Kshama says

[JKB]

K5 news is playing a clip of Kshama Sawant insisting that the mayor refuses to say that black lives matter, and so does his budget. This just after the clip about the budget financing police body cams.

Now, this forum has strongly insisted that BLM is all about dealing with police violence against civilians. Should we conclude that Sawant has no clue? Or possibly she uses BLM to mean something else, but it was extensively opined that doing so is racist.

Now, I do write this in the belief that cams both improve accountabilty and reduce the use of force in the first place. Both of those have been widely claimed.

Comments?

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[JoB]

investing in body cams is not the same thing as investing in programs for the black community any more than all lives matter is the same as black lives matter.

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[JoB]

and that doesn’t even begin to delve into the murky subject of body cams which are too easily turned off or permanently disabled

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[JoB]

if you scroll down this link you will find a pie chart for the mayor’s proposed budget. You don’t have to look closely to discover that health and human services gets a smaller slice of this pie than administration or even parks, recreation and arts..

this pretty clearly shows the value our mayor places on the lives of the growing number of people at risk.

could this be what Kshama Sawant was referring to?

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[JanS]

article with pie chart…interesting read…pie chart at bottom of article

http://murray.seattle.gov/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/2016-budget-highlights.pdf

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[JTB]

Kshama is a politician, so accordingly she will seize on any opportunity to make a point regardless or whether it is spot on or strained. It might be an interesting discussion to consider whether that is a reflection of how susceptible the electorate is to sound bites or if that’s just the way politicians operate.

I am struck that there doesn’t seem to be a readily available set of issues and goals put forward by BLM Seattle that one might use to reference against the mayor’s proposed plan for the coming year. Nevertheless, I think there are some obvious opportunities in Seattle to promote policies affirming that Black Lives Matter.

Of course the most obvious opportunity involves implementing the DOJ consent decree. I was disappointed to see the obvious reference to inertia/opposition from the police officers association to the use of body cameras. Similar organizations in other cities have embraced that technology as a useful tool in confirming proper use of police tactics. Of course, this is the same group that is contesting the firing of Cynthia Whitlock on technicalities, so what do you expect?

I’ll sort through the proposal again, but I didn’t see anything that specifically referred to use of community oversight (my term) of policing. I believe Chief O’Toole supports that sort of process based on her comments at a forum here in WS. I’m saying all of this without a clear recollection of the different entities that are intended to provide that community oversight. But I do recall from earlier research that they don’t have much authority or impact. I think beefing that up would be a good contribution to making Black Lives Matter. Accountability.

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[HMC Rich]

Tell me, why do many inner city areas all over this country look the same? Why are their way too many single black moms? Why are there so many blacks in prison? There is a huge problem. BLM is similar to occupy or the Tea Party. It is people reaching out for recognition and help. Now, I believe Shama wants to help but It is up to people to change what the elected vote for. It is the people who can stand up and change their lives. Now, are they going to throw the stupid people that interrupted Shama’s fellow socialist Bernie Sanders or are they actually going to try and put out a coherent message?

If they are going to say Michael Brown was a victim then I know they aren’t serious. If they want to address poverty, drug use, crime, profiling, black on black crime and murder, black on white crime, White on black crime, and racism, -and not one sided racism- then I will support them. I say let people make their own way but some lifestyle choices just aren’t productive. That goes for all people. And no more double standards. Stop using that One word. Build empathy. Stop emulating belt less prison fashion with your butts hanging out. That is the dumbest fashion choice EVER. Be loud and proud and be smart. People listen, usually, to common sense solutions. But if you are always blaming everyone else, then you won’t have an audience to support your cause.

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[JoB]

poverty is not a lifestyle choice

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[Smitty]

“Tell me, why do many inner city areas all over this country look the same? Why are their way too many single black moms? Why are there so many blacks in prison? There is a huge problem.”

It’s called “the Great Society”. The old teach a man to fish rather than give him fish…….

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[JanS]

so, Rich…you’re saying that they should act white……yeah, if they’d only act and dress the way I do/say…that’s the ticket. The way someone dresses has nothing to do with their integrity inside, just as the way women dress has not a damned thing to do with rape. Your white privilege is showing. And I won’t even get into the Michael Brown thing…it’s way bigger than him…but you disagree I’m sure.

And, tell me, why are there way too many single white moms living in our city?…WTF does single black moms have to do with anything, except show a bit of racism…it has nothing to do with how we treat them, how we treat anyone.

I find you post offensive from so many angles…but especially from you simply not getting it at all, and you just spouting things from your position as a white man of privilege.

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[JTB]

Rich and Smitty, you may have seen references to Elizabeth Warren’s recent speech in which she submits that Black Lives Matter, Black Citizens Matter and Black Families Matter as an expression of the continuing quest for real racial equality as commencing in the civil rights struggle.

Well worth hearing Elizabeth Warren

I hope you pick up on her important observation that 90% of all income earners didn’t partake in new income generated between 1980 and 2012, even though African Americans were more adversely affected because they were starting out with less. The nature of her speech was to highlight the disadvantages African Americans still encounter more than to address the systemic problems we all face.

Of course if you want to look further back into history to appreciate how the conditions developed that made the civil rights movement necessary, you have to consider the failure of Reconstruction that was assured when Hayes cut a deal following the election of 1876 that included withdrawing federal troops from the South. The white southern establishment rapidly restored segregation and racial oppression.

I do agree, Rich, that BLM is in early formative stages and yet to develop into a cohesive movement. But I did notice a comment on the BLM Seattle Facebook page challenging the people who disrupted Bernie Sanders’ speech to actually get involved with BLM, so there does seem to be some recognition that they were more opportunists than representatives of BLM.

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[rw]

Sawant fits into the opportunist category. She believes there is more to be gained from grandstanding than by working with Mayor Murray and any council members who aren’t in her alliance. Police cams and BLM should be discussed without Sawant as a distracting bully. Unfortunately she makes that very difficult.

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[JoB]

rw.. couldn’t that also be said of Mayor Murray?

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[JanS]

Mayor Murray has not done this city any favors, IMO – he is not right about everything…one doesn’t have to concede everything to his judgement, to get along. We do not see behind the scenes, so we truly don’t know their interactions. I also don’t think she’s a bully. She is an elected council member, and as such, has every right to her beliefs, and to stand by them.

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[rw]

I was not saying the mayor is right, just that Sawant’s approach seems to be to create a hostile environment and THEN negotiate under the assumption that her opening tactics strengthen her negotiating position. That qualifies as bullying.

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[JKB]

Regardless of whether he’s right, it’s the Mayor that the police report to. Not the council and certainly not to any single councilperson.

As for body cams, I hadn’t heard about there being pushback. Did I miss the memo?

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[JTB]

JKB, it wasn’t a memo, it was in the elaboration under each section of the budget:

“Additional outreach and negotiation will need to be completed before the cameras can be deployed, but lack of funding will not be barrier to full implementation. On the path toward DOJ compliance, the 2016 Proposed Budget also includes funding to deploy the Data Analysis Platform needed to appropriately track

officer performance and personnel management.”

I admit that I see parallels from the first and second sentences as informed by statements over time from the police officers association. I can’t believe they missed the opportunity to see Cynthia Whitlock out the door with a rousing “good riddance.” It would have done wonders to send a message to the ranks and to the community. Instead, they’re sending a different, sad, and disappointing message.

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[JTB]

HMC Rich, you got me thinking about my life experience and it leads me to ask, “what inner cities across this country” have you seen for long enough to actually understand what’s taking place in them?

I grew up in NE, lived in Houston, Denver, Oakland (incl. Emeryville), Milwaukee, San Diego and Seattle. So that informs my sense of what inner city life in those locales looks like. I’ve visited cities in the east and southeast but not long enough to say I have an honest appreciation of what life there is about.

So I’m just curious about specifically which inner cities throughout the country look the same to you?

Full disclosure, I did watch Beverly Hills Cop but I don’t think it gave me an honest sense of inner city life in Detroit.

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[JoB]

rw..

i am not a fan of Sawant’s personal style…

but it may be a necessary reaction to a mayor who hands his decision making process off to committees that meet in secret to write city policy as though their viewpoint is the only possible solution to this city’s problems.

Communication is a two way street with both parties responsible for the outcome.

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[JKB]

Before we worry too much about who’s been where…. So I was reading studies about police killings of civilians. More about that later, once I’ve had time to digest the numbers.

Washington Post reports very different rates, even on a state-by-state basis. Factor of 4x or so. Oklahoma and Arizona were the outliers – regardless of race, you’re probably just not safe there.

Anyway, the point is how much places differ. Personal experiences in one place might be perfectly valid there, but it’s not clear that they inform the discussion elsewhere or nationally.

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[JanS]

JTB…good point. Reading, PA was my habitat…and in the last 10 years was called one of the poorest cities in the nation…also, one of the most crime ridden. Spent a few years in Wash, D.C., too…definitely some inner city angst there…especially if you go to the suburb of Anacostia. I was just outside of DC in April of ’67, when Martin Luther King was killed…was supposed to take a bus home from DC to Reading, but..riots and fires prevented me from going to the Greyhound bus station which was in the middle of the rioting. Inner city Baltimore had lots of charm, too, as did Philadelphia.. Traveling through Harlem in the early ’70’s was a thrill, too..tenements everywhere. Tried to imagine what it was like to live poor there. Very sad, indeed.

Yes, we all need to check our privilege – passing through/by on our way to somewhere else doesn’t count. I’ve only been to the airport in Detroit, stopping on my way to Hawaii from DC.

That one doesn’t count.:)

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[JTB]

JKB, Yes I guess I veered a bit off subject in replying to HMC Rich although Elizabeth Warren’s excellent speech addresses how multifaceted the effects of systemic racism as are the challenges to overcome them.

My sense is that effective community engagement with SPD is necessary to shift the troublesome dynamic addressed in the DOJ consent decree. It seems the Community Police Commission set up under that agreement has not clearly established an effective dialogue with the SPD and remains somewhat outside of the implementation oversight. That appears to have something to do with the judge overseeing the case rather than the mayor or city council. The mayor actually called to make the commission a permanent entity but that doesn’t seem to be viewed favorably by the judge.

In any case, I think community-police engagement and on-going dialogue is important to address the issued raised by BLM. It ain’t going to happen through court orders or loud complaints alone. Sleeves-up-work.

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[JKB]

Spent some time going through data from the Guardian’s “The Counted” project, which attempts to document all the deaths due to police action in the US.

Overall the risk of being killed is the same for whites and Hispanics, and double that for blacks. Other groups were not significant in the data. But the risk to blacks varies a lot by location. OK, MO, OH, VA, IN, MD, FL, and the metro areas of SF and LA stand out.

There are places getting it right: NC, TN, MS, MI, and the whole New England region. This may be the only known time somebody called out Mississippi for excellence.

I read through the background story of every unarmed black in the list. Yeah, that wasn’t pretty. Several bits of good news: many of them were violent and clearly deserved use of force, several cases where they didn’t are already prosecuting the relevant police, and the total number is pretty low. The idea that law enforcement is out there gunning people down just isn’t true.

Many of the stories involved problems with Tasers. This is all anecdotal, but there were many stories about them being ineffective, lethal, or both.

So I agree that observing the higher death rate validly raises the question of why. It doesn’t demonstrate systemic racism. That’s a possibility, but just one of several. The truth is probably a combination of factors. I think it would be interesting to investigate pairs of culturally-similar states getting very different results: KY/TN, MI/OH, or MS/AL.

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[JoB]

JKB

go back and take a look at incident report rates and arrest rates

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[JKB]

JoB, is there something you meant to cite?

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[Author]

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