What deBlasio said. This is "Racist"? How?

[Triana]

The NY Police Union’s Vile War with Mayor De Blasio
To criticize the mayor for telling his black son what every other father of a black youth must say is divisive and fails to see what’s wrong in America.

I covered New York politics for 15 years, and I saw some awfully tense moments between the police and Democratic politicians. But there has never been anything remotely like the war the cops are waging right now against Mayor Bill de Blasio for the thought crime of saying something that was completely unremarkable and so obviously true that in other contexts we don’t even bat an eye when someone says it. And for that, the mayor has blood on his hands, as Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association head Pat Lynch said Saturday evening after the hideous assassinations of two NYPD officers?

Let’s rewind the tape here. On Dec. 3, in the wake of the Staten Island grand jury’s refusal to indict in the case of the police homicide of Eric Garner, de Blasio gave a press conference at a Staten Island church. He spoke of the need to heal and so on, the usual politician’s rhetoric, and then he uttered these words:

This is profoundly personal for me. I was at the White House the other day, and the president of the United States turned to me, and he met Dante a few months ago, and he said that Dante reminded him of what he looked like as a teenager. And he said, I know you see this crisis through a very personal lens. I said to him I did. Because Chirlane and I have had to talk to Dante for years, about the dangers he may face. A good young man, a law-abiding young man, who would never think to do anything wrong, and yet, because of a history that still hangs over us, the dangers he may face—we’ve had to literally train him, as families have all over this city for decades, in how to take special care in any encounter he has with the police officers who are there to protect him.

Dante de Blasio, as you surely know, is a mixed-race young man of 16 who looks black and sports a large, ’70s-style afro. Does anyone seriously think that his father should not have told him what he did? Come on. We all know the odds (actually, we don’t, more on which later). We hear every prominent black man in America who has a son and who decides to talk about this publicly—football players and actors and others—say exactly the same thing. We’ve heard it hundreds of times. Are these men lying? Are they paranoid weirdos? Of course they aren’t. They are fathers, describing to the rest of us what I thought was a widely acknowledged reality.

THE REST:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/12/21/the-ny-police-union-s-vile-war-with-mayor-de-blasio.html

_ _ _ _ _ _ _

The NY PBA/NYP "issue" with deBlasio seems to be the same "issue" they had with Eric Garner. Oh there's racism alright. But it's not coming from deBlasio. Or Obama. Or Al Sharpton. This is a classic case of projection, where the most guilty accuse the targets of their abuse of the very thing the abusers are doing themselves.

You know why? IT. WORKS. People believe it. EVERYONE believes it. If you can get that accusation out there in front of everyone first, you WIN the propaganda war. I've had it done to me. I KNOW how this shit works. Unfortunately, it works REALLY well. And Republicans, Teabaggers, RWNJ and their media institution (they control it ALL) have got this one propaganda technique honed to an artform.

This is racist backlash. We've been subjected to the most acidic of it since Obama was first elected. It's white conservatives having their last 'rebel yell' at non-whites and 'wimmin' taking what they consider to be places too high and mighty in our society today. It's the societal equivalent of RWNJ's tossing acid in the faces of the targets of their racist/sexist hatred and disgust - non-whites and women.

And as a final blow, they're projecting their abuse onto the targets of it. And their media (that's all of it) help them do it.

The US is a toilet into which they deposit their hatred and ignorance. They'll blame the water because it's become unsanitary. Nevermind where the sewage actually came from.

[alcibiades_mystery]

1. The amazing response by NYPD supporters even here: "He didn't praise the NYPD in that statement!"

Apparently, in every statement about everything and anything that mentions the NYPD, you have to include a disclaimer that the NYPD is SUPER AWESOME, or you have "betrayed" the NYPD.

They're a needy bunch, considering.

[Triana]

3. NYPD's narcissism needn't take top billing in every speech or conversaion

Their need for constant praise is ridiculous. We have bigger problems to worry about. They should grow up. Finally.

[Fred Sanders]

5. Does the police union speak for the majority of the police folk? I question that in the wake of

their position...was there a vote that the union project racism onto others, as Faux News does with regularity?

When did the entire NYPD become just another paid cog in Rupert Murdoch's vile propaganda machine?

Is that true, or did you hear it on Fox?

[jeff47]

7. Yes, there was a vote.

The police voted for the leadership of their union. They knew who they were voting for, and got what they wanted.

If Lynch and others don't represent what they want, they can be replaced at any time.

[SoapBox]

12. When was that vote?

[jeff47]

16. Can't find google yourself?

Or do you think union leaders are selected by divine right?

Perhaps you could bother looking around their web site, https://www.nycpba.org.

Lynch has lead the PBA for a very long time now. He has always behaved in this manner. He keeps getting reelected. Thus the NYPD must like what he's doing.

[Triana]

9. Obviously they don't. However,

Those who control the media control the message (part of what I wrote in my OP). They prefer what Lynch says, so that position/attitude gets top billing -- and not just from Fox.

You know I don't buy it. Others in the police force have spoken against it, including the Police Commissioner there.

Blaming Obama, Sharpton, deBlasio for their own (the NYPD and Union's) racist attitudes and racist abuse has in a big way - worked. It's projection propaganda.

There are facts, history, and certainly another way of looking at this, not to mention the unaddressed problem of ongoing police brutality against non-whites across the nation, not least (and the crux of the whole thing). It's important to challenge and call out the modus operandi behind the accusations against our AA leaders and deBlasio. They are not the guilty parties.

[Stellar]

18. I like that....

Is that true, or did you hear it on Fox?

In other words, 'FOX NEWS' always lies!

[tblue37]

15. Yep. It's like the "requirement" that any reference to the US must include the descriptor "great."

While watching Hubert Humphrey's speech accepting the 1968 nomination from the Democratic Party (I am pretty sure that was the speech this occurred in, though it *might* have been another speech that year), I had to laugh when one of Humphrey's obligatory "great" references slipped offleash and traveled to another point in his speech, causing him to make an absurd reference to "this great hall"!

[brush]

2. Imagine being stopped by the NYC police union head Pat Lynch

The way he raged on camera about the mayor having blood on his hands, just think of being confronted with that type or out of control anger coming from him if he was the cop that stopped you on the street.

That police union needs to get another head because Lynch is a complete PR disaster. He basically declared war on the citizens of New York and had cops turn their backs on the Mayor.

Who the hell does he think he works for?

Himself apparently.

[Triana]

4. I agree. He hasn't helped them a bit. Quite the contrary.

They need to dump that narcissistic hack. Let him go build a monument to himself somewhere else.

[tblue37]

17. Frankly, just as with the Phelps clan, Lynch is actually doing us some good, though obviously

he doesn't mean to. The more the loudmouthed extremists parade their ugliness, the more we will see reasonable but distracted and unaware citizens sit up and pay attention. Whenever we warn that the country is moving inexorably toward police state fascism, someone jumps in to insist that we are being a bunch of silly Chicken Littles, even after someone posts the familiar excerpt from They Thought They Were Free.

But when people who normally don't pay attention to abuses that don't directly affect them are forced to see videos of police abusing and killing innocent, unarmed black men and children, they cannot easily escape the epiphany those videos produce. And when loudmouthed racist jerks like Lynch et al. start spouting their vicious BS, the reasonably decent folks who have held on to their comfortable illusions are forced to see that the racism and general abusiveness is pervasive and espoused at the highest levels of police culture.

As horrifying as it was that cops like Bull Connor and his gang of uniformed KKKers used dogs, horses, and fire hoses to viciously attack peaceful marchers (including small children and frail oldsters, all dressed in their Sunday best and behaving politely and properly), when the film of those attacks was shown on the national news programs, people in other parts of the country finally understood what life was like for innocent black people in the South.

Yes, racism was pervasive all across the US then, as it is now, but the extraordinary, unprovoked brutality people witnessed in those film clips changed quite a few hearts and minds and did a lot to validate the claims of the Civil Rights marchers in the minds of those who had previously wanted to believe it was much ado about nothing, or that any violence was the fault of radical "outside agitators."

I am glad that a**hats like Lynch and the cops who turned their backs at the funeral are waving their racism so blatantly, because it is harder to expose racism and abusiveness when they hide behind polite and reasonable-seeming masks.

[JustAnotherGen]

6. This part of what DiBlasio said . . .

because of a history that still hangs over us, the dangers he may face—we’ve had to literally train him, as families have all over this city for decades, in how to take special care in any encounter he has with the police officers who are there to protect him.

That's the huge disconnect going on.

There are people 'fiddle dee deeing' and doing a 'fa la la' and singing the Smurf song and pretending that it's JUST history -

When it's today. . . the reality.


And until those people get right with themselves and stop being so selfish and self centered and thinking it is all about themselves and how it's all make believe for others -

This will continue. Not a history. A reality. People being hurt for no reason other than sick sadistic pleasure in having all of that 'power'.

[Triana]

11. ie: No. We're not a "post-racial" society.

Institutionalized racism is still now. Very much so. A lot of people don't want to believe that.

[TreasonousBastard]

8. It took guts for the Mayor to talk from the heart like that...

pretty much knowing what the reaction would be.

And we have to ask why Lynch feels so free to attack the Mayor so viciously. Decades of racial problems and healing and now he jumps out with this bullshit that could take us back years and open all the old wounds-- how come he's so confident he won't get blowback from his own side?

New York has a history of outrageous union trouble. The Taylor Law was always the source of great headlines and Mike Quill, founder of the TWU, called for a judge to "Drop dead in his black robes" after a million dollar a day fine was imposed over the '66 transit strike. Quill went to jail and dropped dead himself shortly after.

But, this is beyond the pale. It's not just bullshit rhetoric when real blood was shed and there's chance there could be more.

And, it's just plain wrong.

[Bluenorthwest]

10. I would add LGBT people to the 'non whites and women' materials, particularly when speaking of

cops and RWNJs and their targets. Especially NYPD.

[ann---]

13. I have lost all

respect for the NYPD. If there were any "good" cops in the mix, they'd be speaking out against the childish, disrespectful behavior of their follow officers against the mayor.

[napkinz]

14. ...

Andray @AndrayDomise
Follow
I really want people to remember that Bill de Blasio was blamed for police deaths by virtue of being a responsible parent to a black son.
5:13 PM - 20 Dec 2014 1,862 Retweets 1,369 favorites

https://twitter.com/andraydomise/status/546503765302722560

[blackspade]

19. And I have had this same conversation with my son as well...

"we’ve had to literally train him, as families have all over this city for decades, in how to take special care in any encounter he has with the police officers who are there to protect him."

It is not just New York, but all cities, and of concern to even 'white' families like mine.

Police brutality and killings may be mostly aimed at people of color now, but everyone will be a target if this is not stopped.
Cops are a gang, and when their white 'support' evaporates their anger will shift with a vengeance.

[proverbialwisdom]

20. I appreciate excellent ProPublica link but here's a detail which may negate sloppy DB editorializing

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/12/21/the-ny-police-union-s-vile-war-with-mayor-de-blasio.html

The NY PBA/NYP "issue" with deBlasio seems to be the same "issue" they had with Eric Garner. Oh there's racism alright.

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/decision-not-indict-eric-garner-death-disgrace-article-1.2032435

Eric Garner case is a judicial disgrace as Officer Daniel Pantaleo walks away a free man after choking unarmed man to death
Case likely would have earned a felony indictment in any of the other four boroughs of New York City could have been a career-wrecker for Staten Island District Attorney Dan Donovan
BY DENIS HAMILL, NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Wednesday, December 3, 2014, 9:02 PM

...But what makes the Garner case so much different than Michael Brown’s is that the Staten Island killing can’t be called a racial incident.

Pantaleo who applied the lethal chokehold on Eric Garner was supervised by an African-American female NYPD sergeant.

Having that black sergeant in charge of that crime scene takes race out of the equation. As awful as Pantaleo’s actions appear on that video, at no time does that black sergeant order Pantaleo to stop choking Garner.

<>

OTOH, this is tremendously useful.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/12/21/the-ny-police-union-s-vile-war-with-mayor-de-blasio.html

<>

Not long ago, ProPublica, the website that does hard-nosed, empirical investigative journalism, undertook an extensive study of federally collected crime data on 12,000 police homicides over 22 years. The site found that young black males are far more likely to be shot by cops than young white males. Four times more likely, or eight times, or 10 times? Try 21 times more likely—31 per million as opposed to 1.5 per million for whites. This isn’t some liberal conspiracy. These are the numbers as reported to the government by police departments themselves.

And now we can’t even acknowledge this plain truth? Astonishingly, it appears we can’t agree on it. Right around the time de Blasio spoke, Marist was in the field with a poll asking people whether they think police treat whites and blacks differently. Here are some answers. In each case, the “yes, differently” number comes first.

Overall: 47-44
Whites: 39-51
Blacks: 82-14
Latinos: 53-38
Democrats: 64-29
Independents: 44-48
Republicans: 26-64

So two decades’ worth of statistics tell us that black men are killed by police at 21 times the rate white men are, and yet half the public has persuaded itself that police treat blacks and whites no differently. And it’s controversial for a mayor with a black 16-year-old son to say something so obvious—indeed, what every parent of a black son has to say.

http://www.propublica.org/article/deadly-force-in-black-and-white

Deadly Force, in Black and White

A ProPublica analysis of killings by police shows outsize risk for young black males.

by Ryan Gabrielson, Ryann Grochowski Jones and Eric Sagara
ProPublica, Oct. 10, 2014, 10:07 a.m.

[napkinz]

21. K&R

nt