Those terrible horrible #BlackLivesMatter people are at it again...

[RavenSky]

I recently joined protestors and activists in meeting with Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton to discuss the #BlackLivesMatter movement and policy proposals, anchored in #CampaignZero, to end police violence.

We have also requested meetings with Martin O'Malley, Marco Rubio, and Ben Carson. In general, we are open to meeting with any candidate seeking to be the next President to discuss these ideas.

While police violence is a key issue to the movement, it is clear that there are a range of issues important to blackness that are beyond police violence and/or criminal justice. In these conversations with Senator Sanders and Secretary Clinton, we began by focusing on police violence and then broadened the scope of the conversation.

https://medium.com/@deray/reflectio...ecretary-hillary-clinton-and-the-38c4a2d9f797

It is actually an excellent article regarding their meetings with Bernie Saunders and Hillary Clinton.

 

[Nice Squirrel]

Something, something, Assata Shakur.

 

[RavenSky]

I thought this, in particular, was interesting:

Community Policing
In the opening conversation of the meeting, Sen. Sanders commented that the police often make people feel safe in many communities, to which we replied that this is not true in many black communities.
We pushed him to re-think “Community Policing” as this term suggests that the police should be ever-present in black communities — patrolling, tutoring, playing basketball, etc. — sustaining the notion that police presence is what makes people safe. We noted that this idea of “Community Policing” is rarely, if ever, applied to white or wealthy communities — that if these communities had an ever-present police presence, it would be unacceptable.
We also pushed him to think of the most affluent or white community in most cities and to think about why it is safe — it is likely that these spaces are safe because they are resourced and empowered differently, not because of an ever-present police force.

It does seem like we spend a lot of time talking about how police need to be of the community they police, need to be a more friendly presence, etc; but the author makes an excellent point. How many wealthy neighborhoods have a strong "police presence"? If there is a police presence, they are more likely treated like servants. The viral video of the wealthy white lawyer woman yelling a the cop for harassing a developmentally disabled black man comes to mind. I can't imagine that scene playing out that way in a poor community, or a community of color. Look what happened to the councilman on his own property.

 

[Derec]

I thought this, in particular, was interesting:

... let me comment on the paragraph you find so interesting.

Community Policing
In the opening conversation of the meeting, Sen. Sanders commented that the police often make people feel safe in many communities, to which we replied that this is not true in many black communities.
We pushed him to re-think “Community Policing” as this term suggests that the police should be ever-present in black communities — patrolling, tutoring, playing basketball, etc. — sustaining the notion that police presence is what makes people safe. We noted that this idea of “Community Policing” is rarely, if ever, applied to white or wealthy communities — that if these communities had an ever-present police presence, it would be unacceptable.

It is obvious to me that areas with higher crime rate will have higher police presence. But it is also not true that "white or wealthy communities" have no or low police presence.
And you can't have it both ways either. When Baltimore police had their unofficial slowdown following Freddie Grey there were complaints about insufficient policing. So should poor areas be policed less or not?

We also pushed him to think of the most affluent or white community in most cities and to think about why it is safe — it is likely that these spaces are safe because they are resourced and empowered differently, not because of an ever-present police force.

Or because of people who live there.

Look what happened to the councilman on his own property.

The police responded to a disturbance, he interfered.