8 years ago
31
An ‘unarmed’ white teen was shot dead by police. His family asks: Where is the outrage?
Is no one talking about Zach Hammond's death because he is white?
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https://www.washingtonpost.com
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So many people of the #alllivesmatter crowd are making a stink about how nobody is outraged by this. People are outraged, it's just that #blacklivesmatter was driven by the black community who were sick of nobody caring about black killings. Like, police brutality is horrible and if white people are upset about white people being killed by police, why don't we make our own anti-police brutality movement? Why are so many people expecting the blacklivesmatter movement to watch out for our white asses?
I bet if we created our own movement and worked together with other anti-brutality movements, it would be so much more successful than sitting around complaining that other people aren't outraged! Be outraged and show others why they should be as well!
^^^This, a thousand times. While the #blacklivesmatter movement stands against police brutality and injustice, the black community has had to put a lot of time and activism into making it a nationwide campaign. If the #alllivesmatter crowd also wants to stand against police brutality and injustice, then they are welcomed to stand with BLM in that effort. Instead, ALM seems to be working against BLM.
By the way, when somebody says "Black Lives Matter," they aren't saying "ONLY Black Lives Matter." The #alllivesmatter crowd might think BLM is exclusionary, but it is not --- What they are saying is, in the midst of so many occurrences of brutality and killings, that yes, black lives matter too.
Exactly! BLM isn't saying that only black lives matter, what it's pointing out is that black lives (which are part of all lives) matter, since they have for so long been ignored.
Yeah, and I thought that adults would understand this, but I see politicians getting it wrong...even Hillary fucking Clinton! She's in front of a congregation at a black church, and she says "all lives matter". It's like, you wouldn't stand up in front of a black church and say "Why don't we have White History Month?" The answer is no, no you would not.
Unfortunately, I know some adults who do complain that there's no white history month, but it's only when there are no POC around.
My wife and I argue about this a lot as a bi-racial couple. It's tough. I know what its like to be on the other side of that brutality front. Its been happening to my people for a long while. But it's new to her. But honestly I believe that this is probably the most sensible answer. But the thing is those in power will COINTELPRO those groups so fast they won't even get to join up as a single mass. People fallway to hatred far too easily and the status quo supports that. You make seperate groups and soon enough they will be turned on each other. I remember when the Tea Party was a real progressive movement, my mother said the same thing about the Panthers. They got COINTELPRO'd and they fell apart or fell to avarice.
Exactly. I suspect they're already putting roots down into BLM, and we're just seeing the tip of the iceberg right now. One thing that gives me hope though is that over and over I've seen some real solid awareness of baiting tactics and infiltration, and the BLM movement really seems to be on their A game when it comes to protecting themselves from the typical COINTELPRO tactics.
That said though, I think if there's any hope of success, BLM has to bring in more than just the black community. Comments like what Johnetta Elzie has said "It is not the responsibility of black folks or people of color to do the labor required to address police violence in white communities." coupled with what the ACLU’s Nusrat Jahan Choudhury has said "True accountability requires independent investigations of police-involved killings of Black men and women.".. and scenes like this: http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=b91_1438047783 Where yes, they want to control the message, and yes they have every right to ask people to not record for VERY good reason (which was shared later in that video), the problem is the rank and file members of the movement, they don't want non-black members, they don't even seem to want non-black allies. They want to tell their own story, and that leads to their exclusion of everyone else. That's not how it's ever been done, to my knowledge, in the past. I get the fear of subversion and infiltration. But there has to be something, or like you said, "People fallway to hatred far too easily and the status quo supports that. You make seperate groups and soon enough they will be turned on each other."
This isn't saying that black America can't do it alone. It's saying that if those acting as BLM's leadership feel that there is no space for non-black members or allies... that if whites or Hispanics want to combat police brutality and lawlessness and lack of oversight, they need to do it for themselves and just for their own people... then we're going to be nipping at the problem of police brutality rather than swallowing it whole like we have the potential of doing. A cord of three strands is not easily broken.
As for what is going on with the whole "All Lives Matter" thing... I think that was ill-conceived from ... well from conception. The fact that apparently they haven't stood up and praised BLM for calling attention to the Hammond case makes me think that all they are there for is to detract from the BLM movement.
I think they kind of have to do it that way though. Even if they get media coverage, it's usually only a matter of hours before the media is showing reports of something, pretty much anything that would make it seem the the black guy deserves his fate. It won't happen with the white kid. No one will pore over his Facebook for drug messages, rap lyrics, him posing shirtless in a mirror, etc. that's what does happen to blacks that are killed.
Sorry, do it which way?
I don't think that a separate movement would be a good idea. The whole anti police brutality movement has become a race issue even though people of all races are being killed the same. Instead of getting angry because a black person was killed by police or because a white person was killed by police, we should be getting angry that people in general are being killed by police. Turning a problem that seems to be as widespread as this into a race issue just divides people and makes people think that it is unique to a particular group of people and they become complacent in the belief that it won't happen to them and are therefore less likely to try and do something about it.
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The difference is that his "whiteness" did not contribute to the likelihood of his death. This is what #alllivesmatter fails to understand, the reason #blacklivesmatter exists because people felt that it had to be said.
Very well put.
This isn't a race issue. This is a drug war issue. He was another casualty of prohibition.
wtf...
and
Wow. they're utterly fucking lying on this one.
For an extremely cynical viewpoint... why wouldn't you? You're police. Your word is automatically considered more reliable than a civilian's and in direct dispute, you win by default. The only check and balance against you... is your own department that's more worried about public appearance than getting things done. And even if some dirt comes up against you, you can pull out the "we serve the people and put ourselves in harms way for you" card to guilt trip people into trusting you.
If I was a characterless person... I'd lie every chance too. You've got such a high success rate.
This isn't an ideal case for outrage, that's why. At least not yet. Right now, we have a guy who had 10g of marijuana. Worth dying over? No, but having nothing but a bag of skittles, or being pulled over for not using a turn signal, is a better narrative. People are killed by police every week, it's too much for the populace to rage over every day. You don't have outrage over most people killed by police, black or white. This guy isn't an exception.
Some outrage should come when national news compares the two stories: Victim shot in the back, say coroners. Victim shot in the front, say officers. THEN you have the outrage. Not because of the color of his skin, but because the police are bypassing the justice system and lying about it. We're getting more and more stories where the police lie and, worse, the department protects them. But the outrage shouldn't be about Zach Hammond. We shouldn't carry signs with his name on it, or chant his name. We should add his name to the ever growing list of names of people killed by on-duty officers without due process. We push for more oversight, we push for more training, and we push for independent investigation of incidents. But that's small time outrage, with some real but, in the grand scheme of things, small change.
Is inequality a problem in our country? Yes, but right now not everyone says yes, people can ignore it. People need to stop saying "All Lives Matter" and "Black Lives Matter" are exclusive. It doesn't matter what the name of the movement is. Blacks and Whites aren't alone. Hispanics and Native Americans aren't alone. We're all working against each other when together we are stronger.
So if you want the movement to stop there, here's your slogan: Together We're Stronger. No matter what ethnicity we are, we call for police to be held to higher standards.
This is just one facet of American life where inequality shows itself. I bet you could start here with something small, then you carry that movement to the next obvious and somewhat related rally point: incarceration. Over 1 in 100 Americans are behind bars RIGHT NOW. Don't even bring race into it and you have something that ALL people can rally behind. Add in the fact that the prison population is 1 in 45 white Americans, 1 in 27 Hispanic Americans, and 1 in 11, 1 in ELEVEN, almost 10% of Black Americans are in jail (at least as of 2008, didn't look for more recent numbers)... you're on your way to a full scale revolution on your hands AS LONG AS you don't make it exclusive. Right now you have the current flashpoint (police brutality) to get the momentum, coupled with a larger problem that the rest of the world looks at and shakes their head (US incarceration rates) to get the world watching and cheering on the Americans fighting to fix themselves, next you hit with the big guns.
Poverty rates. This is the easy one. Don't even TALK about poverty rates for adults. Children get more attention, because they have NOTHING to do with their situation. Nobody can blame a kid for being impoverished.
22%. TWENTY-TWO out of a hundred. We're talking more than ONE IN FIVE children in the United States under the FEDERAL poverty line. http://www.unicef.org/media/files/RC11-ENG-embargo.pdf Check it. Now you've got everyone on your side. There's nowhere to run now, nobody is going to outwardly argue that almost a quarter of children being impoverished is a good thing. Nobody is going to say we shouldn't do something about it, and nobody i...
Read FullThis is truly disgusting. I don't understand why any officer feels deadly force was necessary in this situation. And it is sad that we are not hearing more about this. It's disturbing that most people won't hear about this kid who was gunned down by a cop, it's more disturbing they won't hear about it because of the color of his skin. People need to remember that the purpose behind blacklivesmatter isn't to negate the importance of anyone of any color being victimized. I hope his family and love ones receive justice for him.
On the one hand, I can understand the reasoning of the parents. "Compared to the other unarmed teen deaths that do get national outrage, what's so different here?"
However, the outrage that happens with Trayvon Martin's murder and the other deaths at the hand of police, stems from the years of discrimination towards and abuse of the black community.
This guy got killed by police, and yes, it's despicable, and the officers in question should be punished (and if they will be punished, that will be another arrow in the quiver of BLM, because the officers in their cases often don't get punished at all). But I doubt it was a race issue.
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