Qualified immunity is a defense against standing in a civil trial, normally against police


Answers to: People Win Lawsuits Against Cities



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Answers to: People Win Lawsuits Against Cities

Difficult to find cities liable


The Internationalist, Summer 2015, Killer Cops, White Supremacists: Racist Terror Talks Strike Black America, http://www.internationalist.org/killercopswstalkblackamerica1507.html DOA: 10-2-16

Another is what’s called municipal liability, which concerns the city or the county’s liability for the acts of individual officers. So if you or I was assaulted by private security guard at Wal-Mart, we could sue the guard individually, but we could also sue Wal-Mart, and through a notion of what’s called vicarious liability, or respondeat superior, Wal-Mart would be held responsible for the acts of its employees. That does not exist in the world of civil rights law violations. In order to hold a city or county liable for the acts of its officers, you have to show a custom, or a policy of unconstitutional practices by the city or county. It’s a very burdensome standard, and it’s justified in part by this notion that this has always been the case, that there hasn’t been this kind of municipal liability. But it doesn’t much make sense if officers in practice are being indemnified by their employers. So there is essentially de facto vicarious liability, because the cities and counties are already assuming the financial responsibilities of paying those bills.

A2: Black-on-Black Crime



Notions of “Black-on-Black” crime cover up the crimes committed by Whites against blacks


Ta-Nehisi Coates, author, July 2015, Between the World and Me, Kindle edition, page number at end of card

A legacy of plunder, a network of laws and traditions, a heritage, a Dream, murdered Prince Jones as sure as it murders black people in North Lawndale with frightening regularity. “Black-on-black crime” is jargon, violence to language, which vanishes the men who engineered the covenants, who fixed the loans, who planned the projects, who built the streets and sold red ink by the barrel. And this should not surprise us. The plunder of black life was drilled into this country in its infancy and reinforced across its history, so that plunder has become an heirloom, an intelligence, a sentience, a default setting to which, likely to the end of our days, we must invariably return.

The killing fields of Chicago, of Baltimore, of Detroit, were created by the policy of Dreamers, but their weight, their shame, rests solely upon those who are dying in them. There is a great deception in this. To yell “black-on-black crime” is to shoot a man and then shame him for bleeding. And the premise that allows for these killing fields— the reduction of the black body— is no different than the premise that allowed for the murder of Prince Jones. The Dream of acting white, of talking white, of being white, murdered Prince Jones as sure as it murders black people in Chicago with frightening regularity. Do not accept the lie. Do not drink from poison. The same hands that drew red lines around the life of Prince Jones drew red lines around the ghetto. Coates, Ta-Nehisi (2015-07-14). Between the World and Me (p. 111). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

A2: Obama Is President, Disproves Racism



Racism is systemic, Obama doesn’t overcome that


Jeffrey A. Baltimore is a member of the Harrisburg City Council, Patriot News, August 13, 2015, Whites Must be Include in Racism’s Remedy,

I am usually, if only momentarily, encouraged when I read or hear white people acknowledging their privilege. A recent letter to the editor did that again for me, and I wanted to personally and publicly thank the writer for her honesty and courage.

It takes bravery for someone white to stand up and admit that she knows she is treated differently than someone black, in any number of situations, simply because of the hue of her skin.

In Tim Wise's 2009 book, "Between Barack and a Hard Place, Racism and White Denial in the Age of Obama," the author issues a call for white responsibility in race matters.

Wise recognizes, as do many of us, that President Barack Obama's ascension to the White House does not mean that we as a nation are suddenly now postracial, a ridiculous term in my opinion.

Obama is not the fulfillment of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream. King's dream was not individualistic or limited to the success of one or two black folks.

King's dream has been scrubbed to be more palatable to white people.

King called the U.S. the "greatest purveyor of violence in the world today," and he called for hundreds of billions of dollars in reparations, not only for blacks but for the poor of all colors who have been victimized by racial injustice in these United States.

He believed our system of capitalism is inherently destructive and inconsistent with democracy, and that it is based on the economics of exploitation.

American racism is systemic, evinced in every facet of black American life. But if I or any other black person talks about it, we are called whiners or told to "forget about it," "get over it" or "walk it off."

It's tragic that, on the first attempt to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala., the all-black crowd was horrifically attacked. But when whites joined the march on the second attempt, they were allowed to protest peacefully and cross without incident. Tragic, but poignant.

White folks have to be part of the remedy for racism. They surely are the major part of the sickness.


A2: American Blacks Better Off than Blacks in Other Countries



Red herring – the experience of blacks in other countries is not relevant


Samuel Williams, Phd Philosophy, 2011, FROM OPPRESSION TO DEMOCRACY: AN ARGUMENT FOR REPARATIONS FOR AFRICAN AMERICANS FROM A DISCOURSE ETHICS PERSPECTIVE

http://etd.lib.msu.edu/islandora/object/etd%3A1110/datastream/OBJ/view DOA: 6-27-15

He alludes to the fact that Blacks have a higher quality of life than most other descendents of Africans in other countries. The hidden argument from this statement would be that Blacks do not deserve reparations because Blacks in other countries have suffered more than Blacks in the United States. This is a red herring argument. Nothing turns on the quality of life of anyone in any other country. The relevant premises that ought to be considered are that Blacks are citizens of the United States, and Blacks suffer the effects of a history of oppression. The fact that Blacks also benefit from their labor, though true, is irrelevant. The relevant point to be made is that the degree that Blacks benefit from society should not depend on race or a history of oppression.



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