being Black in America 7/16/2016 0 Comments   by E.L. Christianson Jr. The subject seems to be getting a lot attention lately.  That is probably because so many of these police murders are now being captured on camera.  The internet has lots of movies of the police shooting and killing black people, especially young men under circumstances that everyone can judge did not justify the murder. The attention of all of this has called for lots of discussion.  And, under the pretense of a 'fair discussion', we want everyone to have a chance to explain their position.  This results in police officers explaining the details of their training and of their fears when on the job.  It seems reasonable when they detail the circumstances surrounding a particular shooting death of a person who was not necessarily suspected of anything... but, based on the police officer's fear of being killed, it comes down to 'kill or be killed'.  When seen in that light, the killing seems reasonable. But, that is a very distorted light in which to view these murders of young black men in America.  A more realistic perspective is to realize that virtually every black man in this country has been targeted by the police because he was black.  That is a fact.  It leads to phrases that represent the danger black men (especially men, although black women are subject to being murdered also)... "driving while black" or, "walking while black" or standing while black" or 'jogging while black" or, as it is examined in total, simply existing in this country while black. This can only be understood by someone who has been there.  Black people have a very different experience in this country. As the young black man was being kicked and beaten to a pulp by the two police officers, a shocked and concerned white woman ran into the nearby grocery store.  The clerk, a young black man, could see that she was distraught as she waved her arms and stammered in her attempt to explain what was going on in the street just outside of the store.  As he finally understood, he glanced out the window to see for himself.  He then turned back to the shaken woman and calmly asked her, "what should I do... should I call the police?" From the black perspective, the typical shooting is a cop who just opens fire.  Sometimes ii is so egregious that even other police officers cannot make excuses for it, as was the recent killing by an Atlanta cop who killed an unarmed black man last month, he "had no idea who was inside the car he shot into, an internal affairs investigation found."  Officer James Burns was fired from the force -- but one of the problems is that these cops get rehired into some other police department.  “He had no idea who was in the vehicle. He had no idea if that was the vehicle he should be concerned with. He just discharged his weapon," Sgt. Warren Pickard told 11 Alive News. “The officer simply acted in a way that we cannot support.” ​But, this is a rare occurrence for the police to actually tell the truth about one another.  The standard is to go to ridiculous extremes and defend the brotherhood of cops by placing the blame on the dead victim.  Even in the face of film evidence to the contrary, the police usually give a 'knee-jerk' reaction and seek to 'protect one of their own'. Sen. Tim Scott, Republican from S.C. speaks in Columbia, S.C. --- (John Bazemore/Associated Press) --- Scott described being pulled over seven times within a year and also being stopped by a U.S. Capitol Police officer who said he recognized the pin he was wearing that identifies him as a senator — but didn’t recognize Scott. Black lawmakers recall police stops after senator’s speech Americans have questioned the state of race relations after gun violence directed at police officers as well as shootings by police. Last week, a black Army veteran killed five police officers in Dallas in revenge for police shooting black men in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and the Minneapolis suburbs.  from The Washington Post By Mary Clare Jalonick  — South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, the lone black Republican in the Senate, candidly described being stopped by police, even Capitol Hill cops, because of the color of his skin. It’s an experience all too familiar to many of his African-American colleagues in Congress. A day after Scott’s personal recounting on the Senate floor, several lawmakers said Thursday that they have had similar experiences, whether it’s being pulled over for no reason while driving in their hometowns or being challenged by police. Their white colleagues, they think, would never be treated the same way. Scott described being pulled over seven times within a year and also being stopped by a U.S. Capitol Police officer who said he recognized the pin he was wearing that identifies him as a senator — but didn’t recognize Scott. “I have felt the anger, the frustration, the sadness and the humiliation that comes with feeling like you’re being targeted for nothing more than just being yourself,” Scott said. Americans have questioned the state of race relations after gun violence directed at police officers as well as shootings by police. Last week, a black Army veteran killed five police officers in Dallas in revenge for police shooting black men in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and the Minneapolis suburbs. As a nation reels, black lawmakers say they hope Scott’s speech resonates, leading to a greater understanding about the divide between blue and black. “I am absolutely convinced that most African-American members of Congress, particularly the men, have encountered some form of a hostile police encounter over the years,” said Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y. Jeffries, 45, recalled twice when he was younger being pulled over by police and searched along with African-American friends. No reason was given for the stops. Several other black male lawmakers told similar stories. South Carolina Rep. Jim Clyburn, the No. 3 Democrat in the House and a veteran of 1960s civil rights marches, said he was once being driven in South Carolina in his car with congressional tags. A policeman stopped the car and asked the driver, “Where’s the congressman?” while staring directly at Clyburn sitting in the back seat.  “He doesn’t see a congressman, he sees a black face,” Clyburn said. Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., the only other African-American in the Senate, wrote an essay for the Stanford University newspaper after he graduated from that school in the early 1990s about being stopped by police, guns pointed at him, for “fitting the description” of a car thief. “In the jewelry store, they lock the case when I walk in,” Booker wrote. “In the shoe store, they help the white man who walks in after me.” Booker said he read the article, written when he was 23, at the Senate Democratic caucus meeting Tuesday. Of Scott’s speech, Booker said it was powerful and “frankly showed a lot of courage for him to tell the truth.” Most black lawmakers interviewed by The Associated Press said they were treated well by Capitol Police, the force that protects Congress and its people. Some said they were often asked to stop and identify themselves on the Hill, though they weren’t sure if it was because of the color of their skin. “I’ve had to show my pin on numerous occasions,” said Rep. Yvette Clarke, D-N.Y. “It makes you wonder.” Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., said he’d been “asked to show my ID many times, after I’ve been here 18 years.” A spokeswoman for the Capitol Police said she had no comment on Scott’s speech or the other accounts. Cummings, 65, says police stops while driving have become less frequent as he’s gotten older. But when he was younger, the Baltimore congressman says he was probably stopped by police once a month. Rep. Andre Carson, D-Ind., a former law enforcement officer himself, says he was once stopped in the Washington suburbs and an officer made a derisive comment about the suit he was wearing. Rep. Cedric Richmond, D-La., said he has been stopped “all the time” over the years in his Louisiana district. ​ In an effort to try and address recent police shootings, the House Judiciary Committee this week established a bipartisan working group to address police accountability, aggression toward law enforcement and public safety concerns related to those issues. Jeffries and Richmond are both on the panel. On Thursday, Scott delivered another speech to offer some solutions to the problems. He suggested more body cameras, better tracking of police shootings and better police training, among other ideas. He said he represents hope and progress — a U.S. senator whose grandfather picked cotton in the Deep South. “It’s a dark hour in race relations for America,” Scott said. “But I bring you hope, real hope.” Half Of Black Americans Say Police Have Treated Them Unfairly Half of African-Americans respondents said they personally had been treated unfairly by police because of their race. from The Huffington Post by Jesse Holland A majority of blacks in the United States - more than 3 out of 5 - say they or a family member have personal experience with being treated unfairly by the police, and their race is the reason. Half of African-Americans respondents, including 6 in 10 black men, said they personally had been treated unfairly by police because of their race, compared with 3 percent of whites. Another 15 percent said they knew of a family member who had been treated unfairly by the police because of their race. This information, from a survey conducted by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, comes as the Michael Brown shooting in Ferguson, Missouri, approaches its first anniversary and the nation continues to grapple with police-related deaths of black Americans. White Americans who live in more diverse communities - where census data show at least 25 percent of the population is non-white - were more likely than other whites to say police in their communities mistreat minorities, 58 percent to 42 percent. And they’re more likely to see the police as too quick to use deadly force, 42 percent to 29 percent. Larry Washington, 30, of Merrillville, Indiana, described his encounter with a white police officer when he was arrested for theft in Burbank, Illinois, as a teenager. “When I got to the police station, the officer who arrested me told me that I looked like I wanted to do something about it,” Washington said, adding, “And he kept calling me `nigger.’” “It’s been like this for a long time,” Washington said. “It’s just now that everybody starting to record it and stuff, it’s just hitting the spotlight. Most Caucasians, they think it’s just starting to go on when it’s been like this.” The AP-NORC poll also showed: -More than two-thirds of blacks - 71 percent - thought police are treated too leniently by the criminal justice system when they hurt or kill people. A third of whites say police are getting away with it, while nearly half - 46 percent - say the police are treated fairly by the criminal justice system. -Sixty-two percent of whites said a major reason why police violence happens is that civilians confront the police, rather than cooperate, when they are stopped. Three out of 4 blacks, or 75 percent, said it is because the consequences of police misconduct are minimal, and few officers are prosecuted for excessive use of force. More than 7 in 10 blacks identified problems with race relations, along with poor police-community relations, as major reasons for police violence. -Nearly 3 out of 4 whites - 74 percent - thought race had nothing to do with how police in their communities decide to use deadly force. Among blacks, 71 percent thought police were more likely to use deadly force against black people in their communities, and 85 percent said the same thing applied generally across the country. Fifty-eight percent of whites thought race had nothing to do with police decisions in most communities on use of deadly force. Seventy-two percent of whites said they always or often trust police to do right by them and their community, while 66 percent of blacks said they only sometimes, rarely or never trust the police to do what is right. David A. Clarke Jr, sheriff in Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, said African-Americans have more encounters with police than whites because of crime rates in urban areas. “If you have more interaction with the police because of the crime and the disorder in our urban centers - the American ghetto I like to say it - it’s going to skew the numbers,” Clarke said. David Thomas, 80, of Vienna, Georgia, said he was treated roughly by police as a young man in Savannah, Georgia, but relations between black communities and law enforcement have improved since then. “Everything is not right, but it’s better,” Thomas said. “We have bad cops and we have good cops. I don’t know where we’re going to from here, but we need police.” The AP-NORC Poll of 1,223 adults, including 311 black adults, was conducted online and by phone July 17-July 19, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 4.2 percentage points. For results among black respondents, the margin of error is plus or minus 9.1 percentage points. Respondents were first selected randomly using address-based sampling methods, and later interviewed online. People selected for Amerispeak who didn’t otherwise have access to the Internet were interviewed over the phone. As Scott spoke, a few of his fellow Republicans sat at desks on the Senate floor and turned to watch him — a rarity in the usually empty chamber. One of those senators, James Lankford of Oklahoma, later gave a speech suggesting that people invite a person of another race to dinner in their homes. “We need to have a greater conversation about race, and I think we somewhat are a little confused about how this gets resolved,” Lankford said.