Academia, Bizarre, Criminal law, Society

Denver Public Schools Show Video Telling Kids to Avoid Police “as Perpetrators of Violence”

Some advice given to students was to not report attacks to the police.

There is a controversy in the Denver Public School system as students were shown a video telling them not to call police if they see a violently racist or homophobic incident because police are perpetrators of such violence. What is particularly shocking, however, was the response of the school district to the showing of this insulting and dangerous film. The district said that nobody at Denver South High School actually watched the video before showing it to the students under their charge.

The video titled “Don’t be a Bystander: 6 Tips for Responding to Racist Attacks,” tells students what to do if they see a racial attack. It states that “in our current political moment, White supremacists and White nationalists have been emboldened, and as a result, public attacks are on the rise.”  It then gives tips on what to do including do “not call the police” because it “escalates, rather than reduces” violence.  It explains “[b]ecause police have been trained to see people of color, gender-nonconforming folks, and Muslims as criminals, they often treat victims as perpetrators of violence. So, if the victim hasn’t asked you to call the police, do not — I repeat, do not — call the police.”

It is a dangerous message for children not only in getting them to view police as threats but not to report racial incidents to the police to allow rapid intervention.

What really stood out, however, was this line in the coverage: “A district spokesperson told Fox News Digital the video was chosen because of its title and theme, but no one viewed the video before it was shown to students.”

This makes “the dog ate my homework” look perfectly credible. I am not sure which is worse: watching and assigning the video or assigning a video without watching it. Notably, to download the video from YouTube, the school official would have seen this description directly under the video:

Created by BCRW and members of Project NIA, this video offers an abolitionist approach to bystander intervention that does not rely on the police.

We have all been burned by videos in social media where you think you are sending a funny or relevant video but fail to watch the whole thing to spot foul or offensive content. However, posting a video for school children to see is a bit different from an errant tweet.

It hardly conveys the seriousness of this anti-racism program that the teachers do not even watch the videos being assigned or posted.

The school district offered little beyond a shrug and did not indicate any degree of discipline for the posting of this offensive video.

There is also little response from the Barnard Center for Research on Women which posted the video to YouTube in 2017. It has posted this video for years.  The group’s website displays a series of posts on abolition and “Defund the Police” measures.

122 thoughts on “Denver Public Schools Show Video Telling Kids to Avoid Police “as Perpetrators of Violence””

  1. Jonathan: I don’t have a problem with most of the “Don’t be a Bystander” video. Confronting a individual act of harassment or violence by a racist on the street, a bus or the subway with aid and comfort for the victim is important. Documenting the incident is paramount. Had an alert civilian not video taped the murder of George Floyd the police killers may have probably escaped justice. But I would not recommend never calling the police when the circumstances dictate. Only the police are trained and equipped to deal with individual acts of racist violence. But police sometimes don’t act when they should. We saw this in Uvalde, Texas when the police stood in the school hallway for over an hour while the mass shooter systematically murder 19 school children. White racist violence is on the rise–especially against people of color. Each incident requires a different response. But citizens need to be engaged to intervene in individual acts of violence. Simply looking the other way is not an option.

    1. “White racist violence is on the rise–especially against people of color.”

      Prove it.

  2. I wonder how Studioron1 will react when someone attempts an aggressive act towards him and there is no one to defend him and they allow the aggressor to roam free to terrorize him at will. In case Studioron1 doesn’t understand the concept, that is call a lack of civil order, or, a chaotic barbaric state. Perhapd Studioron1 should research the history of Police vs Sheriffs vs Marshals and understand why there are so many acts of violence committed within his minority communities before flatly condemning police (who really are humanity’s garbage men if you will), for dealing with chaos and barbarism on a major scale. Just look to Chicago or any dem run large city to find your answer.

  3. Words fail me regarding woke millennials/gen z and what passes for mentorship in their lives. Not unlike the Red Guard, they want elders and dissenting opinion to literally cease to exist. Frankly, due to youth and naiveté, so do a great many of even the ‘good’ ones, and it goes beyond youthful ignorance; it is real, hostile, resentment born of absolute ignorance and coddling. Not unlike very young children.

    I think it’s actually experience and precedent they hate, because they believe they are ‘special’ and are supposed to be ‘saviors’ and ‘motivate the planet’. They manufacture problems so they can LARP solutions to same non-existent problems, like kids playing make believe, and they have been lied to about issues that actually do exist. The worst of them likely legitimately suffer from narcissism, autism, or sociopathy. There is nothing left to say but, ‘enough’. The time to talk about this was decades ago, and nobody wanted to.

    Respect, love, and peaceful minds would go a million times further than virtue signaling and infantile rage.

  4. Conservatism is a form of mental illness. I say conservatism is a sociopathy in need of treatment and therapy, instead of a legitimate political ideology.

    I sum up conservatism like this: “I’m doing great and to hell with you, buddy!”

    And, “I’m superior to you because I don’t have your kind of problems.”

    And, “Don’t expect me to help my fellow man even though I have incredible financial capacity to do so.”

    Hodson and Busseri (2012) found in a correlational study that lower intelligence in childhood is predictive of greater racism in adulthood, with this effect being mediated (partially explained) through conservative ideology. They also found poor abstract reasoning skills were related to homophobic attitudes, mediated through authoritarianism and low levels of intergroup contact.
    What this study, and those before it, suggest is not necessarily that all liberals are geniuses and all conservatives are ignorant. Rather, it makes conclusions based on averages of groups. The idea is that for those who lack a cognitive ability to grasp the complexities of our world, strict-right wing ideologies may be more appealing. Brian Nosek explained it for the Huffington Post as follows, “Ideologies get rid of the messiness and impose a simple solution. So, it may not be surprising that people with less cognitive capacity will be attracted to simplifying ideologies.” For an excellent continuation of this discussion and past studies, please see this article from LiveScience.
    Further, studies have indicated an automatic association between aggression, America, and the news. A study conducted by researchers at Cornell University and The Hebrew University indicated, “American news watchers who were subtly or nonconsciously primed with American cues exhibited greater accessibility of aggression and war constructs in memory, judged an ambiguously aggressive person in a more aggressive and negative manner, and acted in a relatively more aggressive manner toward an experimenter following a mild provocation, compared with news watchers who were not primed.”
    https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/millennial-media/201304/do-racism-conservatism-and-low-iq-go-hand-in-hand

    1. You know, if you take that nearly 10 year old study, apply it to leftist wokesters, you would come to the same conclusion.
      Wokeism is a mental illness.

      I sum up conservatism like this: “I’m doing great and to hell with you, buddy!”
      Are you deserving of help? I help out my neighbors all the time. But they are deserving of help.

      And, “I’m superior to you because I don’t have your kind of problems.”
      How is it my problem you made poor life choices?

      And, “Don’t expect me to help my fellow man even though I have incredible financial capacity to do so.”
      I worked hard, saved my money, delayed gratification, and you expect me to just give you money because you did none of the things I did?

    2. “I’m superior to you because I don’t have your kind of problems.”

      Indeed Studioron, you have problems, not because you come from the left, but rather because of who you are.

      Do you even know what the word conservative means? Obviously not. Ignorance makes people look foolish and say foolish things as you have done here. Be careful of quoting studies because we already recognize your limitations.

  5. Pretty much everybody here is dealing in generalities depending on their own local experiences.
    That can be a real trap if you don’t think about it.
    I have lived in Yokohama, Japan, But was very young and had to be evacuated because the Korean War broke out in 1950, then lived in San Luis Obispo and overloaded on strawberries and will never eat one again, lived in Mainz-Kaiserslautern-Mannheim Germany and great places to live except for all the ruins left over from World War 2 and then Hungarian Revolt broke out and we were warned about possible evacuation (again), lived in Atlanta and a nice place also until it got too big (Also too close to Cuba during the Cuban Missile crisis). Could walk downtown and almost anyplace safely while in High School. Lived in Augusta which was hot as hell and had only 1 TV station, lived in Houston (hotter than Augusta and floods) when the police were equal opportunity brutal to all groups which were then white, black and Hispanic. Lived in Dallas where high school kids fought it out with white, black and Hispanic gangs and such, University Town in Indiana very quiet and safe.
    My advice don’t live near war zones or post war or prewar zones, avoid Houston because of floods but the medical center is great (Trained there), Avoid Illinois (very dysfunctional) and either crippled or helped by Chicago depending on who you talk to. Boston is a great place to visit and New York City was once but would avoid now.
    Avoid Strawberries in San Luis Obispo because you will never look at them again quite the same.
    Watch movies, programs and videos before you rec them, sort of common sense. Did not learn that from any place I lived. Everyone of those places I lived in has changed except for the heat and flooding.
    When you rec a video try to put yourself in the place of the viewer and not the messenger. You might get a better response and you might actually teach something useful and get other viewpoints. Also common sense.

    Common sense I learned from my grandfather, father, mother none of whom progressed, education wise, past high school but all were wise and experienced in multiple facets of life both good and bad. Tragic in many cases but that did not stop them.

  6. The problem is rightwing conservatives intellectual inability to comprehend and understand the nationwide, long-term institutionalized racism in our nation’s 18,000 police depts.
    In the mind of the White Conservative there is no significant police brutality and murder and the real problem is people of color.
    Science attributes rightwing conservatism to low intelligence. It’s a real problem in America.
    Study links low intelligence with right-wing beliefs
    https://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/the-hot-button/study-links-low-intelligence-with-right-wing-beliefs/article543361/

    1. RE:”Study links low intelligence with right-wing beliefs..”You knocked on the wrong door to sell that lot.” Too many academics on both sides of the aisle living here. Try the Denver school board. More your speed. Then go away…..puleeeeze!

      1. Entertaining, no?

        Then there is this recent study on Left Wing Authoritarianism (LWA)

        Relative to right-wing authoritarians, left-wing authoritarians were lower in dogmatism and cognitive rigidity, higher in negative emotionality, and expressed stronger support for a political system with substantial centralized state control. Our results also indicate that LWA powerfully predicts behavioral aggression and is strongly correlated with participation in political violence. We conclude that a movement away from exclusively right-wing conceptualizations of authoritarianism may be required to illuminate authoritarianism’s central features, conceptual breadth, and psychological appeal.

        Costello TH, Bowes SM, Stevens ST, Waldman ID, Tasimi A, Lilienfeld SO. Clarifying the structure and nature of left-wing authoritarianism. J Pers Soc Psychol. 2022 Jan;122(1):135-170. doi: 10.1037/pspp0000341. Epub 2021 Aug 12. PMID: 34383522.

        I take all of this with a grain of salt. The world has lost millions and millions of lives under brutal left wing Marxists or Socialists (e.g. Stalin, Mao, Hitler, Castro, Chavez, etc). No fake “science” studies can lead us to conclude that the ways of Ron are anything but severe, like his 15+ comments today.

        1. RE:”The world has lost millions and millions of lives…” Given that street interviews of the braindead demonstrate that they cannot even identity photos of two Democrat Presidents…FDR and JFK, it is clear that the history they needed to know was never learned, if taught to them at all. But the shape of Kim Kardashian’s buttocks….THAT they can talk abouit.;

    2. Studioron1, In cities with more than a quarter-million people, almost one-fifth of the police chiefs are black. When you present antidotal evidence without presenting the details of the police interactions with black people your credibility comes into question. As a case in point, you said that the police shot a pregnant black women five times and then handcuffed her. Are you telling us that just because a black women is pregnant that she is not capable of committing a crime. What does being pregnant have to do with it. If your looking for sensation I guess you’ve found it. In your world no respect for the black policeman is to be found. Wait for it folks. Next studioron1 will be saying that the black policemen are just all Uncle Toms.

    3. Studioron is writing junk. Anecdotes do not create patterns by themselves. That is what we are seeing with Studioron, an anecdote, that is becoming a joke when serious issues are being discussed.

      His many postings forget that police have a right to protect themselves and are there to protect the public. Sudioron thinks the opposite. He believes felons have a right to kill citizens and that the police have no right to protect themselves from these felons and murderers. That is the gist of one of the articles he provided. When a suspected felon or murderer is shot or killed such actions are rightfully investigated and if there is evidence of police malfeasance the charge can go before a jury to decide. But, when one looks at the numbers one has to look at Studioron and find that he is ignorant of the facts.

      Let me take the NYC police department and Studioron’s complaints that were mixed with incendiary garbage based on ignorance.

      Numbers Are From Wikipedia:
      35,783-member police force in 2020: 47% are white and 53% are members of minority groups
      43% (10,162) are non-Hispanic white
      57% (13,302) are black, Latino (of any race), or Asian or Asian-American.[more detail needed]
      Of 5,289 detectives:
      52% (2,771) are non-Hispanic white
      48% (2,518) are black, Latino (of any race), or Asian or Asian-American.[more detail needed]
      Of 4,550 sergeants:
      52% (2,379) are non-Hispanic white
      48% (2,171) are black, Latino (of any race), or Asian or Asian-American.[more detail needed]
      Of 1,706 lieutenants:
      59% (1,014) are non-Hispanic white
      41% (692) are black, Latino (of any race), or Asian or Asian-American.[more detail needed]
      Of 355 captains:
      62% (219) are non-Hispanic white
      38% (136) are black, Latino (of any race), or Asian or Asian-American.[more detail needed]
      Of 14 police chiefs:
      57% (8) are non-Hispanic white and
      43% (6) are non-white.[more detail needed]

      When a person acts so ignorantly time and time again, whatever he says should immediately end up in the trash.

    4. And yet, the same people making this claim are pushing for stricter gun control laws and assault weapons bans, which would be enforced by this very same systems.

      Maybe they consider it a feature, not a defect.

  7. I am appalled that no one stood up and says this is NOT right. There are always a few bad apples & those need to be addressed, but kids should look at the police as trusted leaders they can go to.

  9. I live about as far away as I can get get and still be considered part of the Denver metro area. The irony is this now deep blue city (thank you transplants) is becoming increasingly more lawless. The crime is off the charts. But alas, that’s typical of large blue cities.

  10. Why would you believe the school district leaders when they say they never watched the video before showing it. Instead of admitting that they knew what was in the video they decided to go with admitting their incompetence. One would like to think that those responsible for what are children are taught would take the time to review the material that was being presented. Next will be if you see a women being raped don’t call the police because some policemen have been guilty of sexual harassment. If you see someone being racially assaulted don’t call a black policeman because he is prejudiced against blacks. In cities with more than a quarter-million people, almost one-fifth of the police chiefs are black. I’ll bet that this little tidbit of information was nowhere to be found in this propaganda film being used to indoctrinate your children. My assertion is that the leaders of the Denver school district knew full well what was in the film and just said “my bad” when they were found out.

    1. studioron1, according to your link five people have been killed by the police in 2022 in Denver. Perhaps a deeper analysis of the actual numbers might be of benefit before you post something that does not actually confirm your bias.

    1. You can always find the attention seekers on the internet. You won the award today Hoss.

    1. https://time.com/4404987/police-violence/

      The heart of the indignation over these murders is a conviction that racist bias plays a decisive part in these encounters. That has seemed plausible to me, and I have recently challenged those who disagree to present a list of white people killed within the past few years under circumstances similar to those that so enrage us in cases such as what happened to Tamir Rice, John Crawford, Walter Scott, Sam Debose and others.

      The simple fact is that this list exists.

  19. Louisiana state troopers charged with misdemeanors in beating of Black man
    Nation May 12, 2022 6:06 PM EDT
    WINNSBORO, La. (AP) — State prosecutors have charged three Louisiana State Police troopers accused of beating a Black motorist, hoisting him to his feet by his hair braids and bragging in text messages that the “whoopin’” would give him “nightmares for a long time.”
    https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/louisiana-state-troopers-charged-with-misdemeanors-in-beating-of-black-man

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