Stepping back from the emotions flying back and forth here, it seems that all involved now conclude that the documentary was deeply flawed and that Radley Balko's critique of it--which is what matters, not his criticism of those who amplified it--is correct. Beyond that, all parties need to chill. Radley needs to gracefully accept the success of his case and the Fifth Column et al. need to acknowledge that, however one interprets their initial reaction, they now agree with him. If they don't, they need clarify that.
Anyone who has ever tried to get publicity for anyone knows what "amplified" means. Publicity!
I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that we have in microcosm an example of the beginning of the libertarian-to-alt-Right slippery slope. Not that I think Michael and Matt (whom I've only met in passing) are anywhere near 'alt-Right'.
But the temptation to be 'counter-Woke' is very great, and can make certain stances more plausible than they should be.. That's why, like Shikha, I salute McWhorter (and Loury) for backing off (full disclosure--John's a friend and colleague).
I think you nailed it. I am not sure how the fifth column guys can weasel away from their own words, but I have feeling they will. It is frustrating how far and wide the talking points of this documentary have spread. I hear people who have never watched film now spouting these same points with credulity and I wonder where they heard them from. Some of them for sure absorbed it from the fifth column podcast.
Balko’s work was thoroughly damning. “The Fall of Minneapolis” is clearly a hack job, full of shameless lies, and I appreciate the work you’ve both done to drive that point forward.
I think you are either willfully ignorant of what you’re talking about, or are being deliberately disingenuous about this. I follow you both. I love you both. But the fact that you take the least charitable interpretation of what they were saying is so disappointing. I have been a faithful listener of their podcast, and I honestly have been annoyed with them a bit for the last 6-8 months. However their followers know what you refuse to even entertain. They were so mad at you both because you were so wrong about what they meant/felt. Why was this such a big deal? It is because they so vehemently deny what you are painting them as. I have huge an annoyance with them for the last few months, but we speak their language. We are fans of them so we understand a lot of nuances that you don’t understand. I feel like you quoting their podcast in the written word is someone going in front of the court and talking out Lenny Bruce’s jokes. My only worry is that you did that knowing that you did that. And it really makes me sad.
I actually communicated to the filmmakers of the Floyd flick last year and what quickly became clear to me is that their movie was in the mold of a Michael Moore doc. Now, I like Moore because he’s an entertaining activist. But I don’t go and watch his movies thinking I got the whole story. The Floyd film selectively quotes people over and over and allows Chauvin himself to lie about his training. MPD officers were taught to use a hobble device and put people being restrained on their side. That’s if, by the way, they are in need of restraint. Floyd never violently resisted and few cops around this country would even argue MRT was appropriate in this circumstance — and there’s no excuse for doing it as inaccurately as he did with a man who had some underlying health problems. Why did these filmmakers think it exonerated Chauvin for Floyd to tell them he couldn’t breathe before the restraint was used? One that was widely known and hardly an exclusive to this film — did anyone watch the trial? — and two that is even more reason not to use an emergency restraint against him.
I like the fifth column and everyone involved, but I think there’s a tendency over there at times to draw a line in the middle in a dispute and say “well they both make good points.” That’s not a bad tendency overall.
But it is a bad tendency when you have such a misleading propagandistic film out there that covers zero new ground to anyone who is familiar with the case. FWIW I don’t think Fifth Column guys are endorsing the film but their close friendship with Bari and Coleman (who have decided to lock arms with the far right in Israel but that’s another story) is probably leading them to equivocate a bit.
I don’t mind people mentioning the film but the appropriate follow up to mentioning the film is to say “it gets virtually everything wrong.”
Radley Balko is to be commended for his detective work and superb journalism -- as are Glenn Loury and John McWhorter for their acknowledgement of same. Derek Chauvin was rightly convicted of murder, and that's the end of the story.
Nonetheless, I object to the way that this kerfluffle has been exploited as a "gotcha" (here and elsewhere) -- i.e., as an attack on the entire edifice of (self-described) "heterodoxy" and "anti-wokeness."
I watched the sacking of Oakland Chinatown with my own eyes, from my very window, during the Summer of Floyd. Many mom-and-pops were driven out of business, and the neighborhood remains graffiti-bombed and boarded up. Over a dozen Asian grandmas were mugged near my doorstep in the months thereafter. ("Root causes"? I've been destitute and homeless, but I've never been tempted to mug an elderly Chinese.)
In every single instance (captured on video), the perpetrator could be described with a capital "B." (When a cop shoots a Black man, that's the headline; when a perpetrator is Black, the "respectable" press won't even deign to show a mug shot.) A saintly George Floyd has displaced the (now-detested) Thomas Jefferson in the American pantheon, and a nation of immigrants (including "Latinxes" and "AAPIs," as known in the Berkeley dialect) is deemed "complicit" in an "original sin" that (while stemming from an overseas trade already based for centuries in Africa) is now dated indelibly to 1619.
And we're told that all this must be construed as a "racial reckoning." Reckoning, schmeckoning!
If the likes of Coleman Hughes and Bari Weiss -- and initially, McWhorter and Loury -- (understandably) occasionally get a little carried away, their detractors have done plenty more of the same.
I reckon that before you folks make too much of this "gotcha" moment, perhaps you need to be reminded that Barack Obama was elected for (in effect) preaching the gospel that ALL lives matter. (And now you're claiming "Oh, but that was only aspirational"? Who do you think you're fooling?)
In other words, you have some reckoning of your own to do. And you'd better start doing it fast, or you'll leave the field to the likes of Donald Trump.
George Floyd was a useless POS! He single-handedly elevated a dangerous physical altercation while intoxicated and attempting to complete an additional crime. The undertrained police officer exercised poor judgment and was rightfully prosecuted. What's the rub? One POS dead, one bad cop in jail. Instead we got a year of property destruction, stolen property, ruined business districts, destroyed economies, and racial divide all because of one loaded useless POS named Floyd!
I'm not at all hesitant to criticize Radley for personalizing the focus. I think it's a mistake.
FWIW, I don't agree with that you see as some vast imbalance in the impact of biases from various sources. I see a general problem of identity-defensive/identity-aggressive cognition and I don't think the impact is disproportionate across some ideological taxonomy. Precisely, then, applying your biblical reference, seems to me, should but uniform. I think that a failure to hold standards is always problematic. I think that there's' a systemic problem within the ecosystem of heterodox podcasts just as there are within the legacy media. I think the important problem is the whole structure of cognitive biases such as motivated reasoning. Of course, by the very nature of those biases, people will naturally see the malignant impact of bias being greater from those they disagree with than those they identify with.
As for a bias in using first or last names, I'd say it's pretty random how it varies. Or if not random, I think it's pretty hard to tease out the causal mechanism behind some differential. Clearly, you think it reflects some obvious bias. So would that mean someone is being condescending, sycophantic, something else if they use Radley's first name? How do you know what sort of bias it reflects?
Putting your weight on the neck of someone who is face down on the ground, clearly under control, and credibly complaining about being unable to breath, while concerned onlookers warn you are about to suffocate the man, should be criminal regardless of what the training manual said. If the training manual tells you to kill someone without legal justification - self-defense or defense of others - then you have a a constitutional obligation obligation to ignore it and to refrain from using excessive force. A training manual should not be able to negate common sense - you must turn over a prone individual who may suffocate, not kneel on the back of his neck. Having defended police officers in civil rights litigation for decades, I am familiar the the general principles of police training and their legitimate need to control situations for their own safety and that of arrestees and bystanders. They did not need to keep him face down for 9 minutes with Chauvin’s weight on his neck for officer safety reasons. They created public tension by not tending to Mr. Floyd’s medical needs. Mr. Floyd being high or mentally ill or just strange relates to the need to restrain and control him, but does not entitle officers to suffocate him.
In my opinion, the BLM reaction was grossly excessive and played into the hands of authoritarian leaning politicians. Chaos and wanton destruction achieves nothing of lasting value, and while perhaps cathartic, the catharsis caused many other innocent people pain and loss. But, that overreaction cannot excuse the act of police brutality that sparked it. The legal expression res ipsa loquitur applies, “the thing speaks for itself.” No “analysis” can undo what was captured on videotape except for those who doubt what they can plainly see. Some people are flat earthers, too.
Stepping back from the emotions flying back and forth here, it seems that all involved now conclude that the documentary was deeply flawed and that Radley Balko's critique of it--which is what matters, not his criticism of those who amplified it--is correct. Beyond that, all parties need to chill. Radley needs to gracefully accept the success of his case and the Fifth Column et al. need to acknowledge that, however one interprets their initial reaction, they now agree with him. If they don't, they need clarify that.
Anyone who has ever tried to get publicity for anyone knows what "amplified" means. Publicity!
How is this journalism!? Lol
Drowning your credibility by expressing a personal grievance so publicly. Grow up!
I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that we have in microcosm an example of the beginning of the libertarian-to-alt-Right slippery slope. Not that I think Michael and Matt (whom I've only met in passing) are anywhere near 'alt-Right'.
But the temptation to be 'counter-Woke' is very great, and can make certain stances more plausible than they should be.. That's why, like Shikha, I salute McWhorter (and Loury) for backing off (full disclosure--John's a friend and colleague).
I think you nailed it. I am not sure how the fifth column guys can weasel away from their own words, but I have feeling they will. It is frustrating how far and wide the talking points of this documentary have spread. I hear people who have never watched film now spouting these same points with credulity and I wonder where they heard them from. Some of them for sure absorbed it from the fifth column podcast.
Balko’s work was thoroughly damning. “The Fall of Minneapolis” is clearly a hack job, full of shameless lies, and I appreciate the work you’ve both done to drive that point forward.
Embarrassing yellow journalism. Shame on you guys.
Didn’t see a link to this anywhere, so here, helpful context for your readers: https://open.substack.com/pub/wethefifth/p/firehose-84-did-we-really-mostly?r=38tmk&utm_medium=ios
I think you are either willfully ignorant of what you’re talking about, or are being deliberately disingenuous about this. I follow you both. I love you both. But the fact that you take the least charitable interpretation of what they were saying is so disappointing. I have been a faithful listener of their podcast, and I honestly have been annoyed with them a bit for the last 6-8 months. However their followers know what you refuse to even entertain. They were so mad at you both because you were so wrong about what they meant/felt. Why was this such a big deal? It is because they so vehemently deny what you are painting them as. I have huge an annoyance with them for the last few months, but we speak their language. We are fans of them so we understand a lot of nuances that you don’t understand. I feel like you quoting their podcast in the written word is someone going in front of the court and talking out Lenny Bruce’s jokes. My only worry is that you did that knowing that you did that. And it really makes me sad.
I actually communicated to the filmmakers of the Floyd flick last year and what quickly became clear to me is that their movie was in the mold of a Michael Moore doc. Now, I like Moore because he’s an entertaining activist. But I don’t go and watch his movies thinking I got the whole story. The Floyd film selectively quotes people over and over and allows Chauvin himself to lie about his training. MPD officers were taught to use a hobble device and put people being restrained on their side. That’s if, by the way, they are in need of restraint. Floyd never violently resisted and few cops around this country would even argue MRT was appropriate in this circumstance — and there’s no excuse for doing it as inaccurately as he did with a man who had some underlying health problems. Why did these filmmakers think it exonerated Chauvin for Floyd to tell them he couldn’t breathe before the restraint was used? One that was widely known and hardly an exclusive to this film — did anyone watch the trial? — and two that is even more reason not to use an emergency restraint against him.
I like the fifth column and everyone involved, but I think there’s a tendency over there at times to draw a line in the middle in a dispute and say “well they both make good points.” That’s not a bad tendency overall.
But it is a bad tendency when you have such a misleading propagandistic film out there that covers zero new ground to anyone who is familiar with the case. FWIW I don’t think Fifth Column guys are endorsing the film but their close friendship with Bari and Coleman (who have decided to lock arms with the far right in Israel but that’s another story) is probably leading them to equivocate a bit.
I don’t mind people mentioning the film but the appropriate follow up to mentioning the film is to say “it gets virtually everything wrong.”
Radley Balko is to be commended for his detective work and superb journalism -- as are Glenn Loury and John McWhorter for their acknowledgement of same. Derek Chauvin was rightly convicted of murder, and that's the end of the story.
Nonetheless, I object to the way that this kerfluffle has been exploited as a "gotcha" (here and elsewhere) -- i.e., as an attack on the entire edifice of (self-described) "heterodoxy" and "anti-wokeness."
I watched the sacking of Oakland Chinatown with my own eyes, from my very window, during the Summer of Floyd. Many mom-and-pops were driven out of business, and the neighborhood remains graffiti-bombed and boarded up. Over a dozen Asian grandmas were mugged near my doorstep in the months thereafter. ("Root causes"? I've been destitute and homeless, but I've never been tempted to mug an elderly Chinese.)
In every single instance (captured on video), the perpetrator could be described with a capital "B." (When a cop shoots a Black man, that's the headline; when a perpetrator is Black, the "respectable" press won't even deign to show a mug shot.) A saintly George Floyd has displaced the (now-detested) Thomas Jefferson in the American pantheon, and a nation of immigrants (including "Latinxes" and "AAPIs," as known in the Berkeley dialect) is deemed "complicit" in an "original sin" that (while stemming from an overseas trade already based for centuries in Africa) is now dated indelibly to 1619.
And we're told that all this must be construed as a "racial reckoning." Reckoning, schmeckoning!
If the likes of Coleman Hughes and Bari Weiss -- and initially, McWhorter and Loury -- (understandably) occasionally get a little carried away, their detractors have done plenty more of the same.
I reckon that before you folks make too much of this "gotcha" moment, perhaps you need to be reminded that Barack Obama was elected for (in effect) preaching the gospel that ALL lives matter. (And now you're claiming "Oh, but that was only aspirational"? Who do you think you're fooling?)
In other words, you have some reckoning of your own to do. And you'd better start doing it fast, or you'll leave the field to the likes of Donald Trump.
George Floyd was a useless POS! He single-handedly elevated a dangerous physical altercation while intoxicated and attempting to complete an additional crime. The undertrained police officer exercised poor judgment and was rightfully prosecuted. What's the rub? One POS dead, one bad cop in jail. Instead we got a year of property destruction, stolen property, ruined business districts, destroyed economies, and racial divide all because of one loaded useless POS named Floyd!
No. It doesn’t.
I'm not at all hesitant to criticize Radley for personalizing the focus. I think it's a mistake.
FWIW, I don't agree with that you see as some vast imbalance in the impact of biases from various sources. I see a general problem of identity-defensive/identity-aggressive cognition and I don't think the impact is disproportionate across some ideological taxonomy. Precisely, then, applying your biblical reference, seems to me, should but uniform. I think that a failure to hold standards is always problematic. I think that there's' a systemic problem within the ecosystem of heterodox podcasts just as there are within the legacy media. I think the important problem is the whole structure of cognitive biases such as motivated reasoning. Of course, by the very nature of those biases, people will naturally see the malignant impact of bias being greater from those they disagree with than those they identify with.
As for a bias in using first or last names, I'd say it's pretty random how it varies. Or if not random, I think it's pretty hard to tease out the causal mechanism behind some differential. Clearly, you think it reflects some obvious bias. So would that mean someone is being condescending, sycophantic, something else if they use Radley's first name? How do you know what sort of bias it reflects?
Putting your weight on the neck of someone who is face down on the ground, clearly under control, and credibly complaining about being unable to breath, while concerned onlookers warn you are about to suffocate the man, should be criminal regardless of what the training manual said. If the training manual tells you to kill someone without legal justification - self-defense or defense of others - then you have a a constitutional obligation obligation to ignore it and to refrain from using excessive force. A training manual should not be able to negate common sense - you must turn over a prone individual who may suffocate, not kneel on the back of his neck. Having defended police officers in civil rights litigation for decades, I am familiar the the general principles of police training and their legitimate need to control situations for their own safety and that of arrestees and bystanders. They did not need to keep him face down for 9 minutes with Chauvin’s weight on his neck for officer safety reasons. They created public tension by not tending to Mr. Floyd’s medical needs. Mr. Floyd being high or mentally ill or just strange relates to the need to restrain and control him, but does not entitle officers to suffocate him.
In my opinion, the BLM reaction was grossly excessive and played into the hands of authoritarian leaning politicians. Chaos and wanton destruction achieves nothing of lasting value, and while perhaps cathartic, the catharsis caused many other innocent people pain and loss. But, that overreaction cannot excuse the act of police brutality that sparked it. The legal expression res ipsa loquitur applies, “the thing speaks for itself.” No “analysis” can undo what was captured on videotape except for those who doubt what they can plainly see. Some people are flat earthers, too.
It finally tells the truth.
Nope