I am not sure that we can state that because most victims of police violence are men, this is because of gender, however. So it’s not that I would call any focus on gender bias affecting men a derailment per se, but I think the failure to even mention a multivariable analysis here is disingenuous, and that’s why I get concerned about the motives.

Here is a video I found that talks about the gender issue in unemployment. Women are on pace to have more jobs than men with the downturn in the economy.

http://www.newsy.com/videos/economic_battle_of_the_sexes/

I think highly of Amp, but his discussion basically removes race and women and tries to claim the REAL reason Sean Bell is a feminist issue is because of men’s rights.

Thanks! I think highly of you, too.

First of all, I want to completely endorse what Mandolin and Lauren have already said, in comments 12 and 20. Their statements are a better description of what I believe than anything I would have written.

I think that centering women is an essential part of feminism, but I don’t think it has to be all of feminism for all feminists. I think there’s room in feminism for concern with “gender justice,” and in some cases that means being concerned with how some men — particularly when gender intersects with other areas — can end up being singled out for some types of victimization because of gender.

I think that many (not all) feminists in the 1960s and 70s had less of a problem with this sort of conception of feminism; I don’t have any cites on hand, but it’s my impression that liberating men from gender was more often seen, by feminists, as one of many goals of feminism. Although I’m not saying this about you in particular, Octogalore, in general I think one harm of the MRA movement is that it has caused feminism in general to become much more suspicious towards claims that sexism harms men, because those claims are so often used as derailments, or as a way of denying that society favors men or disadvantages women at all.

Thank you for the link, Lauren.

I just remember back after Tyisha Miller was killed seeing the racism of the NRA and many (maybe not all but many) gun rights activists for the first time.

That is, unfortunately, a sad reality for not only the NRA but also many other gun rights groups. Its a problem some of us are working on and trying to change, and a big part of it has to do with class and region, but it is still a serious problem.

which she was exercising and maybe the NRA used her as their poster child for an out of control state though I didn’t read any comment from that group whatsoever

You’re right, the Johnston case was a terrible and, disgustingly, a rather routine case. The NRA mostly avoided the Johnston case because they avoid criticizing cops. The big problem with the NRA is that they aren’t really a gun-rights organization, they’re a hunter’s and collector’s rights organization with a very conservative base that leans pro-police. Most of the attention I saw around Johnston’s case was coming from the Second Amendment Foundation (a more radical, less conservative group) and civil libertarians like Radley Balko (who has extensively covered the militarization of local police and the escalating police violence during drug raids). Balko in particular has done a great job hunting these stories when they do make it to the press, covering them, and trying to keep them in the public light. His blog is TheAgitator.com

I think, completely unrelated to gun control, there could be a meaningful alliance between some members of the libertarian right and those of us who are passionate about civil rights around the issue of police misconduct and general government abuse of authority. It frustrates me to no end to see, time and again, the same stories popping up in places like Feministe and places like Reason magazine with commentators making the same criticisms for the same reason and no one ever noticing that theres something there. I think both sides could learn a lot from each other, especially since the current state of American politics means both major parties aren’t likely to do anything meaningful. /rant

Perhaps but that’s not what I was doing. All I said is that it’s difficult for gun activists to argue that having guns makes all people safer from government intrusion or violence assuming that all men are equal when it comes to how they are viewed if they have weapons. Even the NRA doesn’t treat them equally as I discovered.

I apologize for having misinterpreted and, unfortunately, agree.

Officer part of gang which beats Black man while yelling racial slurs.

Ex-dirty cop shoots and kills his girlfriend.

Radfem: I’ll preface this response by saying that I admit I might be reading your comment wrong. It seems to me that you’re advocating better gun control and better control of police, or that you’re using the comment about guns as a jumping off point for something else. I apologize in advance if I took something from your comment that you didn’t intend. I’m using your comment as a jumping off point and I’m giving a bit of detail on one of the cases you mentioned because I’m not sure how widely known it is. That said

Better control of police though I do believe in gun control for different reasons. I just remember back after Tyisha Miller was killed seeing the racism of the NRA and many (maybe not all but many) gun rights activists for the first time. And assuming that a Black man with a gun is viewed by society including police as the same thing as if a White man was and if it’s bringing protection from racist violence or danger from it. Because what’s one of the most common excuses given by police for shooting Black men? He was reaching for….

Thats an argument for better police-control, not better gun control. Especially in the Johnston case, the problem wasn’t that she had a gun but that police kicked in the door to her house, in a neighborhood with a history of home invasions, in the middle of the night, wearing all black, and didn’t announce themselves all on what they knew was probably a bad tip. Then they shot her and waited to call an ambulance until after they’d planted drugs, during which time she conveniently became unable to testify because she bled out. After that the department willfully engaged in obstruction and evidence tampering to cover their own asses. Gun control wouldn’t have done shit to protect her.

Having the right to bear arms (which she was exercising and maybe the NRA used her as their poster child for an out of control state though I didn’t read any comment from that group whatsoever) didn’t protect her either but that’s a somewhat different argument. And she shot at what she thought were criminals breaking into her home after attempts to pry off the bars on her window failed. What else was she supposed to think?

Only once she fired in self-defense and the bullet missed the officers and ended up lodged in the eave above the door (contrary to earlier reports, all injuries suffered by the officers were self-inflicted). But once she fired, they fired back. Though since their intentions were criminal, she probably was going to be harmed in some way anyway. The only reason her death received any scrutiny at all from the feds was because she was 92, not 22.

Those cops coerced an informant with threats of planting marijuana (that they had found elsewhere and carried in the trunk of their car all day) and he pointed to her house to avoid arrest. They tried to get three informants to do buys but none agreed or could get to the location. So they ran off to a judge and lied to him saying their information was based on lengthy surveillance when it wasn’t. After they handcuffed her and left her bleeding from five or six bullet wounds in her chest on her own floor, they planted cocaine in her basement.

It wasn’t isolated. Just ask Francis Thompson who was 80, Black and lying in her bed with a cap pistol aimed at another narc team from APD which broke into her home mistaking Black men and women carrying food to a funeral wake after the death of her son with drug customers. Can you imagine what went in her mind then and then later when she saw the Johnston case on the news?

I agree that police don’t look at POC the same way they look at whites, and I agree that they’re more likely to kill a POC with a gun than a white person with a gun. Advocating stricter gun control just seems like seems like blaming the victim.

Perhaps but that’s not what I was doing. All I said is that it’s difficult for gun activists to argue that having guns makes all people safer from government intrusion or violence assuming that all men are equal when it comes to how they are viewed if they have weapons. Even the NRA doesn’t treat them equally as I discovered.

Except police don’t look at Whites carrying guns for self-protection and African-Americans, male or female, in the same way. Tyisha Miller had a gun in a car to protect herself while waiting alone in it and she was shot by police at least 24 times even while passed out or unconscious. Kathryn Johnston had a small gun given by her family to protect her from criminals because she was an elderly women living alone and she was shot about 30 times by narcotics officers breaking into her house in Atlanta.

Radfem: I’ll preface this response by saying that I admit I might be reading your comment wrong. It seems to me that you’re advocating better gun control and better control of police, or that you’re using the comment about guns as a jumping off point for something else. I apologize in advance if I took something from your comment that you didn’t intend. I’m using your comment as a jumping off point and I’m giving a bit of detail on one of the cases you mentioned because I’m not sure how widely known it is. That said

Thats an argument for better police-control, not better gun control. Especially in the Johnston case, the problem wasn’t that she had a gun but that police kicked in the door to her house, in a neighborhood with a history of home invasions, in the middle of the night, wearing all black, and didn’t announce themselves all on what they knew was probably a bad tip. Then they shot her and waited to call an ambulance until after they’d planted drugs, during which time she conveniently became unable to testify because she bled out. After that the department willfully engaged in obstruction and evidence tampering to cover their own asses. Gun control wouldn’t have done shit to protect her.

I agree that police don’t look at POC the same way they look at whites, and I agree that they’re more likely to kill a POC with a gun than a white person with a gun. Advocating stricter gun control just seems like seems like blaming the victim.

I guess I just don’t see where, in any of this, WOC are “invisible”. I’ve seen plenty of blog posts about the effects of police brutality on women of color, both in a direct victim capacity as well as in a corollary “community” capacity. I also feel that you would have to be really, really dense to see feminists taking interest in cases like Sean Bell’s and assume that it’s because feminists are just all about the black men at the expense of black women. Hell, Holly’s original post on this specifically mentioned the women Bell’s murder left behind.

I’ve also seen many in a proactive sense in addressing it. That’s also what discussions in my region tend to focus on as well at the community level. But the media especially mainstream tends to focus on the men in any movement.

My earlier comment is in moderation somewhere but I do think that breaking down the issue of police abuse into genders is problematic and I’ve seen it done by feminists mostly as an excuse not to address this issue even as it pertains to women of color and White women who don’t fit the parameters of “mainstream” feminism. Because in many ways, White women still look to the police as allies in dealing with violence against women. Policing the National Body, a collection of essays (including one on DV) which deals a lot with policing gender by race. It’s great reading if you haven’t done so.

I think sometimes that it’s mostly White women think that if they address police brutality that it will be advocating for Black men at the expense of Black women. At least online. Only there doesn’t seem to be all that much concern about Black women in those discussions except to say that this is what they really want (as if they all wanted the same thing). It’s just this sense that police abuse and brutality is detracting from *real* feminist issues.

One reason why it’s problematic is in the case of case of parolee/probation searches, which often happen early in the morning, unannounced and with officers often from a special unit (who may or may not be wearing patrol uniforms) who knock on the door. The nine-your-old daughter sees that her mother’s busy getting her brother ready for school and Dad, who’s the subject of the search is already out trying to find a job, a difficult task for a convicted felon. The daughter opens the door and one officer or more has a gun raised at her head.

Or the young woman who’s engaged to be married to a man shot and killed by police while leaving his stag party(and the fact that like many men in that situation, he attended one was enough to disqualify his shooting in some feminists’ minds) and she’s attending the funeral of the father of her child at the same church they were to be married in.

Then there are the daughters who witness their father being shot right in front of him, 10 feet away by police officers.

Like I said, it’s a lot easier to separate police abuse by gender (or attempt to do so) in writing than it is in real life.

I wasn’t trying to speak for women of color there, at all, and it would be an extreme reach to suggest otherwise.

I also in no way meant to suggest that you’re misguided – we just have different opinions on what, apparently, is ultimately an issue of semantics. And that’s OK.

I’m also not sure that I was “insisting” that women of color are “well served” by a feminist discussion of police brutality. I really am not in a place to decide who is well-served by what. I merely noted that there had been a pretty good number of posts on the subject in this corner of the feminist blogosphere, which kind of implies that women of color are not “invisible” on this matter. That this is an ongoing conversation that we are having sort of implies a lack of invisibility. If the connection between women of color and racist police brutality was “invisible”, we probably wouldn’t be talking about it.

… that are not remotely reasonable interpretations of what I said.

You don’t get to decide what is and is not a reasonable interpretation of what you wrote. That’s kind of one of the basic tenets of having an opinion on the internet. Especially when you seem to be the one who is doing most of the polarizing here, accusing me of insisting on this and demanding that. I’ve done nothing of the kind, in fact I’ve been about a zillion times more gracious in this particular conversation than I tend to ever be on the internet. If my language were any more deferential, I’d be kissing your ass.