#Robert Cherry

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Wilfred Reilly and Robert Cherry

Published: Feb 14, 2023

The senseless murder of Tyre Nichols, by five black Memphis police officers, was an undisputed tragedy. But it’s important to judge it in context.

For many on the American political left, the explanation for what happened was simple: white supremacy. Despite the officers involved being black, this was still held up as evidence of the continued victimisation of black men by police officers who too often resort to violence whenever they interact with ‘people of colour’. Michael Brown, Freddie Gray, George Floyd and other BLM martyrs, of varying degrees of actual innocence, have been cited in support of these claims, and have been used to fuel the ‘Defund the Police’ narrative.

This take is wrong. We shouldn’t demonise policing and policemen simply because the annual number of problematic killings is above zero. According to the Washington Post’s excellent database, about 25 unarmed black Americans were killed by police gunfire annually from 2015 to 2018. The figure is only at 25 because of an atypical 37 killings in 2015. Over the past four years, in fact, the number of unarmed black Americans killed annually by police gunfire stands at 12. In contrast, far more police officers are shot and killed in the line of duty each year – 314 police officers were shot and 58 were killed in 2021 alone.

While the left highlights the fact that black Americans are killed by police at two-to-three times the rate that would be expected from their share of the population, it neglects to mention the most glaringly obvious reason for this. Black Americans are a far younger, more urban and more working-class population than are white Americans. Largely as a result of this, they are disproportionately perpetrators of violent crimes. They therefore come into contact with the law more often than other sections of US society. According to recent figures from the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), black Americans are at least five times as likely as whites to commit murders and nearly three times as likely to commit violent crimes overall.

Moreover, the homicide problem in specifically black communities has grown significantly since the killing of George Floyd in 2020 – with the annual number of murders surging to over 20,000 and black-perpetrator homicides passing the 10,000 mark in both 2020 and 2021. There are now significantly more black (60 per cent) than ‘white and other’ (40 per cent) homicide victims annually, despite the fact that black Americans make up only 12 to 13 per cent of the US population. This entirely new level of blood-letting is the true crisis faced by black American citizens living in struggling neighbourhoods – not the phoney risk of ‘genocide’ at police hands, as BLM claims.

None of this excuses terrible police work, such as that which cost Tyre Nichols his life. However, as Bob Maranto and I have noted, perhaps the most serious problem with the BLM-inspired ‘defund the police’ narratives is that they utterly ignore potential changes to policing that might actually work. Over the past two decades, well-documented police-community coordination in major cities has been effective at reducing the number of black men killed by police, and even the share of black men engaged in violent behaviours.

Over the past decade, many police forces have begun to dramatically revamp their use of force and rethink citizen-interaction policies. Sometimes this has been prodded by federal intervention – particularly after the 2015 Department of Justice investigation into policing techniques in the troubled city of Ferguson, Missouri. As leading criminologists like David Kennedy and Thomas Abt have pointed out, police forces working with community groups have had success targeting a small number of the most ‘at risk’ men in high-crime neighbourhoods. The technique is simplicity itself: offer these potential offenders (and potential victims) strong positive incentives if they begin to turn their lives around, but harsh penalties if they do not.

Memorably, in the summer of 2020, the defunding movement proposed replacing police officers with social workers and community ‘violence disruptor’ groups. It was not entirely wrong about the role social workers can play as part of an anti-crime strategy. However, the activists failed to recognise that these groups cannot act independently of the police. Social workers, in particular, cannot effectively respond to serious situations of domestic or family violence alone – since most are young untrained women and these troubling cases often involve serious criminals armed with guns or knives. Independent ‘peace-makers’ are just tax-paying citizens – they have no access to the databases that police officers use to proactively interact with high-risk men, or any real ‘sticks’ to use to force compliance with the law. Social work and community activism can work only as an addition to better-funded and more proactive police departments, not as an alternative to them.

Other practical strategies for improving policing can work, too. As Maranto and I note, New York City – perhaps surprisingly one of the US’s very top police departments – simply fires all officers who pick up more than two or three verified citizen complaints, or demotes them to hated jobs, such as in the departmental motor pool. Maintaining a strong, well-funded Internal Affairs division, and even requiring officers to fill out an awkward 40-plus page report every time they unholster a firearm, have proven to be effective violence-reduction strategies as well. The prospect of bureaucratic tedium really can keep officers in check.

It is also clear what does not work to improve policing – the BLM-promoted strategy of reduced stop rates by lower-funded police departments. As Jason Johnson of the Law Enforcement Legal Defence Fund notes, when arrests recently plunged by 38 per cent in New York City, homicides rose 58 per cent – by more than 100. In Chicago, the equivalent figures were 53 per cent and 65 per cent. In Louisville, Kentucky, stops dropped by 35 per cent, arrests dropped by 42 per cent and murders rose 87 per cent. As Travis Campbell of the University of Massachusetts observes, the response of cities to major Black Lives Matter marches does appear to correlate with a slight decline in police shootings, but also with a remarkable surge of 1,000 to 6,000 more annual homicides nationally.

Given all this, what the horrific Tyre Nichols case reveals is not ‘black white supremacy’ but the flaws in the currently popular woke model of how to fix policing. Race doesn’t seem to have played a huge role in Nichols’ killing one way or another. More significant is the fact that the ‘hired from the hometown’ officers who allegedly beat Nichols to death were recruited under ‘dangerously lowered’ standards – two of those involved in Nichols’ death were sworn in back in August 2020, after Memphis Police Department had decided to attract more minorities by lowering education requirements. These lawmen were assigned to an almost irrationally aggressive anti-crime unit (called ‘SCORPION’), which was established precisely because crime had surged so much in Memphis – and everywhere else – following George Floyd’s killing and the Great Police Pullback. A decent man lost his life as a result.

We know what might save 10 or so ‘black lives’ every year from police shootings. And we know that these approaches might also protect a great many citizens from being knocked over the head with a brick by muggers. Yet too many on the left are happy to mouth inane ‘defund’ slogans and push dangerous policies. In doing so, they are harming the very people on whose behalf they claim to speak.

==

The uptick in violence and deaths as a result of police pullback is also known as the "Ferguson Effect," and has been studied.

"BLM" is a brand name, not a mission statement. They don't own concern for black people any more than Xianity owns morality.

BLM's aims are ideological (and financial), not social. Defending what they do - and maybe even more importantly, what they don't do - with "what, you don't think black lives matter?" is as asinine and dishonest as saying, "what, you don't want to make America great again?" or "but it's a religion of peace!" The Democratic People's Republic of North Korea is neither democratic nor for the people.

For the record, this is a bait-and-switch equivocaton and deception called the Motte and Bailey.

If black lives mattered to BLM, they'd be talking about things that matter to altering the trajectory of black lives that would benefit from those things: literacy and education, neighborhood crime (esp. black-on-black), young parenthood, fatherlessness, and vocational opportunities, especially those that aren't dependent on college.

[ The correct number is low double-digits. And below statistical expectations. ]

[edfartwhoreton]

PLANET TERROR | Robert Rodriguez, 2007

[atomic-chronoscaph]

Rose McGowan - Planet Terror (2007)

[texaschainsawmascara]

Rose McGowan as Cherry Darling in Planet Terror / Kim Petras’ Halloween costume

[nopickls]

The heroic age of Antarctic exploration - after The Terror opening credits

[andr0leda]

full moon’s a bitch

[buildoblivionthenwewilltalk]

i’m reading worst journey in the world again and I can’t get enough of these little dudes

[dallasgallant]

I’ve seen a few posts calling attention to the similarities between Bob and Dallas and I haven’t been able to get it out of my head. Specifically I want to call attention to this:

Only one person ever told them no, but it wasn’t the no they needed.

Everyone their age is afraid to tell them no, they always get what they want. For Bob it’s because he leads, for Dally it’s because he’s a Hood- both of them have a reputation and live up to it. Bob’s parents won’t tell him no because they don’t think they have to any trouble he gets into is anyone’s fault but his (because blaming him would point out their bad parenting) and Dally isn’t around his dad enough or the man doesn’t give enough of a shit. The difference is that Bob wants his parents to parent and feel - Dally doesn’t know if he wants anything anymore.

The only people to ever say no in a way that affected them were Cherry and Johnny. They said it and came out unscathed when anyone else would’ve gotten hurt. Cherry refusing to get in the car and aid in his drunken antics (even if she later caves to social pressure) and Johnny telling Dally to lay off the girls. The difference being Dallas silently stalks off and listens…

These are the “no” they’d listen to but not one they needed. Not the law and attention they both lacked… both of their behaviors and personalities are cry for help that goes ignored by adults and friends alike— who assume it’s just their nature.

It goes to show that sometimes we all have the same types of problems regardless of socioeconomic class, it’s just what they make someone that differs. Bob is praised and held up while Dally is seen as the lowest of the low.

In the end they both died violent and young and desperate. Failed by the same systems and structures.

[fullcolorfright]

The Great White Silence (1924, dir. Herbert G. Ponting, British)

[aratakatism]

cherry valance his name was bob sheldon you could’ve done better

[feuillant]

‼️🚨‼️‼️🚨‼️‼️

[urv3nicebitch]

[edfartwhoreton]

PLANET TERROR | Robert Rodriguez, 2007

[atomic-chronoscaph]

Rose McGowan - Planet Terror (2007)

[boysborntodie]

Inspired by this post but much messier and uglier. Chart of Cherry/Bob/Johnny/Dally parallels.

Key: Light fonts and on the line are similarities while Dark fonts closer to image are juxtaposing elements

[cherryobx]

Cherry's 2.4k picnic! 💐🍓

Hi, beautiful people!

Totally unexpectedly my blog has hit 2.4k followers! This is absolutely insane to me and I never thought it would be possible. That number just seems so unreal. In celebration, I decided to throw yall a little celebratory picnic. Grab your snacks, drinks, and blankets and join me for a cute picnic at the park (aka on Tumblr)!

Here are the activities: 

Painting each other! - choose a question or two from the following lists for us to get a chance to get to know each other better

list a | list b

Have a drink with me! - I’ll tell you gossip from my real life! (just send me the ☕️ emoji)

Charcuterie board! - choose prompts from these lists (or come up with your own) and a character and I’ll write a cute little blurb

list a | list b | list c | list d | list e | list f | list g | list h

Turn the radio up! - give me a song you love and a character and I’ll write a blurb or a full-sized fic based on that

Chocolate covered strawberries! - send me your fav writer’s @ and i’ll read, like, comment and reblog their work to spread some love on here (it can be ur own @ too, don’t be shy to toot your own horn)

And just in case here are my rules for requesting and characters I write for.

All the dividers during this celebration are by the lovely @cafekitsune, special shoutout to her!

A big thank you to the blogs I got the prompt lists from!

Tagging some mutuals to get started: @x-lulu @viawritesstuff @lovelyjj @ihe4rttwd @starkeysprincess @starkeyslut @moremaybank @airedale17 @writingjjfics @jellyfishbeansontoast @mrs-cameron @bradleybeachbabe @goldenroutledge @carolineworld @poge-life @drewsephrry @luvmunson @outerbankslut @ilovejjmaybank @maybankiara @rafeysbafey @slutforsydney @mvybanks