Why do white people keep calling the cops?

[guillaumeb]

From the article:

VIRAL CELL-phone videos of police officers and security guards brutalizing and murdering Black people have become so prevalent in recent years that the reality of racist police violence is impossible to ignore.
But this spring, cell phone video of a slightly different kind is revealing something else that’s impossible to ignore: White people calling the cops — or threatening to — on people of color...…..

These videos show — if there was any doubt left — that the problem with people of color in these places isn’t our behavior. It’s our very presence.

To read more:

https://socialistworker.org/2018/05/30/why-do-white-people-keep-calling-the-cops

The police in the US rose out of the old slave patrols. 400 years later, that same function, to control non-white bodies, is still being performed.

[DBoon]

1. Because their moms won't answer the phone?

Who else to call when mom isn't available?

[guillaumeb]

3. Amazing how many racists are willing to publicly embrace that racism.

And the attitude that non-whites literally do not belong in public spaces.

[Wellstone ruled]

2. Until someone in the Republican Party calls a halt

to Police Brutality , nothing changes. And we know damn well it wont be Trump.

[guillaumeb]

4. Trump embraces racist brutality,

and his fellow racists.

The GOP has been the party of racism since 1968. It is literally a winning strategy for them.

[TNLib]

5. Some People are racist bullies

They can't act like racist bullies at their place of work or in schools anymore. Most decent companies have no tolerance policy for harassment and racism. So they use the only racists tools in their tool box they have left to bully others and that's the cops.

[guillaumeb]

6. That is an excellent point.

Those who complain about the term political correctness are really complaining that they cannot be racist in public.

[Hortensis]

7. You mean on black people because they're black? WE don't.

There are over 200 million of us. These stories hit the news BECAUSE this behavior is shocking and widely rejected. And because of new technology and means for pushing them out front. Like the daily stories of people killed by children who got hold of a gun, both productive of virtuous outrage.

[guillaumeb]

8. Trump received 60 million plus votes.

No one is saying that every Trump voter is a racist.

But the GOP has been using racism as an electoral strategy since 1968.

[Hortensis]

10. So? Even those 60 million do not call the police when

a black person walks into a store or knocks on their door. And that should tell us something. This is ABERRANT BEHAVIOR.

[LanternWaste]

14. More or less a statistical aberration...?

More or less a statistical aberration than white people calling the police on other white people simply for being white? It's that contrast far too many wish to avoid, and ignore in favor of more creative narratives.

I get it... you try your best to minimize and trivialize these concerns. And it may even work; at the end of the day, you may actually believe the concerns to be minimal and trivial.

As long as you realize not too many people, other than yourself of course, are buying what you're selling-- regardless of what you may label the product as.

[Hortensis]

18. Strawman phoniness. I did not say "statistical aberration,"

I said it is aberrant behavior. Which it is.

It's not that it doesn't happen, we know it does, only that it is aberrant behavior that is disapproved by large majorities. Most conservatives simply don't rise to the level of malice and hostility required to support extreme racist acting out.

[guillaumeb]

19. How many instances are necessary for aberrant behavior to become a norm?

No one said that every Trump voter or every white person engages in that behavior. That is not the standard.

[Hortensis]

24. Interesting question.

"In sociology, norms are social expectations that guide behavior." This varies from society to society, of course.

In yours, do you find you are expected to call the police out of malice or fear whenever you come on a black person in public or just when that person enters what would be considered your personal territory? Or?

How many malicious racism-based 911 calls do people there typically make over, say, a month? Are you maintaining yourself at norm or do you find yourself feeling embarrassed and feeling uncomfortable about failing to conform? Just wondering, and I'll certainly understand if you prefer to keep this information private. DU has its norms also, after all.

[guillaumeb]

25. And, as you pointed out, norms vary, change, and evolve.

If Trump continues to lower the bar of what is considered acceptable public behavior, should we expect to see more such public behavior from his supporters?

[Hortensis]

27. No. I think we're seeing their worst, perhaps even

past already, even if smart phones do mean continued stories coming out of 330,000,000 people.

Raging bigots are unwilling learners, of course, and some have trouble controlling themselves, but with every one of these stories the hard lesson is being hammered: Act out at your peril. Society will stomp on you.

Roseanne's one of the very, very few who doesn't need an income and can always buy friends if needed.

[guillaumeb]

31. One hopes that you are correct. eom

[tulipsandroses]

9. One of the best statements out of the MSNBC townhall

"White people have been raised to believe that police are always the good guys and black lives matter less than white comfort" - The gentleman that said that was white, by the way.

2nd best thing - I can't remember the exact quote - But it was someone that worked with law enforcement - He said something to the effect of. - While we are trained in mental health, etc, we are trained in armed response and if you do not want an armed response then maybe you shouldn't be calling the police. Hmmm...

So maybe we should stop using the police as our go between for our racism.. - I just watched another video today - woman called the police on home investor entering a house next to her. Luckily, the police arrived spoke to him- and actually were on his side and actually told her if she got in his way they would arrest her. LOL! But what would have happened if she had knocked on the door, and just introduced herself, and said hi, I am the neighbor next door? Geez. But thats just too much like right.

[guillaumeb]

12. Nice points.

The police are seen as the protectors of people, but they are really the protectors of property.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

11. Because the police force is an institution built by and for white people. It's a tool of white

hegemony and white people are socialized to think it's the first line of response for a wide variety of issues outside its original missions of protecting property and hunting down people escaping slavery.

[guillaumeb]

13. Exactly.

But in fictionalized US history, the slave catching function has been redacted.

[Kaleva]

23. It was a tool of certain groups who used it to control other groups of any color.

White ranchers in the old west used police forces to intimidate and control white farmers and white sheep herders. White President Grant white Radical Republicans used the army as a police force to subjugate white supremacists in the South after the Civil War.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

28. As with any tool of oppression, it can be turned against almost anyone.

Its roots, however, are in the protection of property and enslaving black people.

[Kaleva]

29. The first police force was in Boston. Established in 1630.

Also, law enforcement back then was more reactive then proactive as you seem to claim it was (protection of property).

[samir.g]

15. They want to keep us down, but are afraid to do anything themselves

So they call their hired thugs.

[guillaumeb]

20. And those people are willing to do the work.

And call it "maintaining law and order".

[treestar]

16. They are the ones

Who listen to Limbaugh and hear fake horror stories from him.

[guillaumeb]

21. Worse yet, they believe them.

And they are predisposed to believe them.

[frazzled]

17. It's been going on every day (my story)

So this was back in the latter years of the 1990s. We had some neighbors across the street, a young couple whom we referred to as the "yuppies" (sorry about that; it's always wrong to name-call people, but they were youngish and into remodeling the kitchen with then-fancy accoutrements). One late spring morning, we ventured outside, and they spoke across the street to us, "Did you hear all that noise last night?" "Um ... no," we responded; we'd slept like babies.

They continued: "Well, rather late we heard a car radio tuned very loud in the M's back driveway (the neighbors directly behind us), and so we looked out the window and saw a young black man sitting in the car; we thought he might be about to break into their house. so we called the police." I think they thought we'd be pleased at their vigilance, but we were immediately totally shocked and incensed. "It was prom night," I told them, and that young black man is their daughter's boyfriend, and her prom date. And by the way, that kid is president of his high school senior class." (This was a premier high school in the city.)

I had wanted to add, what would make you think that someone planning to break into a house would be stupid enough to blast the car radio to call attention to their presence? Or what would make you think that the nice white girl next door wouldn't have a black prom date? Did you notice he was wearing an effing tuxedo? But I thought we'd already put them in their place enough. Probably not. We did speak afterward to our neighbors--the parents of the girl, who were very fond of the boyfriend--and they just rolled their eyeballs in disgust.

Fortunately, the police-caller people soon had a baby and decided they must immediately move to the suburbs, because the public schools in the city (the finest I'd ever encountered, and schools that had given my two kids a stellar education) were "terrible." Apparently, they meant that the schools were not all white.

[guillaumeb]

22. A very revealing story.

The black student clearly did not belong. They could not see how he was dressed, they could not hear how he spoke, they could not imagine that a white student might be dating a non-white student.

[DFW]

26. Well, for one thing

That would be asking us to remember numbers that have more than three digits.

Not all of us can manage tasks like that.

[panader0]

30. This 67 year white man has never called the cops for any reason---ever.

I'm not a cop fan.

[guillaumeb]

32. Same age.

Same story.