Mayor/City Mgr office
972-547-7510

Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't the reason the police were called was to disperse the crowd?

If that is true, then why did the cops stop people from leaving? If they were not causing harm to anyone or anything, then simply showing and dispersing the crowd should have been sufficient.

Over zealous cops missed the point. Either that or I am and if I am, Never Mind!

The reason the police were called was to disperse BROWN PEOPLE.

That is all.

If the cops had not tried to detain them. Correct?

I am sure that it may have been racially motivated as so many things in this country seem to be, but the objective of dispersing the crowd was met.

From what I could see in the video, he was ordering some to disperse while making some get on the ground, with no rhyme or reason to his orders.

The only ones being told to get on the ground or get out of there were black.

...girls who was sat on friends in the face

at the teens and even hitting at least one girl was the person who called the police.

And the teens who organized the party were part of the neighborhood association that belonged to the pool, so they had every right not to be "dispersed."

I mean, what else could he possibly have done?

He not only assaulted unarmed teens, but looked like a superhero in the process. Or like a douchebag. Yeah, I am going with douchebag ... racist, backward, douchebag brown shirt.

Seriously, where in the hell do they find clowns like Officer White Socks and his fellow police state thugs?

I have to give credit where it is due. The other two cops were very professional as they talked to the kids about what to do when police came.

They even stepped in to restrain Officer White Socks when he briefly stopped assaulting the teen girl and pulled his gun to take off after two teens.

They were unfortunately under his command and had to follow his orders to chase after the two teen boys.

If not for them there may have been a shooting by Officer White Socks.

I heard a statement on NPR this morning from a McKinney official (PD or city, I don't recall) saying that there were 12 officers responding and 11 were professional or something to that effect.

Give credit where it is due.

with his lawful order and then got hysterical and struggled with him. The cop was correct in that scenario.

It strikes me as excessive for him to kneel with his full weight and both knees on her back while she's face-down in the grass and presenting no threat.

What's the worst that she could have done? Continue to call out for her mother? Continue standing? Exit the scene to avoid the real threat and wholly understandable fear that she might be murdered?

I'm often willing to give cops the benefit of the doubt when, say, people flee the scene in a vehicle, but one would hope that a professional law enforcement officer would have more tools at his disposal than the wildly disproportionate strong-arm Keystone Cops nonsense that this asshole threw down.

Considering his current career arc, I'm inclined to conclude that he agrees with me.

If you look at the video again you will see that she was walking away with a group of other kids when the out-of-control, short cop ran and grabbed her arm and pulled her back.

Who knows why he went after her — she might have said something as she walked away, but there is such a thing as freedom of speech in America — you do remember that little 1st Amendment thingy, right?

He pulled her back and body slammed her, drove her face into the ground, pulled her braids, cuffed her and then knelt on her with both knees like he was proud of his conquest as he continue to bark out orders to only the black people (whites, including the videographer, where allow to just mill around or film).

Again, there is such a thing as the 1st Amendment. No way is what shortstuff cop did justifiable.

And you might not know, the police chief feels the same way as that officer is now an ex-officer. The chief himself called his actions in manhandling the teenage girl "indefensible" and that he was "out-of-control" (the chief's own words).

Ex-officer Casebolt overreacted to the extreme and exerted alarmingly disproportionate force to the situation.

Come on, body-slammng a teenage girl in a bikini who he outweighed by 100 pounds and you call it justified?

Get a grip, man!

The video shows you are either misinformed or misinforming.

a little non-white girl.

The cops believed the racist cracker right off.

She needs to be found and charged, along with that out-of-control mini-cop that assaulted the teen girl in the bikini.

with a negative meaning. Why is a group of young people at a swimming pool a "crowd"? Is it because they did not have lighter colored skin? Why do you disperse a pool party?

The real question is "why were the police called?" I believe we know the sad answer to that.

If the real question was why were the police called, then why are we so concerned about the use of crowd for a group of people. A group of people!

Focus!

This is a test:

I think they should:

Give it a rest

They aren't following instructions from those who know. Our response is only natural in these situations. The nonsense about it being "economic" in regards to Walter Scott isn't helping either.

Maybe folks should try seeing the situation for what it is.

to send the kids back to the pool or home, most any high school teacher in America, of any race, could have handled the problem without raising his or her voice, let alone assaulting kids.

The cop came charging in there like Rambo, shouting orders and manhandling people. He didn't loose control; he never had control. The situation only had one way to go after he arrived and that was down hill. It's a wonder no one was killed.

Something is very wrong when people whose job is keeping the peace use violence to enforce immediate compliance as their tactic of preference.

Your post deserves a +1000.

I don't know if you're a teacher, but I spend the school year in classrooms with adolescents, and I can tell you, true, that if you escalate a situation with an adolescent, they will escalate even further. It's where they are, developmentally. At that point you've lost control of any reasonable resolution to the conflict.

You're exactly correct; expecting to get control of a group of teenagers with the tactics that cop used was about the worst thing he could have done. It boggles my mind why police officers are never taught how to DE-escalate. It seems like they think they're too good for anything that looks like humanitarian intervention. There seems to be a mind-set of "I'm da' LAW! And you will OBEY, goddammit!

Yes, a teacher, or a social worker could have handled that situation much better.

And BTW, that sign put up by the residents thanking the police for keeping them safe. Ugh! There was, apparently, a dispute about someone being at the pool who shouldn't have been there. How was that a personal safety issue?

I am sick and tired of everyone, from our esteemed President on down, reminding me of how I'm being kept safe. Day to day, I'm perfectly capable of keeping my own self safe, thank you. This constant drumbeat of safety weighing heavily on the mind only serves to infantilize the American people and keep them subservient, which is exactly where the psychopaths who run things want them. They should grow up!

Screaming and cursing would never occur to me as a way to defuse a situation. If anything what you do is lower your voice which encourages the person to follow you away from the situation. And always,always,always respect the humanity of the people you are dealing with.

I never talk down to my students. I'm very matter-of-fact with them.

All of which begs the question, so to speak, of why LEO's seem to have only one technique available to them. Strange...

It seems the rule is, "proceed directly to nuclear holocaust".

"expecting to get control of a group of teenagers with the tactics that cop used was about the worst thing he could have done. It boggles my mind why police officers are never taught how to DE-escalate. It seems like they think they're too good for anything that looks like humanitarian intervention. There seems to be a mind-set of "I'm da' LAW! And you will OBEY, goddammit!"

Very true- he came charging in so hard that he tripped. Some think he did a duck and roll, but it wasn't that coordinated.

Did the McKinney Cop Watch Video of Himself Terrorizing Teenagers?
http://gawker.com/did-the-mckinney-cop-watch-video-of-himself-terrorizing-1709690822?utm_campaign=socialflow_gawker_twitter&utm_source=gawker_twitter&utm_medium=socialflow

Heavy.com pulled photos from Casebolt’s Linkedin before he deleted it that seem to verify his identity as the officer in the video. The same handle used for the Youtube profile (“decase73”) was, per the Google cache, in use until recently by someone also identifying himself as Eric Casebolt on Twitter.

Decase73’s Youtube playlist features a dozen videos with titles like “Man Attacks Baltimore Police Officer,” “Man Sucker-Punches Cop Gets Kicked in the Face,” and “Chief tells the TRUTH that Black People don’t want to hear.” All would appear to reflect a mindset that police officers are entitled to use any and all force necessary to subjugate those they ostensibly protect and serve.

Yesterday, the video of Casebolt manhandling a teenage girl and pointing his gun at two boys was added to the playlist

on crack. He got embarrassed and decided to take it out on everyone around him.

100% agree.

That was textbook police brutality.

The issue isn't at all about money, it's about ratial profiling.

I'm a caucasion male who is originally from Indiana, where bigotry and racism are very real. I grew up in an all white community and was surrounded by people who hated any person who was unlike them. Didn't matter... black, jewish, foreign, native American, etc... I left that state 27 years ago and have not looked back.

I was lucky to be able to educate myself and break that way of thinking. I am an American. In my America, free means free, and equal means equal. There are no levels of freedom or equality. Each of these words have only one meaning.

And now for something humorous... Watch the entire video. Chris Rock makes a very valid point to Jerry Seinfeld when they're being pulled over by police.

http://comediansincarsgettingcoffee.com/chris-rock-kids-need-bullying

... I knew when they said McKinney that most of those kids of color lived in that nieghborhood

Last edited Mon Jun 8, 2015, 07:29 PM - Edit history (1)

...when told he couldn't join a country club in L.A. because he was Jewish.

"Well, my son is only half-Jewish," Groucho is alleged to have said. "Can he get halfway in the pool?"

Clearly economic issues weren't the main consideration for a 20th century movie star, either.

But there is no question that economic issues exacerbate racial issues, and allow them to keep bubbling (and allow 1%ers to keep the resentments ratcheted up, etc...)

...and ultimately, economic issues are the "macro" set that can radically reconfigure the country, if you could adequately address them....

and saying some thing will 'help fix things'.

Any one arguing the economic justice would help in a peculiar case of racism is just as silly as some one who argues that economic justice would never help the fight against it.

Good explanation.

Racism continues where it goes unchecked. In the corporate world it is more difficult to advance a racist agenda wherever federal contracts are part of the business world. That's because Title 8 sanctions are swift and effective.

But, now you're talking about what is happening in our communities, where there is no one to properly regulate these racist agendas. As in this case with the pool party, the police are no help because they reflect the prejudices of the status quo in any residential community. So it is that racists in the community think they can advance their agendas through the police departments because they are richly rewarded every time they over-react. It is easy for them to defame blacks or other minorities, because there is a strong feeling among racists that minorities do not belong in their closed, insular worlds.

The answer to that is either to take over the status quo and replace it with fair and equitable leaders who will hire police chiefs and officers who are aware of the crazy over-reactions that are likely to occur in predominately white communities. And for that to happen, you need to make these communities less homogenous. That will only come with income equality.

You might not sense this, but I have seen the trends changing. Not long ago, we didn't even have a vector to express our outrage at these unjust experiences, but that's changing. We have made a difference in the business world, and now we need to go out and make a difference in our communities. And for that, you need to have a presence in communities where racist ideas have been allowed to take hold and grow.

I didn't state it nearly so well though. I think we need to do a lot more to stamp out institutional racism. I believe they did a study that was nationwide so I don't know where the most racist cops are, but they did find on average 5% were racist. Those cops need to be rooted out and fired. The 95% that look the other way need to be trained to stop looking the other way. In the legislature they need to look at laws and figure out how to not disproportionately affect POC, poor people, and women.

Boy..... is that true!!!

It doesn't really matter whether the police were called to disperse a group of people, a group of black people, a group of thugs wearing bathing suits, a group of "the other." Whatever.

What matters is that the police arrived and immediately started attacking the black kids. They didn't both to figure out what was going on. It doesn't seem that they bothered to do any of that protecting and serving, nor did they establish what was going on. They just assumed that the black kids were a threat. They just started in on the black kids, pinning the poor girl in the bikini and pulling their guns on anyone and everyone. That was horrifying. And the cops who seemed uncomfortable with how things were unfolding did nothing to calm things down.

And, sure, although that one cop was suspended, anyone taking bets on whether he suffers any consequences? (Hey, there's a line of business for Las Vegas bookmakers.) Has anyone seen the video from last August - can't remember where it was - when the cop just shot a kid in the back. He was, at the time of the incident, exonerated not because he was at risk but because he said he believed he was at risk. Only problem was that the body camera shows the guy just walking, not evading, not running. Just walking, with earbuds in. He probably couldn't hear the cop. Look, I don't know whether that guy was a serial killer, a shop lifter, or a valedictorian, but the fact is that the cop's first action when confronting a person of color is to shoot first and don't even bother asking questions.

All of that said, what's the story with the black guy - a DJ? - who's come out publicly thanking the cops for their work and for deescalating a bad situation?

The two are fully intertwined. That is you cannot have one without the other. You cannot have social equality without economic equality, and economic equality is meaningless without social equality.

You're conducting a ratfucking tactic. I don't know if it's intentional or not, and I hope not, but that's what it is. You are trying to invent a conflict where there is none, to hammer a divide and make liberals hostile to each other for supporting principles that we do all support (assuming we are all liberals here, which may be a long shot.)

.. available to whites in America but that doesn't erase the social racism that is endured.

The blacks and browns in the video mostly live in that neighborhood and it's a well off neighborhood...

that didn't stop a stupid racist cop from coming in and treating the black and brown teenage residents like criminals while for the most part leaving the white teenagers alone, even the guy filming said he was blown away at how he was being treated different

Economic justice MIGHT help fix but it wont eradicate

And who ever said that these people's income would have stopped this cop from doing what he did? I've seen no claims to that effect, except from people liek the OP who want to cast the concept of economic justice as somehow racist and evil.

I wonder, did you learn what the racist women who started the fight were saying? They were mooing at the kids, telling them "you don't belong here' and "go back to your section 8" and "you all need to do better for yourselves."

Blackness is associated with poverty, and poverty is associated with blackness - Not just in this scenario in Texas, but across the nation. To pretend you can divide these two subjects and only one of them is worthy of support or effort, is to ignore the entire problem, and even contribute to its persistence.

.... or well off.

Economic justice isn't a panacea to racism but on the other hand they're associated...

you won't be treated differently by the rich white people at your country club. Your kids will attend the same private schools theirs do. They will swim peacefully in the same private pool. You will play golf with your white friends on Saturday mornings.

It's when you pass a cop car driving home, especially after dark and in your own affluent neighborhood, that you need to worry. The cop doesn't belong to your country club, and he only knows one thing about you.

Chris Rock Takes A Selfie After Cops Pull Him Over For The 3rd Time In Less Than 7 Weeks

Chris Rock took a selfie after being pulled over by police while driving Tuesday, marking the third time in seven weeks he's posted while being stopped by a cop.

Rock posted the photo to his social media accounts early Tuesday, writing: "Stopped by the cops again wish me luck." In the shot, the comedian can be seen behind the wheel of a car with blue police lights shining through his rear window.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/01/chris-rock-cops-pulled-over_n_6984720.html

I agree with you. There will be no shortcuts on this one.

apart from poverty. Poverty is associated with many things apart from blackness. I'm not saying you're rat-fucking or racist. I am saying that some of what you're saying here is really weird. I'm not in the slightest wanting to 'cast the concept of economic justice as somehow racist and evil.'

For me, economic justice is important. Racial justice is important. Deep in my heart and based on all my life experiences, for me they are not always intertwined. Why do people get so upset with that?

themselves feel better not having to confront or deal with race on any level.

That's why folk get so upset.

"Blackness is associated with poverty" is one of the most racist, fucked up things I've ever heard.

I have two Master's degrees and a doctorate. I walk down the street in my suit on a daily basis with the police harassing me. They don't know, nor do they give a shit about my social, professional, or economic status. All they see is a Nigger bitch walking down the street looking "uppity" who doesn't belong in their neighborhood.

People are full of shit denying that race as the central, most important factor in American life. Race pratically determines are fucking elections, for godssakes!

I'm caucasian and I've also seen many instances of racial injustice that are not 'intertwined' with economic injustice. Of course I believe economic justice is important too. I appreciate your input. Maybe some will untwine a bit today. We can always hope. Have a good day my friend.

Whites are just seeing videos and examples of how blacks are treated on a daily basis. Race us central and every time I try to talk with whites about race they want to change the subject, say it is economic or deflect. Race and color is so important but white culture is so just ignorant on this.

i have nothing to add.

Merely that society as a whole tends to see blacks as poor. For example look at the woman in this instance telling the black kids to go back to section 8 housing.

Look at how people associate welfare with blacks.

It's not racist to point out that society at large associates being black with poverty. It's an unfortunate and inaccurate perception, but to pretend they aren't linked ignores the larger problem.

Yes we as a society have problems strictly related to racism, and some related strictly to poverty, but I think they are too intertwined to effectively address them in isolation.

As in, some posters always try to change the discussion from a social issue to an economic one perhaps because it's too uncomfortable to admit that racism, sexism, and other bigotry are at the core of the problem.

... that neighborhood is pretty racially mixed too.

I've had to roll my eyes more than once at people who will insist, at the drop of a pin that "it's class, not race." In a very broad sense, that statement has truth. But no, it doesn't apply to every instance.

yeah, there are some of people who want to duct-tape those colorblind glasses to their heads and pretend all is well. But the appropriate reaction is to simply note that those people are wrong, rather than leaping over them to assert that the very concept of economic justice is wrong.

I think my points were valid.

It's my understanding that social justice is an umbrella and economic justice is a component, just as racial justice is a component. I have tried to explain that fixing economic injustice does not fix racial injustice and I used this incident as an example, to try to explain where I'm coming from.

You don't have to agree. But "ratfucking"? That's over-the-top.

But the tactic is what it is.

yeah, economic justice is a subset of social justice. My point is that you really can't have one without hte other. You think black people can be equal if so many of them are broke, living in impoverished communities? of course not. Will wealth and prosperity suddenly erase generations of hate ingrained in the culture? Of course not.

They're twins joined at the heart - they might have different personalities and thoughts nd tastes, but at the core they're one being and you can't just saw them apart without killing one and probably both.

The issue was never "social" injustice.

It was "racial" vs. "economic". You think they are twins. I don't.

I think you can have economic justice and still have racism.

I think you can end racism without having economic justice.

We have different opinions.

People love Oprah. People love Michael Jordan. There are black CEOs. Not many, but a few. And half of the country voted for Obama.

So, there are signs that black people are getting past racism and into positions of power or into the 1%. But this has nothing to do with economic justice. We still have poor people.

I don't agree that you can't have an end to racism until you have economic justice.

I've tried to explain that black people can be accepted as part of the 1%, but we still have poor people. Some of those poor people are black. Let's say that the numbers changed, and only 14% of all poor people were black. Let's say racial profiling ended. Let's say that Americans were used to seeing black people at every level, and took us at face value, not assuming that all of us were poor and powerless.

There's still that 14% of all poor people who are black.

Maybe you think that's impossible. I will accept that.

Oprah and Michael Jordan are not nullifying racism. Obama was elected, absolutely true, has racism ground to a halt? No, sadly it seems to be more prominent than it's been in thirty years (It's not new racism, but racists seem more comfortable about being public.)

You are making the argument that a few wealthy, highly visible blacks are the key to making racism go away. And I'm sorry but that's just absurd. The structure of racism ensures that these people are seen as "exceptions," and they are then used to reinforce anti-black bigotry. "Why can't more blacks be like (insert prominent black person here)?" is the rallying cry. some of these figures like Bill Cosby and Ben Carson, actually jump on that boat and promote their own "exceptionalism" by helping bigots shitbag other black people.

Racial and economic justice have to go hand in hand. If you have prosperity without racial equality, you get a situation like the one i just described, or the one that faced Jews through much of their history. If you have racial justice without the economic power to back it up, that racial justice is quickly erased by people who DO have the economic power - this is what happened with the end of Reconstruction in the post-war south.

That is because racism is based on stereotypes and prejudices. And the only way to break stereotypes is to show in force, that the opposite is true.

If white racists believe that minorities don't belong in their neighborhoods because they are moochers on society, then the solution is to show in force that the opposite is true. The only way to get their fast is through economic equality.

It would also help to put a stop to the institutional racist policies which make that climb up the ladder nearly impossible for many.

"Fixes" are going to have to be implemented by different groups. The DoT or DoE can't fix racist cops - that's up to the DoJ. What the DoT/DoE can do offer higher-paying infrastructure jobs. We can work on both.

In addition, one of the fuels of racism is economic, exemplified by LBJ's "convince the lowest white man" quote. It's a lot easier to reduce racism when there is economic hope. We do have to ensure the racists are unable to "channel" that hope to their favored race.

The important thing will be for activists to keep us from focusing too much on one problem and neglecting the other. We're not going to get rid of racism if "economic justice" only benefits whites.

stance of the someone who does not experience racism, therefore has only an intellectual concept to work with. gwlauren is right, you are wrong. simple really.

Can you please explain how that works? 'Cause gwlauren's claim is that Oprah being the one singular black person on the forbes 400 list is going to cure racism like Jonah Salk cured polio is going to need some good buttressing arguments to make a lick of sense.

you misrepresent, is that all gwlauren is about, is being about what you say she's about, is completely superfluous, to say the least about your response(S) to gw and me.

"The two are fully intertwined. That is you cannot have one without the other..."

The wold of academia disagrees with your premise-- and they've both sourced and cited supporting evidence in their publications.

(See: Social Justice: Theories, Issues, and Movements by Prof Loretta Capeheart, Readings for Diversity and Social Justice by Maurianne Adams and Privilege, Power, and Difference by Allan G. Johnson)

can you give me a cliffnotes version?

I was very happy to find that out.

For many academics, and non-academics like me, insisting that economic justice and racial justice are 'intertwined' is bullshit. Especially after people are continually saying that IN THEIR OWN PERSONAL EXPERIENCE they are most definitely not always intertwined. Don't pull out the old canard that it's being 'divisive' to discuss it. The divisiveness is coming from people who refuse to listen and accept it.

They aren't just the 1%, they're the 0.001%, and institutional racism still harmed them. They are two separate questions.

You need both because they bolster and support each other.

if you have racial equality and economic equality, the racial equality simply evaporates; the economically powerful - almost always the dominant racial group - can simply use the power of heir wealth to nullify the gains of racial justice.

If you have economic equality with no racial equality, then you end up with a situation where the wealth of the discriminated caste can simply be wrested away from them by the favored. Again the economic gains evaporate.

And while it's nice to see Oprah make a second appearance on this thread, the reality is that she is a wealthy individual, and not an icon of our society's success at economic justice. The fact that out of the forbes 400, she's the only black person at all, ought to be a clue to this. And it's not 'cause Forbes is just too racist to list all the other black people that meet the ranking.

But people claim that racism is "really just classism" all the time.

And rather than just step around thesepeople who have the color-blond glasses welded to their faces, the OP - and many others like him - have decided that the concept of economic justice itself must be attacked.

What I find fascinating is how nobody on DU would have thought to oppose economic justice and equality until we got a candidate i nth race who openly supports the concept.

such in your face racism. That will be one of those life-long scars we get when we're young that are carried far into our futures.

My understanding is that it all began with a white mother making cruel racist remarks and it grew from there. My question is where was the pool manager and why wasn't it handled at that level and the disruptive mother told to leave to the pool?

A public pool is for all the public and isn't dependent upon you living anywhere in particular. Of course they belonged there as much as any other swimmer.

I agree there's institutional racism throughout including in our educational system, voting, justice, economic systems, etc. President Obama has leveled the playing field medically in the states that are using ObamaCare but the others have to be fought on the local and state level. He has used his Justice Depart. to nail some particularly nasty police departments. Common Core is another area but many (white, don't know about black) parents are fighting tooth and nail against their kids having to actually apply their energies and brains towards a better education. Though I hate to give Senator Paul any credit, he's making progress regarding incarceration reforms. The protests and even the violence in Ferguson and beyond have created motivation for reform.

I know none of these is "enough" but it seems an important shift has begun and it's up to each of us to keep it front and center.

The hoa security was trying to throw the black kids out by asking for ID and making up rules. I just heard a comment that the big white civilian guy was some kind of representative of the hoa. Just like a neighborhood watch guy.

That said 'thank you for keeping us safe' , have outed themselves as the bigots they are. The woman who would not show her face was on TV talking about it as though the black kids were out of control and deserved to be attacked by the police! These are blatant racist people who dont even know how racist they are. They dont have any idea how repulsive they are to civilized Americans. They are the animals. 'thank you for keeping us safe' means attacking dark skinned people is ok. Killing them is ok. Systematically repressing entire communities is ok. It means all black people are on welfare.
These days people are so set in their bigotry they wear it on their sleeve. They are so angry that a dark skinned man with a middle eastern name is occupying the white house they are blind to the hatred that they have become used to living with. No longer can they occasionally lash out at the dark skinned peoples or occasionally make them the theme of some rude ignorant joke. No ,now they must live every day with one running our country. And he does a marvelous job. If he sucked they could have a field with him. But they cant. Hes too good.
Its sad to watch the teabaggers get their asses handed to them over and over and over. These two fat white women will be charged with assault and hopefully when they spend 90 days in womens lockup they will make friends with some people of color and get another chance to reconsider their own feeling and insecurities insofar as the value of a human being, especially a child.

The cop didn't care because he thought, like most people, being black meant being poor. The poor have virtually no power no matter the level of social justice.

In other words, he instinctively assumed that whatever he did to those black people, they wouldn't have the wealth, and therfore the influence, to cost him his job. And the reason for that is very simple: black people have no wealth to influence government. Would he have done the same to Americans of Asian descent? Never. Why? Their numbers are only a fraction of the number of blacks, and yet they have economic influence and are allies of whites who have economic influence.

Before disagreeing, think about one thing. Before the explosion of wealth that began roughly 200 years ago with industrialization, why was there virtually no social justice gains from the beginning of civilization around 7,000 years ago to the 1700s? And why have the last 200 years been a comparative supernova of social justice?

Social justice has made minor gains and losses over our entire human history until vast wealth was created in one small part of the world (western Europe), and in that one area social justice advanced at light speed, and spread outward following economic justice. Our social justice began with property rights and counting houses, joint ventures and sailing ships that destroyed the distinction between the nobility and the peasant, not equal rights marches. Martin Luther King's speeches would have fallen on deaf ears had they been addressed to impoverished peasants. Poor people, as it turns out, are too busy struggling for their daily bread to give a damn whether anyone else has rights.

if you make a counter argument.

As long as you see that I have a different opinion.

We have different opinions.

Ignore the cop. Let's take the woman who yelled at the kids. I don't think she assumed the kids were poor. I think she doesn't like black people.

And maybe you have a counter-argument for that too.

But I find myself wondering why counter-argue when black Duers are trying to explain their point of view? We accept that your point of view is different. Can you accept ours at all?

I do understand your point of view.

Your perspective is vastly different than mine, as an African-American, and I'm willing to accept that yours is possibly correct since mine can't be proven. I'm not willing to accept that there is only one answer to racism or one valid perspective.

My intent was only to present another perspective, not argue

... Racism at the heart of the matter wont change these peoples minds, it's a superiority thing not matter what the fiscal means of the the people they feel superior to

people talking about??!

The very idea that cops, restaurant workers, city councilmen, sales clerks, drunk ladies at pools, cab drivers, university recruiters etc. etc. etc. think AUTOMATICALLY that "black=poor" is RACISM!!!!!!

This is exactly what we've been screaming FOREVER and these same people act as though they don't understand!! The AUTOMATIC go-to that "black=poor" is RACISM and economic justice IS NOT GOING TO CHANGE THAT if even black millionaires are automatically designated as poor and treated like shit, even by white people who really ARE poor!! HAVING MORE MONEY WILL NOT CHANGE WHITE RACISM. There are PLENTY of middle class and upper class black folks STILL DEALING WITH WHITE RACISM because of white people's inherent belief that they are superior to everyone/everyone not white is inferior. A strong, dedicated, nuanced, difficult as shit social sea change brought about by EDUCATION and EXPOSURE is the ONLY thing that will change things and make a difference.

This is not hard!!! Jesus Christ!

and a sizable African American population. McKinney has a median income of 72,000 per family. 18% of the town is Latino and more than 10% is African American. 4% Native American.

So, these are cops in a town that has many,many affluent people of color. It's about 33% 'non white' and the rate of poverty is about 4%. It is a well off town.

So that's the reality of where they live. If an officer is not living in reality, waxing on about industrialization and history from 200 years ago will not explain nor fix that.

No one who knits the economic and social together denies incidents of pure racism or the facts of white privilege.

The reason we actively argue against splitting the social from the economic is that it has a particularly partisan spin during this Primary season: Hillary has interest in distinguishing her "social" issues from Bernie's "economic" issues. The continued calls to separate the social from the economic end up marginalizing the Democrats who are most concerned with poverty issues.

With this issue concerning race. As you can see anytime this is brought up on here.

Economic issues will help, but when you got deep racism (we do) incidents such as this, or a college professor walking while black in La Jolla, we are still paying for it, it is part of it.

This was an exquisite example of implicit bias. That said, we really cannot separate the issue of just pure racism and economics since they are attached at the hip.

By the way, as a white, immigrant, Jewish woman I do get the implicit bias as well. Not as often as you do, but we both do.

Hugs. And let's change this together. I want my nephews and your kids (assuming you have them) to live in a country where this is mostly gone...mostly is the operative word.

If people don't get it after that, they don't want to get it imo.

Fighting for equal rights for all people, and championing anyone that is oppressed, is a much better political strategy than attacking or shaming the majority of potential voters.

K & R

I seen the ugly head of racism as soon as Obama became a viable candidate in '08 and have been calling it out ever since. I honestly thought we as a country were well on our way of getting past that. Do a search and you'll find that I am one of if not the very first to call it what it is, here, Its pure unadulterated Racism plain and simple and I'm sick of it. If it would be possible for me to change I'd become a Black Woman today just so I could say I have skin in the game.

My Grand Father being the son of a slave owner joined the union army and fought for what was right then and I carry on that fight today for what is right. I have no idea as to why he came to this area, Oklahoma, after the war but I suspect it was because of what he did in trying to right a wrong made him an outcast in his home in Georgia. I'm proud of who I am and where I am and I'll stand with you as long as I can stand then I'll fight from a prone position until I can fight no more. We have to do what is right and what is right is accept that not all good people wear white skin. Don't even get me started on what we, whites, did to the Native Americans in the lead up to what we call the United States of America. United if you're an European descendant but otherwise you're just to be taken advantage of however we 'whites' see fit. I'm sick of it all. I have to type 'we' cause I wear white skin and there's no denying that but I don't have to buy into the narrative and I won't buy into it that somehow we're superior or what ever the fuck it is my tribe wants to call it.

of most of those kids and I am horrified by the incident.

First of all there is not enough focus on the fact that it was two white supposedly adult women who started the whole incident. While they complained to a white security guard, they made no effort to find and talk to the parents who sponsored the party. What did they do, they started lipping off at the kids. Somewhere a white man gets involved and tells the black kids to go back to their section 8 housing where they belong. Are we now living back in the 1950s? The kids (including some of their white friends) stand up for themsleves against the white women who now become offended because they are being disrespected. Has no one ever told these ladies that it is hard for teenagers to respect you if you act like a kid? You may start out being respected as an adult because of your age but you can sure lose that respect if you act like a child. So what happens next, the supposedly adults get into a physical altercation with children. At least one of the ladies should have been arrested for assault.

We live in a society where the powers to be are trying more and more to beat everyone that is not part of the elite (including whites) into total submission. They want us to keep our heads down, ask no questions, demand no answers, and do as we are told. Teenagers have yet to lose their belief that you can stand up to authority and demand change when they see something that is morally wrong. I dread the day that people are afraid to stand up for what it right and defend those who need our help. The day that comes, then we are truly done as a nation.

And what about the "security guard?" Does he talk to the adults sponsoring the pool party? No. Most of those kids lived there and I would hope that any security guard hired for a housing development would have an idea of who lives in the community that he/she is "guarding." Since most of the kids lived there it would appear that this guy was clueless. I used to live in a condo development and I never needed a pool pass to use the pool.

Then lets look at the cops. Did they talk to the parents who sponsored the party? No, despite one of the parent making an effort to talk to them. The little Napoleon guy was totally out of control. The young lady on Lawrence O'Donnell show last night stated that she was told to go home which she tried to do but the copy told her to go in a different direction, despite the girl trying to point out where she lived. I heard a lot of kids trying to be verbally respectful of the cops and no respect on the part of the cops. The young girl in the bikini was leaving as directed but, because the cop didn't like what she was saying, he took her down (initially on concrete). For crying out loud, she was a kid, acting like a kid. Kids may lip off but that is not an action worthy of physical assault. I can totally undertand why two young men tried to come to her aid and the cop pulls his gun. I am totally amazed that he did not shoot and kill someone. If those other two cops had not rushed up to him to deflect him for an instant from those two boys who know what would have happened. I heard that one of the boys was arrested (the only arrest by the way) for interfering with the cops or something like that. I predict that the charges will be dropped. I don't see how any jury would convict that young man.

I am horrified that we live in a society in the 21st Century where everyone, young and old, have to just bow down and do whatever the cops tell you when in reality, way too many cops are out of control. What a lot of white people don't realize is that we are now living in a modern day slave society where slavery is not based upon skin tone but upon where you exist, finanically, on the economic scale. Remember the old adage, first they came for the _______ group and nobody stood up for them, then they came for the ________ group, and nobody stood up for them, then _________ groupd and nobody stood up for them and then when they came for me there was nobody left to stand up for me. For decades blacks have been treated horrifically and too few stood up to say it is wrong. Now you see the emphasis placed on immigrants and people deemed illegal. You see it against muslims in a post 9-11 era. Well, the time has arrived when, if you think that just being white will protect you from a militarized society run by a power elite that intends to maintain power with the Corporations and 1%ers, you had better believe that your time is coming.

the time has arrived when, if you think that just being white will protect you from a militarized society run by a power elite that intends to maintain power with the Corporations and the 1%ers, you had better believe your time is coming".

Very true statement, yet the sad fact is, those with the privilege assumed to be their right because of skin color won't believe it until the jackboots are breaking down their door and some, not even then

Those without the privileged skin color have known and fought this mentality for generations and are still bleeding, being abused and dying. Things will only start changing in this country when white privilege is discarded and the privilege(s) of human rights, equality and dignity, for all, replaces it completely.

I respect your warning.. .

I often see this showing up here on DU as a rationale for supporting corporate Democrats who many of us feel are working against our interests.

I'm not saying that's what you are doing, I don't know enough about you to make any supposition. So this post may be a little off base for your OP, I'm not sure, it speaks to a larger dynamic I keep running into at DU though.

There is clearly a racial problem in this video.

How do you propose to address fixing it?

Myself, I would be careful about running into the arms of politicians who like to include racially diverse people (and gays) as indicators of sensitivity to those issues. They may or may not be attuned to the racial issues you care about. I get that diversity is a component of that work, if done sincerely. It can also be done to make things look right without being right (Clarence Thomas, Eric Holder, Michael Steele, plenty of examples).

I haven't seen Obama (and for most of his presidency, Holder) do a lot to address these problems, though with a black POTUS and a black attorney general, we might think these problems would get more attention. Do people agree or disagree with me here? I've seen them do more to protect the bankers and the multinationals than to address issues relevant to people of their own color.

I sure haven't seen him do much to address the rampant racism in our police departments, or do much of anything to dismantle the police state which is a problem for all of us. I realize he has done some things in those areas (such as addressing sentencing disparity between cocaine and crack, and his recent move to stop distributing military equipment to local police), but not much, he seems to go out of his way to not be seen as caring too much about the issues of black people. He did make a nice statement about if he had a son he might look like Trayvon, but didn't go to bat much to change the context that allowed for Trayvon to be killed. Holder has shown up in person (Ferguson for instance) and filed some civil suits, not much evidence though of systemic reform, which they were in a position, and had an event-driven context, to push for.

I see Hillary being careful to include people of color, women, and also gays in her staff. Does that mean she will lead the hard work of addressing these problems? Maybe, maybe not, probably a matter of degree. Does she have much or any history to show that is a priority for her? I don't mean words uttered in campaigns, I mean policy that she has put energy into enacting. I know she is now speaking about mass incarceration as a problem, though unlike Sanders I don't see that she has much history fighting against this. She certainly comes up short in the economic justice department.

Pretty much the only post I've seen in this thread that went towards proposing actions leading to improvement was just a post that said education and exposure. I would add police retraining as a high priority, and incarceration, it is amazing the racial disparity of incarceration, though it is too high for all races, we as a nation love to lock people up and crow about being the land of the free. The military also disportionately and very negatively impacts people of color, largely as a result of what is in effect an economic draft.

Exposure is an interesting issue, and it does have a strong economic component, though it is also cutural. I have family from, and in, Texas and Oklahoma, and though the exposure to mixed ethnicities there is higher than my mostly white California hippie community, I am often shocked by the racism in the south and midwest. So exposure can be helpful or not, depending in part on education and also in part on underlying family and peer group racial views that are difficult, though not impossible, to unwind.

There is also a large difference in racism here in California between the inland (more conservative) areas and the liberal coastal areas where I live, though I also understand that there is still a form of more subtle racism here, but the more conservative inland areas are racist hotbeds.

I've always thought conservative / liberal divides falls along issues such as racism, equality for the sexes, support for economic justice as opposed to capitalist exploitation, caring for all living things as opposed to a model of high achievement or wealth or victory, compassionate and sustainable systems that allow most if not all people to have their basic needs met and to have a context where they can live decent lives.

Economic issues are about improving things for everyone (except for the very rich, whose lives need no improvement), and are an enormous problem in our country at this time, much more so than in recent times, and it's getting worse in a hurry. This also disproportionately effects people of color.

Many of our other most urgent problems are enabled by corporate politicians of both parties, with Republicans being slightly worse but corporate Democrats playing a huge enabling role. These include using our tax revenues for military, police, surveillance, incarceration, industrial and financial system deregulation (more broadly the capture of government by industry interests), and supporting industries bringing us impending climate disaster (this includes the whole global trade system, which is an enormous contributor to climate change), plus of course the all-pervasive corrupting influence of money on politics. Racism and sexism, so-called social polices, are sometimes used by corporate politicians who hide behind those issues (it costs the corporations nothing) but do little to actually address them. These issues are problems for sure, I just think people are being misled into electing and supporting politicians that don't have their best interests at heart.

I say all of this only because the whole social justice - economic justice dichotomy so often spoken of on this sight seems to be somewhat false and is used as an excuse to support corporatists, who I don't think really care about the social issues, they care about hedge funds and making millions from speeches to other rich people and getting billions in political "contributions", and use social issues (and often platitudes rather than policies) for cover. Then I see these same issues being used as a wedge against Sanders supporters, and wrongly so in my opinion, speaking for myself I do care about these issues, I just don't see the either-or scenario, I care about these issues because I care about people and all living things, not profits, and I work towards a more just society rather than one based on winning the future, capitalistic excess, or global trade systems whose foundation is labor exploitation.

Apologies if this is not applicable to you or your OP, it brought up this larger DU dynamic I wanted to make an attempt to comment on.