case with many parallels to the killing of Trayvon Martin, and his story needs to be told.

 

On February 4, sitting in his own car in his own neighborhood, talking to a female passenger, Monroe Bird was shot in the neck by a security guard, Ricky Stone, a 52-year-old white man. The bullet pierced the C3 vertebrae in his neck. Standing 6 feet, 8 inches, Bird, a gifted athlete, is now unable to move his arms or legs and relies on a ventilator to breathe. Beloved by his family and friends, Monroe had a larger-than-life personality and was really a model citizen. His parents pastor a church outside of Tulsa, Okla., and actually serve on the city council of their hometown.
Below we will dig into exactly how this happened and identify some very troubling aspects of the story.

1. The security guard who shot Bird possessed marijuana at the time of the shooting. He told the Tulsa police that he hadn't smoked it in a few weeks, and they didn't even give him a citation. This is the definition of white privilege. In Oklahoma, possession of marijuana is an automatic misdemeanor. Why was Ricky Stone not cited?

Mind you, Tulsa was quick to test Eric Harris for drugs after they killed him and then released the results widely—even though he never acted violently toward officers.

2. The security guard went to the tired, age-old excuse and claimed that he saw Bird reach into his glove compartment. According to the police report, no weapons were found in or near the car, and no items that even seemed to belong in the glove compartment were found out or about in the car. Yet, in a hurry to leave, we are expected to believe that Bird randomly fidgeted in the glove compartment just for the hell of it.

3. The security guard claimed he thought Monroe and his female passenger were having sex in the car and that he only approached them because of this.
She's white. Bird is black.

Both she and Bird have adamantly denied any such thing was happening and denied it when the security guard confronted them. What role did race play in this confrontation?

The security guard has claimed that Bird, who has no criminal record, attempted to run him over and basically kill him there on the spot—a preposterous claim—and that is when the guard says he began firing his weapon into the car.

Both the female passenger and Bird denied the guard's account and stated that they were driving away when Stone began recklessly firing his gun into the car.

4. The security guard who shot Bird worked for Benjy D. Smith, who owns Smith & Son Security Company. This important to know because Smith is a reserve deputy for the same Tulsa Sheriff's Office that is currently under national scrutiny for its unethical practices with Reserve Deputy Bob Bates, who shot and killed Eric Harris earlier this year.

5. Here is where we get a real glimpse of what life could perhaps have been like for Trayvon and his family, had he survived the gunshot wound from George Zimmerman.

Even though Bird has not been charged with a crime of any kind, his insurance company has denied him coverage because of comments made by the district attorney, who claim the entire ordeal was Bird's fault and not the fault of the security guard who fired his gun into the car.

Because of this, Bird, who needs 24/7 care and attention, is going to be sent home and denied rehabilitative care. Because his bed and equipment are too big for his bedroom, he will have to live in the living room of his family's home while his mother cares for him. The insurance company will not even cover home nursing care and has advised that the family simply call 911 if they need help. Mind you, Bird is on a breathing machine and is a quadriplegic." [Source]


I know that there are other big news stories that I could be blogging about: The Iraq nuke deal, NASA doing a fly-by of Pluto, and Donald Trump leading the GOP  field. But you already knew about all of these things.

Now, at least, you will learn about Monroe Bird as well.

*Pic from twitter.

White glove treatment.

S I was thinking about how the police stopped to get that monster who shot up the church in South Carolina a hamburger, because, bless his depraved little heart, he happened to be hungry.

Just the way he was arrested: So calm. So respectful. It's almost as if he was just being escorted to an  autograph signing.

And then there was how the Judge in his bond hearing seemed to have more sympathy for him and his family than he did the actual victims.

Compare that to the police shooting  death of Tamir Rice, and...well... you get the picture.

I was thinking about all of that as I read the following post over at Salon.com:

"The Charleston shooting is a textbook example of White Privilege. Let’s start with the manner in which the cops apprehended Dylann Storm Roof, the murderer and domestic terrorist.

Note that at the time of his arrest, Roof was an armed and dangerous fugitive, who heartlessly gunned down nine church members — and still received the utmost care when he was taken into police custody. The cops gave him a nice bulletproof vest to assure that he wouldn’t receive any damage on his way to the station and genteelly guided him out to the squad car. When the cameras flashed, he was clean and spotless, with every hair of his Lloyd from “Dumb and Dumber” cut in place.

If he were black, he probably would have ended up like the innocent, unarmed Cleveland couple, Timothy Russell and Malissa Williams, who fled in a similar manner as Roof, but received no love or restraint — just 137 shots for being on the wrong side of privilege. And this is the norm; there’s a collection of contemporary cases that display similar results.

Walter Scott was black and unarmed. He died at the hands of law enforcement while Craig Stephen Hicks, a white male who shot three unarmed Muslims over a parking space in North Carolina, is alive and well.

Michael Brown was an unarmed black teenager who was on his way to college before he was murdered by a white police officer. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the white guy who bombed runners in the Boston Marathon, is alive and received his day in court.

James Holmes, another white domestic terrorist, shot up a movie theater during a Batman movie; Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old kid. was murdered for having a toy gun.

Freddie Gray, black and innocent with a pocket knife equals dead. White killers like Roof get award-winning restraint. The list goes on and on: White privilege allows you to survive and being black could get you killed.

Always remember that talking about white privilege makes white people uneasy — probably because no one wants to feel like they have an unfair advantage over another person solely based on skin color. However, if you are white in America, you have an unfair advantage solely based on skin color.

You’ll probably go to a better school, never be profiled by police officers, get lower interest rates, and always have the luxury of walking around convenience stores in peace. It is that way, it has been that way, and chances are it will remain that way.

Karl Alexander of Johns Hopkins University recently completed 35 years of research dealing with the poor white experience vs. the poor black experience. He published his findings in his book “The Long Shadow,” where he wrote that whites use more drugs, but are less likely to be charged — and in Baltimore, where 97 percent of the black people who are born in poverty die in poverty, it’s easier for a white person with some jail time to get a job over a black person with some college.

Sometimes it’s hard to get white people to wrap their heads around the idea of privilege. I have white acquaintances who struggle with the idea of white privilege, so I take my time and try to explain it in the most non-divisive way possible. I start off by saying, “It’s not your fault. You did not ask for this privilege but you need to acknowledge that it exists so that we can all move forward.” Then I talk about some of those simple things that come with privilege before putting it into a simple historical context.

We can even venture past the way that Africans entered America because that’s too obvious, skip right by the hundreds of years of chattel slavery, and dive into those post-Civil War years where race began to trump ethnic identity.
In “Making Whiteness,” Grace Hale argued:

“Racial identity becomes the paramount spatial mediation of modernity within the newly reunited nation. Race nevertheless became the crucial means of ordering the newly enlarged meaning of America. This happened because former Confederates, a growing class, embattled farmers, western settlers, a defensive northeastern elite, woman’s rights advocates, and the scientific community simultaneously but for different reasons found race useful in creating new collective identities to replace older groundings of self. As important these mass racial meanings were made and marked at a time when technological change made the cheap production of visual imagery possible and the development of a mass market provided finical incentive, selling through advertising, to circulate the imagery.”

Hale then noted that this new way of advertising was responsible for cheaply exposing products to the masses and to paint the new picture of America and Making Whiteness what it should look like. Affluent whites masterfully executed their plan by enforcing Jim Crow, practicing white vs. colored, and by portraying blacks in the media as slaves, servants and clowns over and over again until it became tradition." [More]

Poor whites will say, Where is my privilege?

All I have to say to them is this: It has been with you all along. You just never made good use of it.

*Pic from philly.com

Playing while black.

The field Negro education series continues.

Today we explore playing while black.

Ben Railton the floor is yours.

"Toward the end of many days last summer, with my boys home from camp and still needing to expend their youthful energy, they would run outside and play war games with their remarkably authentic-looking squirt guns. As they roamed the nearby yards and streets in my Waltham, MA apartment complex, I never for a moment feared that someone would call 911 and report them as threatening men with guns, never worried that an arriving police officer might shoot first and ask questions later (if at all).

At the center of the complex is a small community pool to which I’m a member and at which many of the complex’s kids spend a good bit of their summers. It’s an easy walk from my townhouse, and the boys will be old enough this summer that I anticipate sending them down the street to the pool ahead of or even without me sometimes, letting them experience another summertime pleasure that I remember from my youth at the pool near my home. In contemplating this summer plan, I’m not at all concerned that they will be treated as part of a dangerous youthful mob, will have guns drawn on them by overreacting police officers.

That’s how things unfolded this past Friday, at a neighborhood pool in Craig Ranch, a planned community in the Dallas suburb of McKinney. Due to various complicating factors, including the fact that the teens in question were apparently not residents of the community and that the group was mixed-race, the links of this latest police controversy to race are not and likely never will be entirely clear. Yet the cell phone video, capturing a white police officer throwing a bikini-clad African-American teenager to the ground and drawing his gun on two African-American young men, is striking and visceral nonetheless. And it echoes so many videos and stories over these last few years in America.

The McKinney video becomes even more telling when we link it to the case of 12-year-old Tamir Rice, shot and killed by Cleveland police on November 22 of last year. Rice was playing with a BB gun at a playground near his home, and an anonymous 911 caller reported a “male sitting on a swing and pointing a gun at people,” noting that he was “probably a juvenile.” Despite that addendum, and as captured from a playground camera, the police who responded shot Rice within two seconds after arriving and then left him entirely unattended while waiting for paramedics (handcuffing his 14-year-old sister when she arrived and broke down at the sight of her brother in the meantime). Since Ohio is an open-carry state, the attempts to use Rice’s BB gun as justification for the shooting, for any part of this police response, seem particularly unconvincing.

While each individual situation brings its own specifics, the underlying lesson across these two incidents and so, so many others seems unavoidable: In 2015 America, African-American parents cannot possibly send their children out to play without genuine fear for their safety and lives, from the very authorities tasked with protecting them. That last point is particularly horrifying: When Emmett Till was lynched for appreciating a pretty woman, his killers were private citizens operating entirely outside the law. Tamir Rice was killed, the McKinney teens were threatened and manhandled, by representatives of that law.

I, like my sons today, did these sorts of things as a young person: played with toy guns, got out of hand at the pool sometimes, acted like a boy. Being a kid is (or should be) one of our society’s most privileged positions, and there are few privileges of childhood more meaningful than the opportunity to play without worries, to enjoy a summer day on its own relaxed terms. This childhood luxury is becoming painfully, unmistakably intertwined with white privilege." [Source]


*Pic from blackandmissinginc.com

"The mistake on the lake"?

 A now a word from the governor of Ohio after the acquittal of an officer for the alleged state- sanctioned killings in the city of Cleveland.

"The court has spoken and we must respect its decision. Everyone must have the right for their response to be heard––including when they are angry and hurt––and voicing that frustration in a peaceful way helps us all rise above those forces that would hold us back and tear us down. In Ohio we are working hard to rebuild strong communities where every voice is heard and respected––and we’re making progress, but we’ve got a lot of work to do. Our statewide initiative to improve the way that communities and police work together, with better training, oversight and cooperation, is a model for the country, but we must stay at it. Even in the middle of the strong feelings many have today we can’t lose sight of how Ohio has begun to successfully come together. We are one Cleveland and one Ohio and, with God’s help, together we will keep building for ourselves and our children the kind of world that we all deserve."

Yes, we must respect the court and the rule of law. As we must respect the right of every citizen to protest and exercise their First Amendment rights.

But what we must not allow is a hypocritical politician to make a mockery of the process itself and treat the rest of us as if we have no sense.

Nothing about what is happening in Cleveland, Ohio is a "model for the country". The killing of young Tamir Rice proves that.

Well written press releases will not make the pain and anger of generational poverty and injustice go away. It will not cure the hearts of bigots who only want to wear a uniform to live out some power-trip and take part in self-aggrandizing actions.

Cleveland might win their first professional championship in fifty years. I am sure that the last thing that the powers that be in that town want is a riot to spoil the parade.

"LeBron James urged the city of Cleveland to remain calm and channel its energy into the Cavaliers' playoff run in the aftermath of a judge's decision to acquit a police officer of manslaughter in a 2012 shooting which led to the death of two African-Americans.

"For the city of Cleveland, let's use our excitement or whatever passion that we have for our sport tomorrow, for the game tomorrow night, bring it tomorrow night ... our team we'll try to do our best to give it back to them," James said following the Cavaliers' light workout today."

I love LeBron, but jump shots can't cure injustice, and just "channeling its energy" into a basketball team will not change bad policing policies.

I understand this kind of rhetoric coming from the  governor. He is, after all, a politician. But I think it would have been best if the star of the Cleveland basketball team had said nothing at all.

The killing of Jack.

So have you all heard about the tragic shooting of a beloved family pet in Questa Verde, California?


It seems that while the family was inside the home, a police officer was investigating a burglary call. He went into the backyard of the home, and the poor dog, who always played with the mailman, suddenly charged him. (The officer's uniform must have fooled him.)


Sadly, officer William Moreland fired three bullets into the family dog killing him instantly.


Now the people of Questa Verde are outraged. The seven year old Welsh corgi named Jack did not have do die this way. Officer Moreland has been placed on paid administrative leave pending a further investigation of the incident.


PETA and various other groups have been picketing the police station and calling for the officer to resign. It is reported that the family is in seclusion and are devastated.


OK, so I just made up that entire story to make a point. Unless you believe that the movie Poltergeist was not based on fiction, you will understand that there is no town called Questa Verde, California. And the last time I checked, detective William Moreland was Wendell Pierce's character in The Wire. Jack? Well I think that was the name of the scruffy little dog on Little House On The Prairie.


But here is the thing, had it all been true, more people in the majority population would be up in arms about the shooting death of Jack the Welsh corgi than they would the shooting death of Tamir Rice , or the choking death of Eric Garner.


No matter how egregious the actions of the police officers were in these cases, we learn that poll after poll shows that most people in the majority population just do not see it that way. To them, their local police are fair to black people.


Again, had the story above been true, I suspect that polls taken about the actions of Officer Moreland would have had a different result than they do about the actions of the police officers in these latest high profile cases where black men were killed. White folks take it to a whole different level when it comes to their pets. When it comes to the lives of young black men, on the other hand, not so much.


The president has dogs. Why isn't he on television saying if he had a Welsh corgi he would look like Jack?  It's an outrage!


*As far as I know the dog in the pic's name is not Jack and he is doing just fine.

Tamir Rice and unarmed white men.

And then there was Tamir Rice. Truly a sad story. Kid playing with a toy gun in the park; there is a 911 call to the po po, and the next thing you know an 12 year old is dead after two gun shots to the abdomen. (Watch)


This case is tragic on so many levels. First, the police officers who are not properly trained. Second, the same police officers who have color arousal issues. Third, the irresponsible parents who purchase toy guns for their children to play with in the first place.


But field, it's not only black children who accidentally get killed by police officers.

I know, little Mexican children get shot as well.

But field what about all the unarmed white men who get shot by black police officers?


Yes, an extremely rare occurrence I am sure. In fact, can think of only two.


Dillon Taylor was not shot by a black man; the police who shot him was Hispanic. But I will concede that his killer was non-white.


Thing is, though, the officer, unlike Officer Wilson in Ferguson and others, was wearing a body camera.


And there was James Whitehead. He was killed by a black off duty police officer after the two men got into an altercation where the off duty officer claimed that Whitehead called him the n-word.


That black officer was terminated and sued to get his job back, and the family of Mr. Whitehead settled a civil suit with the city of Orange,Texas.


Anyway, back to Tamir Rice.


Like the situation in Ferguson, there are some issues all the way around.

"Deputy Chief Ed Tomba said the officer, one of two who responded to a dispatcher's call, was less than 10 feet from Tamir under a gazebo when the confrontation took place He declined to say if the video matches the officer's description of events, saying a full interview of the officer has not been conducted.

Neither he nor Chief Calvin Williams explained why police have not obtained a full statement from the officer.

The boy's family declined to view the video but it was shown to family representatives, Tomba said. Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Timothy McGinty said the video would be released, but did not say when.

The identities of the officers have not been made public. They were placed on three days' paid administrative leave, and will be on restricted duty when they return, police said.

Tomba said the investigation could take three months, after which a grand jury will hear the case to decide if charges are warranted.

Tomba said one officer fired twice after the boy pulled the fake weapon from his waistband but had not pointed it at police. The boy did not make any verbal threats, but he grabbed the replica handgun after being told to raise his hands, Tomba said.

Williams said the "airsoft"-type pellet gun lacked the orange safety tip required at the time of sale and was indistinguishable from a real semiautomatic pistol.
"Guns are not toys," he said. "We need to teach our kids that."

"Who would've thought he would go so soon?" Gregory Henderson, a close friend of Tamir's family, told WKYC-TV. "To be 12 years old, he doesn't know what he's doing. Police, they know what they're doing."

Henderson also questioned why police did not use a Taser-type weapon.
"You shot him twice, not once, and at the end of the day you all don't shoot for the legs, you shoot for the upper body," Henderson said to the Cleveland Plain Dealer.Henderson, identified by that newspaper's website as Tamir's father, said Tamir was a "respectful" young man who minded his elders.

A 911 call to police in which a man says the gun was "probably fake" has added to the controversy.

Jeff Follmer, president of the Cleveland Police Patrolmen's Association, said the officers were not told the caller thought the gun might be fake. He said an officer taking a Taser out when they believe there could be a person with a gun puts the officer at risk, the Plain Dealer reported.

The hacker group Anonymous claimed responsibility Monday for shutting down the City of Cleveland's website after Rice's shooting, WKYC said. The FBI is investigating". [Source] 

I just hope that the officer who shot young Tamir will show some remorse.


Because sadly, the officer who shot Michael Brown certainly did not.