Let's Talk About Race and Police!

This is an excellent podcast discussing, cogently and soberly race issues in America. The difference between grievance addicts and true victims. Institutional racism and whether or not a white male can ever not be a racist because of his gender and the color of his skin…

It’s a bit long, but if you can listen to it while you work or drive, I think you will find it worth your while.

And yet another story about over aggressive policing…

This story is significant because the “suspect” is white and the cop threatens to shoot him in front of his daughter…

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Can’t do it. Even though it is virtually guaranteed that if ever I interact with police, they will run me for warrants because I have “That Look”, my experience pales in comparison to some of the stories I’ve heard from black people.

In my worst case, I get held up for 5 minutes and the officer comes up with some cheezy reason for the wait, like “I had to check on a couple of things…” to which I laugh and say" Hahaha, no warrants, huh?" and they respond “Nope, you’re good.” and off we go. My wife still can’t believe it. She thought I was crazy until it happened so many times as to be undeniable.

Then on the black side- there is false imprisonment, good chance of a serious beating, and mysterious causes of death like cocaine hysteria or compressive asphyxiation.

I should have specified why I put that particular article is because I had something similar happen to me. It’s too late, I think, to edit the original post to clarify that point. So that is the reason for choosing that particular story, is that I had a very similar experience. The main differences are that I didn’t have a child with me and I was in fact speeding and he had a reason to pull me over.
The experience was similar…

Its weird. I’ve had a couple of bad interactions with police, but no guns. Last time I was stopped for expired registration, inspection, and emissions the cop was scoping out the interior through the window and noticed my hand made fly rod in the back seat. This led to a conversation about steelhead fishing up in the tribs to lake Eerie and a stern warning to get that taken care of and slow my drift through the riffles.

I have had both good and bad interaction with the police. Sometimes very professional and even down right friendly, and others not so much.

The podcast explores and unpacks this stuff based on racial interactions with police. In that, much of the beef by people in BLM and people like them are not exactly true and are based on a false premise, that the police are out to get them because they are black.
It’s not an argument that there are no racist cops. I agree there are racist cops whose population in the force reflects similarly to the population at large. But that unreasonable police aggression isn’t a race problem. It’s a police problem.

They talk about a study being conducted. In like for like situations, whether the person in custody is white or black, more often than not they are conducted in the same manner whether aggressive or professional.

However, in a macro sense blacks were disproportionately more singled out and arrest for petty crimes than their white counterparts. So there does appear to be a greater suspicion leading to stops on blacks than on whites or any other race. The study is in it’s infancy, it’s main source right now is Houston.

What appears to be closer to the truth about police and race is that there is disproportionately more attention given to blacks by the police, but not disproportional use of force or aggression by police. That’s a big difference from the narrative “They are killing us”.

The study is here:

I haven’t read it yet, myself. I have only listened to it’s analysis. I do intend on reading it though.

As a person who happens to be colored (albeit red/brownish and not black) and who routinely carries a legal firearm (or generally two, plus an AR-10 behind the truck seat and a .357 stuck between the driver’s seat and console), I have advise that has worked flawlessly:

  1. Don’t break more than one law at a time.

  2. If you qualify for military plates on your car, it is helpful. I have bronze star plates, for example.

  3. Pull WAY over, then turn back the vehicle a bit to tilt towards the road. (This is courtesy so the cop can walk up to the driver’s window without getting his ass run over by someone not paying attention.) Turn off the radio. Cops are trained to do this, so they assume you are a cop or a member of a cop family.

  4. Have your license, gun license (if applicable), military ID (if applicable), insurance, and registration handy.

  5. Open your car window, turn off the car, and turn on your dome light.

  6. Hang your both hands with licenses, insurance, etc out the window.

  7. Be nice.

I have done this many times, and I drive like a complete asshole on the freeway. Seldom, if ever, get a ticket bc the cops are so happy to have someone who knows what kind of job they have.

When they ask “where are your guns” I laugh and say “you ready, you might need a pen?”

It turns out that I do several of those right! 3,4,5,6,and 7, anyways. That breaking one law at a time is tricky though. I usually have bad stickers and going 40 over in a 55.

What kind of AR-10? I mean make and model… That’s the rifle I want over all others. I want one I don’t have to modify after I buy. A lot of people find the stock triggers terrible and have to replace them, I don’t like to spend a lot of time modifying the gun I just want to throw a scope on it and be done. So if you don’t mind spending a moment providing advice on an AR-10, I would appreciate it.


I didn’t know about #3, but I always try to pull off in a safe place as soon as possible. And I am always nice, because I don’t want to go to jail.

The incidences where I didn’t have a, uh, good experience was always when the cop was in some sort of temper tantrum. The time a cop pulled a gun on me, it was immediate. Once we stopped, I was getting my license, reg and insurance out of my wallet when I heard him screaming “Get out with your hands up, now!”. When I looked, he was perched behind his door with his gun and head visible over the window sill both pointed at me. He scared the shit out of me.
He then slammed me against my own car (not cool, I took a lot of pride in my car and didn’t want to scratch or dent it.) and hand-cuffed me, tightly, very tightly…left marks on my wrists.
It was apparently a case of mistaken identity, though he never explained what or who he was looked for. After he questioned me a bit he calmed way down and uncuffed me.
Then he gave me a ticket for ‘too fast for conditions’ because he didn’t know how fast I was going. Which I thought was unfair. If you wrongly, scare the shit out of, ruff up a little, and cuff someone really tightly and he wasn’t a criminal, I think the experience should negate the ticket. I was just a poor college student who worked full time, I wasn’t loaded. But it could have been worse. He could have hauled my ass in before he figured out I am not the guy he was looking for.

I did not resist, I was not uncooperative in anyway. I was too scared to be aggressive. I couldn’t figure out why he was mad, 'cause I was driving a little fast? That can’t make a cop that mad? I don’t even remember the questions he asked because my head was spinning. I didn’t understand what was happening or why.

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Breaking one law at a time was advice I always followed… If I had something, well green and it smelled like a skunk in a pine forest, I did the speed limit, obeyed all traffic laws, etc. I did not give a reason to get pulled over. If I didn’t have anything with me, then the speed limit was a mere suggestion, one I seldom followed.

No one who isn’t doing anything wrong drives like that!

My wife and I had a funny one happen just past Bristol into Tennessee. A friend of mine that lived down in southern Tennessee gave us map directions for the quickest way down through there. He even warned us that when you crest the hill just past so and so there Will Be a cop sitting on the left side of the highway, so slow down. So we’re buzzing through there at about 80 and just as we crest the hill, there he is! Lights come on and he pulls out, so we start slowing down and kicking ourselves as we remembered that warning. Just then, the pick up behind us must have freaked out, because he rips over into the other lane and takes off like a bat out of hell. The cop lost interest in us and took off after the guy who had previously not been speeding, but obviously had a very guilty conscience.

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Then don’t feed it after midnight. AR modifications tend to multiply over time. (Actually, AR’s in general tend to multiply.) :grinning:

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Windham FST-308. I have three mags with hot hunting ammo and 1 with subsonic mag and a suppressor all tucked away. Optics are just a Meprolight Self-Powered Reflex Sight.

https://www.windhamweaponry.com/content_rifles.asp

It’s nothing fancy, but would work, and I wouldn’t cry if it got stolen.

I fucking hate 5.56 as a self-defense round, having shot a Haji hopped up on meth about 10 times before he finally fucking died. Plus, I deal with things like “elk or bear stuck in barbed wire fence” once or twice a year, and want to be able to actually kill them and not just piss them off and have them tear up 20 yards of fence trying to get free.

/end derail

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I heard they are like rabbits. The only other thing besides finances keeping me from obtaining one, is that there are no outdoor ranges anywhere near me. Considering where I live, that’s pretty weird. We got ranges all over the place, even one with a 100 yd range but they are all indoors and 100 yds with an AR-10 would lose it’s luster pretty fast. Plus I wanna shoot things, not just paper.

Damn…
Yeah not a fan of 5.56 either. I don’t think most people realize that, that is basically .22 cal. Its a hot .22 cal, but still tiny.
A ex-Marine friend of mine explained why they used it. He stated that a dead soldier takes one guy out of battle, an injured combatant removes at least two from active fighting. And if you ever want to get rid of it, hit me up…

//hi-jack

back to racism and shit.

I always find it amazing that the scum bags BLM can call racism against the cops. Many times (most recently) it was a black cop who shot a black man. The other instances young black men (who grew up with no positive male influence in the house no doubt) resisted arrest. Some of them actually trying to fight with the Cop—how freaking stupid is that? What did they think would happen? They would win the fight and go home as if nothing happened? WOW…that is some kind of stupid.

As for being pulled over, I speed almost every time I get behind the wheel (before anyone mouths only one accident in decades of driving and it wasn’t my fault). I am always in a hurry and constantly being pulled over. And yet I have never, not one time had a problem with a Police Officer. I Keep my hands where they can see them, I make eye contact, I give them my license and any other documents that they ask for and most importantly I show them the respect that they deserve. I get ticketed probably one out of ten times. The last time I received a ticket I told to Officer to “stay safe and have a good day”. His retort, “you too sir”. These guys are only doing their jobs. Sure in rare instances you find a bad cop, but so what? There are bad Dentists and bad hotel clerks etc. Humans are imperfect.

Here is a tip to not only the black community but to everyone, when you’re pulled over shut your mouth and do what the officer tells you. Don’t argue about your rights, don’t get out of the car, don’t challenge them either physically or tell them you know your rights. Really…basic stuff and shocking that anyone needs to be reminded.

Problem solved…Wait I take that back because the problem will not be solved as long as we have an instigator in the White House. But your specific problem with law enforcement will certainly be solved.

Good post Zeb I think most of us feel that way. This has been blown way out of proportion and no doubt the Black Lives Matter movement will keep continue to add coal to the fire.

The point is, that there are some problems. And race has something to do with it, on both sides. It’s true that blacks are targeted, disproportionately, for petty crime than any other race. It is also true, that crime of all kinds are higher in predominantly black communities. So what I am saying, is both sides have work to do. I mean that literally, not as a cop-out response. The black community has to do more for each other as well as work with the larger community to make sure that they have all the opportunities afforded to them, that are afforded to others. It seems, not totally unjustified, but wrong nonetheless, that black communities have not only been isolated, but isolated themselves as well.
People on both sides have to work to make sure that the innocent do not suffer with the guilty. Meaning that just because crime is higher in predominently black communities, that those who want to thrive, have that opportunity to do so, without being sucking into the vortex of hopelessness and meaninglessness of crime ridden areas. Also, the black community needs to work to improve their own lots in life at the same time. They also need to go where no one wants too, and make a difference.
Honest conversation and an identifying of the specific problems is the right start. The work follows when we know where the work needs to go.

Their is a disparity, we all need to work on it. It’s not just police. My point of sharing my stories is that these stories don’t belong to black people alone. There are bad cops, too damn many and they will act bad against, white, black, hispanic, purple, green, anybody who is exploitable. That is not totally a separate issue, but it’s not a black issue alone.

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Sorry you had a bad experience with a Police Officer Pat. But, the fact is there are no major problems with a rash of bad cops. Not toward minorities or anyone else.

Young black men commit more crimes than any other demographic. So, if Police are looking at them more frequently than other groups that’s called smart policing.

But why do they commit more crimes? I’ll give you a hint, its not because they saw a bunch of opportunity from across the pond and moved here from Africa to take advantage of us.

Because The Great Society can not throw enough money to ever overcome boys being raised by mothers due to absent father?

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