Black lives matter, Theo L's life matters
February 10, 2017 12:40 PM Subscribe
Protests spreading across Paris to protest brutal police beating and rape of young, innocent black man [TW: Description of police attack on man]. Now on the sixth night of protest, a group of 150 has been teargassed in the area where Theo L was arrested, beaten, and raped after an ID check. An update from this evening is here (in French).
With less than three months until the French presidential election, tension over policing in France has become a political issue. The far-right Front National’s Marine Le Pen...questioned over Théo’s case, she said her principle was to “support the police” unless the justice system proved a crime had taken place.
Here is a bit more on the BLM movement in France, and the associated Brigade Anti Negrophobie, from an Al Jazeera article this summer.
With less than three months until the French presidential election, tension over policing in France has become a political issue. The far-right Front National’s Marine Le Pen...questioned over Théo’s case, she said her principle was to “support the police” unless the justice system proved a crime had taken place.
Here is a bit more on the BLM movement in France, and the associated Brigade Anti Negrophobie, from an Al Jazeera article this summer.
The Socialist prime minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, demanded the “utmost severity” if the officers were found guilty of the charges.
What are the chances of that? Asking sincerely, since I'm pretty ignorant of how well the police are called to account in France.
Also, that article is a brutal read.
posted by GenjiandProust at 12:53 PM on February 10, 2017 [1 favorite]
What are the chances of that? Asking sincerely, since I'm pretty ignorant of how well the police are called to account in France.
Also, that article is a brutal read.
posted by GenjiandProust at 12:53 PM on February 10, 2017 [1 favorite]
I'm gonna take a wild guess that the police are not much more accountable in France than anywhere else, if at all.
posted by tobascodagama at 1:19 PM on February 10, 2017 [8 favorites]
posted by tobascodagama at 1:19 PM on February 10, 2017 [8 favorites]
Half of the fuckers support the Front National after all.
posted by MartinWisse at 2:07 PM on February 10, 2017 [4 favorites]
posted by MartinWisse at 2:07 PM on February 10, 2017 [4 favorites]
La Haine est toujours d'actualité :(
It's an excellent film to watch if you want insight into these horrors. Not an easy one. But an excellent one.
posted by fraula at 2:26 PM on February 10, 2017 [11 favorites]
It's an excellent film to watch if you want insight into these horrors. Not an easy one. But an excellent one.
posted by fraula at 2:26 PM on February 10, 2017 [11 favorites]
Good call Fraula, that movie really hit hard when I saw it originally, when it was new. I haven't seen it since and I recently wondered if it holds up. The director found a lot of success as an actor through the years.
posted by cell divide at 2:47 PM on February 10, 2017
posted by cell divide at 2:47 PM on February 10, 2017
Jesus, that poor kid.
posted by soren_lorensen at 3:19 PM on February 10, 2017 [8 favorites]
posted by soren_lorensen at 3:19 PM on February 10, 2017 [8 favorites]
Libé has an interview with his siblings, and an interesting analysis of this specifically sexual kind of violence the flics are habitually prone to in the urban hinterlands. To the sociologist who's studied the pattern, the police's mission has become to impose not public order, but instead a specific social order.
posted by progosk at 3:21 PM on February 10, 2017 [7 favorites]
posted by progosk at 3:21 PM on February 10, 2017 [7 favorites]
Half of the fuckers support the Front National after all.
Right-wingers are naturally drawn to police forces and the military, in part because a lot of them desire rigid hierarchical power structures. Right-wingers are, however, categorically unfit to serve in these roles, because they overwhelmingly desire excuses to commit violence against those that they feel are below them. We need to figure out a way of disqualifying these people and removing them from existing police forces, and we need to apply it in every country on Earth.
Frankly, only people who find violence repellent should be police.
posted by IAmUnaware at 6:10 PM on February 10, 2017 [13 favorites]
Right-wingers are naturally drawn to police forces and the military, in part because a lot of them desire rigid hierarchical power structures. Right-wingers are, however, categorically unfit to serve in these roles, because they overwhelmingly desire excuses to commit violence against those that they feel are below them. We need to figure out a way of disqualifying these people and removing them from existing police forces, and we need to apply it in every country on Earth.
Frankly, only people who find violence repellent should be police.
posted by IAmUnaware at 6:10 PM on February 10, 2017 [13 favorites]
Nauseating. Infuriating. Fucking hell.
posted by palmcorder_yajna at 6:37 PM on February 10, 2017
posted by palmcorder_yajna at 6:37 PM on February 10, 2017
Right-wingers are naturally drawn to police forces and the military, in part because a lot of them desire rigid hierarchical power structures.
Bullies are also drawn to certain flavors of extreme intolerant rightwingyness (and in some eras, near-indistinguishable flavors of extreme intolerant leftwingyness -- very little to do with the actual politics and a lot to do with the extreme intolerance and opportunity to enact violence) too. And if you're a bully, a police uniform lets you get away with all kinds of bad behavior from the mild (the cop being needlessly dickish while writing you a ticket) to the extreme (TFA, though hopefully they will face consequences), depending on what they're inclined to do at the moment and what they suspect they can get away with in the context of the person in front of them.
posted by Blue Jello Elf at 9:36 PM on February 10, 2017 [2 favorites]
Bullies are also drawn to certain flavors of extreme intolerant rightwingyness (and in some eras, near-indistinguishable flavors of extreme intolerant leftwingyness -- very little to do with the actual politics and a lot to do with the extreme intolerance and opportunity to enact violence) too. And if you're a bully, a police uniform lets you get away with all kinds of bad behavior from the mild (the cop being needlessly dickish while writing you a ticket) to the extreme (TFA, though hopefully they will face consequences), depending on what they're inclined to do at the moment and what they suspect they can get away with in the context of the person in front of them.
posted by Blue Jello Elf at 9:36 PM on February 10, 2017 [2 favorites]
Bastards.
Pure and simple.
The dignity of this young man and his family would put any normal person to shame, but the fucking flics will just carry on doing what they do. It makes me feel so angry and despairing
posted by Myeral at 3:57 AM on February 11, 2017 [3 favorites]
Pure and simple.
The dignity of this young man and his family would put any normal person to shame, but the fucking flics will just carry on doing what they do. It makes me feel so angry and despairing
posted by Myeral at 3:57 AM on February 11, 2017 [3 favorites]
Frankly, only people who find violence repellent should be police.
Certainly, the one person I knew who wanted to be a police officer was very macho, too concerned "getting the bad guy" for me to be comfortable with him being a cope.
But this is also why I worry about the huge divide between the police and progressive people: the police have huge problems (with racism, with authoritarianism), but at the same time, it seems that the kind of people they need to recruit (progressive, concerned with equality and non-authoritarian service) are exactly those who would never even think of working with or for the police.
And I understand why: I had no desire to be a police officer, even before I found out that I would never have been accepted (I got curious one day and looked up the requirements: in my town, severe myopics need not apply). Maybe (myopia aside) someone like me would have been a good police officer - interested in social issues, in underlying causes of social problems, community engagement, etc.
We do need root and branch reformation of policing. We need to rethink the purpose of police, whether police are really the best to serve (sometimes other professionals, like social workers, would be a better fit). Certainly, we should never have police in schools, except for traffic safety day.
But we also need people who want better - and different - policing to be actively engaged in working with and changing the police - maybe even becoming police.
posted by jb at 7:14 AM on February 11, 2017 [2 favorites]
Certainly, the one person I knew who wanted to be a police officer was very macho, too concerned "getting the bad guy" for me to be comfortable with him being a cope.
But this is also why I worry about the huge divide between the police and progressive people: the police have huge problems (with racism, with authoritarianism), but at the same time, it seems that the kind of people they need to recruit (progressive, concerned with equality and non-authoritarian service) are exactly those who would never even think of working with or for the police.
And I understand why: I had no desire to be a police officer, even before I found out that I would never have been accepted (I got curious one day and looked up the requirements: in my town, severe myopics need not apply). Maybe (myopia aside) someone like me would have been a good police officer - interested in social issues, in underlying causes of social problems, community engagement, etc.
We do need root and branch reformation of policing. We need to rethink the purpose of police, whether police are really the best to serve (sometimes other professionals, like social workers, would be a better fit). Certainly, we should never have police in schools, except for traffic safety day.
But we also need people who want better - and different - policing to be actively engaged in working with and changing the police - maybe even becoming police.
posted by jb at 7:14 AM on February 11, 2017 [2 favorites]
Yeah, the police investigation coming up with: "The boy fell on that cop's nightstick (one in a million shot doc!) and would you check out how he was dressed, with those saggy pants falling off?" was mind-boggling when I read it. They aren't even trying anymore. They don't have to, I guess.
posted by ZeroAmbition at 11:24 AM on February 11, 2017 [5 favorites]
posted by ZeroAmbition at 11:24 AM on February 11, 2017 [5 favorites]
Nice timing Putin! Man that guy has people everywhere.
posted by benzenedream at 7:00 PM on February 12, 2017
posted by benzenedream at 7:00 PM on February 12, 2017
it seems that the kind of people they need to recruit are exactly those who would never even think of working with or for the police.
I might have been a good police officer, I might not have been. Teenage years found me rejecting conventional authority in a search for ideals and truth. I was cynical and naive at the same time. I knew police were essential for civil society and yet nearly every single thing I was exposed to about police was negative. And it wasn't just because I grew up during the era of Rodney King and Reginald Denny. Some of it came directly from cops I knew through my parent's work in educating LEOs. They'd be okay guys, a bit bro-ey for my tastes, but then they'd say something a little off, a little more callous than normal, and they'd all laugh and it would be like the turn on a bad LSD trip where it looks like the light moved and the shadows are falling disconcertingly on your friends faces and they are transformed into monstrous strangers.
Apart from the rumors of being able to be disqualified for being too smart (which turned out to be true) and the standing distrust of jocks, bullies, and hierarchical authority, the thing which kept me from even attempting to be a police officer was a quote from Heinlein's Lazarus Long. I didn't read a book of his to get it, I nicked it from a random collection of quotes somewhere. I even managed to remember it incorrectly. I could look it up - and I just did - but it means more to me the way I remember it (i.e. wrong) and it's:
Loyalty and duty are two of the highest ideals to which human beings can aspire. When they conflict -- get out!
Ideally, those two would never, ever conflict. From what I learned being around LEOs in my youth, not only do they constantly come into conflict, but a person they'd call a "good cop" would always choose loyalty over duty. Always.
The police don't want the kind of people they need to recruit. US military forces don't want draftees. Similar rationales drive both policies. How can that be changed?
posted by Appropriate Username at 7:14 PM on February 12, 2017 [2 favorites]
I might have been a good police officer, I might not have been. Teenage years found me rejecting conventional authority in a search for ideals and truth. I was cynical and naive at the same time. I knew police were essential for civil society and yet nearly every single thing I was exposed to about police was negative. And it wasn't just because I grew up during the era of Rodney King and Reginald Denny. Some of it came directly from cops I knew through my parent's work in educating LEOs. They'd be okay guys, a bit bro-ey for my tastes, but then they'd say something a little off, a little more callous than normal, and they'd all laugh and it would be like the turn on a bad LSD trip where it looks like the light moved and the shadows are falling disconcertingly on your friends faces and they are transformed into monstrous strangers.
Apart from the rumors of being able to be disqualified for being too smart (which turned out to be true) and the standing distrust of jocks, bullies, and hierarchical authority, the thing which kept me from even attempting to be a police officer was a quote from Heinlein's Lazarus Long. I didn't read a book of his to get it, I nicked it from a random collection of quotes somewhere. I even managed to remember it incorrectly. I could look it up - and I just did - but it means more to me the way I remember it (i.e. wrong) and it's:
Loyalty and duty are two of the highest ideals to which human beings can aspire. When they conflict -- get out!
Ideally, those two would never, ever conflict. From what I learned being around LEOs in my youth, not only do they constantly come into conflict, but a person they'd call a "good cop" would always choose loyalty over duty. Always.
The police don't want the kind of people they need to recruit. US military forces don't want draftees. Similar rationales drive both policies. How can that be changed?
posted by Appropriate Username at 7:14 PM on February 12, 2017 [2 favorites]
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I'm not sure how you "accidentally" sodomize a young black man with a nightstick but I look forward to the final cock and bull story to see how they try to explain it.
posted by Talez at 12:52 PM on February 10, 2017 [10 favorites]