The Atlantic - Latest Comments in Variations On A Theme

Re: Variations On A Theme

Tonya — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 18:45:10 -0000

Update: Cop who stopped NFL player in hospital lot resigns

http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/news?slug=ap-nflplayer-stopped&prov=ap&type=lgns.

Question: Should he quit, or should he just apologize, learn his lesson and be an example of how to change your ways?

Re: Variations On A Theme

Ta-Nehisi Coates — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 16:08:28 -0000

Not you. Arrowsmith.

Re: Variations On A Theme

ward12 — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 12:35:13 -0000

Banned? TNC, I'm not sure where I went wrong. I'm sorry for not falling in line and agreeing with you. Censorship sucks.

I basically stated the underlying concept of Gladwell's Blink. I wasn't saying the officer was right, I was just saying that his reaction should not be unexpected.

As time elapses, we should expect more and expect justice. Such as when time passed and then hospital staff came out, that was the officer's chance to do the right thing. That's the wtf moment. I think the hand wringing about Duke well after the fact was unjust to the players, because the truth was out there. I don't really have a problem with how people reacted initially to the incident, but after people were continuing to pursue them despite the facts, that is the wtf moment.

Re: Variations On A Theme

Ta-Nehisi Coates — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 11:27:11 -0000

Banned. Please don't feed trolls guys.

Re: Variations On A Theme

Matt D — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 21:00:06 -0000

To me, the key factor in a lot of these cases isn't so much race as it is the cop's perception of what he can get away with, who he can abuse and how far, etc. Race obviously plays a factor in that calculation--black people tend to have less power in this country than whites, there certainly are racist cops, cultural differences can further distort already-confusing encounters--but it's not the only factor. I think we do ourselves a bit of a disservice in discussing these incidents from a racial standpoint alone, as if it's solely a black problem, or something that the ongoing purge of racism from our society will solve. Like you, I'm white, and though I'll grant that I obviously don't have nearly as much cause for it as non-whites, I'm scared of getting beat/shot/tazered by the police too, cus I know (and more to the point, they know) that there's not shit I can about it after the fact.

Re: Variations On A Theme

ward12 — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 20:07:02 -0000

Maya - Definitely think this situation was egregious and the stat above is unfounded. However, I think this situation is a little different than the ones you mentioned.

The officer relied on instinct and has to react instantly, which I think is more likely to be based on prejudices. It may not even be racial prejudices, but could be from experience about the type of person that takes a significant amount of time to pull over. The situations you mention above don't require instant reaction, so I personally expect individuals to consider their response more carefully.

Re: Variations On A Theme

Maya — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 19:17:40 -0000

So, by your logic, all the hand wringing about the Duke lacrosse players being falsely accused doesn't change the fact that most campus rapes occur in frat houses, so who cares if they're innocent, right? And all the hand-wringing about "reverse discrimination" (qualified white guys losing jobs to an under-qualified minorities) doesn't change the fact that most good jobs go to white guys, right?

Re: Variations On A Theme

sgwhiteinfla — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 17:00:31 -0000

Yeah ok please provide a link to whichever tinfoil hat website you got that bogus statisic from. We all want to laugh at you.

Re: Variations On A Theme

janinedm — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 14:13:46 -0000

THAT doesn't change the fact that 93.7854326666% of un-cited statistics are just made up to make opinion seem like fact!

Re: Variations On A Theme

ArrowSmith — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 13:52:44 -0000

None of this hand-wringing changes the fact that 80% of violent cries are committed by black males.

Re: Variations On A Theme

sv — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 13:07:08 -0000

You know - I kind of like this idea. Didn't they already say the video would end up a police academy training video? Since there wasn't any violence involved, this may well be the best course of action for this officer. Not only could a sub-par but salvageable cop be rehabilitated, so to speak, but it could be part of a larger movement towards rehabilitation of the police department as a whole.

Re: Variations On A Theme

Mark — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 12:13:05 -0000

As a white guy, I've always been scared of cops. Some of it was personal experience: getting chased and frisked as a teenager; having a stupid narc standing in the school hallway watching me when I went to my locker; having them do nothing when I got jumped by a guy with a baseball bat; watching them twist evidence around after some people crashed a friend's party and trashed his house.

Thankfully, as an adult, my interactions with the police have been more positive. But here in San Francisco (where I live), I have seen them kicking the crap out of *white* people right in front of me at protests several times. Tons of witnesses; often on video; in a city where cops have a reputation for brutality; and in a city that pays out huge settlements for said brutality - cops will still beat up people who have enough power to get them in trouble.

I once read something written by a guy who said he joined the army because he wanted to kill people and he wanted to be around like-minded people. There's certainly a percentage of people who become cops (like one of my old hockey coaches, who said hitting someone in the head with a nightstick was 'better than sex') because they like pushing people around and beating people up, and they will push their opportunities to do so as far as possible.

Re: Variations On A Theme

DC Fem — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 11:59:48 -0000

And what's even worse is that the person who stayed behind with Moats to make certain he didn't end up dead was the MIL's father. Is there greater pain than having a child die? Maybe only the pain of not getting to say goodbye because some butthole cop decides it isn't that important.

Re: Variations On A Theme

Lee — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 11:48:01 -0000

Definitely- My guess is that there's not only a fine line between general bullying and racism, but which is the cause of the other isn't always clear. I'm sure there are some people who are perfectly nice to everybody else but turn into bullies when they are dealing with ethnic minorities. However, some cops just want to pick on somebody and will find any excuse to do it, whether it's race, gender, physical size, haircut, whatever, or no excuse at all. I don't think either of those types of people belong in the police force.

Re: Variations On A Theme

Lee — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 11:33:34 -0000

If what you're saying is that being pulled over by a dickhead cop, whether he's actually racist or not, is a worse/more frightening experience for a black man than for a white woman because of the reasonable fear that the cop is racist and violent, then yeah, I can see that.

Re: Variations On A Theme

Sebastian H — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 11:26:07 -0000

The first minute or two the cop was acting like a jerk, but I kind of get it. I'm sure he hears excuses all the time. But eventually when the nurse comes down and says the mother-in-law is dying right now?!?

You can't have any sympathy for him at that point. ARRRRGHHHHH.

Re: Variations On A Theme

Tonya — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 11:18:47 -0000

Very true. And that is the problem when it comes to incidents that do involve race. There is a fine line between the person being merely a jerk and whether or not their is actually systematic racism that is occurring. Statistics would help -but reporting incidents like these is dicey. As a black woman if I am pulled over by a cop- do I consider a negative situation as racial or just something that I took too personally, or is the cop just a jerk in general? And then will reporting something like this put a label on me as being some angry/hysterical black woman? Will it affect how cops treat me in the future? No easy answer.

Re: Variations On A Theme

Tony Comstock — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 11:04:46 -0000

Point taken, but I wasn't referring to police brutality in general; just to this particular situation. I don't think it is clear that the cop was racist or that Mr. Moats was stopped because he was black

I think you're missing the bigger picture. Until unarmed white people start dying in a hail of police bullets often enough that I can think of one incident as opposed to the three I can think of off the top of my head since I started living in NYC, any encounter between a black citizen is and a dickhead cop is de facto racist -- the odds that it will end in tragedy are vastly skewed by the color of the citizen's skin.

Re: Variations On A Theme

Tonya — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 10:55:23 -0000

Very true, but that's why incidents like these are very important. It's not noticed until someone prominent suffers. Hopefully the police watchdogs will be a little more viligent towards correcting such behavior. A little doubtful..but hope springs eternally.

Re: Variations On A Theme

Lee — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 10:44:23 -0000

Point taken, but I wasn't referring to police brutality in general; just to this particular situation. I don't think it is clear that the cop was racist or that Mr. Moats was stopped because he was black. What IS clear is that this particular cop was a huge jerk, and many white people have had run-ins with cops who are huge jerks, which makes me doubt that he would have "thrown on his lights and led a caravan to the hospital," as one commenter said, if the couple had been white.

Re: Variations On A Theme

Tony Comstock — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 10:33:34 -0000

I'll second all the folks who have said this may be more of a dickhead cop issue than a race issue. I have no idea whether race played a factor here, but as a petite blonde white chick, I've had my share of run-ins with cops on power trips, too

Not to put too fine a point on it, but how often does the petite blonde chick end up a bullet riddled corpse?

Everyone's had a run-in with a dickhead cop; even white middle-class, middle-aged me. The question is, what's at stake when you're number comes up?

Re: Variations On A Theme

Lee — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 10:14:12 -0000

I'll second all the folks who have said this may be more of a dickhead cop issue than a race issue. I have no idea whether race played a factor here, but as a petite blonde white chick, I've had my share of run-ins with cops on power trips, too. Certainly nothing this bad, and most of the cops I have dealt with have been very professional and polite. But I think certain types of assholes tend to be attracted to certain types of professions, and the police force and the military tend to get the sadistic bullies, just like medicine tends to get the megalomaniacs and law tends to get the liars. (I'm a lawyer, b/t/w, but hopefully not one of the slimy ones). Paying cops higher salaries might encourage more people to apply and give the police force the ability to be more selective with their applicants, but it is still likely that a larger-than-average percentage of the people who apply for a job where they get to carry a big gun and a billy club are going to be bullies. Unless they do some kind of psychological screening to keep those kinds of people out, higher salaries alone won't fix the problem.

Re: Variations On A Theme

Gramsci — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 09:35:04 -0000

Imagine times before videocameras-- who would have believed Moats? There would have been reports from the cop of being verbally berated, threatened with papers shoved in his face, etc. As awful as it is to say, I actually kept expecting the cop to get downright violent. "Shut your mouth"-- that's something you say to a four-year-old, not someone you think has any power or status. Can you imagine him telling a fifty year old white businessman who's yelling "My mother-in-law is dying" to shut his mouth?

I can't believe I'm saying this, but I don't think he should lose his job. Why? Because they'll just fill his position with another cookie-cut white guy with a badge and a gun and a Texas upbringing. Suspend him, dock his pay, but TRAIN him. Don't martyr him-- walk him through that video, minute by minute, burn it into his brain how he made a mistake and can be a better cop. Make him confront his own thinking and instincts. Don't let him patrol alone for a while-- monitor him. It just seems to me like another "bad apple" scapegoat when the system of training is at issue as well.

Re: Variations On A Theme

Storm — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 09:19:06 -0000

This story bring a few things to mind for me:

--the poor training of police officers and the low quality of applicants hired to be police officers. (Please know that I am not disaparing the work of good, properly trained police officers; I have nothing but the utmost respect and admiration for them. They put their lives on the line every day for us -- usually with very low pay. However, there is a small element on the police force of officers who are arrogant, improperly trained, racist, and power hunger. In my opinion, especially in NYC, the low starting salary for police officers is not an incentive to attract "the best and brightest" to pursure a career in law enforcement.)

--the DWB (Driving While Black) or racial profiling issue. How many black people (men especially) have been stopped just for being black, thereby in the eyes of the police making them suspect?

--The need to teach young black men how to behave when stopped by police. Moats did an excellent job of maintaining his cool and remaining respectful. Unfortunately, how to interact with the police to avoid arrest -- or even worse a violent incident -- is one of the many life skills that we must teach our young black men. Correct that thought: this is a life skill that we all need.

Re: Variations On A Theme

sgwhiteinfla — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 09:14:09 -0000

I can only guess you didn't actually go and see the whole video. You can excuse the cop for the initial reaction. What you can't excuse the cop for is even after hospital officials came out and told him what was going on and that Moats' MIL was LITERALLY seconds from dying he still took his sweet ass time in writing up the ticket AND decided to try to give him a lecture before he let him go. The shit took 13 minutes man at least 5 of those minutes after there was no question what the situation was after Moats had calmed down. Because that officer decided to be a dick Moats' didn't get the chance to say goodbye and you know what, if you actually went and read the article this douchebag doesn't think he did a damn thing wrong. It kills me when I see this kind of cop apologist shit going on. Any decent human being would have let the guy go see his MIL. Hell Moats told him to just write him a ticket so he could leave. But no this muthafucka had to try to assert dominance. Its bullshit man and no amount of rationalizing changes that.