I saw a darkie breaking into the house across the street...Follow

I am not talking about the behavior of the police force.

We were not talking about the behavior of the police force when I first replied to this thread.

My first reply to this thread was not about the behavior of the police force.

This continued discussion was not about the behavior of the police force but rather about the potential racism on the part of the woman who made the original call.

The same woman who couldn't even tell what the race of the men was from her vantage point and only saw the suspicious behavior, as that last article states near the bottom.

You're not usually this stupid. What's going on?

Edited, Jul 27th 2009 6:38pm by CBD

It's not even that I disagree with you, it's that you're flat out wrong. I said it was ridiculous to assume the woman made the call simply because she saw two black men, and you responded by twisting it around to the justice system and the actual police force and their racism. That has nothing to do with the woman who made the call. You know, the topic of conversation?

I'm happy that you work so damn hard for the people who truly do need it, but that has absolutely nothing to do with a woman calling the cops after seeing suspicious behavior, especially given the mere fact (not opinion, fact) that she never made any racial claims in the 911 call and apparently could not even accurately discern their race from her vantage point.

The best part about all this is that you feel your past experiences give you some ultimatum to decide exactly what motivated this woman. Guess what? You don't know her past. You don't know her family history. You don't know how she was raised. You don't know her friends. You don't know her opinions. You don't know her beliefs. You don't know her job. You don't know what her family does for a living. You're just happily assuming that she must be racist, simply because racism does exist. That's ******** and you damn well know it.

It's not even that I disagree with you, it's that you're flat out wrong. I said it was ridiculous to assume the woman made the call simply because she saw two black men, and you responded by twisting it around to the justice system and the actual police force and their racism. That has nothing to do with the woman who made the call. You know, the topic of conversation?

That's not the topic of the conversation you simpering fucking ignorant moron.


I'm happy that you work so damn hard for the people who truly do need it, but that has absolutely nothing to do with a woman calling the cops after seeing suspicious behavior, especially given the mere fact (not opinion, fact) that she never made any racial claims in the 911 call and apparently could not even accurately discern their race from her vantage point.

Who gives a fuck? Do police go blind when a 911 caller doesn't mention color? I was unaware of this phenomenon. It sounds fascinating, however. You're clearly obsessed with it. Explain to me how it is that the fact that the woman who called 911 and spoke to a dispatcher who then spoke to someone else who then sent police to the scene caused the arriving officers to be unable to come to the conclusion that the people they encountered there were, in fact, black. Does this magical optical happening have a name? Nubian Glaucoma, perhaps?


The best part about all this is that you feel your past experiences give you some ultimatum to decide exactly what motivated this woman.

It doesn't. What her years of training and clinical experience do, however, is give her about a 1000000000000 times better chance of understanding the psychosocial dynamics in play here and how they impacted each of the actors. Barring the sudden onset of psychic powers, NO ONE EVER will know what the woman thought other than her. Your fucking guess is based on nothing and is as likely as her secretly hating Gates and thinking "I'm a gonna get that damn nigger, muhahahahahhahah, I like cheese." Anna, at least, has substantially better odds as guessing more accurately.


Guess what? You don't know her past. You don't know her family history. You don't know how she was raised. You don't know her friends. You don't know her opinions. You don't know her beliefs. You don't know her job. You don't know what her family does for a living. You're just happily assuming that she must be racist, simply because racism does exist. That's bullsh*t and you damn well know it.

No, it isn't. It's how humanity can possibly function at all. This ludicrous conceit that without absolute certainty, all probabilities are equal must end. Stop being such a gigantic fucking sucker. You don't know as much about this as someone who spend a decade studying it. You don't know as much about this as someone who's worked in the system. Your opinion is not equal to Annas. It may be right, but in terms of a value proposition or adding anything to this discussion it's *entirely worthless*. Understand?

I live about a block away from where this occurred. I lost my house keys for an entire summer once and, in plain sight, went through a first floor window probably 15 times before I bothered replacing the lock. No one ever made a comment. I'm white. Meaningful? Not at all, it's a worthless anecdote. Sort of like everything you've posted on this thread.

Call me naive

You're naive. PAINFULLY naive.

Because of the substantial research Anna has read on racism in forty year old women of Portuguese descent working in Cambridge.

What do you do for a living?

Brownduck is also naive.

Nothing. I'm a college student which automatically means I'm a moron and will have no clue what I'm talking about. Anna's extensive experience in psychology and dealing with the Boston, MA area judicial system mean that she has the full right and power to dictate the thoughts and beliefs of the majority of the people in the area, or at least throw blind guesses at it far better than I can simply based on research she's read.

I think I covered all that for you?

Nothing. I'm a college student

Studying what? Why is this so hard for you, it's not a complicated question. Is it that you've at least the cunning of an eleven year old and can see the end result already?

Man, nobody wants to try to get along and share

There is no problem with my statement. Maybe your comprehension of it is flawed.

The women who made the 911 call is not the person who was suspicious at seeing the event.

Hence:

Her state of mind, what she said, etc. has absolutely nothing to do with if the woman who brought it to HER attention was informed by race.

I'll stop you right there. I wasn't saying that it's impossible to be an inept racist asshat. I was saying that this was the result of ineptitude and asshattery and not racism. If you see a guy who's been stabbed to death, you can safely say he was stabbed and not shot without having said that it's impossible to be stabbed and shot simultaneously, or that stabbing and shooting are mutually exclusive. What I've done is look at the situation (stabbed corpse) and determined a cause. I'm not an expert or anything other than a mildly interested internet guy, but this situation looks like two people being asshats, not two people being racist asshats. Without oversimplifying it too much, this seems like a purely normal case of natural human asshattery.

I've forgotten what either of us was talking about. Thanks, Superpedant.

Edited, Jul 28th 2009 12:02am by zepoodle

Math and statistics. I didn't quite see the point in answering a question you never asked. Would you like me to now speculate on (a lack of) future job opportunities?



Great, so now we've settled that there is essentially no evidence that the woman who actually made the call (the one woman we were talking about) did so because of racist thoughts when she saw two mean, scary black men breaking into the house.

I'm glad we figured that out as a team.

Edited, Jul 27th 2009 8:06pm by CBD

Well you should have read the rest then. It wasn't pedantic at all and actually quite non-logical and almost emotional.



No one is qualified to really judge the specific situation, much less we, the internet.

Look, the point is that it's not a good idea to be dismissive of the problem because we can conjure up an idea of colourblindness. It's also not a good idea to be angry and all vindictive about it, but rather to get people to examine their own perceptions of other people and question their own subconscious motivations.