Texas rural Conservative racism - Calvin Beckett in the movie American Violet.

[Darth Executor]

Her civil suit ultimately exposed the virulent racism and callous opportunism that motivated the district attorney, and forced a favorable settlement. We viewed a clip of a pivotal moment in American Violet, where Paschall’s daughter gave a videotaped interview regarding his racism. Paschall lost his composure during the viewing, confronting an African-American attorney who was conducting the questioning, saying essentially, “So what? Everyone is racist in this town.” Paschall settled the case, and the fifteen plaintiffs were vindicated, but that was not the moral of this story.

So the one piece of relevant evidence is... a clip from the movie. The one that makes up racist lines for people. And it's not even evidence that the original incident was motivated by racism, just that the DA may or may not be racist (it's entirely possibel to be racist and still treat people fairly after all).

[shunyadragon]

Source: http://www.texasobserver.org/1935-bringing-justice-to-hearne-residents-and-the-national-aclu-team-up-to-bring-justice-to-hearne/

The Columbus Village apartment complex in Hearne, Texas, has become a national focus in the War on Drugs. Five years ago, drug task force officers dressed in black and carrying rifles swarmed Columbus’s drab brown buildings and bare dirt yards, terrorizing children and the elderly in the process. Dozens of residents were arrested on drug charges. Racism and police abuse have long bedeviled the federally subsidized housing project. Remarkably, though, the raid has become a central piece of a multi-pronged campaign to dismantle drug task forces nationwide and bring lasting change to this small city of 4,700, just 90 miles east of Austin. Change was on Charles Workman’s mind, as the affable community activist drove into Columbus Village on a Sunday afternoon this past February. He waved to residents, and the young men standing around greeted him warmly, a few even teasingly punching the 56-year-old’s arm. Workman, a coordinator for the Texas Justice Network, a non-profit group advocating criminal justice reform, was attempting to gin up attendance for a March bus ride at $25 a head from Hearne to the state Capitol. The trip was part of a Texas-wide effort, “Family Lobby Day,” to get legislators to reduce prison sentences and establish drug treatment programs. While some in Hearne have drug problems, many blacks say they have felt targeted by law enforcement because of their race. Of the town’s residents, 44 percent are black, 28 percent are Hispanic, and 27 percent are Anglo, according to the 2000 Census. Yet African Americans accounted for 79 percent of all arrests by the South Central Texas Narcotics Task Force in surrounding Robertson and Limestone Counties in 2000, according to data obtained from the agency’s own logs for an ACLU report. The study notes that by comparison, African Americans made up 39 percent of all task force arrests in other jurisdictions in Texas. Workman, a Baptist minister, grew up in Hearne. “We got a lot of work to do. I’ve never seen this many young men say ‘I want to help to do something,’” he said. “We got to teach our young men, teach them to stop doing things.” Workman reminded a couple of men who said they didn’t have the money for the bus trip about an upcoming local hip-hop function focused on education. Later, driving through Hearne, he offered a sobering assessment. “Most people here just don’t have any hope.” The despair partly stems from the repeated, multi-county drug task force stings in which residents have had their doors kicked in and apartments ransacked. But it also comes from a community so economically depressed that the Wal-Mart left town. A civil suit slated to be heard in federal district court in Waco on May 9 may address some of the worst excesses of the task force but bringing economic development and a new outlook to Columbus Village residents will take considerably more time and effort. Almost exactly two years after the November 2000 drug bust in Hearne resulted in 28 arrests for using and dealing crack cocaine, the national ACLU filed suit on behalf of those rounded up. The lawsuit alleges the arrests were racially motivated, given that all but one of those arrested were African American. Some had verifiable alibis. Almost all the transactions supposedly took place at Columbus Village. The suit alleges that Derrick Megress, the confidential informant used by the South Central Texas Regional Narcotics Task Force, was unreliable, poorly supervised, and fabricated evidence.

© Copyright Original Source

[shunyadragon]

Source: http://www.csdp.org/news/news/profiling.htm

The film is directed by Bill Haney (in conjunction with his production partner, Tim Disney), who heard about the story while "driving home during rush hour[listening] to National Public Radio." The director told the Los Angeles Times that he "began to cry" when he heard the story of "Regina Kelly, a young African American woman -- a single mother with four daughters -- [...] who was unjustly arrested during a raid on the projects where she lived" and erroniously "accused of dealing drugs" ("American Violet"). That "[t]he district attorney gave her the option of either a plea deal" - which would saddle her with a criminal record, barr her from voting, and cause her to "lose most of her rights" - or going to jail for 25 years" particularly upset Haney, who called the DA's offer a "Sophie's Choice." Departing from their usual documentary mode, Haney and Disney decided to make the case into "a dramatic feature," and they thus fictionalized some aspects of the story (such as Kelly's name, which was changed to Dee Roberts) while remaining true to the basic facts of the case. The filmmakers explained that they "thought doing the film as a feature would have more universal resonance with audiences" and, as Haney told the Times, "affect more people's views."

American Violet chronicles Kelly's tough but eventually victourious legal battle with District Attorney John Paschall, in which the ACLU's Drug Law Reform Project participated. Haney not only reviewed the group's relevant legal documents, which readers can view for themselves by searching the Project's document archive, but also "went to Texas and spent a lot of time with Kelly, her children, and the attorneys, filming long interviews with them." Haney reports that he "always felt a great responsibility to the story" as well as to Kelly herself, with whom he maintains contact. The resulting cinematic document thus portrays Kelly's ordeal empathetically and passionately, never forgetting to ensure that viewers remain aware of the personal biases that law enforcement officials bring to their jobs; the structural inequities imbedded in the criminal justice system; and the plight of the poor, racially marginalized citizens who bare the brunt of the drug war's collateral consequences. However, the film is engaging enough to avoid being overly didactic.

© Copyright Original Source

There are more documented material on this site concerning racism and racial profiling in Law enforcement.

[shunyadragon]

So the one piece of relevant evidence is... a clip from the movie. The one that makes up racist lines for people. And it's not even evidence that the original incident was motivated by racism, just that the DA may or may not be racist (it's entirely possibel to be racist and still treat people fairly after all).

Read the other references and do your homework.

[fm93]

It's quite simple, actually....
It's disingenuous at best to get your panties in a wad over the death of a black kid by a white kid when you're ignoring the fact that MOST black kids are killed by other blacks.

Actually, it seems that the protests are more about WHO those particular white people are. They're generally not random kids, but "neighborhood watchmen" or police officers--people who are by duty supposed to protect and serve the people, but instead end up killing them. You can argue elsewhere whether the killers in the incidents were warranted in doing so, but the fact is that many black people fear that the system is stacked against them--after all, if the people who are assigned to protect them (and PREVENT crimes within the community from occurring, mind you!) are those who kill them, then who is there left to trust? The vast majority of black-on-black violence doesn't involve people in positions of institutional authority seemingly abusing said authority. The intraracial crimes themselves are seen as problems on a personal level, whereas those particular white-on-black crimes are seen as failures on a social and institutional level. Hence, the difference in response.

What would unconscious or indirect racism look like?

A number of different ways. For instance, when put under pressure, we're instinctively quicker to shoot African-American targets than Caucasian targets. We're also more likely to give callbacks to job applicants with "white-sounding" names. Here's a video about that last one:

I doubt that employers consciously think "That name sounds like it belongs to a minority! I'm not hiring that damn dirty [slur]!" But most of us may have a few unconscious prejudices and biases that can influence our behavior, as the first study demonstrated. The participants probably don't consciously hate black people, but we live in a society in which the media (and perhaps some personal anecdotes) tend to present them in a negative light, frequently mentioning them in the context of violence and crime, and we develop automatic associations at an unconscious level, so that in pressure situations, the non-rational parts of our brain take over. These are examples of unconscious racism.

Meanwhile, studies have shown that propagating negative stereotypes about a group may, in a cruel self-fulfilling prophecy, actually worsen that group's performance. It's a phenomenon called "stereotype threat." When people feed negative stereotypes about a racial group, members of that racial group may psychologically "buy into it" and perform worse than they would've done otherwise. That's what I mean by indirect racism.

ETA: Indirect racism also refers to the lingering effects of racism from the antebellum period, Reconstruction era and Jim Crow era.

[fm93]

That is a term liberals use to let you know that you are racist even though you know you are not.

It seems as though it's used pretty much like 'homophobe' and 'homophobia' - to identify someone who won't just roll over and submit to their agenda.

I'm honestly disappointed in your response. It doesn't surprise me that seer again jumped to conclusions and misrepresented an argument without making any effort to understand it, but I thought you were better than that. Instead, you're demonstrating the same mindset and behavior.

The concept of unconscious prejudices and biases really isn't ridiculous or far-fetched. Does the Bible not contain several passages warning that the heart is deceitful and hard to know, and frequently exhort people to examine themselves?

[seer]

I'm honestly disappointed in your response. It doesn't surprise me that seer again jumped to conclusions and misrepresented an argument without making any effort to understand it, but I thought you were better than that. Instead, you're demonstrating the same mindset and behavior.

The concept of unconscious prejudices and biases really isn't ridiculous or far-fetched. Does the Bible not contain several passages warning that the heart is deceitful and hard to know, and frequently exhort people to examine themselves?

If they are unconscious prejudices then they are not conscious prejudices. And if they are unconscious prejudices then how do you know they have anything to do with race? A man can have any number of biases that are not race related.

[Cow Poke]

Actually, it seems that the protests are more about WHO those particular white people are.

Murder is wrong no matter who does it -- it's not worse because it's a very INFREQUENT murder of a black by a white, as opposed to MANY blacks killed by other blacks. But, somehow, liberals seem to "feel better" if they can attach a racial element to a murder.

[shunyadragon]

If they are unconscious prejudices then they are not conscious prejudices. And if they are unconscious prejudices then how do you know they have anything to do with race? A man can have any number of biases that are not race related.

This is true, but this thread deals with race and law enforcement. I got a lot of vindictive negative flack, without addressing the facts of the issue the movie 'American Violet' was a well researched documented movie. I find many posters 'shooting the messenger' and not dealing with the message of the movie. It goes far beyond just this small town. Many, many cases nation wide haunt us from LA, Chicago, New York, Dallas to a small town in Texas. The recent work by the Dallas District Attorney Craig Watkins to correct hundreds of convictions of wrongfully convicted blacks, many on death row is well documented.

There was a previous protest at my reference to Paschall's reelection after his racist profiling and wrongful efforts railroad prosecute blacks was revealed. The protest was 'Don't the citizens have the right to elect who they want?' This, of course, is their right to do so, but the circumstances of these cases and the history of law enforcement indicate the problem of overt racism is endemic to the population itself, not only Paschall.

There is a long history for this racial profiling and wrongful railroad convictions of blacks. After the devastating cruel period of slavery and failure of reconstruction there is a long history penal slavery up until well into the 20th century where black men were rounded up and wrongfully convicted of crimes to fill chain gang labor to build railroads, highways, mine coal, and build industrial infrastructure of the south.

The problem of racism is both overtly conscious, and wide spread engrained in people's subconscious. I believe describing this as 'unconscious' is the wrong word. The expression of racism that is widespread in America is not by people who are 'unconscious.'
,

[shunyadragon]

Murder is wrong no matter who does it -- it's not worse because it's a very INFREQUENT murder of a black by a white, as opposed to MANY blacks killed by other blacks. But, somehow, liberals seem to "feel better" if they can attach a racial element to a murder.

This a dodge of the subject and purpose of the thread. The subject is the well documented wide spread racial profiling and railroad conviction of large number of black, not only in a small town of Texas, but nation wide throughout the past hundred years or more in the history of America.

If someone wants to start a thread on the unfortunate history of crime and murder among minority populations it would be an interesting thread, but not the subject of this thread. The same is true of the Zimmerman case, it would be an interesting thread subject.

[MaxVel]

I'm honestly disappointed in your response. It doesn't surprise me that seer again jumped to conclusions and misrepresented an argument without making any effort to understand it, but I thought you were better than that. Instead, you're demonstrating the same mindset and behavior.

The concept of unconscious prejudices and biases really isn't ridiculous or far-fetched. Does the Bible not contain several passages warning that the heart is deceitful and hard to know, and frequently exhort people to examine themselves?

I agree that people may have bias and prejudices that they are unaware of. I live surrounded by racists, and if I was to point out to them that it's wrong to judge other people, or stereotype them, just on the basis of their ethnicity or skin colour, I'd get a lot of blank stares. They just don't see that as something particularly wrong.

So (to return somewhat to the topic), yeah, there probably are areas that could be improved in American's attitudes to each other, and maybe some areas of Texas have a particular problem.

But the problem I have is that it's all too easy to throw these kinds of terms around in a discussion as a (fallacious) way of invalidating someone's point**. And they're just about impossible to refute - How can you prove in an online discussion that you're not an unconscious racist? Which shows that they probably shouldn't be used at all in the first place, since how can anyone tell in such a discussion that someone else is an unconscious racist? The other problem is that these kinds of terms tend to be used only in one direction - by 'liberals' and 'progressives' against 'conservatives' and 'traditionalists'. There don't seem to be the same kinds of rhetoric flowing in the other direction - indirect accusations of irrational prejudice. When people start doing that - like calling others who have simply argued against some gay agenda 'homophobes', then they've abandoned any attempt at rational discourse.






**Not that you're necessarily doing that here. Yet. But Tassman probably will.

[Cow Poke]

This a dodge of the subject and purpose of the thread.

Nope. Is not.

The subject is the well documented wide spread racial profiling and railroad conviction of large number of black, not only in a small town of Texas, but nation wide throughout the past hundred years or more in the history of America.

Yeah, we all need to be nicer.

If someone wants to start a thread on the unfortunate history of crime and murder among minority populations it would be an interesting thread, but not the subject of this thread. The same is true of the Zimmerman case, it would be an interesting thread subject.

Knock yerseff out!

[seer]

The problem of racism is both overtly conscious, and wide spread engrained in people's subconscious. I believe describing this as 'unconscious' is the wrong word. The expression of racism that is widespread in America is not by people who are 'unconscious.'
,

No doubt racism exists, including people of color against whites.

[Cow Poke]

No doubt racism exists, including people of color against whites.

Yeah, and there are a number of prominent people of color who can't help but exploit it for their own gain.

[shunyadragon]

If they are unconscious prejudices then they are not conscious prejudices. And if they are unconscious prejudices then how do you know they have anything to do with race? A man can have any number of biases that are not race related.

Actually, not the subject of the thread. Using the word 'unconscious' is an odd way to describe any from of bias and prejudice. People who are overtly prejudice, hide their prejudice under the covers, or are conditioned by cultural prejudice subconsciously are all fully conscious.

The subject of the thread is the pervasive profiling and selective railroading prosecution of black in the USA. As I already stated there is a long documented history here to deal with.