The Chris Moeller Archives

The police state, Black Friday weekend edition

A headline today in the St. Louis Post Dispatch reads: "Police arrest 16 outside Ferguson police station; 15 from outside area." The white reactionaries contributing to the newspaper's online comment thread, who are legion, have already been beside themselves accusing instigators from outside the area of making the Michael Brown case larger than it needs to be.

There were 200 protestors marching in Seattle on Friday also, more than 100 each in New York City, Oakland, and Los Angeles, and better than one thousand outside the United States Embassy in London. Presumably all of these people are from outside the Ferguson area.

The sight of protestors-- representing the ostracized class-- disrupting order and interrupting commerce on National Shopping Day is going to rankle. But just to make one thing clear: They're not telling Americans that their country is racist. They're reminding them that it is.

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Apparently Michael Brown's marijuana use was a major theme for prosecutors during the three-month grand jury investigation of Officer Darren Wilson. Hmm, might it have been that old "reefer madness" that caused Brown to act like a "demon," according to Wilson's grand jury testimony? Maybe it was cannabis that allowed Brown to build up that "Hulk Hogan" strength.

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Cleveland police have struggled so far to turn up anything embarrassing in the personal life of the 12-year-old with the toy gun, Tamir Rice, they shot dead last weekend a second and a half after arriving at the scene of a police call. (Even the caller to the police said twice on the 9-1-1 audio recording that the gun was "probably fake.") But Cleveland's Plain-Dealer has helped the defamation efforts against Tamir by uncovering that his father has a criminal record, and that might be something the public will be willing to swallow. I'm not sure yet how it will aid in the defense of the officer that splattered the preteen's brains across a local park, but what's important is that white folks are doing our part to help.

posted by CM @ 10:41 PM