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State Trooper Caught Saying About Protesters: ‘Don’t Kill Them, Hit Them Hard’

Reuters / Lindsey Wasson
A Washington state trooper has been caught on camera preparing his fellow officers to engage with protesters by saying: “Don’t kill them, hit them hard.” The trooper’s words are muffled by a gas mask, but clearly audible. The Washington Post reported the state patrol apologized for what the trooper was caught saying after the video was shared widely Tuesday night.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/washington-state-trooper-caught-saying-dont-kill-them-hit-them-hard?ref=home

 

Edited by Tracker
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An important article about implicit bias and why we ALL have it due to structural racism.

Don’t Talk about Implicit Bias Without Talking about Structural Racism

Posted on June 14, 2019 by Hugh Vasquez

by Kathleen Osta and Hugh Vasquez, National Equity Project

(From the article - link to complete text below)

"How does all of this connect to implicit bias and structural racism? Let’s start with a definition of implicit bias:

Implicit Bias is the process of associating stereotypes or attitudes towards categories of people without conscious awareness.

Note that this is not the same as explicit, conscious racism and other forms of conscious bias which still exist and need to be addressed. Here, we are talking about people who consciously and genuinely believe in fairness, equity, and equality, but despite these stated beliefs, hold unconscious biases that can lead us to react in ways that are at odds with our values. These unconscious biases can play out in our decision making regarding who we hire for a job or select for a promotion, which students we place in honors classes and who we send out of the classroom for behavior infractions, and which treatment options we make available to patients. We know from extensive research that this kind of biased decision making plays out all the time in our schools, in hospitals, in policing, and in places of employment. The question is not if it is happening, it is when is it happening and what can we do about it.

Implicit bias and its effects play out through three keys processes: Priming, Associations, and AssumptionsPriming is a psychological phenomena in which a word, image, sound, or any other stimulus is used to elicit an associated response. Some of the best examples of priming are in product advertising in which advertisers prime us to feel an affinity or emotional connection to a particular brand that leads us to choose that brand over others even when there is actually no difference between the products. We buy Nikes because we are compelled to “Just do it.” We think we are consciously choosing, but our unconscious mind is doing the shopping. But product selection is not the only thing influenced by priming — so are our beliefs, views and feelings about others.

The Associations we hold about groups of people are created and reinforced through priming. Associations occur without conscious guidance or intention. For example, the word NURSE is recognized more quickly following the word DOCTOR than following the word BREAD. We associate two words together because our unconscious mind has been wired to do so. Quick — what do cows drink? Not milk! But we have a strong association in our brain between cows and milk. (Cows drink water.)

When it comes to people, the associations our brain makes works the same way, creating shortcuts based on how we have been primed. The way our brains create shortcuts to quickly make sense of data is innate. How we have been primed to make harmful associations about different categories of people is not, but is rather the result of messaging, policies and practices that have been applied throughout history to include or exclude groups of people.

The United States has a long history of systemic racism — since the founding of the country stories that dehumanized African Americans and Native peoples were used to justify genocide, slavery, racial segregation, mass incarceration, and police brutality. Negative and dehumanizing stereotypes about women and people of color and stories that “other” are rampant in the news media and in popular culture. For example, we have been primed throughout history by our own government, by popular culture, and through the media to think of African American people as less intelligent, aggressive, and more likely to commit crime. We have received unrelenting messages that people who are immigrating to the United States from Central America and Mexico are criminals. Likewise, we have been primed to think of women as less competent, overly emotional, and their bodies as objects to be judged. For every stigmatized group of people, we have been repeatedly exposed to stereotypes that most of us can readily name that have been used to justify policies that have further stigmatized and marginalized."

...

"Our brain is scanning our environment for who belongs (and is safe) and who is “other” (and a potential threat or dangerous). Who we come to categorize as belonging or threatening is learned as a result of structural inequities and messaging we have received about categories of people. These harmful associations we carry can lead us to make Assumptions that have life and death consequences for people of color. We saw this when:

  • The police were called by a Starbucks manager because she made the association that Rashon Nelson and Donte Robinson, two African American men, were dangerous, resulting in their arrest when they were simply waiting to meet someone.
  • Two Native American young men, Kanewakeron Thomas Gray and Shanahwati Lloyd Gray, drove from New Mexico to go on a college tour at Colorado State University and a white mother who was also on the tour called campus security because they looked like “they don’t belong, they were quiet and creepy and really stand out.” Security came and questioned the young men and confirmed that they were registered for the campus visit, but by the time they were released, the tour had gone ahead without them and they ended up driving home without a tour at all.
  • Tamir Rice, a 12 year old African American boy was in a park with a toy gun when police drove up and within two seconds of exiting the vehicle an officer shot and killed him."

 

https://blog.nationalequityproject.org/2019/06/14/dont-talk-about-implicit-bias-without-talking-about-structural-racism/

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👁‍🗨Setting quite an example..

The man who sheltered 80 US protesters
It was past curfew and protesters in Washington DC were trapped as police closed both ends of a street and moved in. That's when one resident flung open his doors.

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-canada-52896871/george-floyd-death-the-man-who-sheltered-80-us-protesters?at_campaign=64&at_custom2=twitter&at_custom1=[post+type]&at_custom3=%40BBCWorld&at_medium=custom7&at_custom4=2AB40D6A-A5A4-11EA-83D6-78C996E8478F

 

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15 minutes ago, Mr Dee said:

👁‍🗨Setting quite an example..

The man who sheltered 80 US protesters
It was past curfew and protesters in Washington DC were trapped as police closed both ends of a street and moved in. That's when one resident flung open his doors.

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-canada-52896871/george-floyd-death-the-man-who-sheltered-80-us-protesters?at_campaign=64&at_custom2=twitter&at_custom1=[post+type]&at_custom3=%40BBCWorld&at_medium=custom7&at_custom4=2AB40D6A-A5A4-11EA-83D6-78C996E8478F

 

There was a fantastic radio interview with him on As It Happens yesterday.  Totally worth a listen (right at the beginning of the broadcast).

 https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-tuesday-edition-1.5594762

 

 

Edited by Wideleft
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12 minutes ago, Wideleft said:

There was a fantastic radio interview with him on As It Happens yesterday.  Totally worth a listen (right at the beginning of the broadcast).

 https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-tuesday-edition-1.5594762

 

 

Heard that one - CBC has its super lame-o moments but we are very lucky to have a national broadcaster that provides counterpoint to the corporate media

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