So there’s this bookstore window in Andersonville (Harvard: condo, crime)

[Boddicker]

...that holds a sign facing Clark St and reads:

“All Cops Are Bastards”

There’s some other incendiary anti-police stuff perched prominently in the window, but that one takes the cake.

You know, I was imagining a young person walk by, whose parent was killed in the line of duty, and reading that message endorsed from a local BUSINESS. 20 years ago the Andersonville ethos seemed to me one of warmth and inclusivity; today it feels lorded over by emotionally unstable activists.

A couple months ago I saw a white leftist harass and humiliate a couple in Hopleaf who were minding their business. He kept yelling “racist” at them while banging a drum. The scene made me even sicker when I could see he was well dressed, healthy and didn’t appear to be strung out on drugs. Just a regular guy apparently yearning for McCarthyism and witch trials.

[nana053]

What a former cop says:

https://medium.com/@OfcrACab/confess...p-bb14d17bc759

I was a police officer for nearly ten years and I was a bastard. We all were.

This essay has been kicking around in my head for years now and I’ve never felt confident enough to write it. It’s a time in my life I’m ashamed of. It’s a time that I hurt people and, through inaction, allowed others to be hurt. It’s a time that I acted as a violent agent of capitalism and white supremacy. Under the guise of public safety, I personally ruined people’s lives but in so doing, made the public no safer… so did the family members and close friends of mine who also bore the badge alongside me.

But enough is enough.

The reforms aren’t working. Incrementalism isn’t happening. Unarmed Black, indigenous, and people of color are being killed by cops in the streets and the police are savagely attacking the people protesting these murders.

American policing is a thick blue tumor strangling the life from our communities and if you don’t believe it when the poor and the marginalized say it, if you don’t believe it when you see cops across the country shooting journalists with less-lethal bullets and caustic chemicals, maybe you’ll believe it when you hear it straight from the pig’s mouth.

[glass_of_merlot]

Originally Posted by Boddicker

...that holds a sign facing Clark St and reads:

“All Cops Are Bastards”

There’s some other incendiary anti-police stuff perched prominently in the window, but that one takes the cake.

You know, I was imagining a young person walk by, whose parent was killed in the line of duty, and reading that message endorsed from a local BUSINESS. 20 years ago the Andersonville ethos seemed to me one of warmth and inclusivity; today it feels lorded over by emotionally unstable activists.

A couple months ago I saw a white leftist harass and humiliate a couple in Hopleaf who were minding their business. He kept yelling “racist” at them while banging a drum. The scene made me even sicker when I could see he was well dressed, healthy and didn’t appear to be strung out on drugs. Just a regular guy apparently yearning for McCarthyism and witch trials.

What book store is this?

[Hiruko]

Originally Posted by nana053

What a former cop says:

https://medium.com/@OfcrACab/confess...p-bb14d17bc759

I was a police officer for nearly ten years and I was a bastard. We all were.

This essay has been kicking around in my head for years now and I’ve never felt confident enough to write it. It’s a time in my life I’m ashamed of. It’s a time that I hurt people and, through inaction, allowed others to be hurt. It’s a time that I acted as a violent agent of capitalism and white supremacy. Under the guise of public safety, I personally ruined people’s lives but in so doing, made the public no safer… so did the family members and close friends of mine who also bore the badge alongside me.

But enough is enough.

The reforms aren’t working. Incrementalism isn’t happening. Unarmed Black, indigenous, and people of color are being killed by cops in the streets and the police are savagely attacking the people protesting these murders.

American policing is a thick blue tumor strangling the life from our communities and if you don’t believe it when the poor and the marginalized say it, if you don’t believe it when you see cops across the country shooting journalists with less-lethal bullets and caustic chemicals, maybe you’ll believe it when you hear it straight from the pig’s mouth.

You've always struck me as an intelligent poster, intelligent enough not to post an anonymous blog post that is without factual basis.

The entire 'police hunting unarmed innocent black people' is such an insult to our intelligence and the truth, I can't believe that it is treated as a matter of fact. But, it's what white "liberals" want to believe to make themselves feel better, so it must be the Gospel truth.

There are less than 1,000 fatal officer-involved encounters in this country of over 320 million people annually, and most of the involved-suspects are white. The vast majority of these suspects are armed, and almost all of them are deemed to have posed an imminent threat to public safety. Yet, you would think that there were hundreds of black men being killed daily based on the outsized coverage and angst generated. While 'bad policing' undoubtedly occurs, the bulk of the blame rests with the individuals that involve themselves in violent police encounters. I think in the grand scheme of things, this is really a non-issue. When we look at this alongside the inner-city violence problems that require police intervention in the first place, I can't understand why this is even a topic of discussion, quite frankly.

[Vlajos]

Originally Posted by glass_of_merlot

What book store is this?

Yes, I would like to know too. I will be sure never to shop there.

[Boddicker]

Originally Posted by Vlajos

Yes, I would like to know too. I will be sure never to shop there.

Unchartered Books, just south of Foster on the west side of Clark St.

The sign also taunts passersby by saying: "Go ahead and steal this sign. They are easy to make."

What angers me is that I have done business with them in the past. The store is new to the neighborhood and I was happy to see them so close to my condo. I have actively told numerous friends and family to avoid ever spending a penny there, and to spread the word. To use one of their expressions, "hate has no home here."

[Boddicker]

Originally Posted by Hiruko

You've always struck me as an intelligent poster, intelligent enough not to post an anonymous blog post that is without factual basis.

The entire 'police hunting unarmed innocent black people' is such an insult to our intelligence and the truth, I can't believe that it is treated as a matter of fact. But, it's what white "liberals" want to believe to make themselves feel better, so it must be the Gospel truth.

There are less than 1,000 fatal officer-involved encounters in this country of over 320 million people annually, and most of the involved-suspects are white. The vast majority of these suspects are armed, and almost all of them are deemed to have posed an imminent threat to public safety. Yet, you would think that there were hundreds of black men being killed daily based on the outsized coverage and angst generated. While 'bad policing' undoubtedly occurs, the bulk of the blame rests with the individuals that involve themselves in violent police encounters. I think in the grand scheme of things, this is really a non-issue. When we look at this alongside the inner-city violence problems that require police intervention in the first place, I can't understand why this is even a topic of discussion, quite frankly.

Thank you, Hiruko, a post of reason, calm, and sanity.

Roland Fryer, a black academic out of Harvard, produced a 2017 study that puts to bed the fantasy of this police-hunting-black-bodies myth.

What isn't a myth are all the black and white bodies that suffer at the hands of Black violence, all of which is barely reported on or emphasized in the media AT ALL. In 2018, 55% of murderers were Black (Source: FBI). One need not repeat their percentage of the population. You can even cut that percentage in half as the perpetrators are mostly men. This is a national emergency that gets virtually no national attention or press, and when it does, the culprits are simply racist cops and white supremacy. Laughable.

In my neighborhood, a college-age white Starbucks barista was leaving work and brutally murdered for no reason. Would've been national news had the races been reversed.

Southeast of me a restaurant worker was murdered in broad daylight in Buena Park.

And these aren't even Black-majority neighborhoods. I can't imagine why high-crime Black neighborhoods are policed so much. Then when the policing is tamped down, we see the predictable spikes in violence and murder, as we all saw over the United States post-Floyd.

Want some additional perspective?

During the first 3 years of Black Lives Matter, more Blacks were murdered than the total number of Blacks lynched in US history (3,446). (Source: NAACP)

[TBideon]

That's really surprising. The guy is a good dude, and his dog is among the neighborhood's highlights. Plus there's a hidden room in the store, which I can never figure how to enter.

It's been a weird year: many conservatives turned into COVID deniers, plenty of liberals turned into riot enablers, and the normals in between keep dwindling in numbers.

[ChicagoMeO]

that shop owner better never call 911 ever.

[Bitey]

You know what saddens me more than seeing a sign like that in the window of a business? The fact the place is still in business, and that enough of our fellow citizens either share or at best are indifferent to the sentiment to keep this business a going concern.