Posted on 07/24/2010 9:02:33 PM PDT by Wizski
For committing an act of pure decency, three black women are being ostracized by many other black people. On the night of June 29, Delores Keen, Renee Roundtree and Rose Dodson rushed outside Keen's apartment after they heard gunshots. They discovered two Tampa police officers, David Curtis and Jeffrey Kocab, lying together on the ground. The officers had been shot. Dontae Morris, a 24-year-old black ex-convict, would be charged in the shootings.
(Excerpt) Read more at tampabay.com ...
In an article for New York magazine, writer Stanley Crouch, who has been condemned for advocating snitching, nicely summed up the lunacy of the code of silence: "The greatest threat to black life and limb is not the police; it's criminals in our community."
Such civilized people (everyone other than the three women, that is). /sarc
This entire article is very, very good.
Including the conclusion.....
Would a decent person walk away and refuse to assist a mortally wounded fellow human being a police officer? Would a decent person condemn someone for helping a police officer?
Blacks have only themselves to blame for giving other people good reasons to hold them in contempt. The code of silence is corrosive in every way.
This is precisely what Eldridge Cleaver described in his book “Soul On Ice” back in the 60s, but he was trying to justify it. He was a paid charlatan. IMHO
Agreed, very serious indeed.
Now if this could be politicized, the Dems could hold their seats this November, or the GOP could leverage it, they could take some seats........
Hmmm, much for them to ponder.......
Meanwhile, serious discussion of race is being defined by MSM as being Breitbart versus Sherrod. Very sad, keeping real issues buried.
Yes Corporate Media frames racial issues in the context of Sheriff Bull Connor with dogs attacking innocent people on a bridge in Mississippi, instead of actually caring about what is good for the black community, and consequently good for the country. They are strictly into a divide into good/bad, and we know best presentation.
LOL so true.
I would plead, yes, but it is very, very low grade because that’s all I can afford!
The comments, many of them apparently made by Blacks who live in the Tampa/St. Petersburg area, are as interesting as the article is...

The Code of Silence.

The Code of Silence
To be fair, the "no snitching" code of silence in the 'hood probably stems more from self-preservation than any black solidarity against The Man. Think about it. Even as we can't build prisons fast enough to lock up violent street thugs, conviction rates for crimes in the ghetto are often abysmally low. Witnesses vanish, stories get changed and charges get dropped. Murderers and other violent criminals walk free. And word travels pretty fast in the 'hood about who was talking to the police out on the street corner.
Residents learn mighty quick to keep their mouths shut and look the other way. Can't really blame them. They gotta live there. Their kids gotta live there too. I'm not saying it's right but it is what it is.
Residents learn mighty quick to keep their mouths shut and look the other way.
___________________________________
They do. Even when the punks kill one of their own children; they will not snitch.
They’ll just go right on blaming Whitey.
It is not as obvious to me as to you that what is good for the black community is "consequently good for the country".
In fact, it appears to me that the very best outcome for individual blacks would be for the black community to disappear.
Think about the fact that whenever individual blacks acquire great wealth the first thing they do is to leave the geographical black community and move to a mostly-white wealthy community.
Middle-class blacks live in integrated middle-class communities.
All the blacks I have worked with have been upper middle-class Americans.
The very existence of a black community, with its derision toward "acting white", acquiring education, and striving for upward mobility through work, is the biggest millstone around the necks of individual blacks today.
I saw a group of black women stand around laughing and jeering at a security guard at Target. The man had collapsed with a heart attack on the sidewalk outside the store. They were cheering for him to die before the ambulance arrived.
BTW, the security guard did die on the sidewalk.
Those are interesting comments. Especially the one that mentions Bill Maxwell - the author - is black himself and knows what he’s talking about.
It would be easy for blacks and liberals to dismiss this as a racist white opinion. But that is just not the case.
I also like the thumbs up-thumbs down rating other commenters give each comment.
Don’t think I’ve seen that before in other threads like that. Cool.
A humble hats off to those courageous ladies who did the right thing regardless of the consequences. And a middle finger to those modern day plantation owners: the white liberals and “black leaders” who have a vested interest in black dependency.
I lived in "the hood" of Los Angeles as a teenager, and am very familiar with the sort of "code of silence" the article refers to.
I once testified against one of the most hardened thugs in my neighborhood in an extortion case. Two others that were to have testified disappeared before the trial. My testimony put the crim away for a couple of years.
About two months later, I was caught off-guard at a house party by one of his friends, who pinned me against a wall with a knife pressing into my gut. A freak car accident right outside at that very moment startled everyone, and enabled me to escape with my life.
After that, I had to travel with friends everywhere I went, and constantly watch my back. In time, it all died down, but for a time, I was very much at risk of injury or death.
Taking in the whole situation. The stop snitching mentality, the black on black crime, the violent push away from education and bettering ones self. The absolute hatred of anything associated with success. It seems to me that what we are witnessing is a class of people hell bent on annihilating themselves.
If this is so, why should I care?
Those types usually take a few down with them, that are innocents. Stray bullets, vandalism, robbery.
That’s pretty much the way I read it as well. Anyone who snitches in those areas of town better damn well make sure they do it anonymously and that there is no way it can be traced back to them.
Having been born and raised in South Los Angeles (4 miles from Watts, and 2 miles from the place where the ‘64 Watts riots began on Imperial Hwy, close to the Nickelson Gardens, I am saying that the identity of Black Community is real, can be positive, and is not going to go away. Just as Jazz and ‘The Blues” aren’t going to go away.
I am of European ancestry. I have many friends, present and past from both the Black and Mexican communities. They are all dear friends, and have been good to me over many years of friendship.
I give this brief background, so that you know I am not speaking from social theory or idealism of some nature.
The black population of the US is somewhere between 15% to 25%. Blacks have participated in the history of this country from the beginning, as slaves, freemen, revolutionary fighters, civil war veterans, cowboys, inventors, creators, and every other aspect of our history and culture.
WWII, and the CommieCrates have contributed greatly to the demise of the Black family and Church, and their once functional educational system.
What I am saying, is that a restored and healthy Black community, will once again be a positive force in America.
We are all children of God, each and very one created just as He wished us to be created (to believe anything less, is to say God is not in charge of His Own creation!), and Christ died on the Cross for each and every one to be saved after The Fall.
That is the perspective from which my remarks issue forth.
You’ve stated some truisms interspersed with personal experiences along with a healthy dose of Christian fundamentalism .
But what about the premise of the article?
If the Kenyan had two brain cells to rub together, he'd be preaching this from the bully pulpit on a daily basis.
Gosh, that's pure genius. It takes a black, U.S. citizen, and bonafide member of the establishment intelligentsia to state the freaking obvious.
“Youve stated some truisms interspersed with personal experiences along with a healthy dose of Christian fundamentalism .
But what about the premise of the article?”
I am unable to respond in more detail, since you speak in generalities, who’s specific meanings are know only to yourself, in the context of post #26.
O.K., read earlier post. Of course those are excellent points regarding mainstream media propaganda.
However, there’s no need to use Christianity and/or personal experiences to apologize for the barbarity that’s present in today’s black community.
Conservatives owe no apologies. There should be no defensiveness.
In fact, it appears to me that the very best outcome for individual blacks would be for the black community to disappear.
Think about the fact that whenever individual blacks acquire great wealth the first thing they do is to leave the geographical black community and move to a mostly-white wealthy community.
Middle-class blacks live in integrated middle-class communities.
All the blacks I have worked with have been upper middle-class Americans.
The very existence of a black community, with its derision toward “acting white”, acquiring education, and striving for upward mobility through work, is the biggest millstone around the necks of individual blacks today.”
My reply, post #26 was not written to be defensive, but rather to shed light upon the motivation for my post #8, in a response to his questioning.
I am 100% conservative, 0% liberal, and speak from experience when it's germane.
I do not believe I am defensive in anyway, and assert that the Constitution is ethnic, race, and religion neutral (excluding atheism, since without God, there can be no inalienable rights).
Whoa. That is very scary. Glad you’re here to post with us.
If this is so, why should I care?
Because this is not happening on another planet, or in another dimension. Because these slowly self-destructing communities are separated from the rest of society by a cordon sanitaire. Because society as a whole bears the cost of repairing the damage and incarcerating the perpetrators. Because...
Honestly: Was you posting meant in earnest?
Regards,
I’m sad and somewhat ashamed to admit that I don’t want to comment on this because it’s “icky.” I can stay away from troubled areas and go armed when I must go near them; I can honestly say that this pile of problems is mostly other peoples’ pile, and there’s hardly anything I can do about it; but these “legitimate reasons” *feel* like poor excuses, and feel really bad. Damn!
This is true in most poor neighborhoods, particularly those that are ghettos...and I mean that in the ethnic sense of the word. I grew up in New York City, and knew the same code existed in the polish, irish and italian lower income neighborhoods. Once people move out to middle class suburbs...there is no code of silence....
That derision existed and exists within every ethnic minority community/ghetto.
When we first moved to America, my parents refused to move into the russian area of Brooklyn. They looked around and saw people who never left and moved up. They were an isolated fringe, and my parents moved to America to become Americans.
Oh that can’t be true because we’re assured that it’s just a very few who are like this, not even enough to form a stereotype. Stereotypes are just whitey’s racist tripe.
/heavy sarcasm
This phenomenon isn’t any different from some Italian communities vis ‘a’ vis the mob.
I was like a cat with nine lives in my teen years. I could have (and probably should have) died many times in my youth. A lot of people I knew didn't make it.
I'm glad to be here, too. Thanks.
Let's look at this more closely, shall we? This attitude indicates that those who feel this way consider themselves AT WAR with the police. Why would they consider the police the enemy? Because they consider that the police protect white America against black crime.
The media don't want people to go and examine this attitude too deeply.
"If you tolerate this...your children will be next."
So much for judging a man not based on the color of his skin, but on the content of his character.
Race issues have really gotten better since Obama was elected, hasn’t it?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.