Our Boys In Blue

[Grath]

What do you think Portland's reputation is, anyway?

[Mongrel]

The overwhelming WHITENESS of Portland is certainly a recurring feature in commentary about the city...

[Friday]

So one time I was driving through Oregon (up the coast, actually, we stayed in Newport and went to the Aquarium there, it was great and we saw otters) and we cut over to go to the Columbia River Gorge (which was also beautiful and great)

Anyway, we're coming into Portland from the coast and my mom is like "I'm hungry."

To this point in my life, I'd never actually stopped in Portland. I'd driven through it a few times but never gotten out of the car.

She spots an Applebees and despite my STRIDENT protests she's a boomer and therefore has no problem with eating at Applebees. So we get out of the car and I think "well at least we won't have to put up with any hipsters, no hipster would be caught dead at an Applebees. Also I'm sure the rep of Portland for being skinny jeans emo hair hipster infested is an exaggeration just like how every US city is described entirely in stereotype and actually it's much more diverse."

So we walk in and the entire fucking population of that Applebees was hipsters. I wish I had video. I actually stood gawking at it for a minute or two. It'd be like if you walked into an Applebees in LA and the entire population was blondes saying "like, totally, and then I was all."

So yeah in my mind Portland was made entirely of white hipsters. I guess my mistake was assuming that hipsters weren't horrifically racist.

[Mongrel]

Many years ago, I heard what might be the most perfect description of Hipsters as a subculture: They're people who are desperately searching for authenticity, with absolutely no idea of what is or is not authentic.

Almost like an emotional cargo cult. Dress like your dad from the 70s' in some confused attempt to feel the freedom granted to young (white, obv) Boomers, only without any understanding of the times or context whatsoever! Support small local business by contributing to gentrification and worsening conditions for everyone! Get tattoos or something because fuck conformity and The Man (who's The Man again?)!

I find them more pitiable than disgusting. But yeah, they're still annoying little fucks.

[Brantly B.]

The hipsters aren't racist, they just don't like those people. That those people tend to be minorities is a point that doesn't really factor to them at all.

They don't like the cops either, of course, because the cops are also those people (and that's why they have to import them from those places). But it suits them just. fine. when those people and those other people start beating on each other, way over there, where the problem can neatly take care of itself.

Portland's reputation hasn't suffered a lick because it's come out that Portlanders aren't the least bit concerned about the disadvantaged. Like... fuck the disadvantaged, right? They don't know how to live correctly. No, Portland's reputation has suffered because it's no longer a place where you can be assured that those people and those other people won't turn up and start doing things in nice places. And because it's an American city, the only thing they can think to do about it is try to put more of those other people in nice places so that those people don't keep showing up, even though they specifically don't want those other people there and also even though those people only turned up in the first place because they tried that.

[Yoji]

Last I checked, when Oregon joined the union it didn't accept slavery. Not out of some principled stand against racism and injustice, but because the folks in charge were hella racist and just didn't want black people in the state period.

[Thad]

Banning slavery in the Oregon Territory was a federal decision.

[Upthorn]

This is true, but the point Yoji was making is also correct.

In 1844, Oregon, which had banned slavery, banned African Americans from the territory altogether. Those who failed to leave could expect to receive lashings under a law known as the "Peter Burnett Lash Law", named for Provisional Supreme Judge Peter Burnett. No persons were ever lashed under the law; it was quickly amended to replace lashing with forced labor, and eventually repealed the following year after a change in the makeup of the legislature. However, additional laws aimed at African Americans entering Oregon were ratified in 1849 and 1857, the last of which was not repealed until 1926. This law in Oregon was the foreshadowing of future laws restricting where minorities could live, not only in Oregon but other jurisdictions.

Outside Oregon, other places looked to laws and legislation to restrict black people from residing within cities, towns, and states. In 1853, all blacks were banned from entering the state of Indiana. Those who were caught in the state and unable to pay the fine were punished by being re-enslaved and sold at auction. Similar bans on all black immigration were passed in Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Iowa.

[Thad]

I feel like "we're anti-slavery but we're going to make being Black illegal and punishable by forced labor" is something of a perfect encapsulation of the line of reasoning racist lawmakers use to defend their racist laws as not racist.

Like "We're not trying to prevent Black people from voting, we're just trying to prevent voter fraud." Or "I'm pro-voting rights, I'm just anti-filibuster reform."

[Mongrel]

In yet another example of "What do you mean our diversity-hire Chief didn't single-handedly turn around decades of entrenched police culture? Don't you know that means police racism/sexism is over?", the Commissioner of the London Police is facing calls to resign after an investigation revealed that, surprise surprise, the rank and file remained as rank as ever.

(CW cops doing cop shit, so, a sample of everything awful)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/a ... to-resign/

The biggest blow to her leadership came last week in a report from the Independent Office for Police Conduct. The IOPC found pervasive evidence of disturbing behaviour among officers in the Charing Cross division in central London. During a three-year investigation that ended in September, the IOPC reviewed thousands of text messages exchanged by officers and found many that were “highly sexualized, discriminatory or referred to violence.”

“You ever slapped your missus? It makes them love you more,” said one text included in the report. “If I was single I would happily chloroform you,” said another, sent to a female officer. “My dad kidnapped some African children and used them to make dog food,” yet another said. One officer was nicknamed “mcrapey raperson” in a WhatsApp group because he routinely had sex with women at the police station.

[Sharkey]

Sharkey has made some pretty, uh, trenchant comments about Portland on more than one occasion, yeah. I believe he once said something to the effect of it being a town where your soul goes to die.

I was probably quoting this dude who literally used to live in my house.

"Portland is a place where rich ones run away to settle down and grow flowers and shrubbery to hide them from the massacres they've caused. Portland is the rose garden town where the red, brown, blackshirt cops ride up and down to show you their finest horses and saddles and gunmetal. Mentally Portland is the deadest spot you ever walked through. She's a good 30 years behind Seattle"

[Mongrel]

I suppose ya gotta respect the hustle.



(I appreciate that almost all the responses suggest reporting - guess who! - the ATF)

[beatbandito]

that framing

[Thad]

Kaepernick launching initiative for secondary autopsies

Colin Kaepernick is launching an initiative through his Know Your Rights Camp that will offer free, secondary autopsies to family members of anyone whose death is “police-related.”

[...]

“We know that the prison industrial complex, which includes police and policing, strives to protect and serve its interests at all costs,” Kaepernick said. “The Autopsy Initiative is one important step toward ensuring that family members have access to accurate and forensically verifiable information about the cause of death of their loved one in their time of need.”

[Upthorn]

That's so fucking needed.

Just a couple of months ago I was reflecting about my cousin who probably killed himself in 2016.
See, he was half Latino, looked more Latino than white, developing signs of schizophrenia, and his employer called the cops to do a wellness check after he missed one day of work.

Upon arrival, the police pronounced him dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. No note.

It's certainly plausible that he killed himself.
It's also plausible that he was killed in a drug beef the cops didn't feel like doing the work to investigate.
It's also plausible that Oakland PD broke his door down, saw his skin color, and executed him.

I guess his case wouldn't quite have qualified for this program, but his still-living older brother has the same risk factors for ending up the victim of a police-involved shooting.

[Mongrel]

In slightly lighter news, it's never not fun to watch cops invalidate themselves in comical and humiliating ways.



Grandpa's got some serious moves. I hear the Detroit Lions are looking for a guy...

[Büge]

[Mongrel]

Rare bit of good news: NJ Attorney-General states that NJ police may now legally smoke weed while off-duty

This may unironically reduce police shootings.

[Mongrel]

Somebody thought they were clever.

[nosimpleway]

"What's lawyer dog?"
"Not much man what's lawyer with you?"