Robert Davis, the man that got mollywopped by the New Orleans Police Department, has spoken about his encounter with the fuzz. I mentioned before that the old man adamantly claims that he wasn’t drunk, but he also said that the beatdown he took wasn’t racially motivated.
If he believes that, they must have beaten him worse than we realized.
Quick survey…every time you see a cat on camera gettin’ the brakes beaten off him, what race is he?
When you hear terrible stories about harassment from the police, who’s telling the story?
If you’re black–black and ma;e, specifically–do you have a story about being targeted unfairly by the police? Have you gotten a search for no reason? Have you been pulled over for something that isn’t a crime? Have you not been told why you got pulled over? Have you stared down the barrel of a pistol for reasons that could be best described as inexplicable? And have these things happened to you more than once?
If you’re white, ask yourself the same questions.
If you have been to New Orleans for the Bayou Classic, what was the police presence like? If you’ve been there for the Sugar Bowl or Mardi Gras, how did the police presence compare?
Now that we’re done with that, feel free to put some of those answers on the comments. Then, we can start discussing whether this was racially motivated.
The bottom line–the police are harder on black people than white folks, and that’s indisputable. So maybe the old man thinks they would have beaten him up if he were white. The real question is whether they would have even spent any time dealing with him if he were white. Would he have been on the wall had he been white?
See, we’ve gotta deconstruct it like that before we even consider whether they beat his ass because he’s black. It’s so much deeper than that with a much larger scope.
The problem isn’t so much that he said this, but that apologists of these degenerate cops will now say, “see, it wasn’t about him being black.”
If you really think that, then someone must be reading this to you. No one stupid enough to believe that is capable of reading.
5 Comments
by Ben
White America:
“Hukt on fonix wurkt 4 mee”
I’ll be damned…Ben is back!
by Lady
Saying the cops “are a couple of rotten apples that need to be dealt with” is a smart move. They could be bad simply because they are racist but being racist is not really the issue – police brutality, however motivated (or not) is the issue. Abstracting away from race makes it easier for Davis to maintain public support because being treated unfairly is universally understood as a negative, whereas racism (or discrimination) is less universally understood.
Make no mistake – we know the truth and we know that he knows the truth. Sometimes, however, we also need to recognize what needs to be said and what does not need to be said. This is simple marketing. Spin the story in such a way that it becomes relevant for all citizens and you are more likely to affect people.
by ALove
In the small town I was living in I was pulled over four separate times for various “infractions” during the six years I lived there. Did I mention that at that time I didn’t even own a car? Apparently, walking down a dark, empty street on the median because as a female I’m not trying to get snatched into some bushes is considered “suspicious behavior”. Once I was even pulled over on a BIKE.
By Mr. Davis saying he doesn’t think that his beating was racially motivated, he’s giving white people carte blanche to believe that there are no problems with the cops and that Black people are just “pulling the race card”. Pull your head out of your butt and take a look around, man!
by Rachel S
I think both Bomani and Lady are right. At the institutional level Bomani is right. How often do we see White men beaten like this–almost never. I think Black men are much less likely to be given the benefit of the doubt by the police, and much more likely to be seen as a threat. You can’t help asking how these young physically fit White male police officers viewed a 64 year old man as a threat. I suspect race has something to do with that.
On the other hand, Lady makes a good point. Part of the reason he is getting sympathy is because he’s saying it is not about race. Plus, he’s smart. I saw the interview on CNN, and his kinda of “middle class I used to be a school teacher” demeanor makes him a more sympathetic figure. It’s unfortunate that people (mostly White people) don’t have much sympathy for claims of discrimination, but it is the reality.
by DP
Mr. Davis can take the high road all he likes, the public perception remains the same.
He is an obviously black man, getting his ass beat by the authorities, in part because he is black.
WHile his public intoxication is in dispute, his race, alas, is not.
I wish it surprised me that he runs from the possibility that race played a part, but that is the only way to insulate himself from being one of those “ungrateful negroes” who dare not show the requisite gratitude for not still being enslaved.
Race is ALWAYS a part. Especially when youre black. It is what defines us. We would have more success running from our gender, sometimes.
I had an incident with the police a week ago, that wasnt violent or even endangering of my civil rights, but the fact that I was a Black man DAMN sure played a part in how they dealt with me ,starting with the fact that I was even stopped at all.