The Meme Policeman - Posts | Facebook - "This post from Shaun King is false because Garrett Foster was armed. He was carrying an AK-47 rifle when this incident happened. It’s also false that the driver shot 8 times at them."
U.S. Army sergeant who shot Austin protester found guilty of murder - "A Travis County jury found Army Sgt. Daniel Perry, 33, guilty of murder on Friday, almost three years after he shot and killed Austin protester Garrett Foster... Foster, who was a 28-year-old white man and an Air Force veteran, had been seen openly carrying an AK-47 rifle at the time, which is legal. There are conflicting accounts as to whether Foster raised the rifle to the driver first — but seconds later Perry, who was also legally armed, shot and killed Foster and fled the area, police said. He called the police and reported what happened, claiming he shot in self defense after Foster aimed his weapon at him. Perry is also a white man. The case sparked debates over Texas’ “stand your ground” law, which allows people to use deadly force against someone else if they feel they are in danger. But Perry’s social media posts about retaliating against protesters raised questions about the shooter’s state of mind and his self-defense claim. The “stand your ground” law prohibits an individual from arguing self-defense if they provoked a threat from someone else. Witnesses said that Perry seemed to drive threateningly into the crowd before shots were fired, and his actions seemed intentional."
Weird. I thought the mere fact that Kyle Rittenhouse brought a rifle to a demonstration means he deserved whatever happened to him
L.A. freeways are the most racist California monuments - Los Angeles Times
When black people are stuck in traffic, it will be the fault of racism and segregation
Baltimore Councilman Suggests Memorial To Fallen Officers Should Be Torn Down - "Baltimore City Councilman Ryan Dorsey suggested on Twitter on the 4th of July that the “FOP memorial” should be on the list of monuments to be destroyed by activists and protesters... the FOP posted a snarky tweet that revealed Dorsey may have asked for Baltimore police protection following a dispute with a neighbor"
Why high-school history is going through a ‘mind shift’ in Ontario - "“BIPOC tragedies were swept under the rug, and BIPOC triumphs were nearly completely unheard of unless deemed politically significant.” While there are references to Black Canadian history in the curriculum documents, it is not included in the 12 “overall expectations” that teachers much teach and assess. (First Nations history has been included in four of the 12 expectations since 2018.) In August, parents and students marched in Toronto against anti-Black racism in the education system and demanded that the experiences of Black Canadians be woven throughout all subjects. Natasha Henry, a historian and an anti-Black racism consultant who works with various Ontario school boards, has been advocating for years to have a specific mandate for Black history. Henry, who is also president of the Ontario Black History Society, says, “It’s important to understand that curriculum is not neutral. It shapes how people understand what’s happening in Canada.”... The Ontario Black History Society launched a campaign last week advocating that the education curriculum be updated to explicitly mandate that Black history and experiences be included. When people ask “How dare Indigenous people protest in Caledonia?” or “Why are people marching in Canada around Black Lives Matter?,” Henry says, “it’s because people don't have the context to understand how to connect these histories.”"
Everyone wants their share
Illinois State Senator Defends Chicago Flash Mob - "a flash mob of up to 500 Chicago young people — mostly teens — descended on downtown and began to burn cars, terrorize tourists, smash windows, and fight among themselves in a no-longer-shocking display of lawlessness and mayhem... Incredibly, mass transit kept running through most of Saturday night’s mayhem, bringing more and more rioters to the scene — drawn by TV reports and social media postings — because no one knew who was in charge... Mayor-elect Brandon Johnson issued a statement pleading with the media (and Republicans) not to “demonize” these young people who have been been “starved of opportunities in their own communities.” What hope is there for a city led by someone like that? Or like state Senator Robert Peters, who claimed that rather than an example of lawlessness and the breakdown of society, the violence was a “mass protest” and a “political act.”... no cop wants to end up in a viral video protecting himself or trying to restore order. The first order of business in any riot today is not to disrupt the destruction of the city. Laying hands on a rioter is a sure path to lawsuits and court appearances... The kids who are going to show up at these riots know that no one will touch them. No one wants to touch them because no one wants to deal with what they represent: the failure of city leaders to accept the responsibility to maintain a civil society. What’s truly amazing is that you could draw a direct line from the 2020 George Floyd protests to last weekend’s mayhem and not deviate an inch. Actions have consequences and inaction also has consequences. These are the consequences of inaction and what’s truly scary is that when authorities try to regain control and establish order, people are going to die. That’s the price Chicago is going to pay for stupidity and political gamesmanship."
Diane Abbott is shamelessly exploiting a tragedy - "No sooner had news of this tragic and senseless event emerged than Labour MP Diane Abbott leapt on it to make a point. She tweeted: ‘Nobody should have to potentially pay with their life because they stood up for racial justice.’ That is, she suggested the shooting was politically, perhap even racially, motivated – all without a shred of evidence... She is bang to rights, caught trying to use a tragedy to make an inflammatory political point. And yet Abbott is unrepentant. In interviews on BBC Newsnight and on LBC on Monday night, Abbott essentially doubled down. She told Iain Dale that it is ‘so wrong to accuse people of colour who raise issues in relation to race of inflaming feelings’. But Abbott has inflamed feelings. In warping and racialising Johnson’s shooting, she essentially exploited a tragic incident to make a political point. This really is low."
Sasha Johnson and the black lives that don’t matter - "On 23 May 2021, Johnson was shot in the head at a party in Peckham in the early hours of the morning. Days after the shooting, five men under 30 were arrested on suspicion of attempted murder. They were due to stand trial in March this year, but the case collapsed in February as the prosecutor said it could only offer ‘circumstantial evidence’ to the court. Following the collapse of the trial, both the police and Johnson’s family noted the unwillingness of witnesses to cooperate with the police. Deputy chief inspector Nigel Penney, who is leading the ongoing investigation into the shooting, has said that, ‘there were plenty of people there, yet many have not been willing to speak to us’. There is a grim and tragic irony to what transpired after Johnson’s shooting. Immediately after the attack, there was a great deal of speculation about the motivation, and many were quick to assume it was racially or politically motivated. Labour MP Diane Abbott went as far as to say: ‘Nobody should have to potentially pay with their life because they stood up for racial justice.’ The day after the shooting, while much still remained unknown, Black Lives Matter UK organised a vigil. However, as more information came out about the circumstances of the shooting, as we learnt that the suspects were not white and that it was unlikely to have been a white-supremacist attack, the commentary started to dissipate. Even after Johnson’s family shared gruesome images of Johnson in hospital earlier this year, showing parts of her head missing, many of those who initially spoke out against the shooting had nothing more to say. There have been no black squares, no hashtags, no mass demonstrations of civil disobedience. Even the crowdfunder that was set up to support Johnson and her family after the shooting has only just surpassed half of its modest fundraising goal of £20,000. There seems to be a double standard in society’s response to black victims of violence"
Black lives only matter when they can be politicised against white people
White MN protester tells people to stop throwing stuff at police, and then black protesters tell him to get out because he is "a guest in a black space" - "So this is what it's come to with these "peaceful protests" in Minneapolis. If you're a white person who wants the protests to ACTUALLY remain peaceful, you get chased out by protesters who seem to only be there for the violence... So moral of the story here: unless you want to riot, don't show up to our "peaceful protest.""
Royal Armories' police equipment displays 'could be offensive' - "Police riot shields and pepper spray displayed at the Royal Armouries are being reviewed over fears the riot gear could cause “friction” with the BAME community. The Armouries' three museums boast what it describes as 'one of the most important national collections of arms and armour in the world'. But in the wake of Black Lives Matter protests, a review of objects linked to colonialism and empire was launched. Curators at the body’s Leeds museum identified law enforcement equipment as potentially offensive given “police conduct towards BAME communities”... Work began last year to address items that might “portray people of colour in a subservient or submissive way” following the death of George Floyd... A display which featured women’s archery was even criticised for using the term “ladies”. The scope of the audit work has been criticized by historians. Andrew Roberts, author of Leadership in War, told The Telegraph: “One wonders where wokery is ever going to stop when even pepper spray – which has been used on rioters regardless of colour, creed, sexual orientation and so on – can be considered offensive to people of colour. “There has to be a moment when common sense finally applies to political correctness, and it looks as though the Royal Armouries have missed that moment.” Dr Zareer Masani, a historian and author, said: “A museum display of arms can’t be objectionable in itself. “The assumption that they could cause racial offence is itself racist in assuming modern policing targets any particular racial group instead of crime regardless of race.”"
Anti-cop ice cream chain sues Seattle over 'significant losses' from BLM autonomous zone they promoted - "Molly Moon’s Homemade Ice Cream, which previously gave the cold shoulder to police officers, is suing the City of Seattle for losses it alleges resulted from the decision by officials in the summer of 2020 to abandon the Police Department’s East Precinct in response to the George Floyd riots which led to the creation of a “government-authorized invasion," the deadly anti-police Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ), later renamed the Capitol Hill Occupied protest (CHOP)... Molly Moon’s is accusing the city of supporting and encouraging “a hostile occupation of that neighborhood.” “This lawsuit does not seek to undermine CHOP participants’ message or present a counter message,” the lawsuit stated... The chain regularly posts political content on social media and encouraged the protests in Seattle in the summer of 2020. On June 12, while the occupation was in full swing, the chain posted on Instagram, “We are closed until 5pm while we join the Black Lives Matter March of Silence.” One week later, Molly Moon’s posted on Twitter, “We are not opening our Capitol Hill shop today and likely closing by 8 pm in the coming days due to safety concerns around recent incidents. Our community’s safety - Mooncrew, customers and neighbors is our priority. Thank you for understanding.” Less than a week after the zone was finally broken up by Seattle Police, almost a month after the armed occupation began, the Capitol Hill location put up a sign telling officers that if they were armed, they were not welcome inside their store... Moon Neitzel previously put “gun-free zone” signs in her shops, but specifically put the new sign to target police. She claimed some of her employees felt intimidated by police after they dismantled the deadly occupation where 6 black men were shot and two black teens were killed... To date, Seattle has paid out millions of dollars in settlements as a result of the deadly occupation."
Cities with protests have significantly more homicides: study - "A study recently released by UMass Amherst indicates that cities where mass protests are common have had between 1000-6000 more homicides in a five-year period as would otherwise be expected... the homicide deaths were mitigated to some small extent by the fact that 300 fewer people died (nationwide) due to lethal actions by police during that same time period. Travis Campbell, who conducted the study as part of his investigations as a PhD student at the university, published the results"
More evidence for the Ferguson effect
Violent crime surged across America after police retreated - "In the wake of the May and June unrest, public officials’ decisions and growing hostility toward policing left law enforcement demoralized, debilitated and, in some cases, defunded. Even the most dedicated officers who now face a greater risk of being sued, fired or prosecuted for doing their job feel pressure to pull back. The message from a new wave of progressive prosecutors is clear: making arrests for drug and weapons crimes that will go unprosecuted exposes officers to the risk of disciplinary action, lawsuits and criminal prosecution. To mitigate that risk, police take a more passive approach. Data shows a precipitous decline in law enforcement activity from last June through this February. We found that across the 10 major cities we studied, deadly violence rose as engaged policing fell. Cities that cut (or threaten to) police budgets often saw the largest drops in active policing and the increases in homicide... Legitimate, constitutional preventive policing reduces crime, and when police face official barriers to otherwise lawful enforcement, crime rises. In 2015, when an ACLU lawsuit reduced Chicago police’s ability to make stops and searches, Windy City killings jumped 58% as street stops fell 82% in 2016, according to University of Utah research. Similarly, Baltimore prosecutor Marilyn Mosby’s 2015 weak case against the cops in the Freddie Gray incident (all charges were later dropped or ended in acquittal), and her hostility toward the cases police sent to her office, demoralized officers and deterred proactive policing. Over the next 12 months, arrests fell 28% as shootings jumped and murder rose 55% to make Baltimore America’s murder capital that year. That violence has not abated as overall arrests continue to plummet each year as police further disengage. Philadelphia hit a 30-year high with 500 homicide victims in 2020 and more than 100 in 2021 so far. As progressive District Attorney Larry Krasner has dropped 50% of both drug and illegal gun cases, police have reduced vehicle and pedestrian stops by 72%. In 2020, overall arrests fell by a third, including a 20% drop for violent crimes. Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw grudgingly admitted that public officials’ attacks demoralized police, encouraging de-policing... Today’s increasingly hostile work environment for law enforcement has made them more risk averse, reactive and discouraged. Now, veteran officers are running for the exits, putting in their retirement papers at a record clip. Those who remain on the force are disempowered, so they disengage from the hardest, and riskiest, but most necessary types of police work."
Why the Crime Wave Is a Disaster for Progressives - The Atlantic - "Baltimore isn’t the only place where this de-policing occurred alongside a large increase in violence. Research by the Harvard economist Roland Fryer found that when cities encounter both a viral incident of police use of force and a federal or state investigation, homicides tend to rise as police start making fewer stops. One possible explanation for the past year’s surge of violence would be that we’re seeing a sort of national version of what happened in Baltimore. The political climate may have made police reluctant or averse to doing their job, resulting in an under-policing of crime that could be associated with the increase in shootings and homicides. Recent research by the University of Utah’s Paul Cassell suggests that decreased policing in some cities last summer was associated with a spike in murders. Many on the left may be quick to counter that I’m ignoring the pandemic. Couldn’t the upheaval brought about by the coronavirus pandemic have driven people to commit depraved acts of violence, as New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio seemed to argue when he suggested that the uptick was “clearly related, in part, to the coronavirus and to the fact that people are cooped up”? But that theory fails to explain why other countries didn’t see similar increases in murders. The homicide rate in Canada barely budged last year (although Canada is not nearly as armed as we are). Homicides in Mexico actually declined (albeit minimally), and El Salvador, which is typically the most unsafe country outside of a war zone in the world, saw its lowest homicide rate in more than 20 years. (The stay-at-home orders in particular may have helped curb crime globally.) I’m sure that many progressives don’t buy the argument that quality policing is essential to controlling violent crime, but many voters do... Many progressives don’t seem to share that view, and are quick to downplay what’s happening in the United States today. A reported piece in The Guardian warns that “police and politicians routinely share misleading, out-of-context crime statistics to advance their agendas,” while telling the reader that “Americans overall are much less likely to be killed today than they were in the 1990s.” This may be true, but it’s just as true that violent crime is a real crisis in certain places—harming certain communities—right now. Violent crime is not equally distributed across the United States. It’s not even equally distributed across the average city. In New York City, 96 percent of shooting victims last year were Black or Hispanic. Perhaps unsurprisingly, polling conducted in June found that the New Yorkers who lived in the Bronx, which is predominantly Black and Latino, were significantly more likely than Manhattanites, who are majority white, to believe that the number of uniformed cops in the subways should be increased (81 percent among those in the Bronx, compared with 62 percent of those in Manhattan). One-third of white New Yorkers disapproved of increasing police in the subways; 14 percent of Black residents disapproved. Peter Moskos, a former Baltimore police officer who today teaches criminal justice at John Jay College, in New York City, worries that many of the city’s anti-police progressives live in safe, upper-middle-class neighborhoods that will never have to experience the consequences of serious crime surges. “Stop telling other people how they should be policed,” he told me, “especially when the data we do have says that Blacks want more policing more than whites want more policing.”... Bellow is outraged by what he sees as widespread anti-police sentiment that doesn’t take into account why high-risk communities demand the presence of police in the first place. “I get so infuriated when I read something saying Black people wake up every day worrying about the police, or it’s going to cause more harm than good if the police are involved,” he told me, recounting the way that street violence impacted his childhood. “I come from a relatively large family—two brothers, three sisters. Your young sisters couldn’t walk outside out of fear. It wasn’t fear of the police. In fact, you were hoping for a police car to come by every once in a while.” Even if the levels of violence return to pre-2020 levels, that would hardly be an accomplishment. Chicago recorded 650 murders in 2017. Japan, which has 46 times as many people, had 307 homicides the same year. We’ve simply come to accept a level of violence in this country that much of the rest of the world—from poor, developing countries such as Vietnam to wealthy nations such as the United Kingdom—can’t even imagine. Ignoring that level of human suffering is hardly progressive, and it isn’t hysterical to say so."
Black Lives Matter leader Patrisse Cullors secretly dumped from TV deal - "Warner Bros Television Group secretly ended a multi-platform deal with Patrisse Cullors, the former leader of Black Lives Matter... no shows were produced under the deal, despite Cullors saying she planned dramas, comedies, documentary series and animated programming for children"
Meme - "When Marxists get angry *BLM riots*
"When conservatives get angry *unsold Bud Light*
‘A girl at our school has decided she identifies as a cat’ - "his youngest sister, in her fifth job interview for a charity management role, was told that the interviewer had “woken up the day after George Floyd was murdered and checked my privilege”. “The interviewer then asked my sister, ‘what have you done to check your privilege and live diversity?’ “My sister, who is white and speaks fluent Spanish, had previously been CEO of several charities working primarily with lower income Hispanic and black citizens, as well as the disabled. My sister responded she had devoted her entire career to working in the charity sector and that her success with these organisations spoke for itself. “She was turned down for the job with the explanation that her experience did not give her ‘sufficient appreciation of diversity or white privilege’. She remains jobless.”"
Morris dancers ditch black face-paint for blue over racism concerns - "One of the Hampshire-based Hook Eagle Morris Men, who performed their first dance show in more than a year on Saurday to mark the May Day dawn, said it might be the only change the group has undergone since it was set up three decades ago. It comes after the Joint Morris Organisations, an umbrella group for morris dancers, called for an end to full-face black makeup last summer in response to the Black Lives Matter movement... the tradition of covering one’s face with soot derives from poor farm workers in the 1400s who would use it to disguise themselves so they could beg, which was illegal at the time."
Controversial troupe of Morris dancers who were thrown out of a national body dance again - "A controversial dance troupe who were kicked out of the national dancing body for refusing to stop blacking up their faces have been backed by a BAME charity who say it is part of their 'rich cultural tradition'. Members of the Britannia Coconut Dancers in Bacup, Lancashire, split from The Joint Morris Organisation, the umbrella group which represents the country's 800 dancing teams, after being told to stop painting their faces black last year. The dance body ruled that 'full face black or other skin tone make-up was a practice that had the potential to cause deep hurt' and members must stop in response to the Black Lives Matter campaign. But local ethnic minority charity, Lancashire BME Network, have now backed the dance troupe and said they had 'never seen it as a racial thing' within the context... 'Our age-old tradition is embedded in the hearts and souls of the people of Bacup, Rossendale and overseas. 'We have discussed the use of black face make-up in great detail and have come to a unanimous decision that this will continue to be part of our unique mining tradition.'... The charity said the use of blackface was not racist within the context as it was related to underpaid mill workers 'who painted their face black so their employers would not know that they were dancing for extra money'."
We are living through a frenzy of conformity | The Spectator - "In these ongoing culture wars, it never ceases to amaze me how much those who are supposedly on ‘the right side of history’ seem to thrive on bullying and dehumanising those who disagree. They’re like the inquisitors of the Middle Ages, incinerating the Cathars in the name of love... Is it really any great leap to suppose that the same activists who would see a statue of Mahatma Gandhi toppled for his ‘problematic’ views might not wish the same fate on Eric Gill’s sculpture of Prospero and Ariel on the facade of the BBC’s Broadcasting House? After all, this was a man who admitted to sexually abusing his daughters and the family dog, without the saving grace of having liberated India from the Raj. This week I’ve read the autobiography of the 16th-century Florentine goldsmith Benvenuto Cellini, whose bronze sculpture of Perseus with the head of Medusa is one of the defining images of Italian Mannerism. In spite of his claim to have developed a visible halo, it is clear that Cellini was no saint. He admits to seducing a 13-year-old girl, committing multiple homicides, and conjuring demons in the Colosseum. His Perseus stands in the Piazza della Signoria in Florence, his eyes lowered from the severed head he proudly holds aloft. It is an unforgettable sight, at once elegant and brutal, and I am relieved that the mania for expunging the sins of the past has not caught the imagination of our Italian cousins. This bloodlust for moral purity has been extended to old comedy shows. Streaming services have been busy giving the Year Zero treatment to the likes of Little Britain and The Mighty Boosh. Even the famous ‘Don’t mention the war’ episode of Fawlty Towers was caught up in the purge, before being fished out of the memory hole after a public backlash. I have no objection to those who might find these shows offensive, but surely the best solution is simply not to watch them"
Virginia bill allowing assaulting a police officer to be a misdemeanor fails
From 2020
Escape The Echo Chamber - Posts | Facebook - "Fiery but mostly peaceful protests after police shooting"
"Three of the four officers in the George Floyd killing were passive. Only one held his knee to the Floyd’s neck. Would it be fair to say the officers were “mostly peaceful”? Some believe Officer Chauvin’s actions weren’t violent. Some believe that crimes against property aren’t violent... If 1000 people show up and only 100 are throwing rocks and explosives, is the group ‘mostly peaceful’? If a protest group holds a protest and doesn’t control a few violent attendees, is that group ‘mostly peaceful’? If a protest group schedules a protest so that it ends at night, when the violence consistently takes over, is it non-violent? Is ‘mostly peaceful’ similar to being ‘mostly pregnant’? Perhaps we need to move back to the old language when “protests turned violent”. First they were peaceful, then they weren’t"
Adora Nwofor charged with assault in protest fight - "Adora Nwofor, 47, of Calgary, has been charged with one count of assault and one count of mischief. "Hate motivation was deemed a factor in the incident"... She is the second person to be charged in the incident. Taylor McNallie, 32, of Calgary, has been charged with two counts of assault, one count of sexual assault and one count of unlawful confinement. Following an investigation by the hate crime prevention team, hate motivation was applied to the charges."
Anti-racism protester Taylor McNallie arrested in courtroom moments after assault conviction - "Within minutes of anti-racism advocate Taylor McNallie being convicted Thursday of assault and mischief after incidents at the Calgary Courts Centre, two police officers entered the courtroom and arrested her again. McNallie was taken into police custody on charges related to a protest in May outside Western Canada High School on International Day Against Homophobia. Calgary police say a youth and a man were victims of a group assault. Police have labelled McNallie's new charges — assault, sexual assault and unlawful confinement — as hate-motivated... McNallie was accused of assaulting an off-duty sheriff and a photographer outside the Calgary Courts Centre in the summer of 2021. She was acquitted of assaulting the photographer but convicted of assaulting the off-duty sheriff. She was also found guilty of mischief for breaking the photographer's glasses and pouring water on his equipment. Over a two-week period, McNallie and others gathered in front of the Calgary courthouse, protesting the sentence handed to Const. Alex Dunn. The alleged it wasn't enough. Dunn had been convicted of assault causing bodily harm and, at the time, had been handed a one-month sentence, to be served at home, for the violent assault of a young Black woman. McNallie and other protesters were calling for Dunn to be fired."
