Police officers nationwide flagged for racist and violent social media posts

[Sparko]

Do you know what "sealioning" is?

I could do without sea lions.

[Cow Poke]

I could do without sea lions.

They don't taste like chicken, that's for sure.

[carpedm9587]

Do you know what "sealioning" is?

I do now!

And I do wish people here would stop doing it. It's a rather pointless way of engaging.

[Mountain Man]

You guys appear to be dedicated to the proposition of misrepresenting what I am saying...

You're the one who has repeatedly attempted to reinforce the idea that the statistics can interpreted to mean that "blackness" (whatever that means) and violence are somehow linked when nobody else is making that claim.

[Sparko]

I do now!

And I do wish people here would stop doing it. It's a rather pointless way of engaging.

When I saw that comic I thought - That's CARP!! If they had just added a panel with the sea lion complaining about mind reading...

Carpedm.jpg

[JonathanL]

Again, it is not about "Seer" or any other specific individual; it is about the harm done by phrasing things in a way that continually links "violence" to "being black." The statement "black people are more violent than whites" is simply untrue, and the phrasing is misleading and contributes to a pervasive social problem. Is it REALLY that much of an issue to simply adjust language to better reflect reality and not contribute to this stereotype?

No, the phrase "black people are more violent than whites" is by itself neither true or false, since by itself it's an ambigious statement that can mean several things. If the sentence is used with the implication that it is because black people are inherently more violent than white people then it's definitely a false, and racist statement. If it's simply a statement about the rate of violence in the black community compared to the white community, then depending on what the statistics actually say (and I haven't bothered to check if seer's statistics are accurate, so I can't comment anything about that), it could either be false or true, but it would not necessarily be racist, just wrong.

Bottom line, however, is that it's not the phrasing that's the problem, it's the way people misinterpret the statement, either deliberately (and often maliciously) or unknowingly, even when the context clearly shows that the latter (i.e higher rate of violence in the black community) meaning is intended, rather than the former, racist meaning. So the ones contributing to the social problem are the people who are uncharitably interpreting the statement in a racist manner, regardless of the context, not the ones who are uttering it (with the exception of the people who are actually using it in the former, racist sense of course).

IMO, this type of exchange is what leads to many to point to conservatives and Republicans and scream "racist." Even the simplest of requests to consider the impact of words (never mind actions) is fought to the last man. I don't defend people making that accusation on such a sweeping scale, but I am beginning to understand it.

No, what leads many to point to conservatives and Republicans and scream "racist" is poor reading and listening comprehension skills and emotional thinking instead of analyzing statement such as the above rationally in their proper context.

[Mountain Man]

No, what leads many to point to conservatives and Republicans and scream "racist" is poor reading and listening comprehension skills and emotional thinking instead of analyzing statement such as the above rationally in their proper context.

It has been my experience that someone who wants to play the racist card will do so no matter what the other person says.

[myth]

Just out of curiosity, was there a privacy statement or agreement you signed when you started wearing the bodycam? Or was it all just verbal.

No, but wearing it also wasn't a choice either. They wrote and published a policy on it, and there's limited opportunity to not wear one, or turn it off while dealing with the public. But we're a non-union, 'fire at will' state.

[myth]

Just a thought. This does not seem to me to be a "freedom of speech" issue. No one is saying, "you cannot post this on Facebook." What it seems to me is being said is, "we cannot afford to have a police officer with racist views armed and charged with enforcing the law." It doesn't matter how you learn they have racist views. It could be locker-room talk, a complaint from a suspect, a video taken on someone's smart phone, a chest-cam, a post on Facebook, or the swastika tattoo on their forehead (TIC).

What matters is the caliber of people wearing the blue and charged with public safety. I would consider it a basic job requirement that someone applying to be a police officer not exhibit racial prejudice (or any prejudice) that could color the performance of their job.

Actually, they are saying I can't post certain things on Facebook. There are appeals court (and I believe a US Supreme Court) ruling that says I can't rant about my employer publicly on Facebook without facing disciplinary proceedings at work. They've upheld the firing of an officer who posted criticism of their agency on Facebook, because the officer couldn't prove that they did it out of concern for the public's right to know about the issues she was complaining about.

I don't have a problem with firing racist officers, I'm just saying that my freedom of speech is severely curtailed by my employer. I can't comment on police-community relations, I'm not allowed to publicly state where I work on social media, I have to be careful that anything I say about politics is mainstream enough that people won't be offended by it, etc.

Do you consider it a basic job requirement of police officers that they can't say anything substantive publicly on social media without fearing for their job? I don't specifically name where I work because, of all the stuff I've talked about, I'd rather not face disciplinary proceedings at work. In other words, I can only comfortably discuss these issues in public if I'm anonymous. And it's not because I'm embarrassed or afraid to express myself, it's because I have no idea how some pissed-off captain at my agency will choose to interpret our super vague social media policy.

[myth]

There is no "proof" for anything, but yes those hiding from the facts of history are conveniently ignoring the second issue. They are getting sand in their ears.

I'm not "hiding from the facts of history", I'm just careful about differentiating between correlation and causation.

[myth]

I consider that a "good thing." Frankly, any office who is thinking about pulling that trigger should be thinking pretty hard about the ramifications, whatever the skin color of the suspect.

But I agree that having to think differently because they are black versus white is not a desirable thing. So to fix that, we need to root out racism in the police force, and ensure that any cop on the beat does not have a hint of racism to their history, their private life, or their public life. We need to make sure that a black person and a white person, charged with the same crime under similar circumstances, is treated identically by the system. We need to stop criminalizing drug use and focus on drug distribution, getting the people who are using the medical help they need, and putting the distributors in jail. We need to eliminate anti-marijuana laws, treat it as we do alcohol, and release the sea of people in jail (some for life) on nothing more than being caught with a couple of reefers.

That would be a good start.

I'm not sure you're grasping the impact of the media's focus. There should be scrutiny any time an officer kills a citizen. But the media's inaccurate portrayal of the facts is damaging to both the community and the police. For one, if you went by what you see in the news, it seems like ONLY black people are killed by cops. That incorrect perception is a large part of the reason police-community relations are so bad right now.

Not all that long ago, we had an officer-involved shooting. I got there about 4-6 minutes after it happened. Dead guy is still cooling on the pavement, and my supervisor's first comment when we huddle up for assignments? "Thank God the dead guy's white." The shooting was not controversial, but if the dead guy had been black you can absolutely bet it would be been controversial. The media, and many times the community don't care about the fact set -- they care about whether or not a black person got hurt. And that's sad but true.

[Littlejoe]

Actually, they are saying I can't post certain things on Facebook. There are appeals court (and I believe a US Supreme Court) ruling that says I can't rant about my employer publicly on Facebook without facing disciplinary proceedings at work. They've upheld the firing of an officer who posted criticism of their agency on Facebook, because the officer couldn't prove that they did it out of concern for the public's right to know about the issues she was complaining about.

I don't have a problem with firing racist officers, I'm just saying that my freedom of speech is severely curtailed by my employer. I can't comment on police-community relations, I'm not allowed to publicly state where I work on social media, I have to be careful that anything I say about politics is mainstream enough that people won't be offended by it, etc.

Do you consider it a basic job requirement of police officers that they can't say anything substantive publicly on social media without fearing for their job? I don't specifically name where I work because, of all the stuff I've talked about, I'd rather not face disciplinary proceedings at work. In other words, I can only comfortably discuss these issues in public if I'm anonymous. And it's not because I'm embarrassed or afraid to express myself, it's because I have no idea how some pissed-off captain at my agency will choose to interpret our super vague social media policy.

Honestly, anyone working in an at-will state can be fired for any reason. But,more to your point, I'm an IT guy working at a Major Medical Insurance provider and people are fired all the time for posting criticism against the Insurance company on social media. So, I don't think it's a Free Speech issue against LEO's per se...and TBH, you can say it all you want, but that doesn't protect you from being disciplined or fired for saying it...just like millions of other Americans.

[myth]

Honestly, anyone working in an at-will state can be fired for any reason. But,more to your point, I'm an IT guy working at a Major Medical Insurance provider and people are fired all the time for posting criticism against the Insurance company on social media. So, I don't think it's a Free Speech issue against LEO's per se...and TBH, you can say it all you want, but that doesn't protect you from being disciplined or fired for saying it...just like millions of other Americans.

Whatever. You don't understand what I'm talking about, and I'm not interested in spending a lot of time explaining it. I'll bet CP knows.

[Cow Poke]

Whatever. You don't understand what I'm talking about, and I'm not interested in spending a lot of time explaining it. I'll bet CP knows.

But I don't know how to explain it any better than you did.

[Mountain Man]

Actually, they are saying I can't post certain things on Facebook. There are appeals court (and I believe a US Supreme Court) ruling that says I can't rant about my employer publicly on Facebook without facing disciplinary proceedings at work. They've upheld the firing of an officer who posted criticism of their agency on Facebook, because the officer couldn't prove that they did it out of concern for the public's right to know about the issues she was complaining about.

I don't have a problem with firing racist officers, I'm just saying that my freedom of speech is severely curtailed by my employer. I can't comment on police-community relations, I'm not allowed to publicly state where I work on social media, I have to be careful that anything I say about politics is mainstream enough that people won't be offended by it, etc.

Do you consider it a basic job requirement of police officers that they can't say anything substantive publicly on social media without fearing for their job? I don't specifically name where I work because, of all the stuff I've talked about, I'd rather not face disciplinary proceedings at work. In other words, I can only comfortably discuss these issues in public if I'm anonymous. And it's not because I'm embarrassed or afraid to express myself, it's because I have no idea how some pissed-off captain at my agency will choose to interpret our super vague social media policy.

I suppose it's out of a desire for police officers to appear completely neutral. You don't want someone you arrested finding a conservative post you left on a public forum and then complaining you were biased against them because they're liberal. It wouldn't take too many frivolous lawsuits like that every year to overburden any department.