Black woman roughed up by cops
Sunday, while an anti-racism protest was in progress, a family went for a picnic in the Old Port. The mother, seeing protesters and police coming their way, tried to get her kids into her car, but she was stopped and roughed up by police in view of her kids. Natasha Skeete is black, and as told here, it’s yet another data point showing that being black is enough for some cops to assume wrongdoing.
This week, Neil deGrasse Tyson posted a statement on Facebook about being black in America. This is the soundbite: “I’m just trying to learn all I can about the universe. I hardly ever think about the color of my skin. It never comes up when contemplating the cosmos. Yet when I exit my front door, I’m a crime suspect.”
qatzelok 12:30 on 2020-06-09 Permalink
Jaela Bernstien’s job was to go out and find something that would pit one half of the working class against the other half. The last thing that our oligarchs want right now is working class solidarity – and that’s who she works for: oligarchs.
Kate 12:57 on 2020-06-09 Permalink
qatzelok, are you off your meds again?
Mark Côté 13:26 on 2020-06-09 Permalink
Who is being pitted against whom here? Genuine question.
Max 18:24 on 2020-06-09 Permalink
From the sounds of it (“As we threw them in the car, I ran a few cars up to tell the riot police to stop”) this appears to have been a lapse of judgement on the woman’s part. The police likely took it as provocation or non-cooperation that she ran up to them. Had she just gotten into the car along with her kids nothing would likely have happened. But I’m just speculating.
Michael Black 18:58 on 2020-06-09 Permalink
Admittedly this was a riot, but one of the issues is that some people are treated differently because of how they look. Don’t look to killings by cops, look to day to day treatment. Someone loading her car in her own house and the cops arrive, someone sitting on a bench waiting for the bus, someone knocking on a cop car window because someone she knows has been arrested, and she gets arrested too. Me crossing the street a block from home and riunning when the light changes.
If these were white, well dressed people would it happen to them?
The question is always there, And often it’s not one time but multiple times. That’s the context. That’s what needs to be understood before change can happen.
walkerp 19:41 on 2020-06-09 Permalink
It wasn’t a riot. The march was completely peaceful. There were some young people still running around and the cops were out looking for trouble. And when they couldn’t find it, they manufactured it.
Alison Cummins 20:58 on 2020-06-09 Permalink
Max,
“From the sounds of it (“As we threw them in the car, I ran a few cars up to tell the riot police to stop”) this appears to have been a lapse of judgement on the woman’s part.”
No, it doesn’t work that way. You don’t get to single out a nonwhite group for special/violent/lethal treatment and then blame individual members of that group for attracting that treatment by acting afraid.
Kate 20:59 on 2020-06-09 Permalink
Michael Black, there were no reports of a riot after the march on Sunday (June 7).
Natasha annoyed skeete 00:10 on 2020-06-12 Permalink
Actually Max, if you were there you would see the entire incident took LESS than 2 minutes. The kids were thrown into someone else’s car because we couldn’t even get to our car and the officer was yelling at me by the time I ran to the driver side. Also we would have seen that the officer looked into the car at the children and continue to yell at me to leave the area and then tried pushing me up the street. I dont regret getting out of character because there is no way in hell I was leaving my kids alone. And fyi out of fear the kids had locked the door, did you want us to smash the glass to get in the car?
You are right Kate, there was no riot in the area nor did we hear of any.