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The Politics of Racial Division: A dangerous strategy built on lies

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This is a segment from Mellisa Harris-Perry on MSNBC back in August. The segment is centered on white racism against black people. More specifically, on her perceived epidemic of racist white cops shooting and/or killing unarmed black men. She gave 9 examples over the last 10 years where an unarmed black man was killed at the hands of white cops. Here is the segment, and my analysis follows:


[video=youtube;H0th_Wm2oNQ]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0th_Wm2oNQ[/video]


Let's review what happened in the cases she cited:

Timothy Stansbury - Grand Jury indicted the officer for criminally negligent homicide and manslaughter, and determined the shooting was accidental.

Sean Bell - An undercover black police officer outside a strip club heard Bell's buddy, who was arguing with someone, say to Bell and his other friends "Get my gun". The officer followed and long story short, when Bell was in the car behind the wheel, the officer identified himself and told him to stop the car. He instead accelerated and hit the officer, then ran into a police van and several officers opened fire on the vehicle. All 3 officers who were charged with second-degree manslaughter, second-degree reckless endangerment and first and second-degree assault, were found "not guilty" at trial.

Oscar Grant - Was fighting on a subway platform in Oakland California and subdued by police. He resisted arrest and when one of the officers decided to taze him, reached and grabbed his regular gun by mistake and shot him in the back at point blank range. The jury had a choice between convicting him ofsecond-degree murder (15 years to life), voluntary manslaughter (3 to 11 years), or involuntary manslaughter (2 to 4 years). They agreed it was a mistake and convicted him of involuntary manslaughter.

Aaron Campbell - Shot by police who were responding to a call that an armed man was attempting to commit suicide at the apartment complex where Campbell was shot. A grand jury said lack of communication among officers, inadequate command and poor training were to blame, but did not indict the officer saying "the officer reasonably believed Campbell was reaching towards his pants for a gun."

Alonzo Ashley - He went nuts at the Denver Zoo during a fight with his girl friend and police were called after he made several irrational comments, attacked a security guard and threw around trash cans. When police arrived he resisted arrest and it took several police officers to try and restrain him. They had to use a tazer 5 times before he finally stopped fighting the officers. After he was cuffed they rolled him over and he wasn't breathing. The DA is not going to file charges and the Denver police chief said that the officers responded correctly to the situation.

Wendal Allen - This is one instance where a cop shot someone when there was no excuse to do so. It was during a drug bust and Allen was shirtless and unarmed. The cop was sentenced to 4 years in prison and Allen's family and him made peace with each other.

Jonathan Ferrell - A 2nd Grand Jury indicted the officer, but most of the details of the shooting are not known, All that is known is Ferrell was in a car accident late one night, knocked on a door for help and scared a woman home alone with her child who thought he was trying to break in. When police responded (2 black officers and 1 white), Ferrell ignored orders to lay on the ground and continued running toward police and ended up colliding with the white officer and was shot by him 10 times.

Eric Garner - The facts are already known

Michael Brown - The facts are already known​


After reviewing the 9 incidents Harris-Perry mentioned, 2 of the incidents were deemed accidental shootings and also in 2 of those incidents, the victim was deemed to have done nothing wrong or illegal. Here's what took place in the other 7 incidents:

In 6 of the 9 incidents, the victim disobeyed the police.
In 5 of the 9 incidents, the victim was involved in criminal activity.
In 4 of the 9 incidents, the victim either assaulted police, resisted arrest, or both.

... and the most important statistic of all:

In 0 of the 9 incidents, racism by the police was determined to have played a part in the victims death. That's right everyone... Not one of those incidents was shown to have even a hint of racism behind them, but that doesn't stop Harris-Perry. She comes up with other ways to lead people to the conclusion that racist white cops are killing black men.

One example was when she talked about the Michael Brown case. Harris-Perry said of the police releasing the store video that it was "someone who might be Michael Brown involved in a store robbery." In reality, it was the robbery that was alleged, not that it was Michael Brown in that video. Even Brown's family didn't deny that it was their son who was depicted in that video. Harris-Perry plays fast and loose with the truth by insinuating that the aggressive thug who assaulted that store clerk might not be Brown, because if she told the truth and admitted it was him, that could seriously jeopardize the entire "innocent unarmed black teen" narrative she was pushing.

To make it seem as though it's a real epidemic and white cops really are racists, Harris-Perry also informs viewers that over the last 8 years, there has been an average 400 people a year killed by cops and that an average of 2 black men are killed a week by a white cop. Of course she doesn't offer any statistics on how many were armed, how many were criminals, how many had assaulted police, how many of those had resisted arrest, or how many had ignored police orders. She doesn't even mention that based on her own numbers, the police also killed 5 to 6 non-blacks a week. She simply floated out that statistic knowing full well what the implications were and that many in her audience would draw a false conclusion from it.

If her race-baiting message wasn't crystal clear to everyone by now, it soon would be. Harris-Perry put an exclamation point on the entire "white people are racists" theme at the end of the segment by citing not once, not twice, but four times, the words of a Missouri judge who said that black men "Had no rights which the white man was bound to respect" as she showed images of national guard troops deployed at recent protests.

Those words were uttered over 160 years ago by a judge in the Dred Scott case. For you history buffs, that was 1854, a full 7 years before the start of the civil war. Harris-Perry wants her viewers to believe that those Pre-civil war sentiments are just as prevalent today with white people, especially white cops, as they were before slavery was abolished.

Harris-Perry is just one of many liberal journalists, pundits, activists and politicians who have jumped head first into what's become the hottest new strategy designed to rally support for the progressive political agenda... It's the politics of racial division and it's a very dangerous lie that is tearing the country apart.

What's really tragic about this kind of broadcast journalism, is that there are millions of black people, as well as millions of others in America who actually believe the despicable tripe that she and others like her are peddling. Their lie is sowing the seeds of racial discourse and animosity for years to come, possibly generations to come, all to keeps the votes coming on election day.

Grim17
12/29/2014
 
Grim17 said:
What's really tragic about this kind of broadcast journalism, is that there are millions of black people, as well as millions of others in America who actually believe the despicable tripe that she and others like her are peddling. Their lie is sowing the seeds of racial discourse and animosity for years to come, possibly generations to come, all to keeps the votes coming on election day.

What an absolutely pathetic observation. With conservatives thinking like this (Zero empathy), Black people will continue their disgust for Republicans. I think your blog post would be an embarrassment for most conservatives.
 
So am I to take it that you believe that falsely convincing black people that there is an epidemic of white, racist cops gunning for them and using lies in order to achieve this is acceptable behavior that's not causing animosity and racial division?

This is not about empathy. This is about exploiting people's deaths to push a lie. A lie that is dividing the nation for political gain and what I'd like to know is, why can't you address that?
 
Grim17;bt2984 said:
So am I to take it that you believe that falsely convincing black people that there is an epidemic of white, racist cops gunning for them and using lies in order to achieve this is acceptable behavior that's not causing animosity and racial division?
She did not say there was a an epidemic, in fact those names she mentioned occurred in the last tens years and she noted they were unarmed. What lies did she say?
This is not about empathy. This is about exploiting people's deaths to push a lie. A lie that is dividing the nation for political gain and what I'd like to know is, why can't you address that?
I know it's not empathy to you, because you don't have any for black people. You are not unlike many conservatives today, you don't appreciate what black people have endured in this country because you grew up white. You think that because we have a black president, racism is over. Well it isn't but it has gotten better since the 1960's.
Exploiting peoples deaths? Do you mean like what conservatives are doing with the four deaths in Benghazi?

The very worst thing you wrote in your blog post was that she was doing this to divide the country to gains votes. That's absolutely nuts, to believe that you must think she doesn't care about those who died at the hands of police. Oh, and her show is on Saturday and Sunday mornings and there are very few people watching it.
 
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pbrauer;bt2985 said:
She did not say there was a an epidemic, in fact those names she mentioned occurred in the last tens years and she noted they were unarmed. What lies did she say?

Epidemic was my word, not hers.

The lies she told were obvious. Her entire segment boiled down to the quote she used and repeated 3 times. She said that black men "Had no rights which the white man was bound to respect." That is clearly a declaration by Harris-Perry, that white men, or in this case, white cops, are racists who believe that black men aren't entitled to the same respect and rights as others. To substanciate her assertion, she used those 9 examples of un-armed black men who were killed at the hands of white police officers and that Pete is the lie.


It's a lie because in only 2 of the 9 cases were cops found to be criminally liable, 1 case the cop was aquitted of wrong doing, and the other 6 cases nobody was even indicted for wrong doing, because the police didn't do anything wrong. The biggest thing that makes the entire segment a lie, is the fact that no evidence what so ever has ever come to light in any of the 9 examples she used, that indicated that racism played any part at all, in any one of those 9 incidents that she cited to substanciate that segment.


To substanciate the accusation that white cops are killing black men because they are racist, a person would need to provide examples where there is at least some evidence to support that claim. Melissa Harris-Perry not only failed to do this, but presented 9 exampes that falsely led her audience to believe did in fact support her claim.


If you disagree Pete, them please show me the evidence that indicates that racism was a factor in the deaths of any of those 5 men.

... and another thing, if you want this in the forum, be my guest and present it in any manner you wish. You have my permission to post any or all of it, using whatever headline you like.
 
Deleted due to avoidance and liberal spin.
 
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pbrauer;bt2987 said:
Well Grim, I hate to must tell you, those words she repeated three times, were not her words, they were the words of Roger B. Taney the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott case.

No **** Pete... Can you not remeber the things you read just a few hours ago?

At least here, I can remove the garbage you post.
 
Grim17;bt2988 said:
No **** Pete... Can you not remeber the things you read just a few hours ago?

At least here, I can remove the garbage you post.
I apologize, I was very busy and had much on my mind and I screwed up. I am Sorry.

I was going to post your blog in a forum, but I decided against it. It's not worth my time.
 
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