But I think a lot of these issues are coming out of changes in the sentencing and incarceration laws of the past 10 or so years which has strengthened the influence of prison gangs on what goes on outside and how prisons don’t prepare inmates for life out of prison except to be more hardened. In order to be protected on the inside, they have to be gang members on the outside.

The “terrorism law” by law enforcement is to try to get gang enforcement tied into Homeland Security where most of the federal police funding is now focused upon and away from community oriented intervention and prevention program involvement (with most grants allocating about 25% of the monies which are usually in the form of matching funds for prevention/intervention programs). But suppression policing including racial profiling hasn’t done anything to alleviate gang violence in the last 20 or so years and beyond very short-term, has had the opposite effect for many reasons. Oh, they’ll say at a meeting, on the way over, we pulled over a car and there were guns in it but they don’t say they pulled over another five or so where there weren’t.

As both Radfem and I have pointed out to you, people *are* protesting and talking about black on black violence. And there’s a ton of work being done to reduce gang violence — good grief, do you remember the 80s? I do — there were times when I was afraid to walk down the street in my father’s Brooklyn neighborhood while wearing a solid color. Pick the wrong color and end up dead — me, a teenaged black girl who’s about as geeky and non-thuggy as they come. But it happened a lot back then. Things have improved so much since then, as a direct result of outreach work by churches, nonprofit orgs, and former gang members themselves. Does none of this mean anything to you?

Also,
nojojojo, the issue of black on black crime is, IMO, relevant to the issue of police brutality and abuse of power, because the results of both are the same…dead black and brown people and grieving black and brown parents, siblings and children.

So are the results of medical experiments by white corporations and doctors on black and brown people; so are the results of over-recruiting (and under-opportunity) in black and brown communities by the military; so are the results of differential sentencing standards for crimes perceived as “predominantly minority” (like crack use) versus those done mostly by whites (like cocaine); and so on, and so on. This is racism. All of it is interconnected and all of it has the same effect, whether we’ve internalized it and are inflicting it on ourselves, or whether white people are doing it to us. That’s how racism works.

But we can’t talk about all of it, all the time. In this thread, at this time, we’re talking about racial profiling by the police. There have been and will be threads talking about gang violence and other black-on-black evil on ABW in the future. For now, we’re talking about police evil.

In some of these communities people will be witness to a crime and won’t say shit, because of the infamous “no snitch” policy in the community…because they fear retaliation from the dealers and bangers. How are the police supposed find the criminal when people won’t talk?

I just find it interesting that when whites or cops hurt or kill us, our outrage knows no bounds, but when black people kill each other, people are silent…there has been talk of passing a terrorist law against gang members and leaders for a few years now, but black people were hollering about how it wasn’t fair…meanwhile gangmembers literally hold black communities across the country hostage with their violence and intimidating manner…they are terrorists.

Who will march, protest, be outraged for all the innocent brothas and sistas who have been, and who will continue to be, killed by black and brown people? My son is nearly 15, a good boy, never been in trouble, goes to school everyday…I’m sure some will march for him should a cops bullet take his life, but who’ll march for him should a bullet from thug/gangbanger/drug dealer take his life?

Based on what I see and know, not many…

My deepest condolences to Sean Bell and his family…the cops should have been charged with, at the very least, wreckless endangerment.

But let’s be real, if Sean Bell had been shot by a street thug, we wouldn’t be having any conversation about it. Just like no on is talking about that poor brotha out in Flatbush who was killed by a black thug.

Anyway — my point is, don’t assume there’s no anger about black-on-black violence within our community, particularly if you’re drawing that conclusion from the mainstream media.

In my area, there’s a lot of organizations like Mothers against Gang Violence, Stop the Violence, and others addressing violence within communities. Not to mention networks of religious leaders to walk the communities when there’s gang shootings. No one waits for Al Sharpton, or any national leaders to make an appearance when they march. I think it’s mostly at the grass-roots level and the media isn’t going to report anything that’s activism against violence in community because it’s too busy trying to label these communities as “bad” and their residents under a vast assortment of stereotypes.

But the police often don’t come out when called, people are scared to call them, people are scared to come forward with information on crimes (though they might anonymously call 9-11), the same resources given to White homicide victims often are not afforded to Black and Latino homicide victims. The police don’t care b/c they figure if the two or more fighting factions kill themselves off, then that takes care of the problem. Police making derogatory comments to individuals who do seek their help, like people like you are the problem, don’t belong (in their own neighborhood) and needing to get rid of drug-users like “you” who don’t work (this was to a Black female bank teller just last weekend) and so forth. And when police meet with community members on violence in the neighborhoods, they just tell them what they are planning to do (which is usually suppression-based) and don’t work with them or even really listen to them.

It’s interesting that you mention Philadelphia, Detroit and others have added Chicago for example to the mix. All cities with major police issues ranging from corruption to racism and misogyny to excessive force and back again and in all agencies this goes back decades. Ironically in Philadelphia’s case, the reasons that police officers gave for brutality including beating men of color and harassing women of color in the interrogation rooms was because they were pressured by their management and city officials to close out homicide cases with confessions whether it was the right person or not and to do whatever to get them. But how does that combat violent crime? Does it remove from it or does it instead make it worse?

I believe that there’s an intersection between community violence and police misconduct and that often it’s hard to separate the two even though some who work on the issues separately try hard to do so and maybe that works better in some places than others. But what I’m finding more and more is that you have to take a look at both particularly where they intersect. Police reform activists have to look at other policing issues such as complaints that there’s not enough police, they are not dispatched fast enough to stop a crime like a rape in progress and that often the attitudes of police are that no crime happened (as is often in the case of women of color who try to report rapes).

Many communities even those that don’t trust police are in a double bind because in many cases, it’s not that they don’t want police, they want to play a major role in police involvement in their communities and not just be occupied.

Violence prevention activists looking at issues within their communities involving police misconduct and profiling that foster distrust and the lack of willingness among community members to call the police. Working for accountability mechanisms which protect residents who don’t get assistance or even get abused as in one case I know involving two men who called 9-11 because there were burgulars in their house and then police came over and tried to profile them as robbers, handcuffing them and trying to take their photos before they were released without charges.

I think the Kathryn Johnston case is one where that’s so apparent. She’s an elderly Black women in a high-crime area and her family is scared for her safety from the crime so they give her a gun to protect herself but we all know that giving a Black woman a gun for self-protection isn’t seen the same way it would be if she were White. But who killed her? Who broke into her house? Who tried to frame her as a criminal to fit a profile? The only thing that exposed this whole corrupt scheme was her age. If she’d been younger, it wouldn’t have gotten a second glance.

First and foremost, the issue of black on black crime is not relevant to the issues of police abuse of power and racial profiling. We could all be beating each other down in the streets, and that still wouldn’t mean it’s OK for the cops — who are ostensibly public servants, here to protect and serve all of us — to roundly decide that black people should be searched, shot, raped, pulled over, tortured, or otherwise abused because we’re black.

Now, I’ll grant you — black-on-black violence is a problem. Violence period is a problem in poor communities, regardless of race, because when you put a bunch of people who are underprivileged and struggling to survive in one place, they’re going to fight with each other. Yay for capitalism. But it’s not the particular problem we’re talking about in this thread, so for you to bring it up here smacks of the “but why aren’t we talking about what’s wrong with black people?” protests that I hear so often from whites when we start talking about white privilege and racism. The problems of black people by black people are a subject of concern, yes. But there are ten thousand forums in the world for discussions of What’s Wrong With Black People. That’s not what we’re talking about here and now.

Also,

Everytime a white person or a police officer does something to us, we holler and march and protest (and rightfully so), yet we remain silent on the issue of black on black crime…some of us shake or heads, or “tsk tsk” at a particular incident, but we go right back to acting as if nothing happened.

Back in the Nineties, I participated in the Million Man March, which (among other things) was an effort to strike back against the crime — black-on-black and otherwise — that’s devastating our community. What was that, chopped liver? And since moving to New York I’ve seen several protests against in-community violence — but those don’t get on the news, and they don’t make the papers. They don’t usually attract Al Sharpton, either — but IMO no one actually in the black community thinks of him as our leader, so I don’t particularly expect to see him anywhere if there aren’t cameras there first.

Anyway — my point is, don’t assume there’s no anger about black-on-black violence within our community, particularly if you’re drawing that conclusion from the mainstream media.

Why isn’t Reverend Sharpton organizing marches and protests against the drug dealers, thugs and gangbangers who are making certain black communities a living hell? Just recently, a 41 year old corrections officer was shot in the head in Flatbush, Brooklyn…by all accounts, he was a wonderful man, everyone loved him, he was a good father to his son and daughter, and he adored his mother. A punk ass walked up to him and tried to take the motorbike he was fixing, and shot him in the head. We’ve had an epidemic of black on black shootings in Philadelphia, Detroit is out of control with this shit…and now it seems our girls are becoming victims of this violence…a 15 year old honors student in Queens was shot in the head, in front of her friends…one said she’d have nightmares for the rest of her life because she watched her friend get her head blown off. In Florida, a black woman and her son were viciously assaulted by 10 thugs (black) and after raping the woman, beating and cutting mother and son, they forced the mother and son to perform sex acts on each other…one of the four apprehended admitted that they were going to set them on fire, but couldn’t find a lighter or matches…

Everytime a white person or a police officer does something to us, we holler and march and protest (and rightfully so), yet we remain silent on the issue of black on black crime…some of us shake or heads, or “tsk tsk” at a particular incident, but we go right back to acting as if nothing happened.

There should be as many black and brown people (personally I don’t think white people or other people care) marching and protesting and blocking traffic over the us slaughtering each other, as there were protesting over Sean Bell.

If a cop shot my son, Rev Al would be at my side in a minute.

If a blood or crip shot my son, he’d be nowhere to be found.

In any case, I’m raising my son to understand that the police are no better or different the bloods or crips…regardless of what color the policeman.

More info on Johnston’s killing here and verdict, here.

Eight officers charged administratively

You can get killed just for living in… your American skin!