At some point in the (very) near future, we'll all be forced to realize that the deck is stacked against you if you're black in America.
It's just one of those inconvenient truths.
It's just one of those inconvenient truths.
This happened about 10 years ago in Arizona while I was in high school. As I sat in the back of a police car with my black friend, the officer asked whos pipe it was. Our silence got him automatically assigned blame.
I'll never forget the pudgy officer who took in our silence, looked directly at Josiah and said "well, you will probably be blamed for it." He then closed the door and shortly afterwards I was uncuffed and Josiah was taken away on bullshit charges none of us had the balls to take the rap for.
The deck is stacked. In my new town with new black friends they cannot believe that police don't even look at the car when I'm driving.
Regardless of the occupants or color of the occupants, a car with a handicap plate with a young white man driving is apparently not in the profiling training.
Josiah could have said whos it was as well, but we were both silent. The problem is not that friends aren't tattling over a fucking weed pipe, but that officers deferred blame to the black kid and not the white adult or the two white kids.
No, we didn't stop being friends over that, in fact we became better friends.
Jeez. You guys really think any of us would have told the cops whos pipe it was?
I can't help but read your comments as sarcasm because of their ignorance to basic street code.
You don't point fingers or speak names, even if you take a bullshit charge.
If they deferred blame to me, I'd have quietly gone as well.
As a white male I feel that all I can do is to share this injustice all I can and hope others will become aware (which so far sadly seems not to really happen).
Many times I've seen "public" ID checks in Amsterdam (especially those in subways) targeting just non-white people.
> Excuse for apprehension: I declinded to show my ID for no reason at all
Yep it becomes more and more a "comply or your guilty" culture. Not going well IMO.
If it's sometimes bad for white people, I only try to imagine how horrible it must be for people who are discriminated against (by public authorities) on a daily basis.
Fast forward to all those YouTube public-accountability activist taking photographs or video of the local cop shop from a public sidewalk, to be eventually arrested for failure to identify, or trespassing, or jaywalking, or loitering, or vagrancy, or resisting arrest.
Knowing who you are and where you live is necessary for the criminal justice system, but the same info may also be used to intimidate those who commit no crimes, but become inconvenient to those in power. Even the act of demanding identification may be intimidating.
As such, Netherlands citizens may wish to push back against the state's power to identify anyone at will, for no readily apparent reason. It's bad enough when the law is on your side and the cops overreach anyway; I can't imagine how bad it could be when the cops start to overreach and the law allows them to go even further.
The schizo thing : you are not required to carry ID, but you are required to show it upon request.
The circumstances in which it can be lawfully requested are somewhat limited.
You can be fined for not complying, which I was because I refused to show it.
Why did you pick race instead of gender? The justice system is far more sexist than racist, and if our society won't come to terms with how far the legal system is stacked against men, why would it ever come to terms with how far it is stacked against minorities?
And I use 'group' loosely since it is really more of a sub-culture than a defined organization.
Look at it this way, a black man that is unjustly shot by police is more likely to be shot because he is a man than because he is black. If we want to stop unjust shootings, we should focus on the factors leading most to them, or which racism is second behind sexism (and maybe third behind classism, though since class is less apparent in short interactions than race and gender, it may end up not being as big an influence until we get to the court room).
"The justice system is far more sexist than racist" - what evidence do you have for this statement?
"a black man that is unjustly shot by police is more likely to be shot because he is a man than because he is black" What about this one?
For the black man, passers by rushed him, knocked him down by force, and called the police.
For the white man, people pointed, talking loudly about "what is he doing", and one person called the police.
For the black woman, people ignored, regardless what she did to the lock.
For the white woman, people went to help her break the lock.
If random people have this sense of justice in regard to a fairly common crime like bike theft, then why should we be surprised if the criminal system have similar bias?