I have to say I've got your back on this. It doesn't excuse what happened, but you can't act a fool in front of the cops and think that everyone is going to ride for you when you're in the wrong.

Agree 100%. I think that black people protesting this does an injustice to all the valid cases of police brutality that we see on a regular basis. It is counterproductive to try to fight for the right to act like a ghetto fool in public and invalidates our true complaints. Please, teach your children how to act in front of the po-po and how to obey the law so we don't have to have this discussion in the future.

Word, once you guys have been through the system you will know your place in this American society. It stems deeper than just “teaching your children how to act in front of the po-po and how to obey the law.” Do you ever see any other cops other than white ones beating on black citizens? I'll disallow my statement to go out of context by clarifying it. When Rodney King was beaten, who made up the jury that acquitted those police officers? See what I see and you'll see the echoes of reverberation this incident causes around the country

Let alone women, not even men. Teenage girls being beaten up by grown men. Think I'm lying. Read youtube comments and see the division and hate these police encounters bring to the surface from the depths of American people

The situation was bad on both sides. People should never fight cops, men should never hit women. It was a lose-lose all the way around even before you bring race into it.

I co-sign all of this and I had similar responses in a similar order. I was outraged, then when I paid attention, I realized I needed to dial my outrage all the way down.

As I've said ad nauseum throughout the blogosphere on this point, what kind of society are we in where we're not teaching our kids (especially our black kids) that you DON'T fight the police. Some police these days don't need a reason to shoot your black ass… so why give 'em one?

As you said. Homeboy was dead wrong. He should be punished. Those two girls were also wrong and should also be dealt with accordingly.

No riots necessary.

Hate to break it to you but the death squad that gunned down Sean Bell was as diverse as America was. And don't forget when they bombed MOVE in Philly the Mayor who ordered that was black too. The idea that only white cops brutalize black citizens is not only inaccurate, but serves to marginalize legitimate grievances against the police state and not just renegade racist “white cops.” By making it an exclusively white-on-black thing you are trivializing a serious issue. To be honest it's not even just black citizens who are brutalized by the police, they just bear the brunt of it and have it the worst.

I COMPLETELY agree. Completely.

I have to say I've got your back on this. It doesn't excuse what happened, but you can't act a fool in front of the cops and think that everyone is going to ride for you when you're in the wrong.

Agree 100%. I think that black people protesting this does an injustice to all the valid cases of police brutality that we see on a regular basis. It is counterproductive to try to fight for the right to act like a ghetto fool in public and invalidates our true complaints. Please, teach your children how to act in front of the po-po and how to obey the law so we don't have to have this discussion in the future.

Word, once you guys have been through the system you will know your place in this American society. It stems deeper than just “teaching your children how to act in front of the po-po and how to obey the law.” Do you ever see any other cops other than white ones beating on black citizens? I'll disallow my statement to go out of context by clarifying it. When Rodney King was beaten, who made up the jury that acquitted those police officers? See what I see and you'll see the echoes of reverberation this incident causes around the country

Let alone women, not even men. Teenage girls being beaten up by grown men. Think I'm lying. Read youtube comments and see the division and hate these police encounters bring to the surface from the depths of American people

The situation was bad on both sides. People should never fight cops, men should never hit women. It was a lose-lose all the way around even before you bring race into it.

I co-sign all of this and I had similar responses in a similar order. I was outraged, then when I paid attention, I realized I needed to dial my outrage all the way down.

As I've said ad nauseum throughout the blogosphere on this point, what kind of society are we in where we're not teaching our kids (especially our black kids) that you DON'T fight the police. Some police these days don't need a reason to shoot your black ass… so why give 'em one?

As you said. Homeboy was dead wrong. He should be punished. Those two girls were also wrong and should also be dealt with accordingly.

No riots necessary.

Hate to break it to you but the death squad that gunned down Sean Bell was as diverse as America was. And don't forget when they bombed MOVE in Philly the Mayor who ordered that was black too. The idea that only white cops brutalize black citizens is not only inaccurate, but serves to marginalize legitimate grievances against the police state and not just renegade racist “white cops.” By making it an exclusively white-on-black thing you are trivializing a serious issue. To be honest it's not even just black citizens who are brutalized by the police, they just bear the brunt of it and have it the worst.

I COMPLETELY agree. Completely.

I totally agree. We have to learn that it's ok to choose your battles. Yeah, the cop is a punk ass b#@^! for hitting a female, but in the court of law she'll be charged with assaulting an officer. So in an effort to help her cousin avoid a jaywalking ticket (who in the hell gets busted for jaywalking anyway), this young lady ends up with a fat nose and a charge. Smart!

I'm so sick of you dumb ass cop-defending negroes. This goes so much deeper than this post even hints at. Tired of explaining to you people. Your tune will change when you or yours get your asses trounced in the streets. This post is completely empty of any real thought and the writer seems to lack any real experience in dealing with the police. They have our minds. And this post is yet another example of it. Black people have internalized the notion the we deserved to be brutalized, for even a minor infraction. Wake up dumb asses. Wake the fuck up.

…………………….can you read for comprehension? Not once did he defend the cop. He said that the girl being arrested and her cousin were ALSO wrong for resisting and for putting their hands on the cop. ALSO. He made it clear that he feels the cop did not handle the situation correctly and was wrong for punching her. And since you obviously have so much experience with the cops why don't you go resist arrest and see how that works out for you…

I'm trivializing a major issue? lol how so? So you're saying the slaying of Sean Bell was ok because the execution squad was diverse? Do you even take yourself seriously to spout such nonsense like that? It is a white and black thing and if you feel you are 'color-blind' you will be blind forever. Even with your last statement who gets brutalized and who does the brutalizing? What mentality or skin color does the brutalizer have? Ignore what is in your face all you want but once you get “nigger-slapped” you will know your true place in this American society. Complacent and beaten down to the point that people say that the cop was justified in hitting a black woman. America the Great indeed!

A coward sounds the same way you do right now

If the cop was wrong for punching her what's the point of this article? The real point? What's beneath the surface? Sounds like the reinforcement of the unruly black teen meme at work again to just bullshit that's been going on for a very long time time now, even when we were in chains. Stop apologizing to and for your oppressors. Will the house negroes ever get it? Again, WAKE UP!

I think you're missing the point. No one implied that cops SHOULD beat ANYONE. The point of the article was the idea of drawing the line in the sand. There are times when its completely reasonable and necessary to raise up and fight injustice. But to fight when the victim in a situation was equally wrong would be foolish. The girls were out of line. That's not apologizing to and for our oppressors. That's having common sense. We live in a land of laws. One law? Don't resist arrest. EVEN WHEN YOU ARE RIGHT. Almost ESPECIALLY when you're right. The last thing you want is “Resisting arrest” to cloud the issue of police brutality. Your anger seems to be clouding your judgement. I don't, nor does the author, condone punching a girl in the face. But fighting a cop? Just bad judgement all together…

I think you're missing the point. No one implied that cops SHOULD beat ANYONE. The point of the article was the idea of drawing the line in the sand. There are times when its completely reasonable and necessary to raise up and fight injustice. But to fight when the victim in a situation was equally wrong would be foolish. The girls were out of line. That's not apologizing to and for our oppressors. That's having common sense. We live in a land of laws. One law? Don't resist arrest. EVEN WHEN YOU ARE RIGHT. Almost ESPECIALLY when you're right. The last thing you want is “Resisting arrest” to cloud the issue of police brutality. Your anger seems to be clouding your judgement. I don't, nor does the author, condone punching a girl in the face. But fighting a cop? Just bad judgement all together…

I think you're missing the point. No one implied that cops SHOULD beat ANYONE. The point of the article was the idea of drawing the line in the sand. There are times when its completely reasonable and necessary to raise up and fight injustice. But to fight when the victim in a situation was equally wrong would be foolish. The girls were out of line. That's not apologizing to and for our oppressors. That's having common sense. We live in a land of laws. One law? Don't resist arrest. EVEN WHEN YOU ARE RIGHT. Almost ESPECIALLY when you're right. The last thing you want is “Resisting arrest” to cloud the issue of police brutality. Your anger seems to be clouding your judgement. I don't, nor does the author, condone punching a girl in the face. But fighting a cop? Just bad judgement all together…

I am in agreement with this article…though I would suggest she did pose a physical risk to the officer. If she simply grabbed his weapon or hit him hard enough the situation would have quickly gotten worse…and that was before I found out the previous charge both of these young women have faced. One for assault and robbery for, ironically, punching a guy in the face and robbing him and the other for assaulting a female police officer in February.

[...] (Choosing not to) Battle in Seattle — This Week in Blackness [...]

There was a law of the land back in the day too that said don't resist your oppressors or get shot, lynched or burnt. It was also seen as bad judgment to escape but I guess that type of empathy and feeling escapes most black folk today. Still trying to get in when the door is double locked

Agreed… This could have easily been avoided. Take the ticket… Pay it… Go get some coffee.

We raise our children, telling them they're equal and then we are surprised when they don't know how to put on the respectful negro shuffle around the cops. I'd march for her because no white teenager would ever be treated this way. She's a teenager and she acted like one. The cop treated her like she was a grown man coming from a bar fight. I would march for her. What you're saying is that it's acceptable for massa to beat one slave. Fuck that. You keep on thinking that being respectful to the police is enough to keep you safe. It's not. Being face down on the ground and surrounded by three cops isn't enough to keep you from getting shot in the back and the cops going free. What happened to all the people you named could happen to you, me any of us. Which is why I would march for her. I'd march for a stupid crackhead getting his du jour beat down by the cops. We all count, not just the ones you think are worthy.

The question to me is is, why does this girl think she can be so rude to the cops in the first place? Of course I know she and many others think she has good reason. Obviously. That, however, is not the real point. She simply can't act like that. And then grab the cop? What can she possibly be thinking? What part of her brain says this is okay? I don't care if she's a teenager or not, if she's Black, White, Asian, it's totally 100% inexcusable. What can she possibly expect from this sort of behavior? Of course the cop was wrong, but it's not like he wasn't provoked. If it were a white kid who did this, do you think his reaction would've been much different?

Now I know cops do wrong. But that's not the issue here. Let's try to keep it straight and not cloud and confuse things.

A while back I taught in an inner-city continuation high school. There was one other white person in the school and she was another teacher. One day a student told me that if I didn't give him at least a B in the class because he had done some work, he would meet me in the parking lot after school. This was maybe a 16 or 17 year old male. My reaction wasn't fear, it was anger. I stepped outside the classroom, not saying a word, speechless, literally shaking with rage. There was a meeting with his mother and the principal and him. I don't recall that anything happened, except I was put in the position to reprimand this kid because no one else would. I said a few words but never was he told in no uncertain terms by anyone other than me that threatening a teacher with violence if you don't get the grade you think you deserve is 100% wrong.

People, kids especially, need to learn and be taught to behave. People cannot walk around scared of each other and ready to resort to violence, regardless of what the gun manufacturers, property developers, news organizations, and movie makers have the financial interests to promote. It's called civilization, and we're nowhere without it. Period.

Get real. Yahoo Answers and Youtube comments is where the trolls from the racist alt.* groups went when Usenet finally died. You'll just be stupider for even trying to engage them.

What scares me are the newspaper online comments pages. OTOH, stupid drunk retired calcified Reptilians are kind of known for making cranky calls to newspapers… and now they can do it on their WebTV.

Wow, dude, way to miss the fracking point.

I guess you are very angry. Hard to think straight or listen at someone when you are piping mad.

Yeah, that's wrong… but so is attempting to bribe (“negotiate”) teachers for grades. I saw affluent white kids do this all the time. They didn't do the work but they tried to flirt/bribe/cajole/whine/bring in the rich parents.

Poverty may have led that child to think that violence solves problems (those suburban kids would have been horrified). But I think American culture as a whole teaches that only a loser would actually work for grades, that good grades are “deserved” because you are a person, no more, no less, rather than grades being a reflection of your mastery of the material. It's a vicious circle of feel-good “self-esteem” lessons (which have been shown now to be counterproductive) and low expectations at literally every grade level.

We don't demand much out of pupils in most schools–and we don't get much, either.

Your privilege is showing. I suggest you go here: stuffwhitepeopledo.blogspot.com

Preach on brotha! These negroes better wake up and realize that the minute we think we DESERVE to be treated like this, white folks have won. Game. Set. Match.

I agree with you. I have been on both sides. I could tell worse stories about well-off white kids. Or well-off Chinese kids in China.

It's amazing what a few students will do in order not to have to learn, to come up to the standards you allude to, which, by the way, I'm all for. If they could just put that energy into behaving properly and studying, everyone would be better off. But no, they get off on another agenda, for whatever reasons. In my experience a lot of it is culture, and quite a bit of it is simply human nature, cross-cultural, and some of it is just who the heck can say. There are always problems to be dealt with. It's just about always a fight of some kind — students, parents, administration. In the US, consumerism, advertising, and entitlement don't help, that's for sure.

True self-esteem comes from accomplishment, which can't happen if you lower standards and expectations into stupid land.