Page 11 - the NOISE July 2015

newsbriefs By KendallPerKinson
Policing Predicaments Persist
A recent incident at a McKinney, Texas pool party has forced the issue of police ethics back into the headlines. A veteran officer of ten years and the recipient of his department’s officer of the year award was captured on video roughly handling a teenage girl and drawing his sidearm when approached by her unarmed friends. The incident, along with the preceding scuffle between white neighbors and the young, mostly-black attendees of the party, has made national news headlines in a predictably divisive manner.
The officer resigned, signaling another warning from police advocacy groups around the nation that an environment in which police are afraid of losing their jobs is detrimental to the nation. Since six Baltimore police officers were indicted in the death of Freddie Gray in May, arrest rates in that city have plummeted (almost 40%), while homicides, robberies and auto thefts spiked in June. Baltimore officers anonymously interviewed by CNN claimed that the situation has resulted from public response to high-profile cases like Freddie Gray, Eric Garner and Michael Brown.
Police advocacy groups note that incidents of police abuse are not on the rise, but are being covered more in major media sources, and that discretionary use of force is an important tool for a very dangerous job. Anti-police brutality groups point out that being a police officer is a relatively safe line of work (fishermen are roughly 10 times more likely to die in the line of duty), and that with nationwide violent crime at a three-decade low, the job has statistically never been safer.
setting traPs
A recent Supreme Court decision has paved the way for abortion clinics around the country to be closed down. In 2013, Texas became another of a growing list of states shutting down clinics by passing regulations like HB2, which present a litany of expensive, often insurmountable barriers to clinic operation. Much like legislation in other states, HB2 requires extensive architectural upgrades like hallway width increases, new parking spaces and others that would, in most cases, require complete demolition and rebuilding of clinics. Texas expects to retain only seven of its current 40 clinics.
Targeted Regulation of Abortion Provider (TRAP) laws have now been enacted all over the nation. Alabama passed a TRAP law that additionally required clinic doctors to have staff privileges at a local hospital. The Supreme Court found that unconstitutional, but has voted to allow the similar details of Texas’ HB2, which require clinic doctors to have admitting privileges to those hospitals.
Pro-choice groups like NARAL and Planned Parenthood argue that these regulations have nothing to do with safety. Abortions are statistically the safest outpatient procedure performed in the US, with less than 0.05% of patients experiencing major complications. One in every million first trimester abortions ends in patient death compared to more than 150 per million deaths during live birth. Proponents of the laws, who tend to identify as religious, say that despite the data, abortion patients deserve hospital-grade regulation.
Born identity?
The recent resignation of a Spokane, Washington NAACP leader is sparking an international conversation about race and identity. Rachel Dolezal’s white family revealed that she has for years been representing herself as black during her social justice advocacy work.
The NAACP supported Ms. Dolezal after the initial revelation, reminding the public that the organization has no policy about race for its membership or leadership, and that they stood behind the track record of her work. Nevertheless, Ms. Dolezal stepped down amidst a firestorm of criticism and debate.
Several philosophical questions have been raised by Ms. Dolezal’s claim that she has always “identified” as a black person. In a year that has seen much positive media coverage on transsexual issues (via Laverne Cox and Caitlyn Jenner), some social commentators suggest that transracial identity — a person’s identification with a race or ethnicity different from the one assigned at birth — is no different. Others call it a clear-cut case of cultural appropriation in which a member of a privileged majority took it upon themselves to deceptively speak for a minority. Ms. Dolezal’s adopted brother (who is biracial) says he admires the work she’s done for the African-American community, but calls the darkening of her complexion
outright“blackface.”
Ms. Dolezal obtained a degree from Howard University, an almost entirely black school,
by submitting her portfolio of African American portraits. After graduating, she became an academic authority on African-American culture and still teaches related classes at Eastern
Washington University.
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