White Privilege…

July 6, 2010

Go to:  https://twitter.com/WordsOnIce/status/1279512867713306624/photo/1

Toronto Star – Douglas Kwan
He was fatally injured in police custody. Can a watchdog get ‘justice’ for this family? Why some say Canada’s oversight system is broken

Everett Patrick died in a Prince George (BC) RCMP jail from head trauma and other injuries.  The Independent Investigations Office does not seem to inspire much trust or confidence.  Says Miranda Thomas to the IIO officer who came calling: “I got mad at him because he was basically saying, ‘Don’t put any judgment on the cops because we don’t know anything.’…I started yelling at him. ‘Standing up for the cops already.’ I was, like, shaking.”   The skepticism on police investigating police where minorities are concerned, and on the timing for such investigations, is widespread.  https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2020/07/03/truth-seekers-or-too-cosy-with-the-cops-why-canadas-police-watchdogs-struggle-to-win-the-publics-trust.html  Related article: Toronto Star – Royston James   ‘The law does not protect me’: The dangerous lessons the Dafonte Miller decision teaches us https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/2020/07/01/the-law-does-not-protect-me-the-dangerous-lessons-the-dafonte-miller-decision-teaches-us.html?source=newsletter&utm_content=a12&utm_source=ts_nl&utm_medium=email&utm_email=404CAADEF7EB839FC77B1B04F0C251E1&utm_campaign=lng_27073   Related article: CNN –  Casey Tolan, Nelli Black and Drew Griffin    Police unions have helped shield officers from accountability. Now they’re facing unprecedented backlash   https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/02/us/police-unions-contracts-shielding-bad-cops-invs/index.html  Related article: CNN News – This town of 170,000 replaced some cops with medics and mental health workers. It’s worked for over 30 years    https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/05/us/cahoots-replace-police-mental-health-trnd/index.html

Atlantic (US) – Raoul Peck
James Baldwin Was Right All Along – The writer and activist has the painful, powerful words for this political moment. America just needs to heed them.

Peck’s film I Am Not Your Negro was nominated for an Oscar in 2017.  The film was reflected a great deal of the prophetic writings of James Baldwin, like to come into a new focus for its insightful analysis of US social relationship and the dominance of the White culture.  “He spoke about this not-so-hidden infrastructure again and again: “What one does realize is that when you try to stand up and look the world in the face like you had a right to be here, you have attacked the entire power structure of the Western world.” And more pointedly: “I attest to this: The world is not white; it never was white, cannot be white. White is a metaphor for power, and that is simply a way of describing Chase Manhattan Bank.”    https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2020/07/raoul-peck-james-baldwin-i-am-not-your-negro/613708/?utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=the-atlantic&utm_content=edit-promo&utm_term=2020-07-03T16%3A00%3A16&utm_medium=social   Related article: Washington Post (US) – Jackie Spinner   Elijah McClain’s final words haunt me as the parent of a child who is ‘different’   https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/06/29/elijah-mcclains-last-words-haunt-me-could-that-happen-my-son/?utm_campaign=wp_week_in_ideas&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_ideas

  Criminological Highlights – Anthony Doob and Rosemary Gartner (University of Toronto, Centre for Criminology and Sociolegal Studies

Here is another eight topics of current interests:  The topics are: 1) How have Canada’s immigrants affected the country’s crime rate?  2) When trying to explain the reasons for a mass shooting, why isn’t it useful to look for evidence of ‘mental illness’ in the shooter? 3) How does the crime rate of the neighbourhood in which a business is located affect the likelihood that a Black applicant will be seriously considered for a job at that business? 4) How do ‘risk assessments’ affect the sentencing of poor and wealthy defendants?  5) Why do school suspensions increase crime?  6) Should personality assessment tools like the Psychopathy Check List be used to make crucial decisions about individuals?  7) What general lessons can be learned from the failure of Canada’s “conditional sentence of imprisonment” to reduce imprisonment?  8) Can those serving prison sentences for murder be released safely into the community?  http://criminology.utoronto.ca/criminological-highlights/

Mapping Police Violence (US)

The link connects to a police accountability that may be helpful in discussion around the actual data for police killings.  The data is drawn from police killings to get first the rate of killing from 100 of the largest cities from 2013 to 2019; then there is a chart of information on individuals killed by police for those same years; then the state by state numbers are available.  https://mappingpoliceviolence.org/cities   Related article:  The Intercept.com  –  Tana Ganeva NYPD’s Culture of Impunity Sees an Officer Repeatedly Accused of Physical and Sexual Abuse Rising  through the Ranks  https://theintercept.com/2020/07/06/nypd-culture-of-impunity/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=theintercept    Related article:   The City (N.Y.) – Reuven Blau and Carsoising n Kessler  Many Deaths at New York State Prisons Are Preventable, Review Finds  https://www.thecity.nyc/platform/amp/2020/7/5/21312137/new-york-state-prisons-death-preventable?__twitter_impression=true    Related article: The Vox – Ian Millhiser      Trump’s Justice Department has a powerful tool to fight police abuse. It refuses to use it.  Right before he resigned, Jeff Sessions sabotaged the DOJ’s ability to fight police abuse.  https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/2020/6/30/21281041/trump-justice-department-consent-decrees-jeff-sessions-police-violence-abuse?__twitter_impression=true   Related article: Richmond Times-Dispatch – Kristina Leslie  Death penalty repeal is essential to racial healing  https://www.richmond.com/opinion/columnists/kristina-leslie-column-death-penalty-repeal-is-essential-to-racial-healing/article_0f21e020-6b6b-51cb-a66a-7d82046a60d1.amp.html?utm_medium=social&utm_source=email&utm_campaign=user-share&__twitter_impression=true

 The Crime Report – (US, John Jay College) – Marcy Mistrett and Marc Schindler
 Adult Court is No Place for Young People

The authors are presenting a new report from the Justice Center around the practice of elevating an accused youth to adult court for trail and penalty when convicted, going beyond the practice of LWOP when the youth are accused and convicted of murder.  “A new Justice Policy Institute report, The Child, Not the Charge: Transfer Laws are Not Advancing Public Safety, underscores the harm of transferring youth to adult court at a moment when our country is grappling with the implications of decades of racist practices in the juvenile and criminal justice systems.”  About 3,000 American youth are serving sentences in adult prisons and jails. https://thecrimereport.org/2020/06/29/adult-court-is-no-place-for-young-people/

 New York Times Book Review (US) – David Cole
Less Punishment, More Justice

Cole highlights Alexandra Natapoff’s Punishment Without Crime: How Our Massive Misdemeanor System Traps the Innocent and Makes America More Unequal  and  Rachel Elise Barkow’s Prisoners of Politics: Breaking the Cycle of Mass Incarceration. https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2020/07/23/less-punishment-more-justice/

Here’s another New York Times best-seller, especially helpful to the discussion around reforming police and their interactions with the public.  Talking to Strangers: What we should know about the people we don’t know – Malcolm Gladwell (Little, Brown and Company, Hachette Books, N.Y.) 2019.