#rubber george floyd

[odinsblog]

Simply put, Minneapolis did not defund the police. It’s the opposite. The police are defunding Minneapolis.

How? Well, first there are the costly settlements from the violence the police committed: $27 million for George Floyd’s family; $2.4 million for protester Soren Stevenson; $650,000 for journalist Linda Tirado. Tirado and Stevenson both have an eyeball missing as a result of the police firing so called “less lethal” rubber-coated steel bullets at them during protests. There is $1.5 million for Jaleel Stallings, a Black army veteran who was hit by a less-lethal round from MPD officers riding around in an unmarked van five days after Floyd’s murder. Under the impression it was a real bullet, Stallings fired a real gun in self defense. He was beaten by the cops and charged with attempted murder only to be acquitted on all charges. His friend Virgil Lee Jackson Jr., who was with him and beaten and tased for two minutes, also received a $645,000 settlement. The total is staggering. An actuarial study by the city in 2021 estimated that legal claims made in the fifteen days after Floyd’s murder would lead to Minneapolis paying out $111 million in lawsuit settlements.

Then, there is the cost of the police officers themselves. Nearly 300 officers have left the department since Floyd’s murder, over one third of the force. Over 200 have left with workers’ compensation settlement checks and lucrative disability pensions, based on claims that policing the protests gave them post-traumatic stress disorder. Are these civil servants reaping the benefits of hard-won public-sector labor protections after bravely fulfilling their duty? Or is this a permanent version of what labor organizers would call a “sick out”?

Either way, some of these cops are getting generous retirement packages (costing the city money) after a career of complaints (costing the city money). One officer racked up more than $344,000 in misconduct settlements over the course of 12 years. He’s now receiving $56,000 a year in disability pension, on top of $195,000 in a workers comp settlement, according to records reviewed by Winter. Another officer—one of five involved in the 2013 SWAT Team killing of a Black man named Terrance Franklin (after new reporting by Time the case has undergone renewed scrutiny)—is making more than $128,000 a year on disability pension, on top of $195,000 in his workers’ comp settlement. Those officers who fired at Stallings from an unmarked van, and fractured his eye socket? Three of them are getting a combined $22,000 a month in disability pension for the trauma inflicted upon them.

Since Floyd’s murder, Minneapolis has paid more than $23 million in workers’ compensation settlements to police officers, according to the Star Tribune. Ronald Meuser, an attorney representing 200 MPD officers (a large portion of which he says were inside the 3rd Precinct station, and were forced to flee the building before the station eventually was set on fire by protesters), estimates that the city will eventually pay out $35 million dollars.

This is a great deal of money. The combination of these payouts and police misconduct settlements is approaching $150 million dollars. That’s more than three fourths of what the MPD’s budget was in 2020. The city’s self-insurance fund, which it uses to pay out settlements, is expected to be at negative 94 million dollars by the end of 2022.

👉🏿 https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2022/08/minneapolis-police-defund-george-floyd-city-budget/

#politics #police #defund the police #george floyd #blacklivesmatter #police brutality #police misconduct

[creepymutelilbugger]

hey I got a question about your "bunch new followers, if you pro/anti x then fuck off" post, and while this is probably not the best place for constructive criticism or discussion, I'll just give it a shot:

I consider myself very leftist, anti capitalist, much in the queer/trans bubble, anti car, pro choice, pro nuclear and very pro "the end justifies the means" (in terms of violence/militanz). but one thing I never understood is "pro cop = bad". sure, cops as the concept they are today is clearly not working because people with violence "tendencies" who are greedy for power are in such positions, while those should rather be occupied by people who really wanna help others, and not give them a felony for a gram of green - not to even mention murdering black people. but not having an executive/police at all is also not really an option, is it? in a perfect world, where you have all the power to change anything to your liking, what would it look like? or is anti cops really just the anti bad cops who are greedy for power and abuse their position, but not anti those who actually help and care for the people? While anarchism is a interessting thought, it would just not work out. Unless you stone every racist to death... then the whole world would probably be a lot better but I sadly don't think that'll happen (soon).

anti cop for me is a way of saying i hate and want to defund the police. the police eat up enormous amounts of the budgets of a huge amount of cities across the usa and they use that money to terrorize the people. im not a political expert but i have had enough bad encounters to hate the fucking cops . my own brother has been shot with rubber bullets after being corralled into a block by three walls of police officers who then opened fire on the peaceful crowd he was in with 'non lethal' munitions and tear gas (this was in Oregon a few years back after George Floyd). i am not opposed, on paper, to the presence of an effective and fair police force, but that is a distant fantasy right now. cops in this country arrest innocent people to make quotas, kill innocent people, hurt innocent people, scare innocent people, inconvenience innocent people, and harass innocent people. even if they actually properly did their jobs in addition to all that, that would be unacceptable, and grounds to push a police reform. fuck pigs. hope this helps

[bjurnberg]

^me writing a ml/dc fic during 2020’s lockdown while watching the George Floyd race riots in Portland through my friend’s camera lense as she gets bruised ribs from cops illegally aiming rubber bullets at journalists and also experiencing a very low depression episode due to The Everything so using writing to force the emotions out of me in a non-physically-violent manner by brutally murdering Marinette’s whole family and half her friends in front of her during an outdoor fashion show mass shooting so that Bruce Wayne could save her life and trauma bond adopt this new orphan.

#that’s what got me into dc properly #grew up with b:tas and s:tas #but doing character research for the Batfam for that fic got me way more interested in the dc comic universe #that murder drama fic is still just sitting in my notes #cuz I moved on to the No More Dead Robins series #and also got a irl job cuz the extra federal unemployment money ran out #lol I haven’t thought of that depression fic in a while #but this tiktok brought it back to mind #tiktok #ml/dc #fanfic #writing #depression low #glad that's over #I love being medicated #I know it’s not gone #but now it’s being regulated #dude #miraculous ladybug was my lockdown comfort show #I’d never watched it before 2020 #but I needed something soft and cute and very opposite how the world felt #it was a good escape show #then I saw people arguing about the Damian/Marinette fic shipping #and had no clue how that connection happened #but I read the fic that was being debated #and it was legit fantastic writing #which got me into DC so yay #ah how the adhd flows #bjurnberg

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Mike Luckovich

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

June 2, 2023

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

JUN 3, 2023

Three years ago today, on June 2, 2020, days after then–Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin murdered George Floyd by kneeling on his neck for nearly nine minutes, Martha Raddatz of ABC snapped the famous and chilling photograph of law enforcement officers in camouflage, their names and units hidden, standing in rows on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Mr. Floyd’s murder sparked protests across the country, and Trump used those protests as a pretext to crack down on his opponents. Just the day before, after a call with Russian president Vladimir Putin, Trump told state governors on a phone call: “You have to dominate. If you don’t dominate, you’re wasting your time.... You’ve got to arrest people, you have to track people, you have to put them in jail for 10 years and you’ll never see this stuff again.” Then he used a massive police presence wielding tear gas, rubber bullets, and flash-bang explosives to clear peaceful Black Lives Matter protesters from Lafayette Square across from the White House. Tonight, President Joe Biden addressed the nation from the Oval Office to emphasize that democracy depends on bipartisanship.” [W]hen I ran for President,” he began, “I was told the days of bipartisanship were over and that Democrats and Republicans could no longer work together. But I refused to believe that, because America can never give in to that way of thinking…. [T]he only way American democracy can function is through compromise and consensus, and that’s what I worked to do as your President…to forge a bipartisan agreement where it’s possible and where it’s needed.” While he noted that he has signed more than 350 bipartisan laws in his time in office, his major focus today was on the bipartisan budget agreement passed by the House and Senate after months of wrangling to get House Republicans to agree to lift the debt ceiling. Biden will sign it tomorrow, averting the nation’s first-ever default. Biden characterized those threatening to force the U.S. into default as “extreme voices,” who were willing to cause a catastrophe. The economy, which continues to add jobs at a cracking pace—another 339,000 in May, according to the numbers released today by the U.S. Bureau of Labor—would have been thrown into recession. As many as 8 million Americans would have lost their jobs, retirement savings would have been decimated, borrowing for everything from mortgages to government funding would have become much more expensive, and “America’s standing as the most trusted, reliable financial partner in the world would have been shattered.” “It would have taken years to climb out of that hole,” he said. But the extremists were sidelined, and the House Republicans and the White House reached an agreement. Biden went out of his way to praise House speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and his team, saying that the two negotiating teams “were able to get along and get things done. We were straightforward with one another, completely honest with one another, and respectful with one another. Both sides operated in good faith. Both sides kept their word.” This was not entirely true—McCarthy constantly attacked Biden in the media—but Biden was hammering on the image of bipartisanship. Yesterday, Jonathan Lemire, Adam Cancryn, and Jennifer Haberkorn of Politico reported that Biden and his team plan to make the case for reelection on their ability to negotiate deals that get things done for the American people, acting as the “adults in the room” in contrast to Republican extremists. The budget deal that led to the suspension of the debt ceiling is a major illustration of that position. Biden also praised House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), and Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), claiming that “[t]hey acted responsibly and put the good of the country ahead of politics.” The solution to the debt ceiling crisis is a major victory for Biden’s team not only because it happened, but also because it leaves Biden’s key priorities intact, not least because they are popular and Republicans did not want to go into 2024 having demanded unpopular cuts. Biden noted that the measure will cut spending as Republicans wanted (although not necessarily through the measures they insisted on adding), but reiterated that it is the Republican Party that has been on a spending spree. “We’re all on a much more fiscally responsible course than the one I inherited when I took office,” Biden said. “When I came to office, the deficit had increased every year the previous four years. And nearly $8 trillion was added to the national debt in the last administration,” while the deficit fell by $1.7 trillion in his first two years in office. Biden laid out that the deal protects his reworking of the U.S. economy to support ordinary Americans. It protects Social Security and Medicare, as well as healthcare and veterans’ services. It protects the investments in the economy that have enabled the country to add more than 13 million new jobs, including 800,000 jobs in manufacturing. It protects investments in addressing climate change. Finally, Biden vowed to make the wealthy—those who earn more than $400,000 a year—pay their fair share in taxes. “I know bipartisanship is hard and unity is hard,” he concluded, “but we can never stop trying, because in moments like this one—the ones we just faced, where the American economy and the world economy is at risk of collapsing—there is no other way. “No matter how tough our politics gets, we need to see each other not as adversaries, but as fellow Americans. Treat each other with dignity and respect. To join forces as Americans to stop shouting, lower the temperature, and work together to pursue progress, secure prosperity, and keep the promise of America for everybody.” What a difference three years can make.

—

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#Mike Luckovich #political cartoons #Biden #Debt ceiling #negotiations #compromise #Biden Administration Accomplishments #job growth #fiscal responsibility #Democratic accomplishments

[morlock-holmes]

"If you tell people that they only have two choices: a police force that assaults and kills innocent people with impunity, or no police force at all, then some people are naturally going to come down on the side of no police at all." Yes, and those people will be a dramatic minority that gets politically marginalized because most people, given the choice between rampant crime and abusive policing, will figure they probably won't be victimized by cops and choose abusive policing. Morlock, you need to recognize that people hate crime and will approve of just about anything to stop it, and so if you really want police reform you need, you need, YOU NEED to support being tough on actual criminals. There is no third way no matter how much you desperately grasp around for one.

I am having trouble understanding what your position is or what you think mine is.

Why do you think we're even talking about police abolition? If it was truly a politically marginal position, well, who cares? Why are the Republicans using it as a Boogeyman?

The top part of this ask is just repeating what I already said; You tell people that the inevitable cost of crime prevention and investigation is a Breonna Taylor here or a George Floyd there, and the ruling classes say, "Gosh, think how bad things would be without cops, guess we have to accept it" and every so often there's another dead innocent and another riot that's too big for the cops to handle.

Because what's the alternative? You treat people in a horrible way and say that it's the only way they'll ever be treated for as long as your government exists, and some of them bite the bullet and take it but some of the crazier ones start getting revolutionary ideas.

The second half of your ask is just a kind of confused abstraction that locks us into the kind of all-or-nothing thinking which produces police corruption and riots.

You want tough on criminals? Here's a thing that I and the protestors and, yes, the rioters want:

If a cop is caught on camera committing a crime they should be treated like anybody else caught on camera committing a crime.

Part of the reason that the riots went on as long as they did was because every few days you'd see another cop assaulting a peaceful protestor and just getting away with it.

There was a case here in Portland where a guy named Donovan la Bella was standing near the courthouse and, completely unprovoked, a state trooper shot him in the head with a rubber bullet. The brain damage from the injury has reportedly left him unable to hold down a job and prone to fits of rage. Despite the fact that the assault was caught on camera, the "investigation" had taken years, and last I checked nobody has been charged with assault and the government had refused to name the officer who did it.

That's not being "tough on actual criminals"; that's treating actual criminals with kid gloves because they wear a badge.

There are, in fact, options other than, "We do nothing whatsoever to change the current status quo and continue to allow anybody with a badge to commit whatever crimes they want" and "Complete absence of any and all crime prevention and investigation".

If we reduce the issue to emotional abstractions rather than concrete ideas, we will doom ourselves to more abuses and more riots because we will convince each other that there is no other path forward.

[inkher0]

When did you get shot with rubber bullets?

I wasn't shot, I was shot at. Important difference!

leaving out identifying details, I participated in a protest and display of civil disobedience during the George Floyd Tragedy. I left when it became violent, and on the way to my car, I found a girl that was hit in the leg and couldn't walk. I and a buddy of mine gave her our shoulders to lean on until she got where she needed to be. Cops followed us pretty much the whole way to our cars, but thanks to what was DEFINITELY White Privilege, they didn't arrest us.

And I'd do it again!!!!! fuck 12, all my homies hate cops and love equality for black people!!!!

#lore drop ig

[artvinyl]

Uncovered: 75 Dollar Bill - Power Failures

The shortlisted album artworks have been announced for our annual art prize Best Art Vinyl 2023. We now begin to delve into the creative process behind some of the 50 nominees. First up is 75 Dollar Bill's re-release of Power Failures for the first time on vinyl. We were lucky enough to catch up with the band's guitarist and album cover designer Che Chen.

Che Chen founded 75 Dollar Bill in 2011 with percussionist Rick Brown. He tells us, "I wanted to be a painter before I wanted to be a musician, so the visual aesthetic of the band has always been really important to me. I've done the artwork for all of our physical and digital releases, and many of our posters and fliers too."

Che Chen flyer design work for 75 Dollar Bill

Che Chen explains, "Power Failures first came out as a digital release on Bandcamp in July of 2020. It was our first pandemic summer, Trump was still president (hopefully for the last time!) and George Floyd had been murdered by Minneapolis Police Officers earlier that summer. There were protests everywhere, against police violence, institutional racism, wage inequality for essential workers, etc. The title of the record was very much a response to all of this, the way the pandemic exposed the failures of the state on all these different fronts."

The use of text-based artwork has in fact been a consistent theme for the artist, he told us, "Text has always been central to the visual language of the band, and many of our record covers feature text as the only "image" in the designs. This approach made sense to me for Power Failures, since the title was very evocative of everything that was going on, but also open-ended enough that I didn't want to add an image that might get in the way of whatever associations someone looking at those words might have. I wanted to push the idea of a text only image a bit by using the typography to create a pattern (of W's in this case) which is only broken by the album title. The digital album just had the single square image as its artwork, so when Karl Records in Berlin offered to make a vinyl edition of the album as a gatefold double album, we got to expand the art significantly. I repeated this process on the back cover with the band name and changed the background colour. The  LP centre labels refer back to the font and colour schemes of the front and back cover. I should also mention that the beautiful inside layout was done by Roland Küffner at Karl who did a fantastic job."

We asked Che Chen about the techniques he uses for his artworks, he explained, "The fonts I've used in most of my designs are actually from industrial moveable rubber stamp type. I've scanned physical prints of each set, several versions so that there are multiple versions of each character with slightly different imperfections, etc. I like the physical character of these fonts, how each impression is unique. For our first LP, Wooden Bag, Rick and I actually hand stamped the covers for the entire first edition using this rubber stamp type, but these days I mostly do the type setting on the computer."

Chen Chen got into music as a teenager in the suburbs of Washington DC in the 1990s when the post-hardcore scene around Dischord Records was thriving. The DIY ethos of bands taking control of their own production, from running their own labels and booking their own tours, to playing protests and benefits for local causes and working the door at their own shows, was and is still a big inspiration to him.

He tells us, "I've tried to carry those ideals on in my own work as best I can. Doing the art and the design for music projects I am involved with (and occasionally for friends) feels like an obvious extension of this. I love bands and labels that have a strong visual aesthetic and also really respect when artists are resourceful and can make striking designs using sometimes limited means. Sun Ra's home made jackets covers for his Saturn Records LPs and Harry Partch's Gate 5 Records are both examples of this for me."

Taken from the 'Sun Ra: Art on Saturn' Book - The Album Cover Art of Sun Ra's Saturn Label

U.S. Highball |Gate 5 Records, Issue No. 6 (First pressing, inscribed to Amos Vogel in 1960) Hardcover – January 1, 1956

Che continues, "Lisa Alvarado’s screen printed album covers for the Natural Information Society records and her paintings that hang while they play (she plays harmonium in the group too) are another perfect fusion of visual and musical aesthetics to me."

Mandatory Reality by Joshua Abrams & Natural Information Society. Artwork by Lisa Alvarado

Power Failures by 75 Dollar Bill on Karl Records is shortlisted for the Best Art Vinyl 2023 Award. Artwork by Che Chen.

#bestartvinyl2023 #record cover art #record frame #75 dollar bill #album artwork #contemporary art #art and design #best art vinyl #flip frame

[dollskill-is-trash]

You know it's bad when Jeffree Star hates you.

Also (from the video below), lmao this is true...

"Actually Dolls Kill is literally an Ali Express reseller making huge profits from cheap Chinese factories."

And here's where Jeffree loses his patience with Shady Shoddy over her dispcible support of LAPD during the George Floyd protests and goes full attack on her telling her to get a rubber bullet to the head...

Kinda hard to read but he basically tells her he's glad she's a failing business and to get shot by a rubber bullet. Which... telling someone to get shot is a WHOLE other thing... I wouldn't tell someone to do that but Shoddy is a genuine piece of shit so I guess karma is at least coming back to her in words? Shitty people shitting in each other. I guess I'm here to watch.

And here's Shady Shoddy's awful post and the general response... She even pissed SZA off... which... damn...

#dolls kill is trash #don't shop dolls kill #shoddy lynn is tacky af #racist companies #sza #jeffree star #Youtube #sebastian williams

[hieronymus-botch]

I like the new Multiversus patch because it implies that in this post-George Floyd world the Mystery Inc. gang have made the socially responsible choice and switched to just straight up doing Punisher-style vigilante justice on old guys in rubber masks trying to commit real estate fraud.

#multiversus #scooby doo

[benandstevesposts]

A Handwritten Note, "I'm Sorry And Won't Do It Again," - Not Enough - Will Justice Be Handed Down By The Court?

This report originated at the Atlanta Black Star By: Greg Hollis

On May 30, 2020, Jaleel Stallings suffered a brutal attack by Stetson and other officers during a protest over George Floyd’s death. Minneapolis was under curfew, and Stetson was part of a SWAT unit that set out in an unmarked van to enforce a nighttime curfew. 

Stetson and other officers — led by Sgt. Andrew Bittell, according to Minnesota Public Radio — fired 40 mm foam-tipped rubber bullets without warning at people spotted on the street past the curfew as they worked to protect local businesses from looting.

Stallings and three other men were shot at while sitting in a parking lot. He was hit in the chest and returned three shots back at the van with real bullets. No officer was hit when Stallings returned fire. The Army veteran also had a permit to carry the gun. 

“I thought I had been shot with a real bullet and was bleeding out,” Stallings later said in a police statement. 

He quickly surrendered once he realized it was officers shooting at him after he heard one of the officers say, “shots fired.” Stallings reportedly tossed his weapon, surrendered and got face down on the pavement with his hands in the air and not resisting arrest. 

Stetson hopped out of the van, repeatedly kicked Stallings in the face and head, and shouted “f—ing piece of s–t” at him. He also reportedly failed to use any commands.

The criminal complaint filed by Stallings and his lawyer says Stetson punched him and delivered knee shots to his face. At one point, Bittell reportedly held Stallings’ hands behind his back as Stetson struck him before Bittell yelled, “That’s it, stop!” Bittell also reportedly would claim falsely that Stallings was resisting arrest.

Stallings had several cuts and bruises on his face and a fractured eye socket. He also was charged with eight crimes, including the attempted murder of a police officer. 

In September 2021, Stallings was acquitted by a jury after body-camera footage and surveillance videos contradicted what Stetson wrote in the police reports. He was awarded $1.5 million in a settlement with the city in May 2022.

The now-former Minnesota police officer pleaded guilty on Wednesday, May 10, to assaulting a Black man five days after George Floyd was killed in 2020.

Justin Stetson, an ex-officer, pleaded guilty to a third-degree felony assault charge and a misdemeanor charge of misconduct of a public officer or employee. The felony assault charge has a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a fine of $10,000. 

The misdemeanor charge has a maximum sentence of one year and a $3,000 fine. Stetson was the only officer charged, and the guilty plea ensures he can’t work in law enforcement in Minnesota again.

Now a year later, Stallings gets more justice for his brutal attack. In addition to Stetson’s guilty plea, he issued a handwritten apology in court on Wednesday, according to The Associated Press. He admitted that he “crossed the line” when he used excessive force against Stallings.

“Rarely, if ever do police officers plead guilty to using excessive force in the line of duty — and today, Stetson has admitted he did so under color of his official authority, in violation of the law,” Minnesota attorney general Keith Ellison said in a statement sent to Associated Press.

Stallings didn’t buy the apology and disagreed with the plea deal. 

“As the innocent victim in this case, I will have served more jail time as a result of this incident than all of those officers combined,” Stallings wrote in a statement to the Minnesota Reformer. “At the very least, he should be convicted for the felony conduct that is captured on video… Instead, he is being offered the opportunity to walk away with more lenient terms than the average citizen would face for aggravated assault.”

He added that the plea deal would continue the cycle of abuse by “malicious officers.”

Prosecutors said they would push for Stetson to serve two years of supervised probation instead of jail time when he is sentenced in August. 

Stetson no longer has an active peace officer’s license in Minnesota. He also took a disability retirement last August and reportedly receives a pension of nearly $59,000. His criminal charges will not affect his pension.

Additional links referencing this report and similar reports can be found at the Atlanta Black Star, where this report originated. You can find them by clicking here.

(Because of the importance of the report's content, it was provided primarily complete. An informed community is a free community. Additionally, a group pushing to destroy a government by the people believes it never happen if it isn't reported. That is why authority hates news media. And it is why we push news reports like these with dedication!)

#lgbtqi #gay #black lives matter #black lgbt #black stories #aclu #freedom of assembly #freedom of expression #freedom of speech #freedom #black pride #black history month #black people #first amendment #prejudices #bigotry #police attack #police violence #police brutality #police assault #crime #police crime #equal rights #civil rights movement #civil liberties #civil disobedience #civil rights #george floyd #defund the cops #police officer

[sataniccapitalist]

[venusstadt]

Black Women And Black LGBTQ+ Lives Matter, Too.

(DISCLAIMER: This article was originally published 6/12/20 on Medium.com, prior to the creation of venustadt.com. As such, my opinions may or may not have altered since the text below was originally written. This article has been re-published here to track my growth as a writer.)

George Floyd was murdered May 25 in Minneapolis. His murderers were Tou Thao, who jeered at concerned bystanders; Thomas Lane and J. Alexander Keung, who helped restrain him, though he was already in handcuffs; and Derek Chauvin, who knelt on Floyd’s neck for eight minutes and 46 seconds, despite Floyd’s pleas for breath.

Since then, unprecedented protests have emerged in all 50 states and even places as far as the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and France. Protestors of all races, religions, and ages experiencing police brutality firsthand, being exposed to teargas and losing eyes to rubber bullets. Online, people are signing petitions, circulating and donating to bail funds, and calling on brands and influencers to use their platform to speak up about black lives. And, though it may be too early to tell, we may be on the verge of revolutionary change: statues and other symbols of white supremacy and oppression are being destroyed all over the world, and with calls to defund the police, the concept of police abolition is entering the public sphere. Minneapolis City Council announced their plan to vote on disbanding their police force June 9. 

While some less astute observers may think that George Floyd’s death was the sole catalyst for these fervent protests, it was, in reality, the final straw. Just weeks prior, the murder of Ahmaud Arbery by Gregory and Travis McMichael drew national attention when the video of Arbery’s death went viral, drawing comparisons to Trayvon Martin’s 2012 death. Floyd himself joins a long list of black men and boys murdered by law enforcement, such as Philando Castile, Mike Brown and Eric Garner, who also died of asphyxiation in 2014. These names, and many more, have been rightfully plastered on posters and chanted at protests. 

Other names, however, aren’t drawing enough attention. Officers killed Breonna Taylor as she slept in her home on March 13. Though her death has led to Louisville’s banning of no-knock warrants, no arrests have been made, leading many to feel as if her case has taken a backseat to other police brutality victims. Likewise, the name of Tony McDade, a black trans man killed by police just two days after George Floyd, has so far been left out of wider media coverage. 

Though black women and girls are statistically killed less by law enforcement than black men--2.4 to 5.4 in 100,000 versus 1 in 1,000 for the latter, according to the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences--it is still important for those killed by police to receive justice. Consider the deaths of Sandra Bland and Aiyana Jones, or the gender- and race-based sexual violence perpetrated against the 13 victims of former officer Daniel Holtzclaw, who, according to Buzzfeed News, “deliberately chose women he thought were unlikely to be believed -- black women with criminal records from an impoverished neighborhood.” 

Unfortunately, there seem to be no specific statistics addressing interactions between black LGBTQ persons and law enforcement. However, it is worth noting that the 1969 Stonewall riots, often dubbed the first Pride, came about due to months of police violence against the LGBTQ community, culminating in the police raid of Stonewall Inn. A year later, similar protests broke out in LA after the death of black trans sex worker Laverne Turner. With the intersecting identities of blackness and queerness, it’s not a stretch to believe that black LGBTQ persons face unique challenges when it comes to police violence and navigating the judicial system. 

It’s intersecting identities like these -- blackness and girlhood/womanhood, blackness and queerness, sometimes all three -- that explain why violence against black women and black LGBTQ persons is often overlooked. These two groups are a minority within a minority, and the black community, like any community, has a long way to go in terms of misogyny and homophobia/transphobia (see the reactions to Gayle King’s Lisa Leslie interview or Zaya Wade coming out as trans). 

Recently, amid the George Floyd protests, black trans woman Iyanna Dior was verbally and physically assaulted by around 30 cis black men (and some cis black women) in a Minnesota convenience store. Around the same time, black women on Twitter held honest discussions about rape and childhood sexual assault, only to be met with backlash and crude jokes. One user even accused the women of trying to divide black people during a critical time. 

There lies another tissue. Black LGBTQ persons and black women are often forced to choose between their identities, even though these identities often combine to create a unique experience of oppression. Look no further than the recent insistence that black gay people are “black before they are gay,” or, as stated previously, the accusation that black women discussing their assault divides the race.

I’m not arguing that we shouldn’t focus on the deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and other black men who have been made victims of police brutality. In a world where many more victims are silenced due to the lack of video evidence, we must amplify Floyd and Arbery’s stories so that they may receive justice. But as we fight for black men and boys, we must also remember the Breonna Taylors, the Tony McDades and victims of intracommunity violence like Iyanna Dior to reach the ultimate goal of black liberation. 

All lives don’t matter until black lives matter. Likewise, black lives won’t matter until all black lives -- black women’s lives, black trans lives, black gay lives -- matter as well.

#blm #black lives matter #2020

[operafloozy]

One of the things that’s struck me about living through a localized historical event is how little your experiences belong to you. Everyone thinks they know what happened, has not only formed an opinion about it, but has formed an opinion about what it means about what you think has happened. And because we’re so used to everything having twitter dynamics - you need to keep it short, keep it simple, and only concentrate on one thing - no room for nuance or complications or tertiary matters. Your individual version of events does not matter. And, for the most part, that’s kind of true - they don’t matter for most. They just matter to me.

But, hell, this is my platform, so I’m going to write about what I want. Disclaimer: this is not the most important thing about the George Floyd protest. It’s just what I want to talk about right now.

Anyway, I want to talk about the Sanctuary Hotel.

So, being in the neighborhood could be legitimately scary, but infinitely more terrifying if you were homeless:

So, like, everyone knows that a lot of the tear gas and fires and whatnot happened around the third precinct - so, Lake and Minnehaha.  About 500 feet from that Target that burned there was a large homeless encampment. Here - have a map:

It was pretty close to where shit was going down! Tear gas doesn’t really stay in one place or magically dissipate, they were incredibly close to a lot of fires that were feeding off chemicals, and there wasn’t a way for them to escape. They essentially got tear gassed in their own homes. Then, they were relocated. I had sources say that they were a lot less violent than a lot of police relocations, and they were being offered hotel rooms in the south suburbs, but there’s a lot of reasons why someone might be wary of that offer. There might be curfews that they can’t meet, drug tests, lack of transit, or just - not trusting government officials at that moment of time. Which is fair, but means that they don’t even have their spot anymore, and no obvious place to go.

The police and National Guard (a little later), were, in general, not selective about who they were targeting. If you were out after curfew (and especially if you were on a more commercial road), you had the potential of getting arrested, maced, tear gassed, shot with rubber bullets or marker rounds, and generally harassed. This is obviously an issue if you can’t shelter indoors. 

One of the things that that I think non-residents have forgotten was that boogaloos* were setting cars on fire in residential neighborhoods to block intersections, tie up the fire department, and generally cause terror and panic. Which, I mean - it’s fair! A single car on fire has less of a visual impact than a full building burning, and less of a financial impact than a Target. But the thing is that when you’re being woken up at 4:30am because there is a burning car about 100 feet from where you were sleeping, it feels a lot more immediate, and I have to imagine that it was a hundred times more immediate if you’re currently sleeping inside your car.

Anyway, it was a shit time all around for the neighborhood, but even shitter for the homeless population.

Now, at Chicago and Lake there’s this old Sears distribution center that’s been repurposed into a building called the Midtown Exchange. It’s huge! Today, it consists of a food court/shopping center (Midtown Global Market), a pretty nice DMV, there’s a bank, a constantly rotating sit down restaurant, and about 300 mid priced apartment units. And let me tell you, there were some people who really wanted this building to burn. The only reason why it didn’t was because some of the building's residents kept watch and deterred people from trying to burn it down - and got arrested, harassed, tear gassed, shot with marker rounds, ect. for their efforts.

Outside of the Exchange there’s a transit hub and a small hotel - the Midtown Sheraton. It’s pretty small, squat, holds conferences and mostly caters to people coming into either the hospital or the Allina campus nearby. (My in-laws stayed there when they visited us - they were unimpressed with the global market, but got a good deal on wine at the liquor store across the street and apparently made friends with the owners of the paleta shop down the street, because that’s who they are as people). In May 2020, it was also closed for renovations, completely empty, and right next to the giant building with the ‘burn me’ sign on it. And, unlike the exchange, there weren’t residents doing their best to keep that building from burning.

A couple of random people put ‘unhoused people who need a place to stay’ and ‘hotel that could use residents to keep it intact’ together, called up the owner, and asked if they could let people stay there - in return, they’d guard the building and try to keep it from harm. The owners agreed, and the Sanctuary Hotel was born.

It was completely volunteer run, and anyone could stay there until it was full. They’d get their own room - and a room key - so shower, cable, the works. Word got out, a google form was set up for shifts, and people started coming, and volunteering. People dropped off supplies, gave a ton of money on a GoFundMe. In general, people wanted to be able to do something - everything was so horrible, not everyone is up to being teargassed in the middle of a respiratory pandemic, but there really was only so much trash that could be cleaned up with only gardening gloves as protection. But here is a way that people could help!

It lasted a little less than two weeks. And I want to be clear - this wasn’t a perfect organizational setup, or even a good one. You’re dealing with a traumatized population that is in the middle of another traumatizing event - and everyone who was volunteering was dealing with that traumatizing event, too. Fights are going to break out - people aren’t going to always be on their best behavior.  There’s reasons why you’d want trained mediators, why you’d want rules (even if those rules kept some people out - it sucks!), why you’d want more security than what was in place - and trained security at that. There were too many people, there was already a long waitlist, and there were people just sleeping in the lobby. The organizers apparently expected a more established group to just take over the hotel once they heard about it - except nobody had bandwidth to take on extra work. And the people staying there deserve a safer, more sustainable setup than what they got. But it was still safer than an encampment.

And then someone OD’d, died, and the owner panicked and evicted everyone. Except, there wasn’t enough time to get the word out, so people returned to their rooms to find that their keys didn’t work - and all of their possessions inside. A nonprofit tried to step in and get suburban hotel rooms for the evicted, but there wasn’t time, and there wasn’t time for those who were being evicted to tell their loved ones where they were going to go. People started breaking down doors to get their stuff. And once the volunteers left, other people were free to just walk in and take what they wanted - those TVs, for example. Soon after, the whole place was trashed.

So, pretty depressing, right? There’s intentional bad actors - kneeling on a man until he suffocates, then there’s the unintentional harm that comes from trying to do good but not having all the tools needed to do so. Or, just, acting under pressure and not having enough time to think through any consequences, when you’re dealing with a population that’s so vulnerable that there’s so many ways to fail. In a more just world (and a better city charter), we would have given some of that money that we're using to fund the police and put it into housing needs.

Except - I don’t know. We tend to discount progress if progress doesn’t last, but even that reprieve is nice. It lasted two weeks. It would have been nice if it had lasted longer, if there was money for trained staff to take it over, if we had a better housing market and better treatment of unhoused persons. But it’s not nothing. In the end, they did more good than harm, and considering how easy it is to do harm in situations that are so fraught, it’s not nothing. And I still think that’s commendable, and worth remembering. Back in June 2020, I honestly thought we’d be further than we are right now - maybe not where housing rights are concerned, but definitely when it comes to police murdering people of color. I couldn’t imagine a world where Frey not only gets reelected, but is given more power, and that Democrats think they need to give more money to the police. But it’s messy, and it’s always a lot of work to keep what you’ve got, which isn’t half of what you should have. But I still think there’s at least been a forward motion in public sentiment - that we’re seriously having conversations that would have been unthinkable five years ago, and that’s not nothing. It feels like a good thing to remember right now, on multiple fronts.

(So a lot of the details about the Sanctuary Hotel I know because of a local reporter, Max Nesterak, who was covering the homelessness issue before the protests, and continued after. You can find his twitter thread here, which also links a few of his stories for the Minnesota Reformer. There's going to be sirens in the video)

*Okay, so, a lot of this isn’t on the actions of the protesters during the protests. And let me be clear - anything that was done as a protest to George Floyd’s murder was 100% justified.The issue  is that not everyone who was doing damage to the neighborhood was doing so in protest of George Floyd - the cops sure as hell weren’t. And, like, I don’t know who burned down the police precinct and I sincerely do not care about what anyone did to the Target. I don’t know what sort of opinions the people who raided all of those pharmacies on Hennepin Avenue had on George Floyd, though I’m reasonably certain it was not the same people who were protesting on Minnehaha, because in my experience protesting for BLM does not give you the ability to teleport. There’s a lot of cross slices and complexity and different motivations, but I am going to maintain that white supremacists/boogaloos were 100% behind the car fires, and they were behind the burning of Black-owned businesses five miles away in North. The car fires is partially because of logistics, but also (to get intense for a moment), because I fucking know what I saw when I was chasing after them armed only with a fire extinguisher. I also know what my neighbors saw, as they got a little further because they’re in better shape and also they were wearing shoes. Any argument about this will get you blocked.

#long post #not really going to tag it with anything else because I don't necessarily want this spreading far and wide

[iamapoopmuffin]

Hello and Welcome to 'I share the silly entrance animations for my silly wrestler characters and encourage you to make assumptions about them as people based purely on these videos' where exactly that and @randomfrog2 encouraged me to so here you all go. Links will be filled over time, I couldn't record or upload them all in one go.

Under the cut because between 2k22 and 2k23 there Will eventually be 200 of them total

Abatai 'Abby' Xiao

Ace Dominguez

Adalia Mitchell/Adalia Undead

Adam Cooke/Adam Frankenstein

Adelaide Anderson

Adriel Duffy

Aidan Seeds

Aiko Yamamoto

Aisling Miller

Alan Burgess/The Necromancer

Alexis Thurston

Alfie Winchester

Alfonse 'Avalanche' Boucher

Alfonso Price/Alpha Ali

Alicia Tigner

Alyssa Evans

Amos Wellworth/The Purple Pig

Andy Poux/Andy Scathe

Angelina Manhardt

Archie Robinson/Archie Eagle

Ash Daugherty/The Rubber Chicken Man

Aster Chadha/The Spider

Audriana Parrakkal/The Phantom

Augustus de Blaauw

Aura Hilton

Austin Kirwan/Austin England

Ayanna Mariani

Bartholomew Reeves

Beatrice Lipe

Bertie Bronner

Betsy-Ann Sol

Blaire Wilcox

Brea Orko

Brook Edghort/Captain Brook Edghort

Bruno 'The Felon' Fraser

Bryant 'The Harpy' Tremblay

Caius Pabon

Carlene Skrzypczynski

Cheryl Vogel

Clemence Maurer

Clifford Gilbert

Colin Almarez/Mint Man Almarez

Colt Smiley

Constance Cole

Cooper Carnocan/The Janitor

Damien Kudlinski

Darin Ahmed

Davina Finister

Demetrius Kappotis

Dempsey Blair

Deodatus Bisnett

Dewey Roll/Cottonmouth

Dick Dexter/Dickhead Dexter

Dmitri Pavlov/Glowmaster

Donald Ripa/Queen Ripa

Dympna Lammchen

Edd Woods

Elina Baene/Swamp Witch Elina

Elton Maldonado

Elvira Leithead/Elvira Flash

Elwood McLaren

Elysia Brunner

Emerald Ashley

Erica Shooter/Naughty Nurse Shooter

Ernesto Curry

Evan Stewart/Evan Galaxium

Everly Leigh

Ezio Fahim

Fae Nicholas

Fia Matthews/The Jester

Floyd Gossard/Heartstopper Gossard

Ford Gossard/Showstopper Gossard

Gayle Mokriy

Genevieve Lee/Snake Princess

Gerard Apple

Ginnie Davey

Greg McCarthy/Superstar Greg McCarthy

Guadalupe Batchelor

Harith Rammurthy/Talon Rammurthy

Harry Moore/Machine Gun Harold

Hettie McCormack/Pookie Bunny

Ianthe Jennings/Ianthe Plague

Ilene Fanshaw

Indiana Stone

Indigo Wilson

Indira Doxtator

Isabel Abbeglen

Ishaan Prabhu

Ivo Carrico/Portuguese Man O' War

Jacques Smith

Jak McNicholas

Javon George/The Pimp Javon

Jeana Quinn

Jebediah Oprea

Jeremy Cruz

Jimmie Hutton

Jock Kelly

Joey Duvall/Joey D

Jonas Gabriel/Fox Gabriel

Jordan Barr

Kaden Dunlap

Kailey Samuels

Kanon Ozawa

Kaori Flores

Karter John

Kasumi Wellard

Katrina Giraud

Kehlani Who

Kelby Kadeer/King Kelby

Kenneth Christmas/Fly Boy Kenny

Kimberley Wainwright

Kiyomi Roman

Kori Hernandez

Kyra Padhi

Langdon Mass

Lenore Dillard

Liang Tao

Lillia Robertson

Lilly Ansa/Lilith Ansa

Lincoln Swinton

Lionel Connor

Lisa Belrose

Liz Schlachter

Louis Bridget/Big Baby

Lukas Craveiro/Senator Lukas Craveiro

Maddison Toxtle/Toxic Maddi

Maia Smith

Marci Britt

Marcus Gardiner

Margarita Harrison

Mariella Gillet/Iron Kitten

Marina Gonzo

Mavis Payton/The Blushing Bride

Meena Gacitua

Meghan Schreck

Mim McHoney

Mitsuki Ootani/Bon Bon Bunny

Myles Neil/Steamboat Willie

Nancy Sharp

Nelly James

Netty Richardson

Norma 'The Doll' Laskey

Nyx Vanderhoff

Ollie Logan/Witch Doctor Logan

Pancake Spryert

Pam Eisen

Perry 'The Worm' Ticehurst

Princess Warren

Quiana Billings

Quincey Crabb

Reabetswe Okonjo

Reilly Jeppe

Ruby Ankney

Rufus Robby

Rupert English/Rupert Beauty

Sable Bow

Samantha Trapp

Samuel Perryman

Sasha Fedosov/Adorable Aleksander

Shayne Zaveri

Sheridan Lowe/Rosebud Lowe

Sloane Koskic

Sofie Tanner

Sommer Chauhan

Sparrow Martin

Stacey Jacobs/The Metal Mouth Maniac

Stephen Shabnur/Kitty Stephen

Sunny Cockerill

Sven Miller Garrett

Tabitha Valot/T Valentine

Teri Cullen

Ursula Benjamin

Verity Ahmed/Gremlin Ahmed

Victoria Wangdi/Princess Victoria Wang

Vivi Masters

Walter Cauley

Willis 'Turbo Fox' Judd

Xandria Cruz

Yaoting Duan

#wwe 2k22 #wwe 2k23 #custom character #my ocs #Come make assumptions about my stupid creations here! #First 10 out now #Youtube says that's my daily upload limit #I know absolutely nothing about wrestling beyond these silly characters I made #I've wanted to do this ever since I made Alan's entrance #and thought 'damn this feels like he gets high on the reg' #And just got curious what sort of assumptions other people could pull from these #anyway Alan smoking weed is canon #I accept assumptions in any format

[profoundlyscreechingcowboy]

GEORGE FLOYD FALSE FLAG

It was a false flag. George ain't dead.  The body going into the ambulance was a legless dummy with a floyd rubber mask. The wind blew the sheet off.  The cop kneeling on his neck was the star of cash cab.  A crisis actor.  The guy in jail was a different crisis actor. Look at the pics y'all. 

[writing--references]

Big Spring International Park in Huntsville, AL.

The canal that runs through the park is the Indian Creek Canal, completed in 1830, connecting the spring with the Tennessee River 10 miles south. Constructed to support the shipping of cotton from Cotton Row to the river, from whence the entire world could be reached via the Ohio River to the Mississippi, to the Gulf of Mexico and beyond.

In 1823, Huntsville developed the nation’s first public water system west of the Appalachian mountains, with Big Spring as its water source. Community baptisms were held at Big Spring Park, dating back to at least the late 1800s. In the mid-1960s, amusement park rides were set up in Big Spring Park. Big Spring was also a filming location for the movie Constellation, which starred Billy Dee Williams and Zoe Saldana.

Big Spring Park Renovation

Concerts in the Park:

Panorama (via Wikipedia):

Big Spring Park is the expected trail head of the future Singing River Trail of North Alabama, a 70-mile bicycling and walking trail.

The Big Spring is a large, underground karst spring. Sought and settled by John Hunt, Huntsville's founder, in 1805. From 1827 to the early 1840s, what would later become the park grounds served as the site of the Fearn Canal, built from 1821 to 1824. The canal was built by the Indian Creek Navigation Company, led by local resident Dr. Thomas Fearn. It linked downtown Huntsville and the spring to the Tennessee River, allowing traders to bypass a costly wagon haul of about 11 miles South to the nearest river port, Ditto's Landing in the town of Whitesburg. The canal eventually became obsolete upon the construction of railroads.

Big Spring Park is named for a spring named "the big spring" by the indigenous Cherokee and Chickasaw. The park's construction began September 21, 1898, under the direction of Chittenden of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, stationed at the park during the Spanish–American War. Today the park prominently features gifts given by other countries and foreign nationals to the city of Huntsville, including a 1903 light beacon (often referred to as "the lighthouse") and a 1929 fog bell given by Norway in 1973. Other smaller gifts include a bench from the United Kingdom and a sundial from Germany. The most recognizable gifts, however, are the iconic red Japanese bridge and cherry trees, given by Japanese Major General Mikio Kimata in 1977. The park served as a filming location for the 2005 film Constellation and was the location of a George Floyd protest in June 2020, which was ended by Huntsville Police along with SWAT and Incident Response Team using tear gas, pepper spray, and rubber bullets.

#'3' references #huntsville #alabama #enneagram cycle