[Xmca-l] Re: My Hometown Minneapolis
Andy Blunden
andyb@marxists.org
Mon Jun 8 18:34:49 PDT 2020
I can't help much here, Peg. The world is watching you all
taking the problem in hand for yourselves now. Even in the
depths of degradation and ignominy America can lead, it seems.
The only significant progress that has been made here in the
excessive imprisonment of indigenous people (16 times that
of non-indigenous people) has been where the local elders
mediate interactions between courts, police and the
indigenous youth. Young indigenous people respect their
elders and their elders know who they are, who their parents
are, etc., etc., and with the cooperation of the police,
they can keep the kids out of trouble.
Andy
------------------------------------------------------------
*Andy Blunden*
Hegel for Social Movements <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://brill.com/view/title/54574__;!!Mih3wA!SKIYaYsiD1gmabdVNx4A10kLISqNAkDVV9i_sjLGfgBlKziiiQBAJm-YoUWR-_Csa5sMfA$ >
Home Page <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm__;!!Mih3wA!SKIYaYsiD1gmabdVNx4A10kLISqNAkDVV9i_sjLGfgBlKziiiQBAJm-YoUWR-_DkPAybtA$ >
On 9/06/2020 12:44 am, Peg Griffin, Ph.D. wrote:
>
> Thanks for the information about the Australia protests,
> Andy. I haven’t had a chance to look much at them but
> this motivates me to keep my eyes open about them. I
> spent a term, years ago, in Sydney and my office tower
> mate was a lab technician who tried hard to educate me
> about differences and similarities about race in Australia
> and the US.
>
> A lot of us in the US right now are looking with care at
> the reception and use of studies with claims about police
> and racism. The study cited is said to be credible
>
> 1. “Because MATH!” as the kids would say;
>
> 2. because the author said he didn’t expect the outcome
> (hence, it must be a rare case of “science” that isn’t
> fake and needn’t be overturned by executive order);
>
> 3. because that bastion of Fake News, the NYT, tricked
> itself into publishing it
>
> 3 a. before the NYT got serious about consistently
> persecuting the pitiful attacked president T,
>
> 3 b. tripping itself up in the glare of its worship of
> elite colleges and black scholars.
>
> A lot of us on this list are interested in how the
> immediate is being mediated during these times and in
> these situations. The deaths and violence are based on
> police self-reports. In DC we have a very recent careful
> and steady ongoing series of attempts to get data from the
> police (based on our NEAR Act). It includes stop and
> frisk (locally known—and denied-- as jump-outs) and other
> encounters with people in and out of custody. We allocated
> money for administration, for cooperatively building
> usable instruments and training in using them. We
> allocated funds year after year. We fail miserably at
> every turn and after every adjustment we make. The police
> department still does not fully comply. Like when a child
> fails to get the answer to a single digit addition task we
> set them, we don’t know if they wouldn’t or couldn’t do
> it, all we know is they didn’t. Several independent
> audits (some prospective, others retrospective) have been
> attempted of major US city police self- reports with
> careful identification of the universe of incidents
> relative to the day’s time passing, within the carefully
> identified jurisdiction, and closer to the time and place
> of incidents. So far, lots of problems and no chance of
> dismissing worries about accountably using police
> self-report data.
>
> Many of us have worked hard to understand how self-report
> relates to other sorts of data and to practical and
> theoretical contexts. Of course, who are we to say
> anything? We never took into account that people put knees
> on people’s necks until they died – well, they might kill
> but they certainly would not lie (by omission or
> commission) on a self-report form that someone would later
> code for a study. And people who shoot a young man with
> 75 exit wounds might kill but they certainly wouldn’t lie
> (by omission or commission) on a self-report form that
> someone would later code for a study… We say their names
> and others’ names.
>
> Maybe I am just wrong to think, as the saying goes, that
> the dead tell no lies, but killers, might.
>
> Someone else might bring up convenience samples and all
> too convenient samples and so on…
>
> *From:*xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu
> [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] *On Behalf Of
> *Andy Blunden
> *Sent:* Sunday, June 7, 2020 10:41 PM
> *To:* xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu
> *Subject:* [Xmca-l] Re: My Hometown Minneapolis
>
> I am not fully across this issue, but I heard during the
> commentary on the BLM protests in Australia this weekend,
> where "black deaths in custody" is the issue, that
> counter-intuitively deaths of Indigenous Australians in
> prison is not very much larger than their percentage in
> the prison population, but their rate of imprisonment is
> so extraordinarily high (higher than that of African
> Americans) the result is a shockingly high rate of deaths
> in custody. And they are imprisoned at far greater rates
> for the same offences, or even none at all.
>
> If I got this wrong, I will stand corrected.
>
> Andy
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
>
> *Andy Blunden*
> Hegel for Social Movements
> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/brill.com/view/title/54574__;!!Mih3wA!XCFPJlrE3W-miqfvnnBUHHRjExgjwMHX58fTdhdHF7CdpFuqOclJ0CpadANq4gMAaTyRAw$>
> Home Page
> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm__;!!Mih3wA!XCFPJlrE3W-miqfvnnBUHHRjExgjwMHX58fTdhdHF7CdpFuqOclJ0CpadANq4gPjfFDilQ$>
>
>
> On 8/06/2020 4:08 am, Martin Packer wrote:
>
> I should have added that Fryer's original study,
> reported in the NY Times in 2016, found this:
>
> A new study
> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__http:/www.nber.org/papers/w22399__;!!Mih3wA!WNv2OVubdef9Qu11-9OSIA9NJRZrfDvQ9vU0rWYmUvy_G7k_S_IK7D17VF3WG_mnNs6-jA$>
> confirms that black men and women are treated
> differently in the hands of law enforcement. They
> are more likely to be touched, handcuffed, pushed
> to the ground or pepper-sprayed by a police
> officer, even after accounting for how, where and
> when they encounter the police.
>
> But when it comes to the most lethal form of force
> — police shootings — the study finds no racial bias.
>
> “It is the most surprising result of my career,”
> said Roland G. Fryer Jr.
> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__http:/scholar.harvard.edu/fryer/home__;!!Mih3wA!WNv2OVubdef9Qu11-9OSIA9NJRZrfDvQ9vU0rWYmUvy_G7k_S_IK7D17VF3WG_mBL6zw6g$>,
> the author of the study and a professor of
> economics at Harvard. The study examined more than
> 1,000 shootings in 10 major police departments, in
> Texas, Florida and California.
>
> Martin
>
>
>
> On Jun 7, 2020, at 12:42 PM, Anthony Barra
> <anthonymbarra@gmail.com
> <mailto:anthonymbarra@gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> Hi Michael,
>
> Much of the claim rests in Roland Freyer's 2016
> multivariate analysis, groundbreaking at the time
> (though I don't know the very latest findings on
> the matter):
> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/12/upshot/surprising-new-evidence-shows-bias-in-police-use-of-force-but-not-in-shootings.html__;!!Mih3wA!SKIYaYsiD1gmabdVNx4A10kLISqNAkDVV9i_sjLGfgBlKziiiQBAJm-YoUWR-_B_nz-DEA$
> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/www.nytimes.com/2016/07/12/upshot/surprising-new-evidence-shows-bias-in-police-use-of-force-but-not-in-shootings.html__;!!Mih3wA!S18nvB-bJf3z_eNSjHPT3rWUU-YDJmOewUS-_eVjP4nwhyrQvSiFE_5aqUIHnjG437QrnA$>
>
>
> I believe Glenn Loury was once his advisor in
> graduate economics, though I could be mistaken there.
>
> I respect this community and in no way seek to
> bring dis- or misinformation into it, especially
> on topics that may require numerous key strokes
> just to get one's footing.
>
> Thank you for understanding, and I agree! Let's
> not argue.
>
> Anthony
>
>
> On Sunday, June 7, 2020, Glassman, Michael
> <glassman.13@osu.edu <mailto:glassman.13@osu.edu>>
> wrote:
>
> Black men are 2.5 more likely to be killed by
> police than white men. What makes this much,
> much worse is that most Black men are taught
> from very early in life the dangers they face
> in dealing with police and have strategies set
> for de-escalation. The first point you can get
> with a few key strokes. The second point maybe
> you have to live in the U.S. for.
>
> I do not believe the Loury McWhorter argument
> is based on any well founded social science.
>
> What I find difficult about this is that XMCA,
> whose earlier versions was one of the earliest
> well-functioning communities is being use to
> proliferate this type of information, or I
> would say misinformation. The list has always
> run with minimalist moderation but I wonder if
> it is possible in this day and age.
>
> These are observations. I have no desire to
> argue about this with anybody.
>
> Michael
>
> *From:* xmca-l-bounces@mailmanucsd.edu
> <mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> <xmca-l-bounces@mailmanucsd.edu
> <mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu>> *On
> Behalf Of *Bill Kerr
> *Sent:* Sunday, June 7, 2020 3:59 AM
> *To:* eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu
> <mailto:xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>>
> *Subject:* [Xmca-l] Re: My Hometown Minneapolis
>
> hi Anthony,
>
> I watched both videos.
>
> Coleman Hughes argues that the Black Lives
> Matter movement is based on a half truth. True
> that the police treat blacks worse. Not true
> that they murder disproportionately more
> blacks than whites. The problem with the
> police is corruption (not being independently
> investigated) not disproportionate murder of
> black people.
>
> Glen Loury and John McWhorter teach me the
> real history of American race, that things
> have moved on, progress has been made since
> Lincoln and MLKing, and the importance of
> identifying the real reasons of black
> disadvantage, arising paradoxically from the
> 1960s, and not that racism is the American
> DNA. eg. the meme that school is a white
> persons domain arose in part from the bussing
> movement which gave many blacks a terrible
> school experience.
>
> There are some parallels in Australia, eg.
> welfare dependency which is one of the biggest
> if not the biggest problem for aboriginals
> here arose from the chain events which
> followed from the 1967 referendum where they
> were recognised at citizens for the first
> time. This led to equal pay which led to
> aboriginal workers being sacked which led to
> welfare dependency which led to grog which led
> to more black on black violence etc. This
> history has been written, eg. by Peter Sutton,
> The Politics of Suffering, but is still not
> widely understood.
>
> Thank you
>
> On Sun, Jun 7, 2020 at 10:38 AM Anthony Barra
> <anthonymbarra@gmail.com
> <mailto:anthonymbarra@gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> I'm hearing people talk of cabin fever and
> itchy scratchy restlessness, and I think
> that is one unifying thing that almost
> everyone here can relate to! What a year
> so far.
>
> I promise, these two conversations are
> very interesting, for anyone potentially
> curious:
>
> First, this one
> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hWQmzgiKXQ__;!!Mih3wA!SKIYaYsiD1gmabdVNx4A10kLISqNAkDVV9i_sjLGfgBlKziiiQBAJm-YoUWR-_ChGJowrA$
> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hWQmzgiKXQ__;!!Mih3wA!XgM3_X1riF_AYwqfZ7zTT0dslCVEzwkmg1Kw-a63ReNKrqh653kZrirxQ_TR4yBatxTfPw$> featuring
> Glenn Loury and John McWhorter --
> piggybacking on the 1619 Project link that
> Martin shared earlier today (thanks for
> sharing that)
>
> and in my honest opinion, this is the
> single most down-the-middle commentary on
> recent events in the US, via Coleman
> Hughes: https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://youtu.be/8C-VrsK93GE__;!!Mih3wA!SKIYaYsiD1gmabdVNx4A10kLISqNAkDVV9i_sjLGfgBlKziiiQBAJm-YoUWR-_CRkg6meQ$
> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/youtu.be/8C-VrsK93GE__;!!Mih3wA!XgM3_X1riF_AYwqfZ7zTT0dslCVEzwkmg1Kw-a63ReNKrqh653kZrirxQ_TR4yB6mIcWCw$>
> (as least as far as I've yet
> encountered). Coleman shares his
> perspective as a protest attendee, and
> also much more than that.
>
> Somewhat of a warning: there's a fair
> amount of pain expressed in these videos,
> but not exactly conventional, as these
> commentaries do cut against the headwinds
> a fair amount.
>
> Thank you,
>
> Anthony
>
> On Sat, Jun 6, 2020 at 8:43 PM Annalisa
> Aguilar <annalisa@unm.edu
> <mailto:annalisa@unm.edu>> wrote:
>
> To the wonderful garden of Us and Them,
>
> I'm not sure why I wrote that, it just
> seemed to come out. Like the riot of
> expression that gobsmacked me as I saw
> this thread extending to 46, including
> mine, though I know the tapestry is
> still weaving us and them here and in
> the streets for a little while still.
>
> To whoever said it, I don't think that
> it's that people don't like the color
> of Trump's hair, but his orange-ness,
> which makes it so strange for him to
> promote white supremacy. An black star
> enigma surrounded by a riddle small
> waving hands wrapped in a spray tan.
> It should be orange supremacy,
> shouldn't it?
>
> I also wanted to offer, for those of
> us who organize peaceful protest, we
> must also have a bullet-proof strategy
> (pun intended) to counter
> violently-intentioned infiltrators.
> This strategy must have enough cheeky
> chutzpah to bend the myth that
> peaceful protesters are namby-pambies
> with flowers in their hair. Does this
> exist? Has it been designed?
>
> I have seen people yell down a few
> no-nos running about by yelling in
> unison NO VIOLENCE! NO VIOLENCE! It
> worked.
>
> NO Vi-Oh-LENCE!
>
> Perhaps it has to do with spacing and
> cadence, something David might
> appreciate.
>
> We learn violence, and then we must
> unlearn it. Violence is an act of
> desperation once enough people feel
> disrespected, if even the number is
> just one.
>
> Of course my suggestion may not be the
> best possible, but I wonder if there
> is such an on-the-ground ad hoc
> strategy for aikido maneuvers by
> peaceful protesters to differentiate
> themselves from chaotic pretenders and
> the police who need them to be
> pretending chaotically, so they can
> rationalize their dear riot gear.
>
> Now the antifa, on the other hand,
> have a wonderful moniker, sly and
> clever how it doesn't weave "fascism"
> into it fully, the way it is
> referential in function, like if I
> were to say, "Don't think of an
> elepha." They are like crouching
> tigers and hidden dragons, black
> ninjas who architect surprise. It's
> almost performance art. At the same
> time like watching a pincer move, in
> action with peaceful protesters, It's
> a beautiful think. Cornell West wrote
> recently in the Guardian that if the
> antifa were not present in
> Charlottesville he may have been
> killed. So I wondered about that
> coupling of forces. Is that what
> appears to be solidifying in the
> rhythms of the recent protests? What
> do other's think?
>
> I can't speak to the looting, as I
> would never ever do it. I remember
> coming across the concept or looting
> when I was challenged by my friends in
> 7th grade to read all of Gone With the
> Wind. And that they shot and killed
> looters on the spot. I supposed that
> concept too has gone out the window.
> Not that I'd want to see that mind
> you, but it is punny.
>
> There were curfews for a few days, but
> it's been lifted as of a few nights
> back. As I am writing this I am
> hearing helicopters circling. This
> morning I drove down a street with
> many business having their windows
> boarded up. There were no people
> rioting or anything like that. I think
> these folks are fearful of having
> their plate glass windows smashed in
> the night by a fictitious rioting
> hurricane, that will just not happen
> on that street. But then there is no
> way to see into those shops now. I
> thought maybe they are just
> duck-and-covering under all that
> plywood. Is anyone in there?
>
> I also saw someone had spray painted
> the words in black drippy spray paint
> on a white sheet. "White Silence is
> Violence" and this was hanging in a
> gentrified neighborhood. It seemed the
> perfect place to hang it.
>
> I also wanted to ask the list whether
> it is only racism that we are protesting?
>
> There was a tech who came to install
> my internet today. He is African
> American. I asked him, "Did you hear
> about all the protests all over the
> world? When I heard about it I started
> crying." To which he said, "Yeah, well
> but what about the other two guys that
> were killed? I think all those people
> came out because being shut in they
> just have nothing better to do." I
> said, "Well I understand that's a
> cynical way to look at it, but maybe
> it's a sign that something is going to
> change." He said, "Yeah, maybe it
> will." And I said, "Let's remain hopeful."
>
> I really appreciated that exchange.
> Together he and I made an interesting
> dyad of viewpoints about what is
> actually going on here.
>
> My own consciousness about race is
> exposed here, but I thought the entire
> point of racism is to reduce people to
> a construct that is somehow built upon
> genetic features, like skin color, and
> then to layer that with this color is
> better than that one, and even to
> dehumanize one color from another, ir
> I should say to create a spectrum of
> dehumanization, light to heavy.
>
> Then I thought also that the point is
> to Eracism, not to perpetuate more of it.
>
> My next thought was about people with
> disabilities. They are likely far more
> oppressed than any other vulnerable
> group. I don't think we could ever
> fathom disabled folks rioting in the
> streets for being killed in many ways
> the the disabled are, or who have
> their lives reduced by being
> institutionalized because of the
> bodies in which they were born.
>
> The same might be said about the
> seriously mentally ill. As a mental
> exercise take any oppressed group and
> fill that space.
>
> I was following the bead of this
> comparison in my mind to think about
> how would inclusivity of the disabled
> in protest be provided in a time like
> now? (Give we are making room for kids
> to protest?) Or are the disabled even
> left behind while everyone else has
> the privilege to protest?
>
> The only thing I feel might be a
> conclusion is that we fight for human
> rights and for non-violence, but also
> for inclusivity and our innate right
> to love one another.
>
> That everyone every single one of us
> matters. When every single one of us
> matters, there is no need to
> distinguish favorites, up or down,
> left or right.
>
> That day is not here yet because only
> some of us matters, and some of us
> doesn't.
>
> I'm not big on Biden, but he is one of
> the first mainstreamers to vocalize
> that we have an open wound that needs
> dressing.
>
> Then I thought how Biden has the
> privilege of saying that outright
> where Obama was not. My memory might
> be incorrect, however, it was only
> until Fergusen that Obama came out to
> speak but only in a very circumspect
> tone, if only that he could not be
> bridled as an angry black man.
>
> I wondered if anyone might present an
> imagination of what positive change
> might develop out of all of this, if
> you are able to shush the cynic-within.
>
> Or is my cable internet guy right? The
> protests are just a holiday, a way to
> get out of the house because too many
> of us have cabin fever.
>
> Thank you all in advance for your
> contributions.
>
> Kind regards,
>
> Annalisa
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
>
> *From:*
> xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu
> <mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> <
>
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