Wednesday, July 29, 2015

Symbolic Racism: A Look At The Science - 11

Where did America go?
I started this series as a blogger observing ongoing cultural dynamics, somewhat in the nature of a meme complex.

I was contemplating racist events which, in my clueless mind, were quietly flowing under the surface of society, ruffling feathers but not too much more.

It was an academic exercise to study things "down under the hood" (Symbolic Racism: A Look At The Science - 3).

I had no expectation whatsoever that the engine down under the hood would jump out of the engine well, and go through the hood, to explode onto the streets of America.

But it surely has, especially since I started this series well before even the infamous Ferguson shooting took place to start the carnage.

Our culture, like me, was totally unaware of the degree to which the subject matter I selected was actually spot on, prescient, and ready to explode into the public eye.

Now, a year and a quarter later, we are going on two thousand Americans who have been gunned down by a police force composed, to a frightful degree, of seemingly unstable minds (The Counted).

Please, let me repeat what I wrote in the previous post of this series, even though it is a bit redundant:
As I wrote in the previous post:
I began this series, on April 28, 2014.

Like you of course, at that time I had no idea that the Ferguson phenomenon would begin some months later on August 9, 2014.

In fact, by the time of the Ferguson phenomenon, I had already posted about half of the posts now contained in this series (Symbolic Racism: A Look At The Science, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8).
(Symbolic Racism: A Look At The Science - 9). The many police killings of unarmed black men brought out one type of criticism of symbolic racism, and now the mass-murder in South Carolina has brought out another type of criticism.
(Symbolic Racism: A Look At The Science - 10). So, after scratching my head and wondering what was going on, I remembered another Dredd Blog series.

Upon reflection of that series, I am convinced that Radley Balko was spot on and prescient in his book Rise of the Warrior Cop (Will The Military Become The Police? - 4).
The previous post in this series is here.



6 comments:

  1. The University and its police dept. may be sued under 42 USC § 1983 in the DuBose case (link).

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  2. off topic (and an IMPORTANT one at that), over at Daily Impact I dropped one of your many essays concerning sea level rise. Your comments there would be welcome: http://www.dailyimpact.net/

    Randy, feel free to chime in with your thoughts there too.

    Tom

    ReplyDelete
  3. off topic (and an IMPORTANT one) - I dropped one of your many essays on sea level rise over at Daily Impact and thought you might like to comment there.

    Randy, feel free to add your thoughts too.

    Tom

    ReplyDelete
  4. I read your comment over there Tom, and it is complete and well done, needing nothing more to be said IMO.

    ReplyDelete
  5. "The Battle for the Soul of American Higher Education" (Aviva Chomsky)

    ReplyDelete