Sunday, August 12, 2007

Ft. Lauderdale Justice?


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(CBS4 [HERE]) FORT LAUDERDALE The family of a teen that was shot during a struggle with a police officer is pondering whether or not to file a lawsuit against the Fort Lauderdale Police Department.

The family has hired the law firm of Searcy Denney Scarola Barnhart & Shipley to investigate the actions of the Fort Lauderdale Police Department. Lawyers held a news conference on Tuesday to discuss a significant case that they are investigating on behalf of Dwuan Crooms and his family.

The 15-year-old boy, who remains in critical condition at the Broward General Medical Center, was shot during a struggle with a Fort Lauderdale police officer Jason Hersh late Friday night following a two county car chase. More HERE from BrownWatch


34 comments:

Anonymous said...

How can you struggle with someone if you have turned you back to them?

Francis Holland said...

If the kid was white, the police probably wouldn't have drawn their guns at all!

Anonymous said...

I wonder about the mentality of a person who could do something like this. I mean, do they not fear God? Do they have any concern of how their actions will affect where their immortal souls will spend eternity? Do they think that God turns a blind eye to these sorts of actions because they wear a badge. Does the question ever run through their minds, how would I feel if someone did this to my child, brother, sister, mother, etc.. I don't understand these people.

Francis Holland said...

Anonymous:

The person who did this: Instead of having his head full of God's thoughts, feelings and behaviors, I think he had his head and heart and behavior full of color-aroused ideation, emotion and behavior.

Anonymous said...

I understand your points Holland, but I believe that at some point, the shooter must have reflected upon his actions. Do actions like this not at least prick their conscious? I have yet to hear one police officer who has killed or shot a black or brown with no justification express any remorse or regret. No apologies for their actions. It's always, the officer's actions were justified.
I know that they get away with killing and shooting unarmed blacks and browns everyday in the earthly courts; but do they honestly think that God is going to give them a free pass? Are we just that worthless and inhuman to them? Do they completely lack human feeling towards blacks and browns? Evil, that's all I have to say - evil.

Francis Holland said...

Are we just that worthless and inhuman to them? Do they completely lack human feeling towards blacks and browns?

In the illness of anti-social personality disorder, patients lack all compassion for others, lie perennially without any sense of remorse and engage in behavior that harms others without feeling guilt. In the illness of Extreme Color-Aroused Disorder, the ill person has these symptoms but the are particularly aroused by the color cue, by seeing the skin color of the person who often becomes their victim.

Anonymous said...

I don't define behaviour like that of the officers involved in incidents like this as illness. Let's not be afraid to call thei behaviour by its real name - evil.

Francis Holland said...

A lot of mental illnesses cause people to do "evil" things, for example alcoholism causes people to drive drunk and kill people, while drug addiction causes people to steal from their family members to buy drugs, even to the point of stealing and selling their parents wedding rings.

However, there is only hope for alcoholics and drug addicts when we recognize that they have an illness and start looking at ways to treat it.

Ironically, for so long as we insist that they are simply evil, we guarantee that their "evil" behavior will continue. Only by recognizing that they have a mental disorder can we have any hope that we can treat their condition so that their "evil" behavior will be reduced.

Anonymous said...

I'm sorry, but I cannot see this behaviour as an illness. It's volitional; while an illness is not. Just as people choose to drink and drive, these folks choose to shoot, maim, and kill black and brown people without provocation or necessity by a choice of their will. People choose to do evil; they don't choose to be sick. Whatever happened to personal responsibility. I feel that by labeling this behaviour as an illness, it almost absolves the doer of responsibility.

Francis Holland said...

People are personally responsible for what they do, but we often are unable to help people to shoulder their personal responsibility unless we have a better understanding of WHY they engage in the behaviors.

In this case, there are clearly thoughts, emotions and behaviors that are irrational, and irrational thoughts, emotions and behaviors are often a sign of mental illness. However, our society doesn't absolve perpetrators legally for their behavior unless they are incapable of understanding that their behavior is wrong, which means that in less than 1% of cases are defendants able to convince a jury that they meet this standard.

In fact, white juries often refuse to punish whites for hate crimes, so we really have little to lose by trying to understand and treat the ideation, emotion and behavior that leads to hate crimes.

At what point in their lives do people become capable of committing a hate crime and why? Is there anything that can be done in the way of prevention so that they don't get to that point?

As long as you look at color-aroused disorder ONLY as a volitional "evil" to be punished rather than as a cognitive behavioral disorder that results partly from environmental learning and forces, it will be impossible to develop prevention, screening and treatment strategies that prevent color-aroused disorders from developing in the first place.

Anonymous said...

Just who will be doing the development, preventing, screening and treating of color-aroused disorders? What are the criteria for the diagnosis? Is treatment mandatory? Just as the white juries refuse to punish rogue cops, so will white doctors and physicians pronounce all suspected color aroused individuals well.

Francis Holland said...

Black psychiatrists are working to convince the American Psychiatric Association to take on this problem, to acknowledge that only someone who has emotional problems would e.g. hate Black co-workers so much that he would shoot them and then take his own life.

When people are "a danger to themselves and others," they can be compelled to receive psychiatric care, as when a person tells a psychiatrist, "I have a gun and today I am going to kill all of my Black co-workers and then I am going to kill myself."

The fact that the co-workers are Black should not prevent them psychiatrist from realizing that the white worker presents a danger to himself and others.

Likewise, if the same worker expresses those feelings to the company psychologist, it would be natural and legally required that the company require the worker to get psychiatric help as a condition of maintaining his employment.

No one has a right to create a hostile environment for fellow employees. Where workers do so because they suffer from a color-aroused disorder, a company could recommend treatment for that disorder as an alternative to firing the worker or letting the illegal behavior continue, making the corporation legally liable for the color-aroused employee's behavior.

Likewise, when college students show that color-aroused ideation, emotion and behavior is making them a danger to self and others, it could be recommended that they seek psychiatric services. If their behavior is sufficiently serious and rule breaking behavior pronounced, they might be required to seek these services as a condition of continued enrollment.

Anonymous said...

Who will make these white cops go in for treatment for this "illness"? The same white police officials who routinely looks at their aberrant behaviour and then deem such behaviour justifiable. Or maybe the community at large; that same community from which the white juries are pulled who routinely give them a free pass when the shoot, kill, maim blacks and browns. It will be interesting to see how such a program would be implemented. Whereas, calling a thing by its name is of more benefit to the victim than to the perp. I just think that these people have chosen to embrace the darkside and are doing the things that they do intentionally. I refuse to believe that it is an illness. It gives them an out; oh, I can't help it, I'm not legally responsible for my actions because I couldn't control myself and didn't know what I was doing was wrong. Is that the type of thing you want to see play out in these situations. Please say that it isn't.

Francis Holland said...

At present, police just deny everything and get off scott-free, to return to work, after a vacation with pay. So, police are being neither punished (your desire) nor diagnosed and treated.

With the new alternative, instead of always testilying to defend each other, police officers would have the alternative of admitting that they need help BEFORE THEY BEAT SOMEONE TO DEATH, and then getting that help.

You are proposing that, since they are evil, there is nothing that can be done before the fact to prevent them from committing evil acts. But that's not a fact based on scientific evidence. It's an opinion, based partly on anger at the perpetrators.

In any case, you'll have to admit that since, in virtually every case the police get off scott-free anyway, there is no real risk in offering psychiatric screening, diagnosis and counseling BEFORE the police officers kill people.

The same is true of people who commit hate crimes in the street. Rather than fearing diagnosis of their mental condition for fear that 20 year-old perpetrators might get off, we should offer treatment to kids in sixth-grade who show a propensity for color-aroused aggression.

Anonymous said...

Yes, I do believe that anyone who shoots or kills someone should be punished. After all, thats the way our justice system is set up. You committ a crime, you go to jail. As far as the color arousal aggression theory you espouse, can't say that I have ever heard of it before reading this blog. Where is the peer review literature on it?
Does color arousal aggression only apply to police officers? Or would it apply equally to all of us; because after all, black and brown people are killed by whites who are not police officers because they are black and brown. Are you suggesting that these folks should be given treatment instead of jail time? Please say that that is not what you mean.

Francis Holland said...

Treatment and jail time are really independent issues, although the risk of facing jail time often causes people to seek treatment.

Extreme Color-Arousal is a conceptual way of describing the program that I have initiated, but I think it's pretty obvious that when some police see the skin color of some members of the public, the react differently based on skin color. When they perceive the skin color of others, ideation and emotions are aroused which then are often manifested in behavior. That's obvious, isn't it?

The goal of cognitive behavioral therapy is to help people to become more aware of their ideation, to reality test their ideation, and to determine whether that ideation really is conducive to functional and happy relationships with others. When people's behavior is destructive to themselves and others, cognitive behavioral therapy is often a very effective way of changing that destructive behavior.

This is a new way of approaching the problem we are looking at here, but only because we have assumed that nothing at all can or should be done about the ideation that leads to abusive police behavior and abusive behavior by others with extreme color-aroused disorder.

It is discriminatory to insist, as you do, that no screening, diagnosis or treatment should be offered to address the ideation, emotion and behavior of those who commit color-aroused offenses. It would be equally discriminatory to insist that alcoholics should be punished for illegal alcoholic behavior but not diagnosed and treated for alcoholism.

Anonymous said...

How is it discriminatory to insist that these cops be treated like anyone else who committs a crime? Explain that. And as for the alcholics analogy - it's a poor one. If a drunk runs someone off the road and kills them, they still face jail time. Treatment is up to them - only if they admit that they have a problem. If they don't - any court ordered treatment won't do them or the rest of us any good. It won't take in other words. What makes you think that police officers who do things like think that they have a problem - they know that they hate people of color - and you know what - it doesn't bother them one bit - so they don't see it as a problem.

Anonymous said...

Oh yes, and where can I find the peer review literature on color arousal aggression. I'm sure it will make for interesting reading.

Anonymous said...

Oh yes, you still haven't answered my question; do you mean to suggest that anytime a white person (cop or no cop) injures or kills a person of color, they should get treatment for color arousal aggression and not jail time?

Francis Holland said...

They don't see hating innocent Black people enough to kill, just because of their skin color, as a mental problem, and you don't believe they have a problem either. But answer this: If a person does not have a "problem," then why should they be punished or treated at all?

We often call prisons "correctional facilities" but you are steadfastly insisting that police who kill people because of color-arousal have no "problem" to be corrected. If not, then why imprison them at all?

By sending them to a correctional facility, aren't you effectively saying that their behavior is unacceptable and has become problematic?

The question is, "Is their behavior evidence of a mental disorder?" I propose to you that if a person has pervasive false ideation about people based on skin color, and if that ideation leads to extreme emotions which are then manifested in behavior that is self-destructive to illegally harmful to others, then that person has a problem.

What kind of a problem do they have? Well if the problem is one of thoughts, emotion and behavior, then I submit to you that they may have "mental" problem, since outward behavior often reflects the thoughts and emotions of the "mind." If the problem is NOT a mental problem, then where in the person DOES the problem reside?!

Your argument is like insisting that we cannot say that cars go out of control because of bad brakes because that would remove moral responsibility from the car itself. Well, the only hope for controlling the car is to acknowledge when the problem starts in the brakes.

So, your insistence that we must not look at the problem scientifically, medically, and must look at it ONLY as a moral problem will not help any more than looking at syphilus ONLY as a moral problem will stop the spread of syphilus. Syphilus is, fundamentally, a MEDICAL problem with cognitive behavioral components (the more people know about the problem and behave accordingly, the less the disease spreads and harms self), so all of the moralizing in the world will not change the fact that without looking at the MEDICAL aspects of syphilus you can never screen for, diagnose or treat syphilus and you cannot stop its spread.

Francis Holland said...

ALL police officers should be screened for color-aroused disorder BEFORE they kill anyone based on their color. Because once they have already killed someone, punishment cannot bring the victim back to life.

Unless you have an understanding of why color-aroused behavior happens in the first place, you cannot prevent it. You can only punish it after the fact. And, as you can see, all too many color-aroused crimes go unpunished. That means that NOTHING is done about the problem in many cases, in terms of prevention or punishment.

Punishment for illegal acts is an important part of deterrence. The fear of punishment often compels people to acknowledge that their behavior is problematic and to get help before their uncontrolled ideation, emotion and behavior result in serious penal consequences.

However, no such help exist at this time in a systematic way, for policemen or for anyone else.

I am not saying that we should stop demanding that those who commit illegal acts be punished, because that punishment is an important part of what can bring them to the table as willing participants in treatment of their illnesses.

However, most incidents of color-aroused crime are never punished. It behooves us to see what can be done to prevent those unpunished incidents from occurring at all, instead of just waiting for them to occur so that we can demand that the culprits be punished.

Anonymous said...

Because someone has developed a theory called "color aroused aggression" does not make it a scientific approach to a problem that is all moral and has no biolgoical root to whatsoever. A person chooses to do right or to do wrong. By saying that people have no control over themselves and cannot control their behaviour is absolve them of personal responsibility. Sorry, I think that it is a cop out. (No pun intended).

And for whatever reason, you just don't seem to want to answer my question - do you mean to suggest that anytime a white person (cop or no cop) injures or kills a person of color, they should get treatment for color arousal aggression and not jail time?

Holland: Your argument is like insisting that we cannot say that cars go out of control because of bad brakes because that would remove moral responsibility from the car itself. Well, the only hope for controlling the car is to acknowledge when the problem starts in the brakes.


A car is an inanimate object - it is incapable of feeling, thought, emotion or morality or immorality. It requires a human being to operate, drive, and guide it. Now, a person has the ability to think, feel, reason, and make decisions. Make the wrong decision, pay the consequences. Shouldn't really have to make this point. Comparing a car to a human? No comparison; difference is obvious or at least it should be.

Holland: So, your insistence that we must not look at the problem scientifically, medically, and must look at it ONLY as a moral problem will not help any more than looking at syphilus ONLY as a moral problem will stop the spread of syphilus. Syphilus is, fundamentally, a MEDICAL problem with cognitive behavioral components (the more people know about the problem and behave accordingly, the less the disease spreads and harms self), so all of the moralizing in the world will not change the fact that without looking at the MEDICAL aspects of syphilus you can never screen for, diagnose or treat syphilus and you cannot stop its spread.


If people choose not to be promiscuous, they don't develop the STD or spread it to their unborn children or unsuspecting spouse or significant other - therefore, there is nothing to treat. Me, I would rather not have an STD. So I tailor my behaviour accordingly. Just because there is a treatment for a problem doesn't mean that we should just throw caution and common sense to the wind. I don't buy that at all.

Francis Holland said...

Anybody who has sex can get an STD. Although you might argue that what we need most is punishment for having gotten an STD and having passed it on to others, I think it's important that we understand STD scientifically and learn how to screen, diagnose and treat STD's, and deal with the problem from a medical and epidemiological perspective as well as a law enforcement perspective. Charging people with crimes for knowingly passing along STD's might make you feel better, but it won't stop the spread of STD's, unless you also understand STD's medically, and offer screening, diagnosis and treatment for STD's.

Extreme color-aroused hatred that leads to color-aroused crimes is an example of an extremely dysfunctional thought and emotional and behavioral process that constitutes a mental disorder, in my opinion. When you insist that this does not constitute a mental disorder, it is you who "normalize" hatred and normalize the color-aroused behaviors that derive from that hatred.

If you insist that pedophiles are not sick, then you are effectively saying that sex with children is a normal behavior. There is no contradiction between saying that pedophilic behavior is disordered and punishing the behavior. Pedophiles know their behavior is wrong (they are legally responsible), but they do it anyway, because they are sick people who are not normal.

If you say they are normal then you legitimize their behavior. Likewise, if you insist that police officers who kill others because of color-arousal are mentally "normal" then you legitimize this behavior for everyone in society.

Instead, you must acknowledge that they are mentally ABnormal and look to see what can be done about that.

Anonymous said...

Holland: Anybody who has sex can get an STD. Although you might argue that what we need most is punishment for having gotten an STD and having passed it on to others, I think it's important that we understand STD scientifically and learn how to screen, diagnose and treat STD's, and deal with the problem from a medical and epidemiological perspective as well as a law enforcement perspective. Charging people with crimes for knowingly passing along STD's might make you feel better, but it won't stop the spread of STD's, unless you also understand STD's medically, and offer screening, diagnosis and treatment for STD's.


People are HIV who knowingly have unprotected sex with others are tried and jailed in this country.
And I think that that's a good thing.

Holland: Extreme color-aroused hatred that leads to color-aroused crimes is an example of an extremely dysfunctional thought and emotional and behavioral process that constitutes a mental disorder, in my opinion. When you insist that this does not constitute a mental disorder, it is you who "normalize" hatred and normalize the color-aroused behaviors that derive from that hatred.

I think that what I said was that I found this type of behaviour evil. And I do. I also find that it is an intentional act of the will. People intentionally chosing to do wrong. Are you saying that this does not happen. Are you saying that there is no such thing as evil. You cannot sit there and tell me that anyone knowing even a tiny bit about human history can in this day and age doubt the existence of evil. That is not being scientifically minded in my opinion; it is being willfully blind.

Holland: If you insist that pedophiles are not sick, then you are effectively saying that sex with children is a normal behavior. There is no contradiction between saying that pedophilic behavior is disordered and punishing the behavior. Pedophiles know their behavior is wrong (they are legally responsible), but they do it anyway, because they are sick people who are not normal.


You really need to work on those analogies. Saying that pedophiles are not sick is not the same as saying that having sex with children is normal. And when did I ever say that pedophiles are not sick. I think that they are both sick and evil. And that such behaviour needs to be punished.

Holland: If you say they are normal then you legitimize their behavior. Likewise, if you insist that police officers who kill others because of color-arousal are mentally "normal" then you legitimize this behavior for everyone in society.


No, I just refuse to make excuses for bad behaviour by calling it an illness or something that cannot be helped. I believe that it can be helped and that when you make the wrong choice and bring harm to others, then you should pay the price.

Holland: Instead, you must acknowledge that they are mentally ABnormal and look to see what can be done about that.


What I acknowledge is that what these folks do is wrong and that they do so with full knowledge that it is wrong.

Francis Holland said...

Anonymous, you said:
"People are HIV who knowingly have unprotected sex with others are tried and jailed in this country."

Of course you're right about this, but they are also treated for HIV, because to refuse them medical care in prison would probably constitute cruel and unusual punishment and violate international standards of human rights.

Likewise, to refuse prisoners treatment for extreme color-aroused disorder (and then turn them back out on the streets undiagnosed and untreated) serves neither the purposes of the prisoners nor the purposes of society.

It's apparent to me now, Anonymous, that you are a very moralistic person. I'm not saying that that is necessarily bad, but I think it should really be tempered with a willingness to see where science and treatment for illness enter into the equation.

If your child goes where he has been ordered not to go, and then he breaks his leg there, you may feel a need to punish the child. But you should also get medical treatment for his broken leg. Both approaches may be appropriate, but punishment without treatment clearly is not appropriate. In fact, it would be illegal and immoral.

Anonymous said...

Holland: If your child goes where he has been ordered not to go, and then he breaks his leg there, you may feel a need to punish the child. But you should also get medical treatment for his broken leg. Both approaches may be appropriate, but punishment without treatment clearly is not appropriate. In fact, it would be illegal and immoral.

A broken leg clearly constitutes a physical condition that requires medical intervention. Whereas hatred of a person due to his or her skin color does not. If you are going to apply that criteria to these police officers, you would have to put the whole white population worldwide into "treatment". Somehow, I don't see that happening.

Holland: Of course you're right about this, but they are also treated for HIV, because to refuse them medical care in prison would probably constitute cruel and unusual punishment and violate international standards of human rights.


I don't care if they get treatment while in prison. The important thing is that they do get prison and are taken out of society. Now with your approach, these folks would just get hospital time and a lecture on why what they did was wrong. It is in one ear and out the other. These folks don't like people; they want to kill. It's a condition of the heart, not of the head.

Holland: It's apparent to me now, Anonymous, that you are a very moralistic person. I'm not saying that that is necessarily bad, but I think it should really be tempered with a willingness to see where science and treatment for illness enter into the equation.


I'm glad that you don't see anything wrong with morals. I hope that you have some. And just because you or someone has concocted some cocka mamie theory about what is wrong with people who do stuff like what this cop did to this boy does not make it a "scientific approach". Now jail is a deterrent that everyone understands. If they want help for what ails them, let them ask for it. If they don't ask, that is a sure indication that they don't believe that they have a problem, much less want help for it.

You still haven't answered my question: You don't mean to say that this theory could be applied to any racist who injures or kills someone based on color arousal"? It's a simple enough question.

There is a theory that poverty lead to crime. So are we to put all poor people into therapy to prevent them from committing crimes. There is a theory about bored upper middle class white women who go into shopping malls and shoplift things that they can just as easily afford to buy. Are we to go around and indiscriminantly put all white upper middle class white women into therapy.
Policemen and women, like the rest of us, have views that are shaped laregly by the communities they grew up and lived in. So, if that community has the same bias and prejudice, do we put the entire community into therapy? If eradication of this problem is really your goal; then why not put everybody into therapy.

Francis Holland said...

"These folks don't like people; they want to kill. It's a condition of the heart, not of the head."

I think you know intellectually that there are no cognitive/emotional conditions that reside "in the heart." The brain is the locus of all that we think and feel, not "the heart." Everything that we think and feel is a "mental condition," the only doubt being whether it is a "normal and functional" mental condition or an "abnormal and dysfunctional" mental condition.

"If eradication of this problem is really your goal; then why not put everybody into therapy."

Not everybody kills someone else because of color-aroused ideation, emotion and behavior (what you would call "racism.") In fact, not everyone is in danger of killing or maiming someone else, or even discriminating against them. I propose that we take an epidemiological approach, develop ways to determine who is at the most risk of behaving in the ways, and then offer treatment BEFORE they kill others. Often, it is quite easy to tell who is at risk, because the go around calling others foul color-aroused names, even when they are at work and their job descriptions make this behavior a firing offense.

Even the staunchest morals can admit reasonable ways of preventing a problem rather than only punishing it once it has occurred, while ignoring opportunities to prevent it from occurring in the first place.

That's why instead of merely having laws that forbid engaging in head-on collision, we paint dividing lines on roads and even put up guard rails that separate drivers from oncoming traffic. I'm all in favor of punishing people who intentionally cause head-on collisions, but it is also worth studying other reasons why those accidents occur and trying to prevent them.

Since no diagnosis and treatment is now offered for people who hate others, you have no basis for your prediction that they would universally refuse such help.

You said, "If eradication of this problem is really your goal; then why not put everybody into therapy?"

Diabetes is a very pervasive problem and doctors offer treatment to everybody who has diabetes, if they are willing to receive it and pay for it. We should likewise OFFER treatment to everyone who hates their fellows based on skin-color. That's how medicine works. Treatment is offered to EVERYONE who has a problem, and diagnosis is offered to everyone who believes they MIGHT have a problem, regardless of how many people that is.

We do not say, "vulnerability to MMR (measles/mumps/rubella) is universal and therefore we ought not try to diagnose and treat it at all." Rather, we say, it us universal and therefore we need a universal strategy for prevention and treatment.

Everybody who lives in a society where extreme color-aroused disorder is prevalent is may be potentially at risk, and everyone who has or might commit violent acts as a result deserves our attention. I hope that answers your question about the scope of my concern.

Anonymous said...

Holland: I think you know intellectually that there are no cognitive/emotional conditions that reside "in the heart." The brain is the locus of all that we think and feel, not "the heart." Everything that we think and feel is a "mental condition," the only doubt being whether it is a "normal and functional" mental condition or an "abnormal and dysfunctional" mental condition.

And there will be plenty of racists who argue that you are the illogical one. They don't see the way that they feel or think about people of color as problematic or abnormal.

Holland: Not everybody kills someone else because of color-aroused ideation, emotion and behavior (what you would call "racism.") In fact, not everyone is in danger of killing or maiming someone else, or even discriminating against them. I propose that we take an epidemiological approach, develop ways to determine who is at the most risk of behaving in the ways, and then offer treatment BEFORE they kill others. Often, it is quite easy to tell who is at risk, because the go around calling others foul color-aroused names, even when they are at work and their job descriptions make this behavior a firing offense.


Good luck.

Holland: Diabetes is a very pervasive problem and doctors offer treatment to everybody who has diabetes, if they are willing to receive it and pay for it. We should likewise OFFER treatment to everyone who hates their fellows based on skin-color. That's how medicine works. Treatment is offered to EVERYONE who has a problem, and diagnosis is offered to everyone who believes they MIGHT have a problem, regardless of how many people that is.

Tell me Holland, what happens when these jokers go out and kill someone after having received this therapy. What then? I eagerly await your answer on this one.

Holland: We do not say, "vulnerability to MMR (measles/mumps/rubella) is universal and therefore we ought not try to diagnose and treat it at all." Rather, we say, it us universal and therefore we need a universal strategy for prevention and treatment.

Everybody who lives in a society where extreme color-aroused disorder is prevalent is may be potentially at risk, and everyone who has or might commit violent acts as a result deserves our attention. I hope that answers your question about the scope of my concern.


You keep trying to make this behaviour an illness. I'm sorry it is not. My concern is the effect that this "approach" for lack of a better word, would have on criminal prosecution of hate crimes. All the offender has to do is plead not guilty by reason of mental defect, after all, you have just provided them with one - color arousal aggression - a they get more therapy and no real hard time. I don't like the idea. I think that it is a pile of crap.

People should be responsible for their actions. If you decide to kill someone for any reason other than self defense or defense of other, you should go to jail. Period. Pedophiles get treatment for their "problem" while incarcerated; but not even you can argue that many of them don't re-offend when they are released. The treatment didn't work. So Mr. Holland, what do you do when the "treatment" doesn't work?

Francis Holland said...

What do we do when treatment for alcholism and depression doesn't work? We accept that because our knowledge and humanity are imperfect, our treatments are often imperfectly successful as well. But, if we are fifty percent successful then we have prevented untold human suffering and we can pat ourselves on the back and try to do better next time.

Anonymous said...

Pilpul is the term for esoteric, psuedo-metaphysical Talmudic arguments, when a simple recognition of fact stares one in the face.

How does one explain the brutality of Jamaican Police, who are 99.999999% black in re black boys? Is that some sort of 'Extreme Color-Aroused Disorder'?

Your argument is pilpul.

Anonymous said...

Holland: What do we do when treatment for alcholism and depression doesn't work?

Answer: Well, if the alcoholic or depressed person committs a crime, we put them in jail.

Francis Holland said...

I can see now that I will never be able to convince you that punishment and treatment are complimentary solutions rather than mutually exclusive solutions.

The question is, "is there sufficient political will and is it practically possible in white America to solve the problem completely through punishment after the fact, or will it also be necessary to increase screening, diagnosis and treatment for those with color-aroused disorder?" I submit to you that color-aroused disorder will NEVER be completely eradicated with a program that ONLY punishes offenders when they have reached the point of committing color-aroused crimes.

Even if all color-aroused crimes could be eradicated through punishment, the society would remain toxic to Black people because color-aroused discrimination and antagonisms that cannot be addressed under the criminal laws would remain pervasive. So, your "solution" is really no solution at all.

Anonymous said...

Holland: Even if all color-aroused crimes could be eradicated through punishment, the society would remain toxic to Black people because color-aroused discrimination and antagonisms that cannot be addressed under the criminal laws would remain pervasive. So, your "solution" is really no solution at all.

Response: Last time I looked, discrimination in employment, housing, public accomadation was against the law. Secondly, if you eliminate color aroused aggression through the law, I would argue that the society would not be toxic to black people because the problem, color aroused aggression as you define it, would be gone. You said so yourself.

Unknown said...

Actually would like to know the evidence against the convicted....I know if I was being held at gunpoint (when I have no weapon) I would take the gun from him and shoot him twice...then realizing after fight or flight(instinct) of what transpired and where I was at I would also shoot out the window and try to escape...after all your stuck in a building with corrupt people that are willing to point guns threaten /beat/frame and shoot unarmed people???....this article is bogus I bet the police report is bogus..... everything thing Iv ever jumped off of Iv Always rolled AND WATCHED THE FACE AND NUTS!....I BET HE WAS BEING BEAT BEFORE he shot the cop and his instincts kicked in and he killed the guy out of self defense and then ran....you cant blame or convict someone because of their human instincts of self preservation

Also I'd like to point out I only know what this article has told me I don't know the evidence or anything more than this....so if he did stab the lady that's cool he's doing life....but I wonder what the cops were doing to make someone want to shoot a cop INSIDE of a police station and then of course after he killed the cop he's definitely guilty of killing the woman....I personally think that the official report indicated in the story here holds reasonable doubt on the convicteds status of guilty and definitely put the officers and officials who handled the matters credibility in doubt

I would also like to point out I am I high rank kenpo student of 17 years and those injury's are NOT consistent of a fall they are consistent with direct repeat strikes I demand this individual be given a retrial on a federal level.....only if the poor bastard was O.J....then he MIGHT get a fair trial this is obviously a corrupt case in my opinion ....will actual justice(due process) ever actually move past a blog...I doubt it