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Nubian Square gets one of those block-long Black Lives Matter murals
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Is the street safe...
For vehicular traffic? The yellow paint is undoubtedly distracting.
I'm concerned because the Silver Line passes through there; 60-foot buses are not good for experimenting with roadway safety.
Maybe it will slow drivers
Maybe it will slow drivers down. Good.
Not a mural
I'm happy to see it, but it's not a mural. Murals are painted on walls (or ceilings). The word comes from the Latin for wall.
Semantics
Semantics
Yes, semantics
The branch of linguistics concerned with meaning. Meaning! How trivial! Why waste time on considering what words actually mean?
Have they set the precedent
For every other group seeking approval for their slogan to be painted on public streets?
Was this approved by the City or did someone just do it?
Apparently.
From the Globe:
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/07/05/metro/500-foot-black-lives-matter...
Google is your friend
Nubian Square Public Art Initiative
Look it up.
So, so, so fragile....
...soft and fragile.
Chances are it was approved
Chances are it was approved as most people with half a heart are behind the cause
The city shut down the street
The city shut down the street between Ruggles and Warren for Saturday and Sunday. Yes it was approved.
this is just
"all lives matter" said differently but im sure you know that
If someone wants to paint All Lives Matter now
Can the City stop them?
Sometimes an observation is just an observation, but you knew that.
Yes.
This was decided during that flag issue.
yeah
come to think of it, if someone wants to paint "suck my dick" can they stop them?
Yes
I'm certain they could.
They could remove it
It's debatable if they have the resources to stop someone from putting paint somewhere (graffiti) but if it's public property they could assign a DPW crew to remove it.
Conversely, they have no obligation to remove anything.
That depends, is religion
That depends, is religion involved?
I hear it is good for removing potholes
Harder to remove paint it it is all over crumbling pavement.
Just say
"I'm a racist-"-go ahead. Your using a fake name--go ahead StillFromDorchester--let your hate out! I'm always shocked how many people who aren't using their real names just can't admit--I hate people who aren't white. See--they know it's wrong but.... Hey SFD--go ahead, paint your Trump/fascist/Russian slogan in from of your house. Let's see who you really are.
I'm a racist?
And I'm white? One more strike and you are out.
Is your real name Gremies?
Can you show me where you see something you think is hateful? I have no idea what you are talking about,
. .
Once some one immediately calls you a racist
They’ve lost the argument. Just take the W
But I don't know what the argument is?
Ask a question on here and people attack you. jeepers
Aha!
So THAT'S where Poland went wrong!
There is a town in CA
Where people went through an approval process to do the same thing on the road in front of the courthouse steps. Then people dressed in MAGA gear started to paint over it. That’s why it made national news.
I’m not a huge fan of painting anything but I hope people at least go through a process.
precedent?
That's actually a good question.
Awwww poor guy feels left out
Awwww poor guy feels left out.
Nice gesture, but how about
Nice gesture, but how about defunding the police instead? This has no material impact on anybody's life.
Unfortunately
Aligning some funding from BPD to other agencies would be nice, but unfortunately, the police required to respond to all of these calls requires OT.
Woman shot to death on Stonehurst Street in Dorchester; suspect arrested
By adamg - 7/5/20 - 12:55 pm
Boston Police report Boston's seventh murder in less than a week: A woman shot to death at 37 Stonehurst St. around 3 a.m. Read more.
Person shot on East Newton Street in the South End
By adamg - 7/5/20 - 12:55 am
In the hand, sometime after midnight at 36 East Newton St., near Father Gilday Street. Somebody then drove the victim a couple blocks to the emergency room at Boston Medical Center.
Person stabbed on Torrey Street in Dorchester
By adamg - 7/4/20 - 11:42 pm
On Torrey Street at Moody Street, shortly before 11:30 p.m.
So, because some crimes
So, because some crimes happen after hours and require police, we shouldn't move at all towards defunding the police? Do you really think that those crimes are the driving force behind the BPD needing a $414 million dollar per year budget? An amount 4x what the Public Health Commission receives?
That's not a good faith argument. How about we stop requiring police operating details at construction sites and required 4-hour minimum pay for any court appearance.
WBUR article to cite my sources and for further reading: https://www.wbur.org/cognoscenti/2020/06/10/boston-police-department-bud...
Details save the City money...
The police union negotiates wages and health insurance costs away fro detail raises because the city wants that (they make money off the details and save money off of wages and health insurance costs). Whenever people bring that up it almost makes their entire argument disingenuous.
There are many other reasons
There are many other reasons to defund police, so this one issue shouldn't sway anyone one way or another. Regardless, we are the last state to require cops on detail, and the costs are similar but often slightly less to have a civilian do it. So why not free up the cops to do actual police work instead of sitting around at a site?
Happy to read anything from another point of view, but I see no reason that this would make my "entire argument disingenuous". The unions refuse to let go of this job (to do their real one) because they can make easy money off of it.
More reading: https://www.telegram.com/news/20180811/10-years-after-state-oks-civilian...
No material impact? Do you
No material impact? Do you live in a high crime neighborhood? I’m a POC and I think defunding the police is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. Use this energy for real reform, not making our neighborhoods even less safe
Please tell me how having
Please tell me how having some words painted on the street changes your life. Maybe there's something I'm not considering, but typically these token (but inconsequential) gestures have been used to distract people from demanding that any real change be made.
You must be confusing me for
You must be confusing me for someone else, but I don’t care much for painting BLM on the street either. It’s good for awareness but it’s not any real change that is needed, people need to stay focused. In regards to all of this I share Cuomo’s views that he shared last week which call for focusing on real reform
https://youtu.be/j6sjBLmqndc?t=40m16s
At long last
a 500 ft long slogan will end shooting deaths. Martin Luther King and Malcolm X Boulevards worked so well. Ditto Nubian Square. But now 5 gallon containers of paint will do it! This will turn things around for Black Boston.
Black Lives Matter is not
Black Lives Matter is not about ending "shooting deaths," it's about putting an end to the widespread violence against black people by the police. They are really entirely different things.
It would be ironic if BPD
It would be ironic if BPD pulled over cars going down the road for repeatedly crossing the solid yellow line.
7 murdered in Boston in less than a week. Whose lives matter?
7 murdered in Boston in less than a week, none by police. Today's Globe has exciting news on Phase III, an attempt to link Covid-19 to Neanderthal DNA (seriously), and ample Trump/Fox bashing but nothing on the epidemic of violence in Walsh's Boston. Whose lives matter again?
Maybe you should read the
Maybe you should read the entire Globe from today before you start commenting that today's Globe did not cover this at all. Perhaps it isn't very detailed but B2 has all 7. And several of them, as well as some of the other recent violence outside of the city, was covered in previous editions.
That coverage only appeared
That coverage only appeared in the Manila edition.
B-2? Perhaps some of them,
B-2? Perhaps some of them, but some of these murders this past week were in C-11 and B-3, not to mention the other shootings and stabbings.
This is not a case of just one neighborhood being a hotspot.
B-2 is a page number in the
B-2 is a page number in the Boston Globe. The newspaper that FISH accused of having not covered those murders at all, even though they had done so.
The Globe still has a print
The Globe still has a print edition?
...and they put that important coverage in the second section?
I'm told they still print it.
I'm told they still print it. Regardless, the "print" paper is available online to digital subscribers. I don't generally read the Globe that way but since Fish wanted to talk about "today's" Globe, I look at the e-paper to see what page it was on. I'll let their formatting and layout speak for itself, but if the local story doesn't make it to the front page, you will find it in the second section, Metro.
Breaking news
They set up the sections such that breaking or emerging news can be easily tucked in at various times up to the print run.
That's why it ends up in the second section.
Most the above comments are
Most the above comments are ridiculous. Some people really need to get a life. No, painting Black Lives Matter on the roadway will not solve racism. I think the bus drivers are smart enough to drive over it without crashing their bus. And yes there are still too many shootings in Boston. But Black Lives Matter is a message everyone needs to hear right now. I think it looks great.
Haven't heard a word
About Black Lives Matter in the last 3 seconds......what's it about?
Worrying about roadway safety is absolutely not ridiculous...
Especially when it affects the Silver Line, an already bad service that the Black community has dealt with for years.
When DC painted BLM near the White House, they decided to shut down the street to non-pedestrian traffic due to safety reasons (distracting bright yellow paint). I can’t find any news source indicating that the street has reopened.
Maybe
You can share a news source detailing that the shut the street for this reason and not because of a certain orange troll hiding in a bunker wanting a bigger fence?
Honestly... can we stop using
Honestly... can we stop using such a stupid and provocative phrase as "defund the police"?
It's just a zero-context, nonconstructive, hashtag.
"Re-structure the Police"
"Reform the police"
"Reinvent policing and public services"
Any of those would make more sense, and I'm sure people can think of plenty of better ways than those to express it.
Actually, Rob...
There's a rich academic and popular literature supporting the abolition of policing as an institution. The activists who are out there organizing and marching and chanting know very well what words mean, and they are demanding "DEFUND THE POLICE." Instead of telling them your opinion that it's "stupid" (you may disagree with the demand, but it is certainly not "stupid"), perhaps you could refrain from demonstrating your ignorance long enough to read and learn what's being demanded here. It's a vital and necessary step toward a more just (and more safe!) society.
"Reforming" the police has
"Reforming" the police has historically been used to funnel more money into police budgets under the guise of better training and equipment. Things have gotten worse due to police reform. That is not what people are asking for, despite your flippant retort. The police as an organization are too powerful and resistant to change to be restructured. That is why an alternative structure is needed, as opposed to trying to fix the current structure. People are literally asking for the police to be defunded. That's obviously not what you want, but please don't put words in other people's mouths.
How have things gotten worse Zach...
Compared to 1970, or 1980, 1990, 2000, etc?
You're right, Pete. There's
You're right, Pete. There's been widespread social unrest across the country for the past month and a half because everybody is so thrilled with the job the police are doing.
Ok so you based you statement on emotion.
That's fine, just checking. You could use your exact same line of reasoning to explain why 1938 Germany became what it was....because people were upset (you can add in other examples of emotional revolutions that became oppressive regimes so I'm not Godwinning you here but I think it actually fits). That's a great way to look at things though
Yes, the protesters are the
Yes, the protesters are the oppressive regime, not the militarized police using chemical weapons and killing people every day. Excellent analysis, you smug dullard.
You have already given your answer.
Which was based on emotion (meaning you don't know). Too late to explain further Zach, you've shown your hand. Have a nice day and don't get oppressed too much today. Maybe a nice cold shower tonight will wash off some of that virtue signaling that you seem to reek of (don't scrub too hard though, you don't want to get rid of too much of your white privilege that you will need to fall back on)
Militarization of Police
That's a start - when cops think they are here to control the citizenry, rather than be controlled by the citizenry, and have weapons of war to do so, that is a very bad sign that we need to end the mission creep.
That this has happened AFTER and DESPITE a huge drop in crime when the baby boom aged out of prime crime years is a complete travesty and utter waste of resources.
Licking boots isn't the community's job. Deciding how the community spends money according to broadly defined priorities and bringing rogue police departments to heel behind citizen priorities IS our job.
Police very obviously cannot police themselves - it is a bad orchard problem not a bad apple problem. No amount of your blue huffing bullcrap changes the fact that it is impossible to remove bad cops and keep them from getting hired. And no amount of blue bullshit makes a police force arresting, jailing, and murdering people in systematic and often racist ways an effective way out of drug addiction and mental health issues.
We know you are protecting your fat paychecks here, Pete. But this has to end. Communities must bring police under control, and the psychotic racism and psychopathic elements created and abetted through their immunity from responsibility need to be removed by reasserting proper citizen authority.
Compared to 1970, or 1980,
Everybody carries an internet-connected camera in their pocket these days.
Yup.
But that doesn't mean anything in itself. If an event (police violence, car crashes, hail storms, people walking with backpacks) happens at different rates in 1970 compared to 2020 but we can photograph 90% of these events in 2020 but only .1% of them in 1970, does that mean it happens more in 2020?
Just stop
You derailed with an irrelevant, intellectually dishonest question about whether police violence is worse now than in the 1970s, knowing full well that this can't be proven one way or the other. IT DOESN'T MATTER. Go find an ivory tower to sit in if you care about the answer to your own question, but do not attempt to derail from a discussion of what we do NOW.
Exactly
Whether or not police violence is worse/better is irrelevant.
What is relevant: it is unacceptable and untenable NOW.
So you want to cut the police reforms that led to it?
That’s what I’m talking about. Police violence has been studied insanely in the 1970s and 1980s. It led to all sorts of reforms in training, community policing, harm reduction, procedural justice and anti biased training. Guess what happened? Arrests go down, police violence rates go down, rates of people shot by the police decreases, etc. if you want to cut police departments back to 1970 levels of uneducated good squad policing be my guest. You aren’t going to get the results you think your going to get, although you might “feel” safer. Fear of crime and victimization rates don’t always correlate with actual crime rates because of the emotive and cognitive component involved with the former. Yet many are using their emotional reactions to cell phone footage to illogical budget changes.
I’m not saying there aren’t still problems in policing, but when things have been studied and improved over a period of time, cutting those reforms aren’t going to do any good.
How much energy and money do you want to focus on the ZERO people killed by the Boston police in the last two years that didn't shoot at officers? In the last five years it was ONE person (who had a knife?) 10 Million? 100 Million? Maybe 250 million dollars?
Apples to wankel rotary engines
Where in this discussion has anyone spoken of "cutting those reforms"? How about we examine just how effective (or not) they've been?
I don't mind focusing some energy and money on ensuring that it doesn't happen in the future, particularly with cops like Pepper Jack on the force.
That looks like a two lane
That looks like a two lane street. The entire point of paint on the street is to help direct traffic and inform you of what is going on in the road. I have a concern that something like this could cause trouble in that regard. How about putting it in on a Oneway street or someplace else where the lines may not matter?
Maybe I am off base here. I am not familiar with the street. I would hope that the city takes that into account anytime they give permission to write on the street like this (once you do it once everyone will line up.)
If you can't maintain your
If you can't maintain your lane on a straight stretch of a road for 500 feet, feel free to turn in your license.
Brian, Brian, Brian
All Road Markings Matter.
It is a legitimate question
It is a legitimate question and concern. Just because it is BLM does not mean it gets a free pass. This is why people roll their eyes so much at these things because when people ask serious questions they are treated like they are themselves doing something wrong. The snarky one liner is a lazy way out.
Oh I see, so we just don't
Oh I see, so we just don't need ANY urban road markings anywhere in the city.
Why not just make the entire Downtown coordinator a giant rainbow road?
I am not for or against this sort of marking but my question is legitimate and will become even more relevant as more and more people in other communities look to emulate this with BLM and other causes. Even if they have to write the protocols around this exact mural it is still something worth having on paper.
Here you go vet them.
Here you go vet them.
https://blacklivesmatter.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Lives_Matter