New Black Woman

Everyone has his or her’s own take on what’s the reasoning behind the London-area riots and why they are occurring. Some folks blame the economic woes, others blames racial and ethnic tensions. In his latest column for the Naitonal Review, Frank Miniter blames the English’s willingness to surrender their rights to bear arms. He uses a strange incident in which a “feeble” Englishman is forced to strip down to his boxers, handling over his clothing and shoes to “an impatient looter.”

Miniter bemoans what the average English male has become: a 21st century brand of Neville Chamberlain.

For context, consider the “Tottenham Outrage” of 1909. Two men in Tottenham, armed with semi-automatic handguns, attempted to rob a payroll truck, but the guards resisted. After one robber fired his gun, police came running. The robbers fled on foot. The chase lasted two hours and covered about six miles as other officers and armed civilians pursued and engaged the robbers. One of the thieves committed suicide and the other later died in surgery. One officer and one civilian also were killed. The bravery of the officers and civilians prompted the creation of the Kings Police Medal and the funeral processions for the slain officer the civilian passed through streets lined with mournful Londoners. Those weren’t the kind of people who demonize police officers or take off their pants for thieves.

Well, okay, sure, the English people did for too long accept the unmanly ditherings of Neville Chamberlain before World War II. Nevertheless, something has changed in the English character. These aren’t the proud men who once made the whole world look them in the eyes. I submit that one of the chief causes of their now emasculated spirit is the loss of so much of their individual liberty — like a child used to a parent fighting his or her battles, a people dependent on their government for everything cannot take care of themselves and are prone to childish outbursts.

By giving up their natural right to self-defense, for example, England’s law-abiding citizens have become defenseless both physically and psychologically. The loss of their right to self-preservation has created a culture of dependency on government (for protection and so much more) that has helped neuter the English male. This has also prompted some English citizens to blame the police for the crime rates that law enforcement is legally constrained from doing anything practical to fight.

(Note Miniter’s subconscious race baiting by comparing the London riots to the 1992 Los Angeles riots in the above paragraph of the story)

Of course, what’s Miniter’s solution: re-arm the Brits with guns–lots of ‘em. Ever since England began licensing and registering gun owners, it has been “easy for the government to take guns from law-abiding citizens after a mass-murderer in Hungerford killed 16 people in 1987.” The English succumbed to their final act of destroying masculinity when the government mandated they turn over their guns by Feb. 27, 1998.

Yet, few have subsequently pointed to the victims of this anti-freedom gun confiscation. The English papers haven’t interviewed victims of rape and other crimes and asked what they might have done if they had the ability to defend themselves from criminals. 

Miniter stipulates this mass violation of individual liberty has led to the increase of crime in the country.

Curbing violence, naturally, was the goal English politicians said they’d attain in return for law-abiding citizens’ handing over this basic human liberty; however, after the U.K. disarmed its population, England attained the highest burglary rate and one of the highest rates for violent crimes of the industrialized nations, according to the International Crime Victims Survey carried out by the Dutch Ministry of Justice in 2000. As the Guardian put it on Feb. 23, 2001, the study “shows England and Wales as the top of the world league with Australia as the countries where you are most likely to become a victim of crime.” More recently, on July 3, 2009, England’s newspaper the Daily Mail reported that “Britain’s violent crime record is worse than any other country in the European Union, it has been revealed. Official crime figures show the U.K. also has a worse rate for all types of violence than the U.S. and even South Africa.”

And, to be sure, Miniter backs up his argment by alluding to many conversations he’s had with Englishmen, who he paints as willing participants in the government takeover of their freedoms:

For example, I recently broached this topic with an English salesman at my favorite shoe company, Johnston & Murphy. He commented that he’s frightened by America’s “gun culture” and added that Americans needs to drop “their Wild West attitude.” I listened patiently before pointing out that England currently looks a little more like the Wild West. He wasn’t swayed. I pointed out that gun rights are women’s rights, as they make the frailest woman the equal of the strongest male. He kept shaking his head.

Ah, falling back on using the cause of protecting women to advance his own agenda. Always a predictable ploy among conservative white men…

Miniter goes on to recount how we Americans, appalled by the British government’s intrusion in to the Brits’ right to bear arms, sent about 7,000 private arms to English people. Because, you know, we Americans have every right to tell other countries how to protect and defend themselves from dangerous criminals. American imperialism at its finest, folks.

What bothers  me most about Miniter’s post is the long-standing delusion that being armed will somehow deter a person from becoming a victim of crime. What also bothers me is the never-ending of Americans equating masculinity with gun ownership.

(New Black Woman breaks it down)

Four New Orleans police officers were found guilty of “violating the civil rights” of two civilians and covering up the crime, according to an article from Reuters. A n additional officer was found guilty of helping the officers cover up the crime. You may recall this verdict stemmed from the Danziger Bridge incident in September 2005 that resulted in the killing of James Brissette, 17, and Ronald Madison, 40 and the wounding of four others.

Not surprisingly, the federal jury stopped short of calling what the officers did murder. From the Reuters article linked above:

The decision means the jury saw the deaths of Madison and Brissette as resulting from police willfully violating their civil rights, but that police did not arrive at the scene with murderous intent.

Officers Robert Faulcon, Kenneth Bowen, Robert Gisevius and Anthony Villavaso were found guilty of depriving citizens of their rights in relation to the death of Brissette and the shooting of four others, as well as using firearms in the deprivation of those rights.

Faulcon was also found guilty of violating civil rights and use of a firearm in the killing of Madison.

The men were also convicted of various charges connected to a subsequent cover-up, including conspiracy to obstruct justice and violate civil rights, and false prosecution. The fifth officer, retired homicide detective Arthur “Archie” Kaufman, was convicted on 10 counts related to the cover-up, including conspiracy, obstruction of justice, fabricating witnesses, falsifying victim statements, misleading federal investigators and falsifying evidence.

While there is some justice in this case, the verdict is still troubling because all of the witness indicated the victims were not armed. Some background from the Times-Picayune article:

After hearing a distress call over the radio from another officer who said men were shooting at police on the nearby Interstate 10 bridge, a group of cops piled into a Budget rental truck and headed to the Danziger Bridge, the portion of Chef Menteur Highway that spans the Industrial Canal. 

Officer Michael Hunter, who drove the truck, fired warning shots out the window as the truck neared the bridge. He stopped the truck behind the Bartholomew family, near the bridge’s eastern terminus. Police jumped out and began shooting, eventually killing one member of the party — Brissette — and wounding four others: Jose Holmes, 19; his aunt, Susan Bartholomew, his uncle, Leonard Bartholomew III, and a teenage cousin, Lesha Bartholomew.

The victims, who had sought cover behind a concrete barrier on the side of the bridge, were riddled with gunshots. On a video shot by a news crew on the nearby Interstate 10, almost a minute of gunfire was audible, some of it the characteristic rapid fire of assault rifles.

Brissette was shot numerous times, from the heel of his foot to his head. He was killed by shotgun pellets that struck the back of his head, experts testified. Susan Bartholomew’s arm was nearly blown off by a large-caliber round, and it was later amputated; she had to raise her left hand on the trial’s first day to be sworn in as a witness. Her daughter’s legs were torn apart by bullets. Holmes was struck several times, from his face to his abdomen, and had to wear a colostomy bag for years after the shooting. 

Police then chased down Ronald and Lance Madison, who had been walking toward the Gentilly side of the bridge, a ways ahead of the Bartholomew family. Hearing the gunfire, the Madisons began to run. Ronald Madison, 40, was injured. Eventually, Faulcon killed him with a shotgun blast to the back as he ran away.

Lance Madison, who was unhurt, was arrested and accused of firing a weapon at police.

The article noted the initial killings were greeted as a success for the department as they were seen as a way of restoring order to a city that supposedly succumbed to chaos after the devastating hurricane. The feds then took up the case and was followed by pleas that detailed “shocking” details about the crime. More from the Times Picayune article:

Their pleas contained shocking details of a coordinated cover-up that prosecutors assert was organized by Kaufman, along with Lt. Michael Lohman and Jeffrey Lehrmann, a former NOPD officer who became an immigration agent in Arizona. By late 2009, Lohman and Lehrmann had agreed to cooperate with federal investigators. They testified at trial about a whitewash that began the day of the shooting.

Those pleas led to others, starting with Hunter, the truck driver, and followed by two other men who rode out to the bridge that day: Ignatius Hills and Robert Barrios.

At trial, those three officers told jurors that after the shooting ended, they saw no evidence that the civilians had been armed.

Along with testimony from the surviving victims, the accounts of the cooperating officers provided the core of the government’s case.

This is why I think the verdict was bittersweet. The victims were clearly not armed and dangerous and posed no threat to the officers who stormed on the scene.

Across the country, the judicial system and defense attorneys have consistently done a great job in painting their men and women in blue as accidentally killing folks in the name of self defense. We saw this happen recently with the acquittal of the BART officer accused of killing Oscar Grant. Defense attorneys were able to successfully convince the jury that the officer thought he grabbed his TASER instead of his gun.

What do you think of the verdict? Was justice served in this case?

Looks like Pat Buchanan is using ignorance as his defense for referring to President Barack Obama as “your boy” on Al Sharpton’s new MSNBC show.

Buchanan appeared on the cable network’s Morning Joe to explain himself, adding “some folks took what I said as some kind of a slur. None was meant, none was intended, none was delivered.”

*Sigh*

When will people begin to realize that intent has not a damn thing to do with whether or not a comment or reference comes by as offensive? I’m sure Rep. Doug Lamborn who likened working with the president to touching “tar baby” didn’t intend for his comments to be racially insensitive and offensive. But they were.

I’m so sick of people with privilege hiding behind their intent or ignorance when they are caught having to explain their racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, transphobic or ableist remarks. Your intent or ignorance is not transmitted or communicated to the people you are talking to or referring to, so using that as your crutch is not a viable defense.

Buchanan’s reference to Sharpton about the president being “your boy” not only shows Buchanan’s subconscious contempt he has for the president, it also shows his lack of respect about persons of color as a whole. Referring to the president as “your boy” effectively reduces his stature as a man and as president of the United States. White men and women in the south routinely referred to black men as “boys” as a way of reminding black men they were second-class citizens during the Jim Crow era. Pat Buchanan’s reference is an extension of that.

So, Pat Buchanan, don’t insult the intelligence of the public by saying your intent wasn’t to cut the president down to a stature of your (and other likes you) stature. Your intent is no defense for your subconscious hatred of black folks and other persons of color.