George Floyd/Black Lives Matter Protests

[coprolite]

Recently went to our local museum and my youngest and I took in the fairly good quality art galleries.

One of the exhibits was an installation that sort of blended in with the displays of ethnic teapots and the like to start off with. It was like a spiral corridor made with screens. On the way in there was a load of raw coffee, tea cocoa and sugar loafs in a cabinet.
Go around a bit and there’s a video showing different young black girls, about the same age as my daughter. I’m thinking that I’ve got this, it’s about child labour in African commodity plantations.

Around to the centre of the spiral and there’s a sort of cage arrangement. Up the top there’s a dangling thing with feathers and crystals. Beneath it there’s a hollow thin wire outline of a girl, about my daughters size, seemingly reaching up to touch the dangly thing with her finger.

We thought that was the end of that bit and went into the next room. I was explaining to my daughter that she was lucky to grow up here and not work in fields etc. 

Then there was a massive old oil portrait, of a fat man with an old style wig, britches, all that, in a big flouncy frame, with that frame framed by and partially enclosed in a big wooden packing crate. Beside a model of a ship with rows and rows of people crammed in it. I recognised the name on the portrait (Thomas Picton) as being our local part of the statues controversy. 
 

Obviously it all started to slot into place. I explained to my puzzled daughter that he was a bad man who did that to people in real life so that’s why his picture was in a crate. 
 

The kicker was on the way out. There was a small display cabinet with an old notebook in it. There was a title plate saying “an account of the beating of a slave girl”. On the page opposite the writing there was a sketch of a young girl in exactly the pose of the wire figure, except clearly suspended by her finger, in a cage, being beaten. My daughter (who is mixed race by the way) asked “what does it say daddy?” and I just couldn’t tell her. I actually burst into tears and still find it difficult to understand.

 

TL/Dr - The statue shaggers should be fucking ashamed of themselves. Don’t just bin those statues though, put them in context. 

[TxRover]

4 hours ago, coprolite said:

Recently went to our local museum and my youngest and I took in the fairly good quality art galleries.

One of the exhibits was an installation that sort of blended in with the displays of ethnic teapots and the like to start off with. It was like a spiral corridor made with screens. On the way in there was a load of raw coffee, tea cocoa and sugar loafs in a cabinet.
Go around a bit and there’s a video showing different young black girls, about the same age as my daughter. I’m thinking that I’ve got this, it’s about child labour in African commodity plantations.

Around to the centre of the spiral and there’s a sort of cage arrangement. Up the top there’s a dangling thing with feathers and crystals. Beneath it there’s a hollow thin wire outline of a girl, about my daughters size, seemingly reaching up to touch the dangly thing with her finger.

We thought that was the end of that bit and went into the next room. I was explaining to my daughter that she was lucky to grow up here and not work in fields etc. 

Then there was a massive old oil portrait, of a fat man with an old style wig, britches, all that, in a big flouncy frame, with that frame framed by and partially enclosed in a big wooden packing crate. Beside a model of a ship with rows and rows of people crammed in it. I recognised the name on the portrait (Thomas Picton) as being our local part of the statues controversy. 
 

Obviously it all started to slot into place. I explained to my puzzled daughter that he was a bad man who did that to people in real life so that’s why his picture was in a crate. 
 

The kicker was on the way out. There was a small display cabinet with an old notebook in it. There was a title plate saying “an account of the beating of a slave girl”. On the page opposite the writing there was a sketch of a young girl in exactly the pose of the wire figure, except clearly suspended by her finger, in a cage, being beaten. My daughter (who is mixed race by the way) asked “what does it say daddy?” and I just couldn’t tell her. I actually burst into tears and still find it difficult to understand.

 

TL/Dr - The statue shaggers should be fucking ashamed of themselves. Don’t just bin those statues though, put them in context. 

And that’s exactly the beauty of context added to the history we all “know”. Deliver that gut punch by clearly linking things you were taught to the things that have been swept under the rug and ignored for too long. It’s like the lynching memorial at The Legacy Museum in Montgomery, Alabama. The sheer impact of the place, the size and numbers involved, make it impossible to deny or ignore the real truth.

For those interested: https://museumandmemorial.eji.org

[ICTChris]

Five police officers have been charged with murder after the death of a motorist at a traffic stop.

Footage of the stop is going to be released tonight and officials across the US M, all the way up to Biden, have pre-emptively appealed for calm. I’ve never seen so many appeals for calm - this video must be very bad indeed.

[Camster]

I think there was picture of Tyre Nichols in hospital on the BBC at what I can only presume was the family conference. His face was absolutely battered. Officials have said the bodycam footage is horrific. 

[TxRover]

3 hours ago, ICTChris said:

Five police officers have been charged with murder after the death of a motorist at a traffic stop.

Footage of the stop is going to be released tonight and officials across the US M, all the way up to Biden, have pre-emptively appealed for calm. I’ve never seen so many appeals for calm - this video must be very bad indeed.

The FBI and Police Chief in Memphis both reported it as much worse than Rodney King. It’s going to get ugly, if it’s that bad, appeals won’t stop everything…and much as I hate it, I understand the feelings of some of those that do get worked up. There are plenty who do it for the kicks, but the treatment of the average black male in the U.S. is pretty frustrating…and this was five black officers from a special task force!

[carpetmonster]

The quote I saw was ‘Please don’t riot. And you’re going to want to’. 

[Binos]

48 minutes ago, carpetmonster said:

The quote I saw was ‘Please don’t riot. And you’re going to want to’. 

What an idiotic thing to say 

[carpetmonster]

5 minutes ago, Binos said:

What an idiotic thing to say 

Unfortunately not. People are long past accepting this shit and I don’t blame them. Chicago shovels $2bn per year at CPD who’ve been on soft strike since the judge had the temerity to give Officer Jason Van Dyke a whole 6 years for emptying 16 bullets into Laquan McDonald, 10 of which were into his back when he was face down on the ground. The Blue Lives Matter crew are silent. The NRA are yet to defend the rights of lawful gun owner Philando Castile. It’s the predictability of this shit that makes it all the more enraging. 

[derrybiy]

From everything I've read it seems poised to go one way when it's released. The fact that officials are saying it's worse than Rodney King and please don't riot doesn't bode well.

[Binos]

27 minutes ago, carpetmonster said:

Unfortunately not. People are long past accepting this shit and I don’t blame them. Chicago shovels $2bn per year at CPD who’ve been on soft strike since the judge had the temerity to give Officer Jason Van Dyke a whole 6 years for emptying 16 bullets into Laquan McDonald, 10 of which were into his back when he was face down on the ground. The Blue Lives Matter crew are silent. The NRA are yet to defend the rights of lawful gun owner Philando Castile. It’s the predictability of this shit that makes it all the more enraging. 

You going to be doing some rioting too

[carpetmonster]

16 minutes ago, Binos said:

You going to be doing some rioting too

Probably not. I’m old and I got shit to lose. But I can understand folks who don’t think they do anymore. 

[The Golden God]

Footage is out and it is graphic. Think I’d riot. 

[Bairnardo]

Absolutely harrowing to see someone's last moments like that. The c***s taking shots each to have freebies at the laddies head ffs. Absolute fucking animals who should never be released for abusing a postion of power like that. 

Imagine that being your last moments, or having to live through this as his family with that footage out there knowing how he was tortured like that. Absolutely heartbreaking stuff. 

[BillyAnchor]

Hopefully cooler heads prevail but it may all go up tonight.

[TxRover]

57 minutes ago, Bairnardo said:

Absolutely harrowing to see someone's last moments like that. The c***s taking shots each to have freebies at the laddies head ffs. Absolute fucking animals who should never be released for abusing a postion of power like that. 

Imagine that being your last moments, or having to live through this as his family with that footage out there knowing how he was tortured like that. Absolutely heartbreaking stuff. 

Unfortunately he spent 20 minutes after the beating propped up against a police car without any assistance, was finally seem by EMS, transported and spent 3 days in a hospital bed (in critical condition) before he died from organ failure related to the beating. That was far from his last minutes, and even that savage beating would not necessarily been fatal If he’d been given basic medical care immediately. Second degree murder isn’t enough after what I’ve just seen.

[Highland Capital]

Whenever these videos come out I always wonder about the incidents we never heard of and were never caught on film. 

[hk blues]

2 hours ago, Bairnardo said:

Absolutely harrowing to see someone's last moments like that. The c***s taking shots each to have freebies at the laddies head ffs. Absolute fucking animals who should never be released for abusing a postion of power like that. 

Imagine that being your last moments, or having to live through this as his family with that footage out there knowing how he was tortured like that. Absolutely heartbreaking stuff. 

Not totally relevant but the footage seems to just show 2 cops throwing punches and the others holding the poor guy up - I imagine this will be used in the defence of at least some of the cops to get a lighter sentence for them.  I've no idea if there is other footage and what it shows - the stuff I've seen doesn't actually show anything related to the actual beating itself.  

[carpetmonster]

13 minutes ago, hk blues said:

Not totally relevant but the footage seems to just show 2 cops throwing punches and the others holding the poor guy up - I imagine this will be used in the defence of at least some of the cops to get a lighter sentence for them.  I've no idea if there is other footage and what it shows - the stuff I've seen doesn't actually show anything related to the actual beating itself.  

I haven't watched the footage and I don't intend to, but I did see at least one of them has been charged with kidnap, so that may be the ones who were quite literally holding Nichols against his will. 

[hk blues]

1 minute ago, carpetmonster said:

I haven't watched the footage and I don't intend to, but I did see at least one of them has been charged with kidnap, so that may be the ones who were quite literally holding Nichols against his will. 

It looks like 2 holding him up and another 2 taking punches - 1 more than the other - so likely you're right although I can't see why only 1 would be charged with kidnap based on this footage so assume there is other stuff around.  

Sad to say there's not that much in the footage we haven't seen before.  

[G_&_T]

The problem with many police officers, and it certainly used to be the case here (though less so, now), is that the people attracted to these positions are often bullies. I have heard several accounts from people arrested in the 1970s and '80s, in Scotland, who got a kicking off the police. It's almost cliched to hear of folk who got a doing in the back of the police van before being released.

I'm sure most folk on here will have heard of the Stanford Prison Experiment, it was even made into a film:

 

The sad truth is, the power that comes with authority, and the ability to detain and 'restrain' folk will often be abused. This is more so if there is a prevailing culture that turns a blind eye to it.

Also, one should remember - though this is in no way excusing errant police officers - that they deal with the most violent and sometimes downright psychopathic people in society every day, so even the most well-intentioned may become very cynical. Of course, they also deal with a lot of vulnerable people - the mentally ill, the homeless, those addicted to drink and drugs, etc.

Some old coppers I have worked with have justified being violent in the past, by claiming that they arrest the same wrong 'uns all the time, and because of the high standard of proof required they cannot secure a conviction, or they get a 'slap on the wrist'. So giving them a good kicking was seen as a way of punishing them. I'm sure a lot of people would be only too happy to turn a blind eye to such behaviour if the recipient of the violence was a sex offender, or such like. 

Anyway, I have gone off on a tangent. But ultimately what I'm saying is what sort of people would be attracted to an occupation - especially in America, with shows like Cops, and where you can routinely carry a gun, baton and tazer? What motivates someone to want to do that? 

My experience with the police has taught me to be polite and even subservient to them. I'm sure some will scoff at that, but these people do have power and I'm sure some of them are just itching to abuse it.