I have to admit, I only remember James Blake because he’s so good-looking. Blake was once a top-tier professional American tennis player. He’s retired now, he’s Harvard-educated, he has a family and he’s been in NYC for the US Open, to make promotional appearances, do interviews and watch the games. Yesterday, he was leaving his hotel and about to make his way to the Open when several white NYPD officers jumped him, threw him to the ground and roughed him up. It turned out to be a case of mistaken identity, of course. But this sounds like a chilling incident:
Retired black tennis star James Blake, in an NYPD double-fault, was slammed to a Manhattan sidewalk and handcuffed by a white cop in a brutal case of mistaken identity. The 35-year-old Blake, once ranked No. 4 in the world, suffered a cut to his left elbow and bruises to his left leg as five plainclothes cops eventually held him for 15 minutes Wednesday outside the Grand Hyatt Hotel.
“It was definitely scary and definitely crazy,” Blake told the Daily News. “In my mind there’s probably a race factor involved, but no matter what there’s no reason for anybody to do that to anybody.”
Blake, on his way to make a corporate appearance for Time Warner Cable at the U.S. Open, said none of white cops identified themselves, including the officer who charged straight at him and bounced him off the E. 42nd St. concrete around noon. “Don’t say a word,” snapped the officer, who Blake said was not wearing a badge. Blake — whose right eye appeared red hours later at the Midtown hotel — was only turned loose when a former cop recognized the man in cuffs and alerted the arresting officers, a police source said.
“That is James Blake, the tennis player,” the NYPD retiree told them.
The first cop involved never apologized to Blake for the physical thumping or the subsequent cuffing, the ex-player recounted. Blake was only in cuffs for a minute after he was misidentified by a witness during a credit card fraud investigation, police said. The Harvard-educated athlete was waiting for a car ride to the Queens tennis center after an interview with a magazine writer. As he started texting on his phone, Blake looked up and saw someone in shorts and a T-shirt racing at him.
“Maybe I’m naïve, but I just assumed it was someone I went to high school with or someone who was running at me to give me a big hug, so I smiled at the guy,” Blake said. He was adamant that the officer never said a word: “No, just rushed me.”
The unidentified officer picked Blake up, threw the 6-foot-1 player down on the sidewalk and commanded him to roll over facedown.
“I’m going to do whatever you say,” Blake recalled telling the cop. “I’m going to cooperate. But do you mind if I ask what this is all about?” One officer replied: “We’ll tell you. You are in safe hands.” Blake said, “I didn’t feel very safe. You’d think they could say, ‘Hey, we want to talk to you. We are looking into something. I was just standing there. I wasn’t running. It’s not even close (to be okay). It’s blatantly unnecessary. You would think at some point they would get the memo that this isn’t okay, but it seems that there’s no stopping it.”
A man who was standing near Blake was arrested in connection with the scam, police said. Once he was told about his misidentification as one of the bad guys, Blake told the police to check his license — in his front left pocket — and his Open credential, in his back pocket. The tennis great said he would like an apology from the department, and he wants to hear there will be repercussions for the officers involved. Blake said at first he didn’t want to discuss the incident publicly, but felt he had an obligation to bring to light another instance of excessive police.
“I have resources to get to the bottom of this. I have a voice,” Blake said. “But what about someone who doesn’t have those resources and doesn’t have a voice? The real problem is that I was tackled for no reason and that happens to a lot of people who don’t have a media outlet to voice that to.”
NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton has already issued a statement and authorized Internal Affairs to investigate the incident. Bratton said, in part: “I will not tolerate any type of excessive use of force on the part of my police, but as always, we have that saying, the first story is never the last story.” The NYDN did note, however, that after IA viewed some footage of the incident, one officer was placed on “modified duty.” What bugs me is the same thing that bugs me in so many of the seemingly racially-profiled cases in the past few years: this was a credit card fraud situation, NOT A HOMICIDE. You know? The cops weren’t chasing down a violent felon that they believed to be armed and dangerous. They were chasing down some dude who was basically writing bad checks, and they just violently assaulted the first black guy they saw. No justice, no peace.
Photos courtesy of WENN.
This is gross. The fact that they didn’t even say one word to him before flinging him to the ground is a clear violation of his rights even if he was a ringer for the thief. But I bet when we eventually see a picture of the actual perpetrator, he looks nothing like Blake but does have one important feature in common, namely the melanin content of his skin.
+1
Damn. +∞
It is extraordinarily screwed up that they acted in the way that they did. But, are we sure this is a race thing? Obviously Blake identifies as, and is African American, but if you were running down the street chasing someone, he would easily be mistaken as caucasian. If it had not specifically been mentioned in the article, I would have thought from the photos that he was caucasian. Either way though the behaviour on the part of the police was unacceptable.
It could be an NYP thing. Those cops think they are the sh!t! Act first and ask questions after. Then again you have to ask yourself what makes them think they had to tackle and cuff him before they asked a question.
He looks like a white guy to me too.
If he was standing next to the actual person they were trying to catch, I’m guessing the witness just pointed and said “that guy” and that Super Trooper just went off.
Ummm… Of course this is a race thing. He’s a well known American tennis player and clearly of African American descent. You don’t see Lindsay Lohan getting tackled on the sidewalk, despite being proven a repeat thief and coke head… she doesn’t “fit the description” of young black male, so she doesn’t get assaulted.
The point is – police brutality is very real, and their continuous, unabated excessive use force comes to light time and time again – either through innocent unarmed black lives being taken or known black celebrities being profiled in the same manner. Of course it’s a race thing.
Yaya, they did not know who he was when he was arrested. And he does not look black to me.
They knew who Dylan Roof was and they walked him to the car without cuffs and later bought him Burger King.
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE stop “guessing” and making excuses for what we know is a corrupt system benefiting from imprisoning and massacring the people whose blood and sweat built this nation.
He looks black to people who know black people. And he is definitely black to the NYPD. (And to whomever that unreliable eyewitness was.)
In what world do you look at that man and see Caucasian? Can you tell he’s of admixture, sure, but let’s be real: brown people are treated fundamentally different than white people by police-the only exception being class, for instance, if you’re living in a tailor park/projects, the police will manhandle you because the unfortunate opinion is broke = criminal.
We live in a military state, period.
There is no excuse for police to not identify themselves outside of an undercover operation, there is no excuse to throw someone to the ground and cause injury who’s shown no indication of resisting arrest, more importantly there’s no excuse for police brutality.
He doesn’t look black? LLEYTON HEWITT WOULD BEG TO DIFFER!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/in_depth/2001/us_open_tennis/1520183.stm
Meanwhile, the Williams sisters’ match drew the second largest tennis viewing audience ever to ESPN. So, progress!! (Not really.)
Oh, for Pete’s sake, now we’re saying that black people look white to keep up the ‘not race-based’ charade? Whatever it takes. What I don’t get is why? Why invest all of that energy in pretending that the obvious isn’t of import? What’s the point of it and who buys its claims?
@TheOtherMaria: honestly he looks Caucasian to me … but I’m not American. I wasn’t going to even comment because I have learnt that Americans tend to have different definitions of white/black. (I think it’s cultural heritage stemming from the one-drop policy). Broadly speaking, Americans tend to see it as “if you’re not quite white, then you are black”, but that’s not always the case in other countries, where it might be “if you’re not quite black, then you’re white”.
Obviously the American definition is what matters here. But maybe some of the other “oh, I didn’t realise he was black, maybe the police didn’t either?” commenters are also non-American?
The cops were looking for a black guy from a photo — and jumped this man.
AND, the guy in the photo wasn’t even the guy they really wanted.
Double mistaken identity yet they’re violent as hell.
When’s the last time YOU were mistakenly jumped by the cops? Shot in a traffic stop?
I thought he was caucasion/mix/whatever appeases the pc out there. He looks white. My eyebrows shot up when i read he’s not. His skin and features are identical to a friend I have that isn’t mixed at all. He’s anglo saxon white through and through, but has a decent tan from being outside a lot.
Good he’s speaking out, but there should be less tolerance for this stuff within the system.
I had no idea he was black. Maybe for the expert eye. He could belong to several different ethnicities if you asked me. especially with this haircut.
Or maybe it is because in my country we do not obsess that much with what race/ethnicity is who.
lol okay Pinky, I’ll let my boyfriend know that I don’t know him because apparently I “don’t know black people” if I think this guy looks white.
He looks white to me in these pictures, but after a google search I could see that, yes, he does looks mixed. Perhaps it’s the lightning in these photos.
@KB Cool. Let me know what he says.
Nope. Not “obviously” a race thing. The guy looks white to me… Maybe hispanic if I don’t have my eyes in but he is very fair skinned.
The cops were overly aggressive yes but I don’t think it had to do with the color of his skin.
If the witness said the perpetrator was black, do you honestly think it would be James Blake that was tackled?
Yes. Most people looking at him could easily tell he’s black or biracial.
@Renee I guess, he looks like Kelly Slater to me.
In Nyc, there isn’t really biracial. This is because everyone is here. James looks non WASP. I do not think it was anything other than excessive force by NYPD. This man does not look black enough for it to be a black incident. If anything they thought he was Latino ie Dominican or Puerto Rican
This guy is the human equivalent of the blue and black dress.
Or was it yellow and gold?
This is absolutely a race thing. These are some weird times.
Of course it is! And LOL at people thinking a light skinned black/biracial looking person ISN’T treated the same by racist. Jeez, people CANNOT be that clueless?
I feel such compelling anger that this accomplished person was humiliated and physically harmed. I know he’s one of millions in the ignorant issue of racial profiling, but I’ve been bothered all day.
He is very light skinned , though. I don’t know if it was a race thing in this case, or just police thing.
The US is a police state, I am afraid of police because most of them are on a power trip.
So, any time I have to deal with them I pull the defenseless silly white girl card, not that I like it. But I just want to get away from them as quickly as possible.
Please don’t make this less than what it was.
No matter what you think “black” looks like, they would not have used this force with well-to-do white man in a suit. Idc if you don’t believe that’s true. Math and statistics and countless COUNTLESS videos don’t need people who ‘believe’ in them.
I honestly thought he was Spanish or Portuguese, looks very Mediterranean European.
Not saying that the situation was not awful, not saying that there isn’t a very real bias in the way the police treat people depending on race (there is, obviously), but I also don’t think that jumping to those conclusions in every situation helps build the case for combatting racial police brutality, in fact it may harm it.
If he grows out his hair he looks even more black and less biracial/brown. His hair is very kinky textured and is afro-like. Google pics of him.
@hmph
Googled a bit and you are completely right. Just the pictures in this post were quite deceiving.
@umm, just taking a pragmatic stance here – if this is treated as police brutality case it would be much easier to get broad support than treating it as a race case. I honestly don’t know which it was but either one is bad and with broader support there is more chance of a resolution.
Don’t limit you base to just one race. There is nothing worse than telling white people “you can’t understand because you are not black”. Sure, but you lose them right there and you can’t solve anything in the US without white people support.
Yes, they wouldn’t attack a well dressed white man, they wouldn’t attack a well dressed black man either. They would attack someone who looks like a homeless or poor white/ black/ hispanic etc. Why? Because they know a well dressed man probably has resources to go after them. Stereotyping is not just a race issue.
@EN who said “There is nothing worse than telling white people “you can’t understand because you are not black”.
Really Nothing Worse ??? I can think of a whole lot of things worse like being manhandled beaten falsely arrested even killed
You insist that cops wouldn’t attack a well dressed black man except that is EXACTLY what happened here
Even the posterboy for Black respectability Don lemon was manhandled and false accused of shop lifting and narrowly escaped things getting worse before he was recognized.
It is about both Police brutality that is disproportionate applied in a racist way and if saying that makes people shy away from being an ally .they never really cared in the first place
> You insist that cops wouldn’t attack a well dressed black man except that is EXACTLY what happened here
Even the posterboy for Black respectability Don lemon was manhandled and false accused of shop lifting and narrowly escaped things getting worse before he was recognized.
There are cases when police attacked well dressed white people also, but it is not a norm. They are bullies, and they look for easy targets.
When a bully attacks a black guy, does he do it because he is racist or because he is a bully? Probably both, right. But he is not only a racist, he is a bully and this is why he attacks and this is why it is a crime.
As a white person I often feel slighted by black people in the US because “I can’t understand”, except I can. I’ve seen the same treatment of other ethnicities with my own eyes , similar to what happens to blacks in the US. Why dismiss me or belittle me and those like me as an ally? And obviously, meh, who cares about me, or me being slighted, but I am just explaining how you could get more whites on your side. Why not do it?
@En
I don’t know why you are stressing the whole ” if you are white you cant understand’ because no one here is saying that in fact quite a lot of white people get it including poster like GNAT Kitten etc who not only get it but try to educate others
I suspect the reason YOU might be getting that particular feedback is your tone deafness in that black people must ignore the racial aspect of police brutality in order to pacify white allies or that your ” feelings ” are actually more important that the actual injustices , indignities and even death that people suffer at the hands of the poice
@EN-I’m a white person and I’m telling you that we will never TRULY understand. Neither of us will ever experience how f*cking terrifying it is to live in fear of the very people who are supposed to protect us. You and I can drive 5 miles over the speed limit and not think twice about it. We don’t have to worry about being pulled over and shot because we’re in a bit of a hurry. That might sound like an extreme example but that shit DOES happen to black people and it happens all too frequently.
“A 2007 investigation by Colorlines and The Chicago Reporter looked at media accounts of police shootings and found that ‘African-Americans were overrepresented among police shooting victims in every city the publications investigated. The contrast was particularly noticeable in New York, San Diego and Las Vegas. In each of these cities, the percentage of black people killed by police was at least double that of their share of the city’s total population.’
A Bureau of Justice Statistics report in 2008 found that black people were almost three times more likely than white people to be subjected to force or threatened with it by police.”
I mean this as respectfully as possible because I think you genuinely mean well, but you really have to educate yourself on this. Yes general police brutality is an issue but it is an OVERWHELMING issue for people of color. The disparity is glaring and atrocious. To me, when you say “police brutality affects everyone” you’re essentially derailing the conversation. You’re making it about everyone–even us white folks–when it’s people of color who are primarily the victims of unnecessary police violence.
http://www.rgj.com/story/news/2014/08/23/fact-checker-police-brutality-toward-blacks-rare/14424297/
EDIT: @blogdiz-thanks man. That means a lot.
@hmph What’s funny is that if you just google “James Blake” you get photos of some shaggy haired white kid lol, but yeah the photos here aren’t the most representative of what he looks like on the reg.
@blogdiz I do not think that that is the point En is trying to make. I think it is more of a matter of tactic. Whether or not people find it insulting, the fact of the matter is that clearly a decent amount of people (the proof is in this thread) would not have realised this gentleman was not caucasian (especially from these photos), and insisting so steadfastly without any concrete proof that this is a race-based attack, actually can hurt the movement of stopping these kinds of crimes, because it will alienate potential allies (especially if those people have felt accused unjustly before). You need a movement, to create change. It is that simple. Unfortunately, at the end of the day, the only person who probably knows what the intention here was is the cop in question, and if it was race based he would never admit it. But the point is, you cannot concretely say this is purely a result of race. It might just be a result of a person being a general asshole.
Attacking anyone who does not wholeheartedly agree is not beneficial, but instead close-minded in it’s own way. At this point it seems like En will get attacked no matter what, simply because she is bringing up a point differing from the popular one in the thread.
http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=james+blake+tennis&id=2791ED82C00F52C809EC107E2DDEC6025EFB1AC7&FORM=IARRTH
Um, he looks like a person of color to me.
On a superficial note, dude is really hot.
@EN, hmm and KB (because tagging you all separately when you’re saying much of the same things is tiring)
If you have to make excuses to explain away a situation instead of looking at the FACTS, you aren’t contributing anything worthwhile.
FACT:
James Blake is a POC
FACT:
NYPD IDENTIFIED James Blake as a black man and a suspect
FACT:
Officers used excessive, unnecessary force
FACT:
Officers got a slap on the wrist and the NYDP refuse to take responsibility for the C-R-I-M-E, this CRIMINAL, unconstitutional violence.
however badly you want to explain this away, for whatever reason (denial, guilt, outright refusal to acknowledge travesties funded by the taxes we all pay) please take a minute and examine what we KNOW rather than desperately searching for other possibilities.
Isn’t it amazing that people are automatically giving the police officers the benefit of the doubt? LOL. Even after all this, these guys still have people who will stick their neck out for them. SMDH
@Kitten, pretty sure everyone is saying that the police officers were assholes (and yes Blake is a rather lovely looking). But just like it is a very serious crime to falsely accuse someone of rape, it can also be bad to falsely accuse someone of a hate crime unless it is proven. Indisputably though, this guy was an asshat.
@Umm, as far as I know, most people here who commented (and myself) were going off the content and photos in this article, and this article alone. As far as I can see, nowhere does it say
FACT:NYPD IDENTIFIED James Blake as a black man and a suspect
OR that the suspect they were looking for was a black man.
Not saying this is not true, but simply that it is not mentioned in this article. And also this is not exactly how statistical inferences and proofs work. While (very understandably) people get emotionally upset over these issues, jumping out and insinuating people are racist the second they do not agree with something is not helpful or necessary correct and is just shaming people out of discussing points which can actually help.
@hmm
You do realize that in essence what you and @EN are saying is that white people cannot care or see the humanity in others with regards to police brutality unless people make it about Them ? I really don’t want to believe that
This reminds me of the ” All Lives Matter (ALM ) rhetoric when in reality they don’t care about all lives but just want to deflect from Black Lives Matter (BLM )
A few weeks ago a poor unarmed white teen was shot in the back by a cop over a ridiculously small amt of marijuana. It was heartbreaking yet the ONLY people who showed up to support this poor kids family Were BLM activists and the only way it wasn’t buried was because BLM spread it on Social media
If All lives matter where were the ALM crew in support of this kid …..nowhere
I am a 53, blonde, blue eyed white woman who has family in NYC and had an incident with a young Italian cop. He was rude, made fun of me after I told him the wrong street name I was looking for (which is why I made a U-turn) because my father was dying in the hospital and I had just left work and driven five hours in the rain, and then gave me a BS ticket for running a red light, which I didn’t do. I went to court to fight it, yelled at him in court, called him a perjurer and an embarrassment to his mother and the NYPD. The judge didn’t charge me with the red light, and I yelled at him as I left, “Shame on you.” The people in the room waiting for their turn to be heard cheered.
If I were a POC, I would have been arrested when I answered the cop back in the street and I bet you the judge would NOT have believed me. Part of why I push back on cops so much (and my husband was a cop for the NYPD for 3 years and a firefighter in the FDNY for the rest of his career) is because I can. If they treat me so poorly, what do they do to minorities and teens?
Mr. Blake didn’t look black to me in these pictures, but he also doesn’t look white. He looks Hispanic or possibly even middle eastern. My adopted brother is Iranian, and looks a lot like Mr. Blake. But he doesn’t look white. And if he were a well dressed white man coming out of an expensive hotel, they would have politely asked to speak to him. Not tackled him to the ground like he was a murderer or rapist on the loose. To me, that is the bottom line.
Cops abuse POC in this country. They don’t abuse well dressed white men. And if fricking needs to stop. Fighting over how black he looks is a waste of time when I bet we all agree that this needs to stop.
@blogdiz, that isn’t at all what I said.
Also, I don’t think anyone has said this is definitely not race related, I know I just said -Are we SURE this is a race thing? That is very different.
I also do not think anyone has claimed that racially motivated police brutality is not a very real and serious issue.
As several people have pointed out citing google images, he is clearly african american (simply not obvious in these images. I for one was getting brunette Fernando Torres vibes). With information from other articles, and google image, it gives a different impression than this article originally did.
Basically, false rape allegations make it unfortunately much more difficult for real rape allegations to be proven or taken as seriously as they should be.
If the conclusion is jumped to so extremely and rapidly but a lot of people are silently thinking (wait, he is black??) then it can cause other, more definite cases (or just illumination of the issue in general) to unfortunately be taken less seriously. Basically, it can make things harder in the manner of the boy who cried wolf.
Again, I am in NO way saying that this is a case of boy who called wolf, just saying that this is how it could be interpreted by many people, which would in turn hurt the movement to erradicate racially motivated police brutality. An example of this occurred at my high school. We had a (very well off) african american student who literally every single time the teacher did not give him perfect marks would yell out loudly in front of the entire classroom “You are just doing that because I am black” even when it was multiple choice and he had clearly marked the incorrect answers. Every single time. If that is the only example of vocalised racism that the classmates have seen, it could cause them to doubt the veracity of other claims that they hear, thus doing a disservice to those who are being discriminated against.
Again, not saying this is what happened in this case, but the problem is that some people could interpret it as such!
Also speaking in the absolute terms that have been used in this thread when quite simply there is no possible absolute conclusive interpretation can indicate a response from (understandable) emotion, rather than logic, which I think was frustrating some people.
@Jib– well said. So many cops are just thugs. Thugs with guns.
@ KB: totally off-topic: the “shaggy haired kid” is a British musician. Give his music a listen, it’s quite incredible:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOT2-OTebx0
And James Blake is HOT and I hope he is OK after this shit went down. O_o
> @EN-I’m a white person and I’m telling you that we will never TRULY understand
So, let’s say you were Jewish and lived in country with anti-Semitism, or you were a Turkish and you lived in Germany were Turks are discriminated, or you were a Christian and live in a Muslim country, are you saying you could still not understand it? I think you can. Discrimination is discrimination.
This is why I disagree when people tell me ” you simply cannot understand”.
Being “tone deaf” goes both ways.
> however badly you want to explain this away, for whatever reason (denial, guilt, outright refusal to acknowledge travesties funded by the taxes we all pay) please take a minute and examine what we KNOW rather than desperately searching for other possibilities.
Why do people think I am trying excuse it or somehow explain it?
I am not trying to excuse it at all. All I am saying, police brutality shouldn’t happen to ANYONE, not whites , not blacks, not Hispanics. And yes, it happens more to POCs, but it shouldn’t happen to ANYONE, that is my point.
The NYPD is notoriously awful. Honestly, the whole lot of them.
Google some other pics of him and tell me if you still think he looks white. The lighting is bright in these pics.
Was I supposed to be surprised or….?
But good for him speaking out. Like he said this happens all over the country and people don’t have a voice to bring it to light. Hence why social media works so hard to bring these cases to light. The fact that they tackled him without saying anything is just scary
Even if they had the right guy, this is disproportionate force when 5 officers are apprehending 1 guy for a non-violent crime.
That’s horrible. Poor James Blake.
My heart aches when I hear these stories, I hope he’s ok.
Meanwhile, we’re supposed to mourn the persecution of white ladies who don’t do their jobs in contravention of actual laws and get daintily placed behind bars for five peaceful days in jail.
Well being that angry and bitter towards complete strangers who have nothing to do with you must be very tiring. That poor petal deserves our sympathy!
Lol
No one mourns that skank except other delusionals.
Exactly.
Do American policeman take some hormones, steroids, medication that makes them so aggressive and violent?
It’s crazy how they treat their citizens.
Nah. Police forces have been militarized as part of the war on drugs and, I’d argue, 9/11. So have the mindsets (of course, police have always been disproportionately violent when it comes to non-whites).
I’d also add that our citizenry has become so heavily armed, and fear of that leads to a lot of overreaction by officers. Something has got to change.
Tiffany: Bringing it back to NYC, no, the citzenry in this town is not heavily-armed. Not an excuse for officers to be jumpy. As for the rest of the country, most of the heavily armed people are white.
It’s the kind of people they employ and create – like a frat.
Yes. And “legacies” don’t help… so many families seem to pass this job down the line, so to speak. I’ve been to parties in the south side of Chicago full of firefighters and cops, and I’ve NEVER heard such unchallenged vitriol toward people of color. I actually left and cut ties with some of my family members because of it. I couldn’t believe that culture… and when they’re surrounded by like-minded people, it intensifies it so much. It becomes acceptable.
Even among younger people who are growing up in a world that *should* be a little better, in schools and neighborhoods full of people of color… nope, they’re still in toxic racist environments, feeling entitled, becoming cops, continuing the vicious cycle.
No freaking joke, Brittney. Born and raised in Texas and I have never seen or heard the kind of racism I saw from Cook County police officers.
Brittney B: yes! I know exactly what you are taking about. I dated my high school sweetheart for the and a half years (from junior year through second year of college). When we were together in those years, he was so open minded. God help the person who says something racist in front of him. And he wouldn’t even take Nyquil because it had alcohol in it.
Fast forward a few years. We run into each other at a bar and end up getting back together (for another year and a half, where we also lived together). He was a paramedic/firefighter that predominately worked the west and south side of Chicago. He had become a completely different person in the years we had been apart. Now he’s constantly using the N word and has become SUPER racist. He also drank pretty heavily while out with his FF buddies.
I’ve also been to those parties on the south side with firefighters. The level of hate and vitriol was off the charts. We used to argue about it all the time, where I tried to make him understand that it had nothing to do with race; his job was to see people at their worst and help them. No one calls the 911 for fun. He would tell me stories of his calls all the time to try to get me to understand his point of view. In the end, the only conclusion I reached its that the whole firefighter and police culture is really messed up and super racist.
We’re seeing the brutality cases because camera phones, and it makes you think every arrest is violent. But, it’s like priests or teachers, those are jobs that attract pedos, and law enforcement attracts small dick types. Most cops simply have average size penises and can conduct arrests in a civilized manner.
Maybe the police involved in these incidents should be shipped off to fight ISIS? They clearly want to bust some heads and not actually “police” anything.
No, it is the American macho and guns worship culture . Plus, many of them are former soldiers. Police in the US is also militarized.
People who are trained to kill, they have a certain mindset and not everyone can keep it under control at all times. This is why all martial arts focus on discipline first and have no tolerance policy.
high on White
Yep.
They were picked on in high school for flunking out. Now it’s their turn….
That’s the log line for my next flick: NYPD Brassholes.
Don’t know how widespread it is, but there is a culture of steroid use/abuse among some of the police officers. They share medications and needles in the locker room, etc.
Welcome folks to a live demonstration of: When Respectability Politics won’t save you
This is an employed “decent” light skinned , Harvard educated black man and even that didn’t exempt him from the Thug Treatment, aka none of this shit the Fox news watchers and comentariat and Don Lemon tell us about being a person of color minding our Ps and Qs Matter at all when it comes to the Authority , not a single f*cking one of those
It is horrifying. Thank you for sharing your perspective. I am listening. I want to hear it and I want to change it.
Exactly. This whole “don’t break the law and you’ll be fine” line they keep repeating is so blatantly false.
Don’t break the law and apparently don’t look like anyone who broke the law, even if the resemblance is of the most passing. Riiiiiiiiiiiight. Because that makes sense.
Hear hear.
If I hear one more white person saying black people are to blame if they get beaten up or killed by a cop because they don’t respect the police, I am not going to be responsible for my actions. A white person saying a black person would still be alive if he’d acted differently is like a man telling a woman she wouldn’t have been raped if she’d dressed differently.
Yep. Disgusting.
+1
PREACH IT, QQ. This respectability bullsh*t is exactly the same as woman being told how to dress to avoid rape. It’s a series of endlessly shifting goalposts designed to keep the blame firmly on the victim and away from the perpetrator.
Talk too “black”? Well you can’t blame the police for thinking you’re a thug then, can you son. You’re well-spoken (according to white standards)? Oh but you had a hoodie on, so really you brought it on yourself. It makes me f*cking sick.
*Applause*
QQ and embertine, EXACTLY. Why is it so mother-effing hard for so many white people to get this???!!!
Don’t even get me started on don lemon.
I will start: Don Lemon Is The Male Stacey Dash and I already Tweeted that at both of them a while back
Don’t ever get me started on Stacey Dash. That one hates her parents for making her black.
And Don Lemon himself has talked about being racially profiled by cops. Makes no sense.
His mind was sucked into that Malaysian black hole he posited. His whole life makes no damn sense.
Woooo!!!!
QQ said it so I didn’t have to and before I had to read any back handed racist comments like
“but he is so nice and never hurt anyone, how could he be treated like this??”
which is just another way of saying “he is a well.mannerred, well spoken, well dressed negro who doesn’t cause trouble, why did the cops bother him?”
,because of course black people need all sorts of qualifiers before being granted humanity of benefit of the doubt
The Tea Is Scalding Toody … and even with all the pre-qualifications it only takes one cop thinking you’re above your station, or too familiar, have too nice a car, or whatever the fuck it is
“Harvard educated”
“Looks white to me” “skin is so light”
Exactly, QQ. Speak on it.
So true.
On the news, I hear alllll the time about young black men who are shot in my city because it “appeared that they were reaching for their waistband” while innocently walking down the street. Failing to recognize that most humans have arms and hands that hang near their waistbands when standing or walking. After they are shot, police find out they weren’t armed and had nothing to do with any crimes.
A couple months ago one of my friends who is black was walking to his BMW. A cop pulled a gun on him because he thought he was trying to steal the car. The cop didn’t lower the gun so my friend could get his keys, license, registration, of course. Instead, another officer arrived on scene and he also pointed his gun at my friend. Fifteen minutes of life and death terror. He was walking to his car.
I don’t know the mortal fear of having a loaded weapon pointed at me by a police officer. Too many of my black friends have experienced this fear for absolutely no reason.
> I don’t know the mortal fear of having a loaded weapon pointed at me by a police officer. Too many of my black friends have experienced this fear for absolutely no reason.
It also creates hate where there was none. It is similar to how civil wars start when suddenly people who lived side by side by centuries start killing each other. Then it takes centuries again to heal those wounds.
The only solution I know is to de on all sides. But American culture promotes violence, and so there isn’t much hope this is going to be resolved any time soon.
QQ, preach, honey. My sentiments exactly. No matter how “non threatening” you appear to be, if your skin is black, you are denied any benefit of the doubt. You’re guilty until they realize that you’re a celebrity.
“…but as always we have that saying, the first story is never the last story”
WTF does that mean Mr Police Commissioner? Give us time to figure out a story that doesn’t make us look so bad? Let us find an angle the puts the blame on the person attacked? Is he shading Blake?
ITA!! If that statement was rehearsed it just underlines the level of arrogance the police use in approaching these situations. If I were Blake that statement would get me totally fired up,
and he has enough of platform to get the message out that this isn’t to be tolerated and make that Chief eat his words!
Yup. No doubt they will close ranks and try their best to sweep this under the rug.
Yep. And if he’d been the average black guy (ie without a large platform to speak), they’d succeed.
THAT is the thing that gets me! I wouldn’t have such a low opinion of police officers right now if they helped root out the officers who are abusing people and power. But they don’t. The bad officers are protected and supported.
I hope someone can get to any existing hotel security camera footage before the NYPD does.
A few years ago, I was caught right in the middle of a surprise NYPD raid in my Harlem apartment building – storm trooper helmets, riot shields, outside vests, the whole bit. Not only did they terrify and scream at and push aside many neighbors who were in the hallway, but I saw one of them deliberately take out the security cams with his billy stick right after they entered the building. A young neighbor girl came running down the stairs with an obvious stab wound, screaming; the cops did absolutely nothing and kept on storming in past her. I dragged her into my downstairs neighbors’ apartment right off the lobby (that’s how I met them!), and we found a towel to push on her wounds.
We felt as if we had to call 911 for some medical attention and help – right in the middle of a 911 stream of NYPD outside the door. When I asked both a cop and a detective if anyone could help us aid the girl (mind you, there were at least 15 police by now), they screamed at me to ‘stand down.’ Then the cop looked at me and said, “A girl like you (I am white) should be glad we’re taking out the trash.”
Nothing ever came of me reporting any of this… including trying to get journalist contacts¸to at least cover it (“Not unusual enough. My editor never runs with these.”)
There is an incredibly racist, classist, homophobic stripe a mile wide in the NYPD (have seen it in action in midtown, chelsea, the village as well) – and an inner culture that protects itself. (A lot of them even stick to living in the same few, insular neighborhoods – def in the boroughs outside Manhattan.) I will never forget not a single one of them stopping to help that poor girl whilst screaming at all of us as if we were the enemy. I firmly believe a lot of them adopt and adapt their own culture of brutality, excessive force and blue silence over ‘protect and serve’ every day of the week.
@belle de jour, that is appalling. I’m even wary of our cops now too and I’m a 60 yr old white woman in small town Canada. I can’t imagine what black American people in big cities have to go through. Its sickening to hear stories like this, the Sandra Bland story absolutely haunts me. I think they watch too much TV and take too many steroids.
The reason I say all cops are guilty when only a few do this is because they all close ranks and protect their bad apples. I’m a teacher and when we believe another teacher is out of bounds with a student (which I’ve seen in my school twice so far) we can’t report it fast enough!! None of us would ever protect another teacher who was inappropriate with a kid in any way, and we can’t get the abuser out of the building and profession fast enough!! So why are cops so different than we are?
@Jib: the mater was a professor, and that world was exactly the same. Although there existed an admitted if silent code to help colleagues if the administration or president were ganging up for some petty bureaucratic nonsense, there was an inviolate principle that no one got away with anything that could harm a student, no matter their tenure or favored status. It’s a very different mentality than the simplistic, black & white ‘us vs. them’ I’ve witnessed in the NYPD.
>The reason I say all cops are guilty when only a few do this is because they all close ranks and protect their bad apples.
Exactly!
What he most likely meant was that the first story is rarely ever the whole story. BUT with that said that also doesn’t mean the last story will make them look any better, in fact many times it makes them look worse. So not sure what he was even trying to get at by making that statement.
This is exactly the same blame-dodging, I’m-on-your-side-but-why-do-you-have-to-make-me-be-on-that-side-when-it’s-your-fault-anyway-but-I’m-stuck-with-you.Ugh,-you’ll-see-I-won’t-do-a-damn-thing-and-that’ll-show-you shit he always pulls. That man sees victims as troublemakers who rudely intrude upon his peace.
proof that no matter who you are all comes back to race.
I think the mentality is, shoot first asks questions later. You can’t just go up to a random person and assault them. I don’t know who this guy is, but even if he was the guy who did the crime, you can’t just man handle him. Also this “paid” leave is a joke.
Aren’t the police supposed to identify themselves? And why throw him to the ground first? He was outnumbered. Why not just try a less violent way of apprehending him if they thought he was a criminal, especially a nonviolent criminal? Just ridiculous.
I dated a guy who was a former FBI agent, and he told me he quit when he made a 69 year old counterfeiter cry by threatening and scaring him so much. He said he hated the person he was becoming.
We HAVE to start demanding more/better from our law enforcement because this is so far past unacceptable.
As a nation, we have to have a more rigorous training program for police and we have to hold them to a higher standard of professionalism instead of giving them carte blanche to abuse, torture, and murder our fellow black citizens.
I am SO f*cking tired of hearing the excuse “well that’s what he gets for f*cking with a cop” as if cops don’t have any responsibility to handle high-stress situations in a calm and competent manner. Again, cops should be BETTER than us, they should be able to operate safely and proficiently in dangerous situations. They should NOT be displaying violent, erratic, hot-headed, or impulsive behavior. These are people who are here to protect American citizens; to enforce law and order. These are people who are granted the power and the privilege of using their own judgment to wield guns, batons, tazers and other harmful weapons in an attempt to keep the peace. We should not be accepting anything less than the best behavior from police officers.
Imagine how terrified Blake must have been? This officer was plain-clothed…Blake probably thought he was being assaulted by a stranger, which really wasn’t too far from the truth.
Agree completely. Better training, better monitoring of stress and behavior and attitude. This has to stop.
I absolutely agree, Kitten.
A-freaking-men, Kitten. Body cameras on all LEOs **NOW**, unpaid suspension for any LEO who turns his camera off while on duty. No exceptions, no excuses.
I just read yesterday about this amazing woman, Jennifer Eberhardt, a social psychologist, who has focused her research on studying unconscious racial bias, and is working with police departments on how to recognize it and make changes. A tiny island in this storm, but so heartening among this depressing news…
http://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/magazine/article/?article_id=80755
I think one of the things that never seems to get talked about is steroid use. Police officers are RENOWNED for their abuse of anabolic steroids. Add to that a dash of machismo and Mr. Blake’s offence of “standing while black”, and you have a perfect storm of bigotry and roid rage.
As a white woman, I cannot pretend to know how this feels, but it makes me so angry inside to see this happening over and over and over…
Kitten, you’ve said it
In a nutshell
I completely agree. This whole situation must have been scary for him.
The lack of identification is really troubling. If some random man wearing shorts and a t-shirt ran up to me on the street and grabbed me of course I would fight back and resist. And then be in trouble for resisting.
Right – can you imagine? And how much would that hurt to have someone tackle you on cement? It’s awful.
I was about to say that. But we know that black people must blithely accept being beaten to death, huh? To self-defend, that is the actual evil.
WTF. Blake sounds like such a sweet guy.
Incidents like this are so common place for black Americans and why it drives me insane when people say “If you follow the law, you won’t have any problems with police.” Bullshit. Having too much melanin in your skin is sufficient probable cause for some cops. It’s sickening.
Some presidents too.
You would think with the attention blacklivesmatter is getting police would be a bit more sensitive about slammung random black men to the pavement. I don’t understand how plain clothes cops are allowed to assault people? How do you know they aren’t murderers/thieves. Someone could pull out their concealed hand gun and shoot the cops. Well I guess like Kanye said “even if you in a Benz you still a N—.”
You’d think police would be more cautious about these things but they’re not. A black man was pulled over for making eye contact with a police officer. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/cop-pulls-over-black-man-making-eye-contact_55e0ad60e4b0b7a96338e614
SMGDMFH Jesus…
Not when you’ve got Klan Reilly and Hassle-Bitch lobbying for it to be classified as a hate group and be forced into dismantling itself.
Gross. I’ll never understand how police just get away with assaulting people. If you’re chasing a known violent offender, yeah ok, sometimes it might be necessary or more likely unavoidable, but I’ve seen officers shove bystanders to the ground and tackle people and get their guns out while trying to catch someone who may have stolen a candy bar…how is that acceptable? I used to think that kind of thing had to be against the ‘rules’, but now I’ve seen it enough to believe it must just be standard procedure, at least in some places.
On a different note, Blake is crazy attractive now he’s leaner.
Yeah this sounds so crazy. It would be illegal for police to do this in my country if the suspect did not have a weapon or was not acting in threatening manner.
It is illega here they just protect themselves so they never suffer the consequences of their actions. It’s why fewer and fewer people trust the police.
In January of 2002 I was working as a bank teller in downtown New Orleans when I was robbed at gun point. I gave the FBI the description of my robber: he was very tall (6′) and extraordinarily thin, he was very dark skinned and was CLEARLY tweaking (I am not being funny or mean, the scariest part for me was the fact that this man was so obviously high and had a gun on me because I felt like even if he didn’t want to shoot he may on accident.) I told them about his clothing and the fact that he was dirty, like he had been working on a car dirty – all over him. I gave them a lot of other details that someone couldn’t just change in a couple of minutes.
About 15 minutes later an officer came and got me to look at a couple of possible suspects – they had literally grabbed every black male they could. Old, young, light, clean, short, chunky and sober. Not ONE looked anything like what I had told them. I was horrified and even angrier than after being robbed. When I pointed out that I had given a description and that they could maybe use that to help “narrow their suspects” I was told that often victims don’t remember details until they see them and that robbers can change clothes… WHAT? So, I tell you what I saw, you bring me a random black man and I edit my memories? That is NOT OKAY.
That’s outrageous.
That is so awful. Beyond disgusting.
Jebus! I’m guessing they never caught him? Glad you weren’t killed. Awful on so many levels.
No, they never caught him. I get sad if I think of it. I was really angry for a while, but the truth is that man was SO bad off that it makes me so sad. He was beyond sick and I can’t imagine he got better. Though, I guess recovery is possible – I just see it for him. Seemed so “end of the road.” 🙁
It sounds like they were aiming for a bad witness ID. Those kind of tactics are probably why eyewitnesses so often give incorrect identifications, they’re being baited into it.
That is exactly what it felt like they wanted. I was just supposed to pick one and there you go, job done. I was 22 and I had been raised in the south and I knew there was racism, but I was starting to understand the inequality on a daily level and I had already had my own rough interactions with local police. Still, I was shocked that it would be on a federal level. (Though I know now I should not have been shocked at all.) In the weeks after my mind was just blown, it was equal parts fear (like realizing my job was actually dangerous) and anger over how it all went down.
Wow. Thanks for sharing, Sonya.
I’ll wager that the black man the police are looking for looks nothing like James Blake.
I’d wager you are correct!
Oh, didn’t you know? All black people look alike. 🙄
…except for the black people who look white, according to some posters here.
Uh-huh. And you can’t blame the police for putting 41 bullets in an unarmed black man who was standing in his own doorway, because his wallet really did look like a gun.
Sorry you had to experience this ,Blake and thank you for your voice.
“I have resources to get to the bottom of this. I have a voice,” Blake said. “But what about someone who doesn’t have those resources and doesn’t have a voice? The real problem is that I was tackled for no reason and that happens to a lot of people who don’t have a media outlet to voice that to.”
He is so amazing. That’s exactly right. He had no obligation to come forward, but I understand why he felt the need… this only de-escalated because of his background.
Even this article from the NYDN has some problematic parts that imply they’re applying different standards here. It’s not outrageous because of who he is; it’s outrageous, period, and he gets that.
Why should “Harvard-educated” be inserted into that description, if not to provide some juxtaposition? If not to say, “THIS guy CLEARLY didn’t deserve police brutality. He has an Ivy League education! He’s innocent!” The same paper probably called Trayvon Martin “no angel” for smoking weed. This has to stop — this implication that some people of color are less worthy than others, or that it’s fair to assume someone is guilty if they’re black and uneducated and poor, but not if they’re black and educated and rich. But maybe the writer is focusing on exactly that message — that even if you “do everything right” as a person of color, reaching the heights of academic and professional success, you’re still risking brutality every time you walk outside. That’s so important to understand.
Shameful. Just disgusting. I feel awful for his family, too. Also, NYPD, way to boost the confidence of Blake’s children about police helpfulness.
a few articles back, i read some artist? celeb? can’t remember now… advising people to keep on the downlow, not flashy, and be polite, welldressed and wellspoken (or, in “speak proper American” in Palinesque language) to avoid getting racially profiled.
in my years of watching tennis, James Blake is one of the politest, most well-spoken guys on the ATP tour. he’s unfailingly courteous and random fans often comment about his random acts of kindness. a lot of fellow sportpeople and fans were sad when he had to retire.
so… obviously he’s not polite enough and wellspoken enough for NYPD police?
and since when Suspected credit card fraudsters are treated a suspected axe murderer?
if they insisted on being mean to James Blake i think he deserves at least an “excuse me sir, terribly sorry but may we bother you to fling yourself to the ground so we may handcuff you like a racially-profiled person you are?”
and more broadly, do they treat all suspects like this? i thought y’all have Miranda rights and all, or is it reserved to L&O SVU?
Well he didn’t have a chance to be polite because he was tackled before he was questioned.
Actually he did, he smiled at the guy! Definite criminal behavior, smiling at a cop as he’s running towards you.
yeah I saw a meme posted by some entitled jerk that said basically all of these problems are caused by people being rude to the police.
Wel if the police don’t actually say a word to him now what will they come up with to blame the victim and exonerate the police?
That’s what they were saying about the Sandra Bland case, completely ignoring the fact that a white woman would probably never have a cop tail her and then pull her over for an illegal lane change.
I think you’re talking about Anthony Mackie.
I agree with what you and the others have said. They didn’t even give him a chance to be “polite”.
I thought perhaps you were referring to Chris Rock’s piece, but his is actually very tongue-in-cheek, and actually pretty funny (in a political humour way) because it totally underscores the fact that none of those so-called “tips” really change the fact that if you’re black (and male), you are probably going to get your ass kicked by the cops at some point.
It was the never flashy or outlandish Isiah Washington “Burke” from Grey’s Anatomy who made this reference after Chris Rock was pulled over multiple times in a month.
He’s quietly acknowledged two things, one being the race issue and the obviousness of this is hard to ignore because I would find it incredible that a similarly dressed white man would have been crash-tackled like that. The second thing is the resources thing. He has money and clout to make a bit of a noise. The opposite being what was exposed in the likes of Ferguson, people without resources being fined or arrested for the stupidest things and having no recourse.
I do love the NYPD spin. Whatever they pay their press people it’s not enough. Oh, an actual suspect was standing close by! How convenient. He was identified by a witness. Was this witness a) a complete idiot, b) white or c) fictional? I include b) as valid because it’s been known for years that cross-race identification is not all it’s cracked up to be. Edit: I’ve just seen Sonya’s reply – sounds like it doesn’t matter who was identified, maybe Blake was just the nearest black guy.
The police situation is becoming like the Mob. Over the top action for the ‘enemy’ and retaliation for anyone who crosses them or steps out of line within the organization. IA seem to be less Rat Squad and more Hamster Squad.
There was a case just recently where police shot a man with his hands in the air in broad daylight when the man had his hands in t e air.
Their defense – “police officers believed he had a knife”.
So…. since they couldn’t see the knife it is reasonable to assume that they were pretty far away and he had his hands in the air. How was he a threat to them?
Police is completely unaccountable, they are a mob.
Since we’re hearing this via police PR, there’s also option d) the witness said “that’s the guy!” and pointed, and then cops grabbed the wrong guy. Imply the witness was at fault to cover the cops making a mistake.
There’s also option e) the cops said “do any of those guys look familiar?” and the witness vaguely recognised Blake (but didn’t realise it was from seeing him play), and mistook that sense of recognition as meaning he was the criminal. That’s a fairly common problem with eyewitness testimony. It’s called unconscious transference. If someone looks familiar, but you’re not sure where you recognise them from, it’s VERY easy to mistakenly think they’re the suspect.
Smh, the only thing stories like this are good for is to illustrate a very serious point.
No I do not believe they’d throw down and rough up any white guy in a suit on a tip. HAH! They’d be so scared of punishment they’d literally brush his clothes off and offer him anything. Since it is a black man it’s “The first story” bullshit which is code for closing ranks and figuring out the lie.
But yeah I really believe police departments when they claim the only reason they’re againdt body cameras is because of ‘privacy’. The only thing that makes me sad is that there may not always be a camera on the person or someone filming them because I don’t trust the police to do right. Cameras implemented will suddenly ‘magically’ find themselves being turned off in important cases.
At this point (just in this case), I don’t even care they didn’t have cameras on. Just a badge would have been helpful.
Unbelievable. Just stepping out of his hotel to a waiting car and he’s tackled to the ground. The fact that he has to call out the officer who tackled him, who has yet to apologize, is pathetic on the department’s and the officer’s part.
“Once he was told about his misidentification as one of the bad guys”
Does US media often call criminals as “the bad guys”? I admit it does sound somewhat reasonable in English but translated to my country’s language it is something only a child would say so it sounds so silly.
It’s not common, but in this specific instance I’m struggling to think of a better way to say it.
The norm is to say suspect. But that means “a person thought to be guilty of a crime”. So Blake wasn’t misidentified as a suspect, he honestly *was* a suspect for a couple of minutes (until the police realised they’d suspected the wrong guy).
You definitely can’t say “misidentified as *the* criminal” because of libel (the guy they eventually arrested might be innocent). “Misidentified as *a* criminal” is little bit better, but still can be interpreted as referring to eventually-arrested guy.
“One of the bad guys” is safe from libel claims. (“Bad guy” is an insult, but not a statement that can be proved or disproved easily. You are either a criminal or not, it’s a statement of fact. “Bad” is just a statement of opinion.)
When you are a racist POS, anything can be justified.
Can’t wait to hear the weak excuse they drum up for this.
NYC cops have become repellent to me. Even more disgusting than racist, violent cops are the “good” ones who stay quiet, because “thin blue line.”
No, seriously, please don’t. I shudder to think what pressure they’re under. It doesn’t make it right but my chest just ran cold thinking what must have to run through their heads – the ones who actually get to the point of thinking about it. Can you imagine being told that if they ever put out a distress call, it might be ignored?
I understand what you’re saying feeble, but that fear is one reason why police around the country increasingly behave more like an occupying army than officers of the law. I’ve been hearing that excuse for too many years now, and internal affairs investigations are compromised, imo. Sorry to offend you, I truly am, and not everyone can be Serpico obviously. And when officers turn give the mayor their backs, that is a threat. When cops put homeless people on blast to publicly shame them for being homeless or to laugh at them, we have turned a corner as a society. And I ain’t going with them.
well I want to run and give him a hug now
Everyday there is crap like this happening and what amazes me is that the media hardly touches it. It is amazing what is out there daily documented yes even yesterday about police and believe me I am not a police hater,not even close and we do need them. What we don’t need is hot headed I’ll trained bullies for cops. If half of the stuff I see daily was on the news there would be an upheaval and more then riots from people of all walks of life.. I believe also the media plays a part in this mess very strongly.
So sick of this…and nothing will stop these racist cops. They get away with actual murder daily. All they have to say is “but..but..I felt threatened!” and boom, off the hook. I don’t trust any police, any time, EVER!
This is horrible. And sadly a perfect example of just existing while black. He was thrown to the ground due to mistaken identity. But the crime in question was credit card fraud. Seriously? White gunmen have shot several people to death and are handled with kid gloves on the way to jail. But a non-violent crime (where they had the wrong person) causes a man to be thrown down and dehumanized.
Yeah, that is ridiculous. And he wasn’t just thrown to the ground, he was tackled! The guy was running and he looked at him and smiled, he didn’t run. Why in God’s name would you tackle him?
All of the “he doesn’t look very black to me so it can’t be racial profiling” comments are making me gnash my teeth. If that is seriously your reaction to an incident like this then there is not enough facepalm in the world for you. I am embarrassed for my race when I see white people twisting circumstances every which way to avoid facing the fact that racism is systemic, and that we are part of the problem. ARGH
I need a fricking drink.
Mmmhmmmm. So many people content to stay asleep.
I explained my position above. It could be racial profiling or any other kind of stereotyping.
But the core issue is police brutality, this is what needs to be addressed.
There are so many people who are fall victims to stereotyping, not just racial. By including them in you gain broader support for your cause and more power.
Hi EN-
I responded to you up-thread.
Just a straight question (no snark intended) what other stereotyping are you referring to?
I’m not EN, but… Heavily tattooed people, people in revealing clothing, people in sweatpants and flip flops, people with shaved heads, larger broad people, people with piercings, people with disabilities, people with mental issues….I could go on and on. Stereotyping isn’t limited to race.
@Absolutely
What stereotype do you think Blake fit when he was tackled to the ground ??
I was merely answering a question as to what other types of people get stereotyped. Please don’t turn this into an attack on me for no reason.
@Absolutely
Actually no, @EN said about THIS particular incident “it could be racial profiling or any other kind of stereotyping”
You responded under that post volunteering to clarify what kind of stereotyping she could be referring to (actual question) with a laundry list of know general stereotypes, I merely asked which specific stereotype applied to Blake , I did so without using any harsh language or shouting so I m not sure how that qualifies as an attack ?
Good Night to you though
How does the fact that stereotyping isn’t limited to race somehow negate the volume of data that shows black people are disproportionately stereotyped by police?
PUBLIC APPOLOGY NEEDED.
Don’t hold your breath.
Update: According to Gawker, the cop who tackled and handcuffed Blake has been placed on desk duty.
Yeah that sounds about right. Man cops are nothing if not predictable. God forbid the guy lose his job.
Kitten, I’m sure the police union leaves no other option until an investigation is completed.
Yup. I almost included a snarky anti-union comment in my post but I decided that I didn’t feel like offending people today.
Maya, that other cop is still insinuating something by saying there’s another story. He should have just said they were investigating the situation and left it at that.
I was only addressing the fact that he’s not been fired yet.
Because, ‘what did you expect?’, Bratton is saying that the actual thief could’ve been Blake’s twin. Just lovely, that’s fine, then. Let’s see a picture, Brat.
Unacceptable! How ridiculous!
I don’t know what to say. Yes, this was racially motivated. Yes, he looks black/biracial. He would not pass as anything other than a light skinned black man. I hate it happened to him, but in a way, I’m glad it was someone as high profiled as him.
It’s horrible that this happened to James Blake, but good in the sense that he is very likely to be believed (compared to your average non-celebrity). I know black Americans who have “made it” are often reluctant to speak openly of the racism they’ve experienced, but I think it’s so important that they do. I understand the reluctance – look what happened when Obama simply stated: If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon. The right lost their fu*king minds.
Around the time Trayvon Martin was murdered, Jonathan Capeheart (Washington Post writer and MSNBC commentator) spoke frankly of his childhood. He grew up in New Jersey, and his mother taught him certain lessons to help protect him from the police. One of them was – never run outside, or it will be assumed you are running from a crime. It was so chilling to hear his story, yet so important for him to share it.
Eye opening example of basic white privilege. White people don’t have to live in fear of assumed guilt by police. This world is f***ed up.
Something very similar happened to my cousin. A robbery suspect got away and was described as an over six foot light skinned/mixed race man in his mid twenties wearing black shorts and a gray t-shirt. My cousin fits that vague description and was grabbed by two cops when he was walking home from the library. The problem is that my cousin has an intellectual disability and they felt he was acting suspicious and wasn’t cooperating, so they put him in the back of a cruiser and took him in for questioning. He was so upset and confused and when my other cousin (his sister and caregiver) finally was called and came to get him she was furious. The cops were like um well I’m sorry but he fit the description and when we tried to stop him to question him he was acting suspicious and didn’t cooperate so what else were we supposed to do. It’s amazing how quickly these mistaken identity cases can turn and how the cops are like well *shrug* sorry you guys all look alike.
Actually, a colleague’s husband who is Irish and as white as they come was picking her up from work one day in the middle of a NYC ghetto, and a van came screaming up with cops pouring out, and they had him across the hood of a car, hands behind his back, because they mistook him for someone else.
Hope her sues everyone involved and files a civil suit on top of it. Since he’s a celebrity they are going to fire someone.
Blake said that he’s a public figure and can put a spotlight on the injustice. He also said that he is sorry for someone not in his position that has to just take the abuse.
I am a white women and ten years ago called 911 during a domestic issue with husband vs. son. After they calmed down the police arrived and would not leave after we told them we were fine, they said we ” are arresting someone in this family” and arrested my husband . ((all of this was dismissed in court by the way. )) So my two cents, police are too aggresive, mean, and would be the last people I would advise anyone to call for help. And if I was black 100 times more.
So by that one incident you had all cops are bad?? There are some bad apples yes, but the majority just want to do their job and get home alive. If you dealt with on a daily basis what they have to deal with, you’d be eating your hair in a corner. People like you that spew vitriolic stuff like that are what keeps the good cops out there in danger. I would love it if all cops nation wide would strike for a couple of weeks and see what happens.
There was a case last year where parents called 911 to help them with their mentally ill son. The cops came and shot the son, he died.
Yes, the cops in the US are not someone to call on you family or anyone you care about.
Man do I have a few doozies for you, Sansa. Just remember, call the cops on the cops. Let the dispatcher know. Works like a charm & gives the officer a black eye & it stays on their record.
Do you know what “No justice, no peace” means? It came out of violent riots in which someone was murdered because he was identifiably an Orthodox Jew because there was a lynch mob angry at someone who looked like him, even though they knew it wasn’t the guy. I can’t believe you just used that phrase. As for the rest of it, there are definitely cops who are off the chain, but the NYPD has a lot of minority and/or female cops, and you are painting a lot of people with one brush. Some cops suck, some wrestlers suck, some bloggers suck- you don’t stereotype, right? When you say things like, no justice, no peace, you are saying the same things that are said when innocent cops are attacked and killed. Last year, 2 minority cops were ambushed and killed just to kill some cops, and 1 of them had a middle school aged son bury him. You are insulting people of color who choose to take these jobs and make a difference, and you are stereotyping a lot of people. There was an officer, or a few, who need to be called out, but that’s not all of them, and it’s a disservice and irresponsible to foment these views.
This sounds personal to you, like you may have a loved one in law enforcement, so I’m gonna tread lightly out of respect.
I’d like to explain why I think the comparisons you made don’t really work. Bloggers, wrestlers, whomever, do not have the same level of responsibility to the public as police officers do. In fact, law enforcement is singular in their duty to protect us–they are effectively, guardians of the public. There is an implicit trust between someone who is in desperate need of help and the only person who can effectively help them. So in that sense, police officers owe us in a way. They owe it to us to not abuse that trust, they owe it to us to not to not exploit that relationship. Police should not be like you or I, they should be BETTER. They should be people that we can depend on when we need a problem to be solved or if we’re in a position of weakness or fear. They should NOT be the people who are imposing that fear or preying upon that weakness.
Additionally, what other profession allows their employees to walk around with lethal weapons? That alone is a massive responsibility in the sense that it makes for an unequal level of power between the public (who may have a gun, but likely doesn’t) and the police. A job which allows someone the ability to kill or hurt another human so easily, requires a person who is trustworthy, responsible, calm, professional, and who has the public’s best interest in mind. They should be keeping us safe, not forcing us to live in a state of fear.
Are there GOOD, NOBLE people who go into law enforcement? Yes. Unequivocally yes. But to me, that should be every person who takes that job. I’m sure that sounds impossibly idealistic of me to say that (after all, police are human, they make mistakes) but I think that we get a step closer to that with more rigorous training, more sensitivity training, and a stronger dedication to hiring/promoting people who demonstrate positive and helpful behavior towards the community and firing people who do not adhere to strict policy. Also, we need to stress the importance of solving issues without immediately resorting to violence. There simply HAS to be a better way to control/handle dangerous situations. The default response cannot be hurting/bruising/beating/murdering innocent civilians. We have to overhaul the entire law enforcement culture.
I respect good police officers and I absolutely understand what a difficult job it can be. That being said, it’s a job that is not without risks– it is dangerous. An officer being killed in the line of the duty is a tragedy no doubt, but it simply does not outrage me as much as an innocent civilian being killed for just going about their lives, BY a police officer who’s job is to protect and serve. Do you see the difference? A police officer is well-aware of the risks that their job carries, but NO ONE should fear that they could be gunned down just for driving to the store or walking to the bank. That seems particularly horrific to me: the idea that someone could die at the hands of a police officer for doing NOTHING WRONG.
Everyone who says “it was just this” or “just that” is missing the obvious: the INSTITUTIONALIZATION of racism. You can be a black cop and still belong to an organization that has institutionalized racism. My phone is going to die so I can’t elaborate, but I do hope this is not new knowledge or information.
Sigh, he looks Black to me. Even when photos are lightened , he looks like a light complexioned Black man.
Honestly refreshing to see that some readers understand the bigger picture behind this and why it occurs to men of color.
he looks 90% white and 10% black to me (sorry for stupid numbers, i dont know how to express what i see otherwise). Again, what that cop did was horrible and violation of human rights. But is it about race again? really?The dude is barely black on every picture.
See him on video. He’s unmistakably black.
“Why does every rape have to be about the victimization of women? She barely looks like a woman to me.”
It’s the nature of rape, and it’s the nature of police brutality in a country always governed by a white power structure. That’s the race card you forgot.
>See him on video. He’s unmistakably black.
I looked at his pictures online, and if you asked a European I bet majority would say he look Spanish or Portuguese. It is not just about the color of his skin but also about the facial bones structure.
I think this is why non-American readers don’t understand why this is be default a race issue.
I guess to see it accurately one needs to be able to transport oneself into a head of someone who was born and raise in the US , in a big city with racial minorities. It is not always possible.
If individual posters here want to debate whether they see Mr Blake as black or not = IRRELEVANT.
The NYPD were looking for a black suspect, Mr Blake is black and that in addition to their excessive force, given these variables and the lack of resistance from Mr Blake and the treatment he received is THE POINT being made.
Going all around said point is at best denial, at worst, tangential derailing. How x poster sees Mr Blake racially has zero bearing unless you’re trying to prove a weird ‘non-racism’ via some kind of racial ignorance/confusion.
Sheesh.