Re: You've got to speak out against the madness.
 

Chris Rock:

Re: You've got to speak out against the madness.
 

see. Despite all the slurs you guys throw at me, Chris Rock thinks I'm nice.

Hank's buying boosters to try to beat level 284
 

Like I've said before, fuckin white people.

Re: You've got to speak out against the madness.
 

Sad to say, but Chris Rock may be too generous to white America as a whole here. If I saw Ike and Tina Turner sitting together, I probably wouldn't think "Oh, he stopped punching her in the face." I'd more likely think "I hope he's stopped punching her in the face, but I'm worried that he's just being nice for a little while and will turn out to be the same shit he always was."

When Obama was elected (and before that, when people I never expected to be capable of voting for a black man told me they wished Colin Powell would run), I thought "maybe this means we're getting over some things." But I'm afraid I should have thought "but maybe we're just being nice for a little while, and a bunch of the old ugliness is going to come back out again."

Re: You've got to speak out against the madness.
 

Powell and Obama are two very different situations. Powell was okay because he was a Black Republican from the military. In Whiteworld, that's a perfect token. Obama was a Black Democrat with hints of a social justice agenda. In Whiteworld, that's a Socialist.

The thinking I've heard applied to both among whites is, paraphrasing, a guy like Powell would be a good example for Blacks. He'd be a Bill Cosby, telling Black youth to pull up their pants and join the Army.* Obama (who actually did give such a speech), is a Black who just wants to steal money and give it to welfare mothers, Acorn, and Al Sharpton.**

Whites want to celebrate Black achievement because it makes them feel good about society, and excuses a lot of disparity that remains as a remnant of slavery and Jim Crow. But a majority also demand that Blacks of highest achievement retain a bit of Uncle Tom subservience. Obama had the temerity to take control and tell white America all was not well. This pissed off a lot of these types. How dare the Black they allowed to be President say he wants to change things? Nevermind that he actually ran the country, for the most part, like a moderate Republican.

_______
* Obviously, this comparison is no longer used.
** A similar comparison might be Thurgood Marshall and Clarence Thomas. Whites love Clarence. Quick to tell you how great an example he is for Black youth. Marshall's rarely mentioned, despite his opinions holding 5X the intellectual heft of anything Thomas could ever hope to author, and most being of far greater historical significance.

Re: You've got to speak out against the madness.
 

So whites were okay, conceptually, with having a black man as President -- but only if he didn't get all uppity about it?

Re: You've got to speak out against the madness.
 

See, now that's your fatal flaw. He was going to get uppity about it no matter who he was and no matter how many people agreed with him. There's a huge portion of the population for whom running is getting uppity.

Re: You've got to speak out against the madness.
 

Not all. Many are still just generally racist. But far, far more Whites fit into the group I describe. They like the idea of Obama, but they don't want to hear him discussing any of the racial and class issues in the country. "Can't he just be happy he's been elected? I mean-- Isn't it awesome we Whites got behind a Black guy? He should be really positive all the time and never discuss race."

Garner. No indictment.
 

Where the fuck do we even live? What is this place? What THE FUCK?

TM

Re: You've got to speak out against the madness.
 

To be clear, I agree with you and was saying the same thing, in a joking way.

Re: You've got to speak out against the madness.
 

We must run in different circles as the white people I hang around with (who know who he is) have no esteem for Justice Thomas.

Re: Garner. No indictment.
 

We live in the place where the prosecutors care a whole lot more about the cops than the citizens, apparently.

Re: Garner. No indictment.
 

Let's take a step back. I agree that, at least in the Ferguson case, the prosecutor basically decided he would do everything he could to avoid an indictment.* And we need to pass a federal law creating some sort of independent prosecutor's office that can intercede sua sponte.**

However, there were jury members there who listened to very damning evidence, even with all the mitigating bullshit they heard, in both these cases. Those people chose not to indict. This is a serious problem. And it seems to be rampant.

TM

*Not sure what happened yet in the Garner case, but it's fucking Staten Island, so let's just call it pure racism with a combination of extreme support for white cops and fireman who are overrepresented in that community.

**Ha ha ha ha ha! What the fuck am I even talking about? No really. What.

Re: Garner. No indictment.
 

I don't know much about this, but here is what I do know: An unarmed black man is suspected of illegally selling cigarettes. He puts his hands up. Next thing, he’s brought to the ground from behind with an illegal chokehold (per the police’s own procedures) gasping that he can’t breathe, and dies. And it’s all on video! And his death is ruled a homicide by the coroner. And there is no indictment.

Are there facts that I am missing or that the media has not covered that make that last sentence less incomprehensible to me? Seriously, because I fully admit that this is not a case I followed closely. But, wow.

Re: Garner. No indictment.
 

You forgot to mention that the Staten Island grand jury *did* manage to indict the guy who videotaped poor Mr. Garner being choked to death by the cop. http://www.silive.com/northshore/ind..._grand_ju.html

Re: Garner. No indictment.
 

has anyone checked local convenience store videotape to see if he stole the cigarettes? Apparently that is important.

Yeah.
 

http://www.newyorker.com/humor/borow...nd-juries-eyes

TM

Re: Yeah.
 

I know I am like a broken fucking record on this but the issue is not with the grand juries. The issue is with the process in cases where a prosecutor is "indicting" a cop. In circumstances where an unarmed person is killed by a cop, a special prosecutor should be a fucking automatic.

When you hear of the cop's lawyer, I mean prosecutor, taking 4 months to give the grand jury ALLLL OF THE EVIDENCE, wink, wink, you know he is doing everything he can to tank the case and get the cop off.

Re: Garner. No indictment.
 

Yeah, it may be that the jurors are strongly biased toward the cops too, but there is actually a lot a motivated prosecutor can do to combat that (i.e., not present the defense's evidence).

From what I've heard, yeah.

Re: Yeah.
 

See above.

TM

Re: Yeah.
 

am I on ignore or did i post that thing only on FB?

Re: Yeah.
 

Could be both, no?

Re: Yeah.
 

Where any person is killed by a cop, this should be the rule. If there's enough evidence to get to the GJ on whether a cop wrongly killed an armed individual, a special prosecutor should be involved.

The GJ secrecy thing should end. Anytime, anywhere, a panel meets to determine whether an individual should be deprived of his liberty (or in this instance, a criminal be shielded from prosecution), the public should have a right to hear its proceedings. And fuck the rule that defense counsel cannot be present. It should work like a mini trial.

Re: Garner. No indictment.
 

You know its fucked up when even the pundits on Fox News are calling the non-indictment outrageous.

Re: Yeah.
 

Hm. Not sure people should have accusations against them made fully public if there is no probable cause.

If that's what we're doing, why have a grand jury in the first place?

Re: Garner. No indictment.
 

Are they really?

Re: Yeah.
 

The entire purpose of the Grand Jury, as I understand it, is to see whether there is enough evidence to proceed to trial. Not to see whether any of the evidence can be explained or contradicted, but just whether there is enough to proceed.

I support having defense counsel present so they can hear the evidence that's being used, and so they can object to evidence that truly should not be used. But it makes no sense -- and unindicted defendants should not have this burden -- to have defense try to refute the evidence.

This -- that the purpose is just to see if there is enough evidence to proceed -- is what makes me so suspicious of these two grand juries, where it seems certain that the so-called prosecutors put in defense evidence, and tanked their own cases.

As for secrecy -- I've never fully understood it but I think part of the purpose is to protect the defendant from having a jury hear the evidence that was used to indict him, which came in without the protections a defendant would have at trial. I'm not sure that's a good enough reason, but baby, bathwater, etc.

Re: Yeah.
 

In other words -- "Sidd, STP."


I agree on a mini-trial but why shouldn't counsel for the defendant be put on notice of the evidence used to indict?

Re: Yeah.
 

That's already pretty much the case when it's a cop doing the killing. The DA is as much defense lawyer as prosecutor. And in one our local shooting-of-unarmed-civilian cases, the cop (or maybe the cop union, but anyway) actually presented expert testimony to the GJ about how much time the cop had to react to a potential weapon situation.

Re: Yeah.
 

I read something written by a dad whose son was killed in Wisconsin where they got a state law passed taking police killing out of the local prosecutors hands. I believe it sets up a special prosecutor automatically.

Re: Yeah.
 

I read that too and it is the right thing to do.

Re: Yeah.
 

Reading it is the right thing to do. But what do you think about passing the law?

TM

[In case you assume my mood is where it actually has been over the past week, this is a weak attempt at a joke.]

Re: Yeah.
 

Interstate 35W northbound shut down by protesters:

http://live.startribune.com/Event/Br...th_Minneapolis

Re: Yeah.
 

I am somewhat heartened by the number of white people involved in the protests from NYC to MN to Ferguson.

TM

Re: Yeah.
 

When? Because I'm pretty sure that happens now after an indictment.

I'm not necessarily against more disclosure to the defense, but I'm just not sure what role they would play inside the grand jury room, unless you're going to have a mini-trial, in which case, why have a grand jury.

Re: Yeah.
 

I have a hard time imagining good faith arguments against it.

Article
 

http://www.newyorker.com/news/amy-da...NTgwNTA0MTk1S0

"A central issue in cases like this is a failure to fully value black lives. That alone can be deadly. But we should also ask about a companion problem, one that shows itself the most with regard to accountability: an over-weighting of white intentions. As any prosecutor knows, there are offenses on the books that don’t turn on a will to murder, or crude racism, or even unkindness. Officer Pantaleo says that he didn’t want to kill anyone; Officer Wilson was scared. Each of them might still have been charged with a crime."

This is an interesting point. We (or at least, I) focus so much on what the jurors think of the black victim in these cases and how so many Fox-fuckers require blacks to achieve perfect victim status in order to avoid deserving being put down like a rabid dog in the street. But this willingness to believe whatever white cops say to a jury is a problem probably of the same scale. Not all cops are bad, but jesus fucking christ. Not all cops are good. And the cops involved in shootings of unarmed people are probably the ones who trend bad and should not be given the benefit of the doubt on every fucking thing they say.

TM

Re: Yeah.
 

The last time I got called to jury duty, the judge asked everyone to consider serving on a grand jury, as there were some openings coming up. I think it was a three month term. I took the information sheet, thinking I'd give it to my mom, who was the only person I could think of who met the criteria.

The only people who could consider such a thing are people who don't work or school or small kids they're taking care of and have reliable transportation to the courthouse every day (or three days, or however long), and have nothing better to do. They see cops as good guys every single time they convene. They indict black men all of the time, so they wouldn't have any difficulty believing that cigarette sale/cigarillo theft is just the tip of the iceberg.

Re: Yeah.
 

I watched them from my office as they approached downtown. Then having wrapped something up, I decided to go down and check it out.

Half marched with them (seemed a little disingenuous to jump in for the last quarter mile) into city hall (I'm actually in one of those photos).

Main observation: the group was overwhelmingly white. Not sure what to make of that. Minneapolis is, obviously, and its activist class perhaps even more so. Also, great to see solidarity. Still, a lot of these people did not appear to be the true owners of outrage. I'm not exactly sure, but I thought maybe the protest started out as being about pay for fast food workers (there was one in Uptown this morning I think), so maybe that's a factor.

Other observation, the MPD did a very nice job escorting them through downtown, blocking traffic and staying out of the way. I wondered whether the phalanx of officers surrounding them in the city hall entry way was intended to be intimidating, but what I saw went smoothly.

Duty called me back to the office before the die in.

Re: Yeah.
 

I spent five weeks on a grand jury in DC. Didn't really have a choice. If you were a citizen who spoke English they weren't letting you out of the summons. A total of 27 days, usually all day, although sometimes we were dismissed early for the day.

And, frankly, it wasn't such a bad gig as a first year Biglaw associate, as there wasn't a ton of work that could be done around the edges of 9-5 jury service.

And, of course, it was DC, so the demographics skewed black and I wouldn't have said there was a lot of love for the cops, but we didn't hear any cases in which an officer was the accused.

I'd say the group probably skewed toward the retired (obviously, some people just don't show), but there was at least one kid younger than me and a few people in their prime working years.

ETA: Of course, DC is different.