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scarletwoman

(31,893 posts)
Sun May 31, 2020, 11:14 AM May 2020

Policing in the US is not about enforcing law. It's about enforcing white supremacy (The Guardian) [View all]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/may/30/policing-in-the-us-is-not-about-enforcing-law-its-about-enforcing-white-supremacy
Paul Butler
May 30, 2020

Police treatment of two CNN reporters at a George Floyd protest shows the US has opposite systems of justice – one for white people, one for people of color

On Friday the CNN journalist Omar Jimenez was arrested on live television as he covered protests of police brutality in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Jimenez identifies as African American and Hispanic, and when the cops confronted him, he did just what minority parents tell their kids to do. Jimenez cooperated; he was respectful, deferential even. He said: “We can move back to where you like … We are getting out of your way … Wherever you want us, we will go.”

It didn’t matter; the police officers put handcuffs on him and led him away, and then came back to arrest his crew. Jimenez narrated his arrest as they led him away. His voice is steady. His eyes, though. Jimenez is masked so his eyes are the only clue to what he’s feeling. His eyes are perplexed and terrified. I get it. When a black or brown person goes into police custody, you never know what is going to happen. You just know that when you leave police custody, if you are lucky enough to leave, you will be diminished. That is the point.

<snip>

But what’s most interesting is what happened to Josh Campbell, a white CNN journalist who was in the same area as Jimenez and not arrested. Campbell said his experience was the “opposite” of Jimenez’s. The cops asked him “politely to move here and there”. “A couple times I’ve moved closer than they would, like, they asked politely to move back. They didn’t pull out the handcuffs.”

<big snip>

In the end, this is not about law enforcement. It’s about enforcing white supremacy. There’s no tinkering with that, what with white supremacy being the foundation on which the country was built. The consistent big question in the quest for racial justice has been how much white supremacy is central to the identity of the US. This is what Barack Obama and Ta-Nehisi Coates argued about. If we had something approaching equal justice, would we still even be the United States? In order to accomplish that we’d have to change the constitution, which authorizes much of the police violence that communities of color complain about, and the politics which exploits white anxiety about black and brown men. (much more at link)


Please go to the link and read the whole piece - it's outstanding!
12 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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That seems to be true samsingh May 2020 #1
That was spot on. Alacritous Crier May 2020 #2
Thanks! I think it's essential reading. (nt) scarletwoman May 2020 #3
Kick dalton99a May 2020 #4
K&R Solly Mack May 2020 #5
This is precisely the issue dlk May 2020 #6
K&R gademocrat7 May 2020 #7
Ugly truth of the matter. zentrum May 2020 #8
K&R for visibility. crickets Jun 2020 #9
Well worth the read. Nevilledog Jun 2020 #10
Kick! burrowowl Jun 2020 #11
It's been amplified by the Pretender in our White House. Hermit-The-Prog Jun 2020 #12
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