Breakout room discussion (Jessie Harper [J], Emily Kile [E], Benjamin Sweeney [B], Kim Eastridge[K, writer])
K: reminded me about the stigma of mental health issues in the Black community; really ties into the stigmas around POC and Black community members who have physical/mental disabilities
J: historical ties as well with the LGBT+ community going back to enslavement; weaknesses seen as taboo
E: police brutality; that “person was not compiling” and that with disabled people, its hard to compile; i.e. deaf or hard of hearing people. Higher percentage of deaths for disabled black people
K: autistic people and their mannerisms leading to police brutality
B: Surprised by the statistics about black disabled people being victims to police brutality more
J: Had aspiration for being a cop; but that was a bad idea. The whole “shoot to kill” if they are not compliant they are seen as violent.
E: Cops shouldn’t shoot anyone, in any part of their body. You can’t guarantee the lethality of a bullet wound via infection or location.
J: That was sort of my compromise, if they’re going to have guns than shoot to harm and not to kill
K: The program somewhere in America that has mental health professionals going on calls for mental distress; numbers of injuries are going down; want to expand the program to 24/7 services
B: dad’s a cop; arms and legs are more difficult targets because they’re moving; guns are important to deal with more violent criminals
E: I get where you’re coming from but at the same time a lot of those issues could be solved if there was more gun regulation in America. I know I sound naive when I say that and that contraband items could be found, but looking at other countries who have outlawed guns, the amount of gun crime goes down an insane amount. So, if there was more policy change, than that would affect people in a good way.
B: Summarizing our conversation to keep Dr. Foss in the loop
Dr. Foss: big names in the reading Sandra Bland, Michael Brown, etc. as all victims to police brutality; not a lot of attention given to this issue
