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Quote:
A giant screen hanging between the trees alerted the roughly 1,500 protesters of the potential consequences they faced for demonstrating on the private property.
"This is a final warning," the message said. "This demonstration is in clear violation of Mall of America policy. All participants must disperse immediately. Those who continue to demonstrate are subject to arrest.
Quote:
The protest began at 2 p.m. McDowell said protesters were able to actively demonstrate for about a half-hour inside the mall's rotunda. The space was roped off and lined with police officers dressed in riot gear as men and women of varying color and age chanted messages such as, "Hands up, don't shoot," and, "Black people cannot breathe while you're on your shopping spree.
If we just start peeling clothes off with high pressure fire hoses, bring out the dogs, more tear gas, more rubber bullets, crack a few skulls and heaven forbid give someone's smart phone a bath maybe these plebs will stay home.
I assume they don't care about the Hispanic and Asian officers killed by the black panther today, right? Hispanics and Asians are evil, like the white people, because they aren't committing as many crimes as blacks.
They're just fighting for the "rights" of criminals like Michael Brown to attack cops, I suppose? Gotta keep up the lies and racial animosity, I guess...
Responses in this thread speak to the reason people feel the need to protest. Some points:
- Per the article, the police chief stated that there were no injuries or incidents of violence or theft.
- There is nothing in this article to suggest that the protesters are 'thugs', committing 'mayhem', and 'collecting welfare'. Rather these are stereotypes that many people hold about blacks. The 'mooching off mommy and daddy' bit seems to refer that the pictures show that most of the demonstrators were white.
- While it is easy to say that people should just suck it up about stereotypes and animosity against them, and people do that for the most part, when those stereotypes appear systemic and lead to incidents that involve unnecessary deaths, it is much harder to ignore. While Brown and Garner may have made poor decisions about engaging in criminal behaviors, there are also cases like John Crawford's, where a man who had done nothing other than pick up an item from a store shelf was gunned down, a victim of the stereotypes people are protesting.
- The decisions Brown and Garner made did not warrant death. In the Brown case, it is hard to know what the details are because of conflicting accounts, though the Garner case is pretty clear what happened because of the video evidence. That both officers were cleared of charges is what protesters see as part of the systemic stereotyping. If the guy who killed the two officers in Brooklyn had been taken alive, is there any doubt that he would be prosecuted to the full extent of the law? In truth, the prosecutor in the Brown case didn't do Officer Wilson any favors because it looks like the grand jury inquiry was a major whitewash job, so while Wilson was cleared of charges, he can never really be exonerated. That's on the prosecutor.
- The killer in NY was just that - a killer. In addition to the two officers he murdered, he apparently also killed his girlfriend. And he had nothing to do with these protesters. Was he influenced by the raised awareness of police violence? Possibly. But somebody who did what he did (capped off by killing himself) was not in his right mind, and does not represent all people who have an axe to grind about recent events.
While in any crowd, you will have knuckleheads with their own selfish agendas, there are many, many people who are sincere in their concerns about the consequences of systemic racism. Just because you don't safe their concern doesn't mean their concerns aren't real.
And I'm not sure that 'peeling clothes off with high pressure fire hoses, bring out the dogs, more tear gas, more rubber bullets, crack a few skulls' is really going to lead to a solution.
Was he influenced by the raised awareness of police violence? Possibly. But somebody who did what he did (capped off by killing himself) was not in his right mind, and does not represent all people who have an axe to grind about recent events.
Many would argue that those with an axe to grind are out of their minds. Burning down your hood, forcing what few remaining businesses that remain to move out, attacking the police, marching with hands up, when the "Gentle Giant" did not have his hands up, falling victim to a poor myth. Not linking crime with police action.
Yeah, I would say they are from the same sorry lot!
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