10 votes

Daily thread for news/updates/discussion of George Floyd protests - June 12

Automatically posted
Tags: usa, recurring.daily, george floyd, police.brutality

This thread is posted daily - please try to post relevant content in here, such as news, updates, opinion articles, etc. Especially significant updates may warrant a separate topic, but most should be posted here.

17 comments

  1. [6]
    Comment deleted by author
    Link
    1. [5]
      smores
      Link Parent
      You know... I never thought before about how unbelievable it is that the KKK isn't labelled as a terrorist organization. They check every single box, and seem to have largely escaped...

      You know... I never thought before about how unbelievable it is that the KKK isn't labelled as a terrorist organization. They check every single box, and seem to have largely escaped categorization by virtue of simply being older than the War on Terror, and probably some help from the fact that a not insignificant portion of the people making the rules agree with their ideology on some level.

      13 votes
      1. [4]
        moocow1452
        Link Parent
        They're a domestic organization, and the legal definition of terrorists only extend to external groups, for better or worse. Same reason our President can't label antifa as terrorists.

        They're a domestic organization, and the legal definition of terrorists only extend to external groups, for better or worse. Same reason our President can't label antifa as terrorists.

        15 votes
        1. [2]
          cfabbro
          Link Parent
          For those curious about this: https://www.newsday.com/opinion/commentary/donald-trump-antifa-terrorist-group-gugino-protests-1.45592534

          For those curious about this:

          Q: What does it mean to "designate" something a terrorist group?

          A: The federal government usually uses the term "designate" for officially assigning a group to the Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) list, as enabled by Section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act. The State Department, in coordination with other stakeholders, decides which groups gets designated. As its name implies, the list only contains groups foreign to the United States, such as Abu Sayyaf Group, which operates in the Philippines, and Boko Haram, based in Nigeria. Thus by definition, Antifa, or at least U.S. Antifa, cannot be on this list.

          However, aside from that list, the State or Treasury Department can designate other foreign entities as terrorists, like the Russian Imperial Movement, under Executive Order 13224. Designation as an FTO requires U.S. financial institutions to freeze the designated groups' assets, and it makes it illegal for Americans to provide "material support" to the groups. Under these two methods combined, the federal government has designated dozens of groups around the world as terrorists, although scholars debate whether these sanctions have much effect.

          The United States has no comparable domestic terrorism statute, although some observers suggest that Congress should pass one. There is no U.S. government list of domestic terrorist groups.

          So it's not clear what Trump means by promising to designate Antifa as a terrorist group.

          https://www.newsday.com/opinion/commentary/donald-trump-antifa-terrorist-group-gugino-protests-1.45592534

          6 votes
          1. smores
            Link Parent
            Huh! I truly had no idea, thanks for sharing this.

            Huh! I truly had no idea, thanks for sharing this.

            3 votes
        2. psi
          Link Parent
          Although it is, of course, hardly reassuring that Trump has decided anti-fascists are deserving of the label but not the KKK.

          Although it is, of course, hardly reassuring that Trump has decided anti-fascists are deserving of the label but not the KKK.

          5 votes
  3. [2]
    Comment deleted by author
    Link
    1. patience_limited
      Link Parent
      Plenty of evidence that in the U.S., the policing is making the risks worse, rather than the protests themselves.

      Plenty of evidence that in the U.S., the policing is making the risks worse, rather than the protests themselves.

      5 votes
  6. Gaywallet
    (edited )
    Link
    An aerial look at the black lives matter artwork Seattle's been working on (artwork by minorities). Some tweets showing it being worked on 1 2 An article about what's going on in CHAZ

    An aerial look at the black lives matter artwork Seattle's been working on (artwork by minorities).

    Some tweets showing it being worked on 1 2

    An article about what's going on in CHAZ

    5 votes
  7. spit-evil-olive-tips
    Link
    Seattle police retract claim that protesters tried to extort local businesses Assistant Chief says "We've heard, anecdotally, reports of citizens and businesses being asked to pay a fee to operate...

    Seattle police retract claim that protesters tried to extort local businesses

    Assistant Chief says "We've heard, anecdotally, reports of citizens and businesses being asked to pay a fee to operate within this area." It then gets reported as fact on right-wing news.

    And then, it happens again, when Chief Best says that responses to emergency calls, including rapes and robberies, have been delayed.

    Also picked up by national conservative media.

    5 votes
  8. [2]
    gpl
    Link
    Congressman Bobby (IL-1) Rush says cops lounged in his burglarized campaign office as nearby stores were looted Lightfoot Calls for Licensing, Certification for Police Officers These were two big...

    Congressman Bobby (IL-1) Rush says cops lounged in his burglarized campaign office as nearby stores were looted

    Lightfoot Calls for Licensing, Certification for Police Officers

    These were two big stories in Chicago the other day. It sets up a big battle between the Mayor's office and police unions - one that was probably long overdue. Still wishing Lightfoot would commit to some funding cuts, but this is a good start.

    4 votes
    1. Omnicrola
      Link Parent
      Things like this keep getting mentioned, and every time my first thought is : *wait, we didn't already have that requirement to be a police officer??". The fact that there's minimal training...

      Lightfoot Calls for Licensing, Certification for Police Officers

      Things like this keep getting mentioned, and every time my first thought is : *wait, we didn't already have that requirement to be a police officer??".

      The fact that there's minimal training needed, there's no federal agency for policing, there's minimal cooperation between police in different cities and states (specifically for tracking behavioral records) is just astonishing. This has been ignored long enough, this cannot continue.

      5 votes
  11. Kuromantis
    (edited )
    Link
    As real cops react violently to protests, fictional depictions of 'good cops' on TV get flak too

    As real cops react violently to protests, fictional depictions of 'good cops' on TV get flak too

    It was only a matter of time before the protests came for “Paw Patrol.”

    “Paw Patrol” is a children’s cartoon about a squad of canine helpers. It is basically a pretense for placing household pets in a variety of cool trucks. The team includes Marshall, a firefighting Dalmatian; Rubble, a bulldog construction worker; and Chase, a German shepherd who is also a cop. In the world of “Paw Patrol,” Chase is drawn to be a very good boy who barks stuff like “Chase is on the case!” and “All in a police pup’s day!” as he rescues kittens in his tricked-out S.U.V.

    But last week, when the show’s official Twitter account put out a bland call for “Black voices to be heard,” commenters came after Chase. “Euthanize the police dog,” they said. “Defund the paw patrol.” “All dogs go to heaven, except the class traitors in the Paw Patrol.”

    It’s a joke and ultimately just Twitter being Twitter, but it’s also not. As the protests against racist police violence enter their third week, the charges are mounting against fictional cops, too. Even big-hearted cartoon police dogs — or maybe especially big-hearted cartoon police dogs — are on notice. The effort to publicize police brutality also means banishing the good-cop archetype, which reigns on both television and in viral videos of the protests themselves. “Paw Patrol” seems harmless enough, and that’s the point: The movement rests on understanding that cops do plenty of harm.

    Cops are not just television stars; they are television’s biggest stars. Crime shows are TV’s most popular genre, now making up more than 60 percent of prime-time drama programming on the big four broadcast networks. The tropes of the genre are so predictable that a whole workplace sitcom, “Brooklyn Nine-Nine,” is layered atop them. “A police station was a shortcut,” Dan Goor, the show’s co-creator, has said, “because people are very aware of how police television works. You know instantly who the good guys are and who the bad guys are.”

    That shortcut now feels like a cheat: After images of a very special episode where Terry Crews is racially profiled were passed around as evidence of responsible police TV, others marked the show as “copaganda.”

    Even on television, the good guys are not always so good. In a recent report, the racial justice organization Color of Change assessed depictions of the police across television and found that modern cop shows “make heroes out of people who violate our rights.” Many of them, it argued, show the good guys committing more violations than the bad guys, making police misbehavior feel “relatable, forgivable, acceptable and ultimately good.”

    2 votes