Monday, January 5, 2015

Symbolic Racism: A Look At The Science - 8

Good Police Chief
Today I want to talk about some interesting cases which illustrate the various ways that people contemplate racism.

These cases illustrate the fact that cultural trances associated with racism are the persistent type of cultural trance (Choose Your Trances Carefully).

The police chief in the photo to the left has an open mind as well as a social conscience.

This is in contrast to the prosecutor in the Michael Brown case in Ferguson, Missouri.

He sees his job as protecting the government from the people, rather than the other way around.

Perhaps the reason, in addition to his culture induced racism, is Missouri law (Must Be The Season of the Witch).

We may find out more about that in a lawsuit filed against the prosecutor:
One of the members of the grand jury that decided not to indict a Ferguson, Mo., police officer in the Michael Brown shooting has sued the St. Louis
"Black people shot my daddy"
County prosecutor who oversaw the case, St. Louis Public Radio reported Monday.

The St. Louis County grand juror, who is remaining anonymous, alleges that prosecutor Robert McCulloch's "public characterization" of the grand jury does not reflect the juror's own views.

“In [the grand juror]’s view, the current information available about the grand jurors’ views is not entirely accurate — especially the implication that all grand jurors believed that there was no support for any charges,” the lawsuit says, per the news outlet. “Moreover, the public characterization of the grand jurors’ view of witnesses and evidence does not accord with [Doe]’s own.”

The lawsuit asks for an injunction that would allow the juror to speak publicly about the Brown case. The juror is being represented by the American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri.
(Ferguson Grand Juror Sues Michael Brown Prosecutor). The prosecutor, whose father was shot by an African-American man, still has cultural trance circuitry in his brain, imposed on him in his youth and now built into his subconscious.

Some of the old school Jim Crow racism (Blind Willie McTell News) that has wormed its way into Missouri law will now be tested in a federal court.

The judge assigned is District Judge Rodney W. Sippel, the plaintiff is represented by the ACLU of Missouri.

The Plaintiff grand juror alleges that the public statements are not a fair appraisal of what the grand jury believed ("In Plaintiff’s view, the current information available about the grand jurors’ views is not entirely accurate—especially the implication that all grand jurors believed that there was no support for any charges." - Complaint, page 6).

In an ongoing Dredd Blog series it is shown that the militarization of the police has always been a danger to African-Americans, and is now a clear and present danger to all American freedoms (Will The Military Become The Police?, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10).

The recent rebellious attitudes of the NYPD (unlike the Police Chief pictured at the top of the post) are indicative of a recalcitrant force at odds with traditional American values (Police Commissioner Bratton).

They want to cling to their symbolic racism (Symbolic Racism: A Look At The Science - 3).

The next post in this series is here, the previous post in this series is here.