The Atlantic - Latest Comments in On the other hand...

Re: On the other hand...

dilettante — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 07:24:01 -0000

"I don't hold the reporters responsible for a dumb headline in a European addition."

You'll note my criticism was directed at the publisher: the NY Times

"But whatever ...13.5 percent of them are unknown."

Minuscule as it was,I didn't miss it,that statement sans grandma's 50 word quote, is 107 words, out of 8051, for a grand total of 1.3% of the article. I give it a fail.

"I don't understand your once more putting the NYT and Uhuru in the same sentence."

Correlation: the IHT headline "Murderer,or Victim ?", as if they didn't want to make that tough call. The equivalency with the Uhuru protest: Mixon= Victim. That's the common, or correlated event, you get it? The IHT headline "legitimized" that victim POV. I don't understand why the International headline was different, or most importantly why it was so off base from what I would imagine the vast majority of the local Oakland population (of all races) would feel about this particular individual. Mr. Mixon and his uncle were pictured in the IHT hardcopy.

The system failed. A congentital criminal, committed horrendous crimes, not really news in my book. To repeat "It's unfortunate with so many systems failures, such a compromised poster child was selected to show outrage by the Oakland residents, as well as the N.Y Times (publisher of the IHT)". And on further reflection, to perpetuate the idea that some people [black Americans?] would see Mr. Mixon as a victim of 'the man'.

Good day to you Sir.

Re: On the other hand...

brucds — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 17:19:01 -0000

I don't hold the reporters responsible for a dumb headline in a European addition. The Times story headline was "A Familiar Path in Months Before Shooting", which is a pretty straightforward intro to the story.

You seem to have missed this:

"But whatever illegal activities Mr. Mixon was engaged in were easy to hide. Mr. Mixon was supervised by an agent from one of Oakland’s three parole units, which have three dozen officers and nearly 2,000 parolees. His agent, who has not been identified, handled 70 parolees.

"It is a ratio that even corrections officials lament.

"If there’s any one thing I could change with a magic wand, it would be to reduce that caseload,” said Gordon Hinkle, a spokesman for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

"His agency has 124,000 parolees, according to the latest data, but the whereabouts of 13.5 percent of them are unknown."

That's not a "sappy liberal" rationale for the perp's actions, but an objective account of the public not being well-served by an over-stressed parole system that loses track of violators. Presumably, the social services available to help parolees steer the right course are also stressed, which again is first and foremost a pragmatic matter of public safety and only secondly some "social justice" issue. And, again, I don't understand your once more putting the NYT and Uhuru in the same sentence. There's zero correlation. Seems like "not even wrong" territory to me.

Re: On the other hand...

dilettante — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 07:36:54 -0000

I read a hard copy of the IHT. Just went back to my Thursday edition,(weirdly the headline is different on line). The the copy I bought here in London reads: "Murderer, or victim of failed system"? High Beam Research, (not the web version of IHT )- has the original headline. That indeed framed, how I read the article. So yeah, it kinda was *SAPPY* Liberalism.

Re: On the other hand...

dilettante — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 06:58:32 -0000

from the IHT/NYTimes article:

"The police and witnesses have painted a savage picture of Mr. Mixon as a man who stood over his victims, fatally...Mr. Mixon had also shown disdain for authority before his death, going to Modesto, California, without informing his parole officer, in violation of his parole. "He told me that he was ready to go back to jail just so he could change his parole officer," his father said."

His pimp stroll was highlighted earlier. You wrote :"Reporting isn't the same as expressing outrage...the best I've seen, frankly, on who this creep actually was"

On the whole- Mr. Mixon was a pretty outrageous character. That's what I got from "news" article. According to MS Word count the article was 8051 words long. **If** you include the 50 word sentence attributed to Mr. Mixon's grandma, describing how his parole officer belittled him the total word count devoted to the parole officers. e.g. "the system" was 157... that is less than 2% of the article.

You wrote; "Are you seriously arguing that with better oversight guys like this couldn't be either kept off the streets ... This isn't sappy liberalism,"

This article was exclusively about a criminal,NOT the justice/parole system. Full stop. No substantive argument was presented by the NY Times, nor Uhuru for that matter. Don't let your own biases color your reading of my comment.

Re: On the other hand...

brucds — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 12:16:35 -0000

That article appeared in the Times and is actually some very good reporting. Reporting isn't the same as expressing outrage - which is what blog comments like yours are for, legitimately - but to offer context. The Times reporters did that, uhm, successfully. You are engaged in opinionmongering, but they are journalists doing a very good job. It's not easy to disengage from gut outrage and look at a bigger picture in these moments. The bigger picture includes daily failures of the parole system. Are you seriously arguing that with better oversight guys like this couldn't be either kept off the streets if they're continuiing as bad actors or, perhaps in a few cases, directed to resources that make them less likely to return to criminal behavior when they percieve other doors as closing. This isn't sappy liberalism, it's common sense. Give it a thought before you take cheap shots or dismiss quite rigorious and thorough reporting - the best I've seen, frankly, on who this creep actually was without painting a phony picture or simply reducing him to feel-good "monster" status so we can just close the book on a guy who caused so much almost incomprehensible pain and destruction to others and go on to the next headliine. Your comparison of this Times story to the small band of idiots involved in Uhuru demos is bizarre. "(W)ith so many systems failures" this is as good a story as we'll find to examine some of them. People are paying attention. Your comment implies that nothing can be learned from such an utter failure to protect citizens and public servants from rogue parolees descending into the worst sorts of criminality. The guy was no "poster child" but the subject of a story that had substantive information about the path this guy took and the inability of the system to monitor him effectively and catch up with him before he ran totally amok. This is stuff I, for one, want to know.

Re: On the other hand...

dilettante — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 06:13:12 -0000

"In recent weeks, Mr. Mixon had started to carry himself with an unexpected swagger, something his cousin said he might have owed to a new profession: pimping, an occupation that paid for the 1995 Buick Park Avenue he was driving when the police pulled him over."

Mr.Mixon and his uncle merited a photo & coverage in the International Herald Tribune, it attempted, unsuccessfully to frame his death (& murder of the cops)as a failure of the parole system.link to IHT

It's unfortunate with so many systems failures, such a compromised poster child was selected to show outrage by the Oakland residents, as well as the N.Y Times (publisher of the IHT)

Re: On the other hand...

Gerard Van der Leun — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 23:16:17 -0000

"repeated on the black left (and likely on the radical right, too)"

I'm damned proud you slipped that balance in.

Re: On the other hand...

Jonathan — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 19:55:46 -0000

I live in West Oakland. A few weeks ago, my dog and I had to fight off a pack of dogs coming out of a yard.

Ah, Dogtown lives up to its name!

Re: On the other hand...

Other Mother — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 19:32:33 -0000

I live in West Oakland. A few weeks ago, my dog and I had to fight off a pack of dogs coming out of a yard. It was 2 days until someone from the city came to take a report, and by then the dogs and the kids who breed these dogs were long gone. This city's government is totally broken, and my problems pale in comparison to the people who live in fear of being robbed, raped, and killed in Oakland. Most of us have known for some time that we are fending for ourselves. Cops are overwhelmed, residents are fed up, and I don't know any good solutions. Is there anyone out there who wants to fucking RUN this city?

As for those fools parading around defending psychopaths, they're just trying to get a rise out of pissed off cops. If you live in the Bay Area long enough, you learn to ignore what you can't change.

Re: On the other hand...

irishpirate — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 18:35:54 -0000

There are idiots in any community. Those celebrating the murder of these cops qualify as idiots. In fairness I saw something the other day where people, largely black, were visiting a memorial for the slain cops and offering their condolences. I suspect there are many more of the latter than the former.

Those who defend cops no matter what they do are idiots.

Those black folks who defend any black man, and it is still largely men, arrested by the police no matter the crime are as stupid as the cops who look the other way at brutality and corruption.

If we had a sane criminal justice policy in this country these types of incidents would be fewer, but they would still occur. Lovelle Mixon clearly was someone who should have been locked away for life. One problem is since we have such a ridiculous percentage of our population in prison we can't correctly prioritize who needs to be locked away and who should be free. It would be nice to have total knowledge of someones criminal future.

Like Andrew Sullivan today I was disappointed with President Obama's answer regarding marijuana legalization. I can understand his reluctance to tackle that issue at the moment given the economy, but laughing was uncalled for.

Senator James Webb is moving forward with "prison reform" and I hope we have some broader "criminal justice" reform to go along with it.

Re: On the other hand...

DaveinHackensack — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 18:18:12 -0000

Ta-Nehisi,

OT, but are you planning a post on the current situation in Oakland? I ask because I remember you posting about that BART shooting by the cop.

Re: On the other hand...

Tonya — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 18:05:45 -0000

As TNC noted, this isn't just a Oakland issue..it's all over. Here's another example today:

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/032609dnmetcopstop.3e9c080.html?nTar=OPUR

As a black resident of Oakland, my mind isn't open about these marchers. It's tact and tasteless to do it, right now. I'm scared of cops- but my first instinct is not to come out shooting and for Uhuru to declare that acted honorably is just wrong.

Yet..I've never seen the inside of a jail cell, either. So you are right, circumstances dictate a lot.

Re: On the other hand...

Calvin Jones and the 13th Apos — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 18:00:17 -0000

When is the last time someone was shot by cops, that you saw the mom say bad things about her son? Whether he was guilty or innocent. As Springsteen said in Highway Patrolman:

My name is Joe Roberts I work for the state

I'm a sergeant out of Perrineville barracks number 8

I always done an honest job as honest as I could

I got a brother named Franky and Franky ain't no good

Now ever since we was young kids it's been the same come down

I get a call over the radio Franky's in trouble downtown

Well if it was any other man, I'd put him straight away

But when it's your brother sometimes you look the other way

Me and Franky laughin' and drinkin' nothin' feels better than blood on blood

Takin' turns dancin' with Maria as the band played "Night of the Johnstown Flood"

I catch him when he's strayin' like any brother would

Man turns his back on his family well he just ain't no good

Well Franky went in the army back in 1965 I got a farm deferment, settled down, took Maria for my wife

But them wheat prices kept on droppin' till it was like we were gettin' robbed

Franky came home in '68, and me, I took this job

Yea we're laughin' and drinkin' nothin' feels better than blood on blood

Takin' turns dancin' with Maria as the band played "Night of the Johnstown Flood"

I catch him when he's strayin', teach him how to walk that line

Man turns his back on his family he ain't no friend of mine

Well the night was like any other, I got a call 'bout quarter to nine

There was trouble in a roadhouse out on the Michigan line

There was a kid lyin' on the floor lookin' bad bleedin' hard from his head there was a girl cryin' at a table and it was Frank, they said

Well I went out and I jumped in my car and I hit the lights

Well I must of done one hundred and ten through Michigan county that night

It was out at the crossroads, down round Willow bank

Seen a Buick with Ohio plates behind the wheel was Frank

Well I chased him through them county roads till a sign said Canadian border five miles from here

I pulled over the side of the highway and watched his taillights disappear

Me and Franky laughin' and drinkin'

Nothin' feels better than blood on blood

Takin' turns dancin' with Maria as the band played "Night of the Johnstown Flood"

I catch him when he's strayin' like any brother would

Man turns his back on his family well he just ain't no good

Re: On the other hand...

Negus — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 17:56:54 -0000

man, you have to at least get T.I.'s name right

Re: On the other hand...

Jonathan — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 17:52:17 -0000

Some of my friends, growing up in the East Bay, had family that was involved with the Panthers. Almost all of them were living kind of trife, relative to the stated beliefs of the group.

As a kid who thought the Panthers were as cool and bad-ass as you could get, this was initially a point of disillusionment. But I think that any kind of strong dogma like theirs (or the NOI/NGE, for instance) leads to inevitable violations of it. We're all humans. I knew a 5%er back then who would sneak off to eat pork, or hit on white chicks. Prohibition makes the heart grow fonder.

Oakland's popping off right now, and there's a lot of frustration. But this is just disgraceful.

Re: On the other hand...

Joel — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 17:45:33 -0000

To quote Sullivan, "My gob is smacked."

Re: On the other hand...

Jennifer D. — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 17:43:34 -0000

I'm just across the Bay in SF and I don't like this march, its message, or the organizers. BUT ... then I read the comments section in the San Francisco Chronicle for the articles about this whole incident and the march and I get less sure. Because man is that comments section full of pure hatred, and yes, genocidal thoughts. People who think everyone in that neighborhood should be written off the first time they get arrested. One commenter: "Lovelle Mixon got exactly what he needed, he just didn't get it soon enough. Right after his first felony would have been better for all the rest of us."

Raised in a neighborhood where you know a large portion of the population doesn't view you as equal or even necessarily human (the comments section also contains many many references to "monsters" and "animals") and where "thug" is an actual career choice, maybe I would start to hate the police, and hate the world, and put no value on humanity, too. Maybe I would sympathize with this Lovelle Mixon more if my life were a whole lot different.

Also, in the Bay Area, this incident is being looked at with the Oscar Grant killing/murder fresh in everyone's mind. Intellectually, I can separate them. It's easier for me - I'm white and I don't live in fear of the police. But if I was "in it" would I be able to make this distinction so clearly? I'm not so sure.

So, I have an open mind about these marchers, the family, and also the many people who probably hold similar views, but would never march about it because they know how bad it would look and it also might make them a target of the police.

Re: On the other hand...

Green — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 17:42:40 -0000

J6 didn't kill 4 cops and rape a 12 year old. Yes, they were wrong, and some of them may go on to lead lives of crime, but in the end J6 was about them receiving disproportionate punishment for what they did do.

I think you'd be a lot harder pressed to find serious black folks getting worked up in any real numbers to protest this kids fate given what we know he did (killed 4 cops) and what he appears to have done (raped a child and potentially others).

Re: On the other hand...

Tongu — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 17:28:19 -0000

Re: "cop watch" - I'm surprised more folks don't consider CCTV. It's less intrusive, and a lot cheaper, than hiring a bunch of cops or following them around to make sure they do right. Film the perps when they're doing something stupid, and nail them later. Cameras don't discriminate, and they don't lie. If a cop shoots an innocent - everyone sees it (ref: the BART shooting). If a solid governance and oversight process is set up the system is hard to abuse. Successful CCTV programs are already in place (albeit with a limited installed base) in most major cities, and will only grow with time. Of course the old hippies and Uhuru f*ckers always oppose expansion of CCTV initiatives, but they've never really operated with the best interests of public safety in mind anyway. Bring the cameras, and bring them now! Gentrification is in full swing! Yuppies, Buppies and techies unite - film-f*ck the ghetto trash out of the cities.

Re: On the other hand...

Jamilah — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 17:17:54 -0000

Ugh. I didn't know this.

Ghetto and embarassing.

Re: On the other hand...

atlantapril — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 17:15:13 -0000

Thanks, sgwhite! I always wondered what was up with that commotion. I couldn't find any info on the hecklers. Now I know.

Re: On the other hand...

brucds — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 17:09:57 -0000

Others have probably noted this, but I can attest as an Oaklander that this "Uhuru" group is mostly a bunch of white folks, led by a delusional crew who got lost in the '60s. They run a used furniture store and sell food at the Farmer's Market in one of the most affluent sections of the city. A bunch of out-of-touch nutcases who are parasites on the black community and feed off of liberal white guilt.

Re: On the other hand...

Liat — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 16:58:59 -0000

From Uhuru:

"Knowing the history of how the police treat Africans, Lovelle Mixon felt he had to defend himself in the face of the oppressive police state. And he did so, honorably."

http://uhurusolidarityoakland.blogspot.com/

Re: On the other hand...

Liat — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 16:49:20 -0000

The Philly branch of Uhuru is fairly prominent, especially re: Mumia. 25 years later, they have fully developed a completely insular narrative of the Mumia episode that stunned me the first time I heard it, since it contradicts itself and the evidence so flagrantly. So I'm not surprised they'd be involved in the Mixon affair, but I do wonder what their complete narrative of events is, just for curiosity's sake. People have an awesome capacity to convince themselves of bogus things.

Re: On the other hand...

Incertus(Brian) — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 16:45:48 -0000

Not for me, but maybe that's because I always approached it from the point of view that the real problem in Jena wasn't that the Jena 6 were tried, but that the white kids who were involved weren't charged, and that the local DA basically told the black kids that he could crush their futures if he wanted to, and that they couldn't do a thing to stop him. The reason I supported dropping charges on the Jena 6 is because there was no way to rectify the situation by charging the other people who did wrong--fair in this case meant letting some perpetrators skate. Not a good solution, but better than what was being done.