The most blatant racism in Kenosha
The controversy over racism in Kenosha started recently over the shooting of Jacob Blake. I have heard at least one qualified opinion expressed that, given the information we had at the time (I don’t know if new information is available), the lack of validity of the police action in this case may not be completely unambiguous. I am not defending the validity of the shooting; what I am saying is I don’t yet know enough to be 100% sure it’s as blatantly racist as multiple other police shootings.
And I am absolutely not defending the Kenosha Police Department. Though there may be ambiguity about some aspects of the Blake shooting, there’s none about the department. My indicator for that isn’t Blake, though; it’s a seventeen year old kid by the name of Kyle Rittenhouse, pictured above.
The photo was taken during protests in Kenosha a couple of nights after the Blake shooting. The atmosphere was extremely tense. There was a group of armed White vigilantes ostensibly protecting businesses and as they walk past an armored vehicle we can hear a voice over its megaphone saying “We appreciate you guys. We really do.” Rittenhouse was one of them.
Rittenhouse shot three protestors, killing two. The last two shootings were while he was on the ground, having just fallen while being chased.
After the shootings, Rittenhouse walked past a few police vehicles – armored given where and when they were – and they waved him past. There was shouting in the background by protestors saying he’d just shot people. Here’s my problem.
Can you imagine the Kenosha police waving past a seventeen year old Black kid with that kind of weapon?
Assuming you’re a normal human being who’s answering honestly:
Why can’t you?
09/02/2020 @ 2:01 pm
When discussing the US Constitution, it has often been said that it is not a death pact. Now, when criticizing the common interpretations of the US Constitution, that seems appropriate again. Wisconsin is an open carry state. Some states go a step further and refer to themselves as “constitutional carry” states. This allows the carry of any legal weapon open or concealed without a permit. I think both of these levels are idiotic. In the United States, the quality that we are truly exceptional in is selfishness. Maybe this is the fault of Baby-boomers, and maybe it isn’t. They say that Baby-boomers were an extraordinarily selfish generation. Whatever the case, we don’t seem to “ask what we can do for the country” anymore.
As bad as the racism is in this Kyle Rittenhouse event was, and it is bad, I think the selfishness is even worse. I think the idiotic interpretation of the Constitution is even worse. Kyle himself is the son or maybe grandson of Baby-boomers, and his actions are the progeny of the selfishness. The officers who saw him holding a rifle during this crisis are the idiot progeny of the selfishness, and the heirs of the idiotic interpretation of the Constitution. As racist as it was to let this young fool walk by with Hilo’s rifle, it was also after having killed two white people. As hard as it is to say, it is a fortunate thing that Rittenhouse didn’t kill any ethnic minorities. The response would have made the situation much worse. But, that is only a matter of time if the privilege extended to Rittenhouse is extended to others, and others are killed…irrespective of race. Constitutional carry will result in more deaths, open carry will result in more deaths, and the moronic interpretation of the Constitution will enable more bigots to see armed murderers as upright citizens or victims. Fix it all by making everyone accountable to sensible gun restrictions.
09/02/2020 @ 3:45 pm
I agree as to open carry, though I guess I still have a question as to whether open carry would have been honored in that case by the Kenosha police if a Black seventeen year old male were carrying. Maybe I”m wrong here, I hope I’m wrong here, but I think under those circumstances a Black man (or boy in this case) showing up with a weapon like that in open carry during a protest event containing some violence would have been shot, and I doubt anyone would have prosecuted.
Sure I think the law’s wrong, but I also can’t imagine it being applied equally here.
09/02/2020 @ 4:38 pm
I can only guess how the cops would have reacted to a Black man (or boy) walking with a rifle. I assume he would be stopped. My experience being in California, we would have stopped anyone carrying a gun, or a stick, or a long piece of rubber. I think the fact that he was allowed to walk on by is somehow influenced by this view of gun possession, which is entirely contradictory to doing the job in my time.
Also, we have recent activity in another city, somewhere in Texas. I forget which city specifically. There was an march…about something, and some of the marchers carried guns. One in particular was a Black man. At one point during the march, someone opened fire on some police officers. Several were shot, and I think one may have been killed. I remember saying that this man walking with his AR-15 has entirely lost its point. He was demonstrating his right to carry openly, but now that unrest broke out, he had to surrender it, or be suspect. When asked, he did surrender his weapon. So, his demonstration was meaningless. Somehow, a couple of years later, Kyle Rittenhouse was not seen the same way, was assumed to be carrying legally even after it was known that two people had been shot, and was not asked to surrender the weapon. We can speculate about their motivations, and I do. We can draw a comparison to the man in Dallas…and I do. But, admittedly, it is rather weak speculation. It is one of those things that we can’t prove…but we know is true.
Kenosha probably should not have a police department. They train so poorly that they present a threat to the community on their own. I suspect, but can’t prove, that the cops who Rittenhouse confronted could see that he was armed, but failed to stop him, in part, because they were in an armored vehicle. That’s the wrong response. Rittenhouse represented a continuing threat to the community. They blew it in a number of ways. Rittenhouse even left the state after killing two people. The failure on Kenosha’s part is mammoth. I suspect they will be visited by some agency to explain and train about all of the things that they did wrong.
09/02/2020 @ 4:52 pm
Our comments just passed each other. I wasn’t answering this comment but your last one.
09/02/2020 @ 4:50 pm
Bitey,
While I think you missed some of my point in your comment, I also missed some of your point in your comment, specifically what you said about selfishness. I don’t think it’s generational, I think it’s partisan. Modern American conservativism has evolved into a frightening rejection of collective responsibility. That’s what their anti-government stance is all about. They don’t think that other peoples’ welfare is their problem and they don’t want to pay for it. Personally, I find this view hypocritical, immoral, and stupid.
Hypocritical because it’s based on the premise that no one helped them, that they’re “self-made.” Bullshit. They get in their car every morning, it’s relatively safe, they pull onto maintained roads with maintained traffic lights and all the other drivers miraculously know how to follow the rules of the road and avoid killing them. Their air is breatheable for the same reason. The list of how they benefit from collective responsibility exercised by others is endless.
Immoral because it goes against the bases of Western morality, Western being relevant because we’re talking about the moral environment conservative Americans grew up in. Most of that is Christian. How Jesus felt about the wealthy ignoring those living in poverty isn’t exactly a secret. The Old Testament doesn’t make a secret about what is expected either. Neither does the Qur’an for that matter. Not that most atheists don’t get collective responsibility, but most conservatives I don’t think are atheists. Not traditional enough. Some might try to cite Ayn Rand as their morality but she was a fool who reached adulthood in the new Soviet Union and saw collectivism in very authoritarian form and rebelled against it.
Stupid because they’re shitting in their own yards. They live here and they benefit when where they live is healthier, in all sorts of ways including financially. The American economy is healthiest when most citizens have disposable income. So are the large businesses that operate in that economy. I talk about finances because they tend to care about that, but there are lots of other ways, including environmentally.
I don’t think selfishness is generational.
09/02/2020 @ 5:29 pm
I agree that selfishness is not generational as in one causally leads to the next. What I mean is, (and I think you addressed it), we have not asked the same things of our citizens, and I suspect, but can’t prove, that we have developed a self focused ethos. I’m shocked by what people are unwilling to do for the public good, like mask wearing, when previous generations made real sacrifices for the public good. We moved away from drafting young people into the service. I think the relationship to the concept of government is connected. I don’t know if it is a cause, or an effect, but I do feel strongly that it is related.
We have always been a culture that read too few books and watched too much television. Culturally, we have been quite broad, and fairly shallow. Now, in the Information Age, our access to information has increased, but our cultural knowledge has diminished. Our cultural and civic focus has blurred or been obscured by i-Everything. We used to be able to agree about what reality was. Now we are more susceptible to propaganda because anyone’s reality is just as good as the next. Covid-19 is only deadly if you believe it. Former cancer patient Herman Cain actually went to a rally because…”hoax.” Now, he is objectively dead. I don’t think that sort of subjective reality would have been possible in the 1970s on such a broad scale. And I think within that mass stupidity, notions like a white boy with a AR-15 is probably not suspicious in the middle of massive unrest is more likely than a simple 2+2=4 of a previous era. While racism existed, it was also recognized that armed gunmen with loaded weapons is a danger. Somehow, one political contingent has convinced itself that they are not…for whatever reason.
09/02/2020 @ 7:45 pm
To begin with, with help from the President, people have talked themselves into believing that masks are not for the public good but are just government overreach to a crisis manufactured to discredit the President. That’s some of it though not all, because this opposition to collective responsibility predates Trump. So it’s philosophy (self-serving) influencing belief. What’s different is that our government is now a source of a ton of deliberate misinformation and what news media there are who are in the sales business more than the news business (FOX) are treated like real news media rather than like the National Enquirer they are.
None of this would have happened if we didn’t have such cynical Republican leadership in the Senate. Checks and balances should have prevented this but they failed because the President empowered Republicans enough to corrupt them – not that the President did so out of his own efforts but he makes an excellent tool to accomplish horrible things.
09/02/2020 @ 10:02 pm
One of the applicable euphemisms here is “selective enforcement”:
:In law, selective enforcement occurs when government officials such as police officers, prosecutors, or regulators exercise enforcement discretion, which is the power to choose whether or how to punish a person who has violated the law. The biased use of enforcement discretion, such as that based on racial prejudice or corruption, is usually considered a legal abuse and a threat to the rule of law.”
——–Wikipedia
Ironically the stereotype of “the kid next door” is also in play here…
“Can you imagine the Kenosha police waving past a seventeen year old Black kid with that kind of weapon?”
Of course not….
Strereotypes, presumptions, and selective enforcement are concepts that raraely, if ever, work in favor, or for the benefit of seventeen year old black kids…
09/02/2020 @ 11:20 pm
That’s my point, or at least half of it. They don’t work in favor of Black kids but they sure as Hell work against them. If you ever wanted to know what White Privilege looks like, it looks like the above picture.
09/03/2020 @ 6:41 am
As a manifestation and demonstration of what systemic racism looks like, and how it infects and impacts the culture of police policies, practices, procedures, and protocols your post is spot on.