Now that we have that out of the way…

Let me be clear: I don’t care one bit about any sort of emotional appeal or pandering in these “while black” threads (or others, for that matter). I don’t care that these people are black. I don’t care if they are blind, deaf, or dumb. I don’t care if they are gay, straight, or whatever. I don’t care if they stubbed their toe, had a stroke, or spontaneously combusted. I don’t care if they are a father of 11. I don't care how many of their limbs work. When someone makes a claim of racism, they need to come with some clear evidence of such.

I’m still waiting for that evidence…in this case, and others.

And likewise when someone makes a claim of drug dealing.

Dave

Exactly.

Do you have any evidence to present? So far, there hasn't even been anything to "handwave" away. Humorous.

The whole "If we had any evidence, he wouldn't care anyway" argument is comical.

I guess that is what it means to be a "skeptic" around here. :rolleyes:

See this requires the cops care if someone lives or dies and that kind of empathy is weeded out of police forces pretty quick.

That's certainly becoming more true.

I don't consider "it's not racism, it's just everyone involved in this process was extremely negligent, and terrible at their job. Claiming that they're racist is ridiculous!" all that convincing.

And therein lies the stupidity of your argument.

Once again, "racism by default".

You left out that this incompetency for reasons totally outside of race disproportionately occurs to black people. It is a true mystery how something totally not at all racist seems to disproportionately affect black people. Like driving while black, sure we know blacks are pulled over for minor reasons and treated more severely at a disproportionate rate but there is no evidence that any of it is racism related.

Racism by statistics. This kind of incompetence happens more often to black people than white people, because of racism. That is a simple fact, even if there is some chance that these officers would have been just as negligent with a white guy having a stroke. Also diabetities is a frequent death sentence in the jail system, get hyperglycemic pass out and they think you are drunk and just let you die. As per proper police procedure.

But is the argument "everyone sucked at their respective responsibilities"a less plausible explanation than "everyone was a racist"?

Personally, I find professional incompetence kind of everywhere.

Here is the thing, why are these treated as separate conditions? Why are you so sure they would have assumed a white guy was drunk instead of having a medical emergency? Racial stereotypes play a role in there first gut reaction to the situation. I know I know you are certain that even though black people are pulled over disproportionately for minor offenses that none of those driving while black stops are in themselves remotely racist because cops pull over and harass white people too for no reason just less often.

The argument "everyone sucked at their respective responsibilities, but they probably would have tried a bit harder had the victim been white" is one worth considering (though not, of course, to be concluded without supporting evidence). I suspect racism is commonly about treating black people, not as worthless, but as worth less.

Dave

Absolutely, which is why I mentioned that no evidence will work, for some, when discussing race. It will always be something else.

I wasn't kidding when I said that even if there was video of an officer calling a PoC every racial name in the book it would still be argued, by some, that those words never would have been said if the PoC didn't struggle, or would have just got out of their car, or let the cops search their car for no reason, or, or, or, until we sea lion our way into such an absurd situation it's not worth arguing about.

Like this conversation. Once it gets to the point of anyone saying, "he's just a drooling stroke victim", or something like that, there's no conversation to be had. It's over.

Once it gets to the point of labeling it "racism" by default, without any evidence of such...there is definitely no conversation to be had.

ETA: Yeah, this guy is just another drooling stroke victim, to me. But, somehow I am supposed to feel more sympathy towards him, and call people racists, based on on the color of his skin. FOH.

I already said, I think they're both equally possible. That was claimed to be "racism by default".

It's weird that some default to "it's incompetence", which is apparently fine. Then others default to "it's racist" and that's not fine. I just don't understand why one is better than the other.

I find racism to be apart of professional incompetence. I don't feel they're each standalone.

Just to be clear.

This, again, is the whole shebang. I don't default to anything, and harp on all these threads that it's insufficient data for a meaningful conclusion.

But the thread title isn't Having a stroke with incompetent Emergency personnel, is it? The gavel is more or less dropped in the title by default.

That's what I argue, thread after thread. The painfully clear subtext is presumption of racism, by our glaringly white posters. How often is a bad outcome with a black person involved approached anywhere near neutrally? Hell, even on the dead woman in the police can thread, "Black" got jammed into the title, even though no one breathed a word about race.

Its swinging the needle hard towards racism without a whiff of evidence that gets argued on the #LWB threads, not the advocating of alternative POVs.

There's always evidence, just none you and your ilk will accept. The BPD has an established history of being racist (same with the entire city, actually. Read about any black baseball player playing in Boston). Read the God damned articles about this event, they talk about it in almost every single one of them. It's just whenever that is brought up, what do you guys say? "Ok, it's a problem there but prove THIS SPECIFIC INSTANCE is based on racism." Which, as has been pointed out ad nauseum now, without a video of them calling Al some racial insult you guys will never accept anything less. Which, outside of maybe 1 in a million cases, there never is video like that. Racism isn't always that blatant, it's not always in your face, it's in subtle ways that show up more like, oh, I don't know, incompetence.

I mean, we can all admit it though, right? Lets you and I just come out and say it. Unless there's something showing a cop screaming racist words, it'll never be racism. Right?

To sum it up: If some whiteys are involved, always assume racism. And sometimes, even if blacks are making the arrest (if we didn't know before kicking off the thread). It is the ISF way. :thumbsup:

My "ilk"? And the horse you rode in on.

And you know goddamned right well I agree with the premise of racism on some of the threads. Some of your own even, IIRC. It's a bald faced lie to say I never accept it. Running somewhere around 50/50, in fact.

And here you are doing the same weaseling thing: Vascillating back and forth between "is racism real?" which is not even a question, and "is this an example of racism?"

Let's use your "logic" here. You know, abruptly change the incident in question to a broad perspective over history to give it cred. Here goes:

"White Americans have historically enslaved black people. Therefore, this guy right here, plague311, is a slaveowner."

Swishy that around. How's it taste? Taste like skeptical thinking? Cuz it tastes like horse **** over here.

Dead ass lie. And the horse.

Was the BPD cop racist, or just using the normal amount of callous indifference for the truth and human life? Maybe they would have also permanently injured a white man through lazy mistreatment.

I suppose it's hard to say for sure, but neither answer speaks highly to their character.

One thing that seems fairly safe to say is that the cop lied about smelling liquor on the crash scene.

:thumbsup:

No crash just pulled over.

Yup, he had absolutely nothing in his system at all. Yet, instead of doing a breathalyzer, calling an ambulance, or offering him any form of assistance at all, they decided throwing him in jail was the proper way to go about it.

Top notch policing.

ETA: I'm shocked there's no policy or protocol in place for when you encounter an unresponsive individual in a case. I would really, REALLY like to see the camera footage.

Indeed. Just so we're clear, if this wasn't policing motivated by a racist view of black people, it's still an example of a thumb-headed cop pencil-whipping a police report to lazily make a DUI arrest rather than do the actual work to figure out what the hell was wrong with the driver.

Either way, this cop is trash and a member of the public suffered immensely for it.

It appears, per Al's attorney, there is a requirement to call the EMTs:

Looks like someone else settled that they aren't naming:

My guess would be the hospital pitched in the rest.

This reads like an opinion piece, but it does seem like the EMTs were operating under the impression that this was a DUI case due to the police telling them he was arrested for a DUI.

I am sure there is such a policy and protocol, certainly there would be in best practices, but this is boston so you can't expect too much from them.

This isn't even a hypothetical. We have heard people defend the use of the n-word as that it was just an expletive curse word, that really doesn't have racial overtunes. Like saying **** doesn't really refer to intercourse, the n-word doesn't really refer to race.

That argument has been made.