I did not entirely keep the original title (verbatim: '"I ATE TOO MANY DRUGS": ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!") and instead edited it to explain what this is about, hopefully that's okay :)
"I ain't do no drugs" acceptable english to this author
"I ate too many drugs" something nobody says according to this author.
I have spent time in drug harm reduction. The phrase "I ate too many drugs" I have heard more than once. Especially in online drug communities
This author tries really hard to prove that he didn't say "I ate too many drugs" to the point of absurdity. Who knows what he said? Nobody really. There isn't a reason to conjure reasons to pidgenhole a dead man's words to fit a narrative
Especially considering one of the two things isnt even factual if you read the autopsy. Floyd definitely was incredibly intoxicated
Loads of results on both Google and DuckDuckGo. But they all seem to reference the alleged George Floyd quote, so meh. Strangely, limiting the search by date doesn't work for me on either Google or DuckDuckGo: Limiting the search to before May 24, 2020 still shows tons of obviously current news sites and tweets. This is surprisingly useless.
I have literally never heard anyone say "I ate too many drugs".
Also, even if Floyd said that, he did not deserve to be killed. In this position the police literally have guns and tasers. They have the physical and tactical advantage over a "intoxicated" person. To then kill the person they're supposed to detain is incompetence at best (unlikely), and malice at worst (much more likely).
Many people (on Twitter) are suggesting exactly that. They say "see, he was an erratic intoxicated drug addict, he didn't die because of the police officer. He died because of an overdose."
Death as a consequence from a self-inflicted drug overdose isn't a question of morals. The fentanyl surely doesn't care if the user is black and underprivileged or not.
Besides that, Floyd almost killed himself with an overdose of opioids a month earlier. This was cofirmed by his partner with the telling nickname "Momma".[1]
Also there is the bodycam footage from 2019 during which Floyd cadmitted he swallowed his stash of drugs to hide them from the cops. Suffering from an overdose once more.[2]
New account coming in to explain what a murder victim may or may not have said and whether or not he was on something. Devil's advocate? Does it matter whether he was under the influence? Is that an offense punishable by summary curbside execution through suffocation?
What's your angle? What's your actual opinion on the case?
> This author tries really hard to prove that he didn't say "I ate too many drugs" to the point of absurdity. Who knows what he said? Nobody really. There isn't a reason to conjure reasons to pidgenhole a dead man's words to fit a narrative
Yeah, I don't think anybody can reasonably interpret exactly what Floyd said under the influence of drugs, given the quality of the video. Hearing it two different times I came to two different conclusions, depending on the setup following up the clip. Many people I've asked have heard it both ways too - it's simply too borderline.
> Especially considering one of the two things isnt even factual if you read the autopsy. Floyd definitely was incredibly intoxicated
Exactly. I think the number was something like four times the lethal amount and there is video evidence that he was foaming at the mouth.
In any case, if he said "I ain't do no drugs", it was clearly a lie given the drug dealer in his car (refusing to be a witness) and the high levels of drugs found in his bloodstream - the same type that almost killed him previously. If he said "I ate too many drugs", then it's just an admittance of the state he was clearly in from the evidence seen so far. In any case, I don't see how it helps the prosecution in the Floyd trial.
I'm going to wait out for more evidence of course. In any case, I will be annoyed if after having had the opportunity to present all available evidence and an independent jury has reviewed it - if there are violent protests/riots in reaction to whatever the verdict is.
So a man, while he is being crushed by police, will suddenly think "Wow, my head is spinning, it must have been all those drugs I ate." and then verbalise the thought? Or was he denying the rationalisation used for his suffucation?
I think context matters here a lot, and occams razor suggests that a man being attacked by police officers because he is supposedly on drugs will deny the drug taking, rather than invent a whole new category of problem for himself.
OK, my mistake. But let's review that context - when faced with police officers is an offender going to increase their culpability and add a new culpability into the mix or are they going to seek to keep their punishment exposure to a minimum?
"I ate too" vs "I ain't do"....
The linguist actually has a point here. It is more likely the second option, again, because to assume the first is to imagine a new entity (in this case, a separate rationalisation outside of the context of the interaction).
As to why you might be seeking to dispute such a moot point (as the question of the case isn't whether Floyd was intoxiated)... I leave that as a problem for the reader.
The article talks about the plausibility according to linguistics while entirely ignoring the reality according to toxicology.
Occam's razor suggests that he said "I ate too many drugs" because that is the logical thing for someone to say if they were panicking that they overdosed
I disagree. I think a simpler explanation is that someone being arrested would continue to deny having done anything illegal. While it may be true that he "ate too many drugs", and it's not impossible that he would suddenly speak the truth, it's far from "logical" to spontaneously confess an illegal act to an arresting officer. Even if Occam suggests preferring the simplest explanation, logic would suggest preferring the self-interested explanation, even if this is a lie.
Responding to your other comment here to keep things compact, I also disagree with your statement that the author of the article believes "I ain't do no drugs" is acceptable English. What he claims, apparently as an expert, is that the grammar of this phrase fits a standard pattern in the particular dialect known as African American English (AAE). Given the relatively flawless academic English of the article, I'm almost certain the author distinguishes what is standard in AAE from what is acceptable in (unmodified) English.
That said, your personal experience of hearing the phrase "I ate too many drugs" is a very useful datapoint, and does undercut this part of the authors argument.
"I ain't done no drugs" or "I ain't doin ne drugs" are still uncompelling. People, especially those used to constant policing, aren't so afraid of the them that they wouldn't tell them they needed medical help.
When you're used to the police, you behave a certain way around them, but it's not fear of authority. There's wariness, but you know what the police, at least the ones you know, are there for and what they do. It's not just blind fear and animosity.
Wealthy people are worried about their credit and what probation would mean for their reputations and careers and would do anything to avoid engaging with the court and criminal justice systems. When you have no expectation of generational wealth, when engagement with the system is the norm and none of this is new to you, your family, or anyone you know, you don't worry about maintaining plausible deniability or not giving police evidence. You're in, your out, that's life.
I don't think anyone who doesn't already understand what that's like would be able to model how someone could possibly do something that wasn't in their best interest like tell a police officer they're about to OD.
If police seek out and engage black people violently at higher rates than they do people of other races, then it's natural that their deaths at the hands of black folks will be higher.
Someone fearing overdose isn't likely to lie, they would worry more about dying. Havingg drugs in your system isn't particularly illegal beyond a ticket for PI.
Occam's razor suggests that if you start panicking while you are being murdered by the police, what you're panicking about is being murdered by the police, not a sudden realization that you may have overdosed. In this context, denying drug use seems plausible to me.
As I understand it, the problem with that argument is that he started panicking and saying he couldn't breathe well before the police officer who supposedly murdered him took the action that supposedly did so.
At the beginning of the stop he disclosed several issues that would lead to extreme anxiety and panic attacks, which cause difficulty breathing, including previous trauma associated with police and claustrophobia. The fact that he also couldn't breathe before he was being suffocated by police doesn't mean he lied.
(And of course it goes without saying that even if he did lie, it doesn't justify being murdered).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_George_Floyd#Autops... references two autopsies, one of which 'found that Floyd's heart stopped while he was being restrained and that his death was a homicide caused by "cardiopulmonary arrest complicating law enforcement subdual, restraint, and neck compression"', the other 'found that Floyd's death was a homicide caused by asphyxia due to neck and back compression.'.
Badens "autopsy" lacked tissue samples and toxicology. So, it's based off incomplete data. What data was the celebrity autopsy based off of if they didn't have access to tissue or tox screens? Sounds like a high dollar guess to me.
That may be true, it's not for me to decide. Feel free to ping me when the authors are struck off for this abuse. Until then I'll assume that their autopsy is valid. Anyway, you're just confusing matters if you keep saying "the autopsy" without referencing the one you mean. I'm not even asking you to acknowledge the other one explicitly if you don't like it.
Also, you're splitting hairs about the exact way that George Floyd was killed by the police. Both autopsies ruled homicide. The only people interacting with him were police officers. According to both autopsies, the police therefore killed George Floyd. We do agree on this, right?
Thank you for this source. So the police killed George Floyd possibly without "criminal intent", but certainly through "one or more intentional, volitional, potentially harmful acts directed at the decedent", "committed by another person to cause fear, harm, or death". Sounds like a fair description of a baseline of what happened. Intent will have to be determined by the court.
I'm not sure why this is downvoted other than maybe because of the assertion that the statement is irrelevant? As I understand it, you're right on that.
Although it makes me wonder - if he DID have a lethal dose, why are they even bothering with this? Seems like it would weaken the case because it's such flimsy evidence.
Let's assume he had overdosed to an extreme degree.
In that case, he should have been very easy to control, and the ambulance crew should have been able to treat him.
No matter how you slice it, kneeling on his neck as he cries for his mom and pisses himself, while preventing the medical professionals from helping him, led to his death.
You can't shift culpability for the actions that we saw on video. If anything, the drug factor makes it more egregious how Floyd was treated.
I would like to address just one point made in this article. The author claims that the phrase, "I ate too many drugs," is
> highly implausible
I disagree. In numerous parts of the US the act of "eating drugs," would typically refer to taking a pharmaceutical pill with recreational value, taking an illicit "ecstasy" pill, or orally ingesting amphetamine/methamphetamine. I've heard this phrase used in the northeast, the south, and the south-east, in both privileged communities and inner-city neighborhoods.
This [0] is a recent thread from Quora demonstrating the commonality of "eating meth" in drug-user parlance. Meth was one of the drugs found in Floyd's system, at amounts that suggest he had recently consumed it.
I don't get the point of either argument. Whether he said he took too many drugs or not, you shouldn't kneel on someone's neck, chest, or back for longer than it takes to get restraints in place. If someone's so fucking high that they can't explain what's happening, they need to be restrained and transported to the hospital. If someone's obviously high and combative, they need to be restrained and transported to the hospital. No one deserves to die because they abuse drugs. And even if they did, that's the judicial system's call to make. I hope that the police involved did not intend to kill him. But they behaved in a way that they should have known would lead to his death.
The only thing that the argument clarifies is whether George Floyd told the truth or a lie at that particular moment in time. The drugs were in his system, and the amount of fentanyl in particular was not an insignificant dose, even for a person of his body weight.
> No one deserves to die because they abuse drugs.
Perhaps, but people do die due to their drug abuse often - whether through first- or higher-order outcomes of those choices. If someone ODs on drugs and dies, I'm not sure saying they "deserved," it would be appropriate or fair, but it would not incorrect to state that their own actions did not lead directly to the fatal outcome.
Is it appropriate or fair to force people to conduct themselves in such a way that arguably avoids a fatal outcome in the special case of drug abusers? What about in the case of self-defense or law enforcement?
I've watched the full unedited body cam footage. Cops approached Floyd in a running car, making his intoxication a significant public safety risk that could have led to injury/death. Especially after several viewings of the footage, there's no reason to believe that was not the origin of the heightened tensions and the anxieties that led to the chaotic police work carried out by Chauvin and his buddies.
I'll go ahead and disclose that I found myself in a similar situation after attempting suicide by overdose. I was hallucinating and making no sense, not following direction, and I've been told I was trying to break into other people's vehicles looking for my truck. The cops assumed I was on meth, which is fair. After not being able to get me to admit to it because I had no idea what was going on and had never done meth, they called an ambulance and sent me off with the EMTs. If those cops had behaved the way the ones involved in George Floyd's death had, I would be dead. Which, of course, was my original intention. But the job of the police is to keep people safe. Whether they want it or not. When someone is obviously having a medical issue, they need to call an ambulance immediately.
I am sorry, but as much as I support BLM I wish Elijah McClain[0] was the person we talked about. He was never in prison (unlike George Floyd) and he played the violin to cats in a shelter. Mr. McClain died from a police restraining while after being injected with ketamine, and he was a friggin saint.
>Paramedics were called and injected McClain with ketamine, but they incorrectly estimated his weight, giving him more than 1½ times the dose he should have received. He got 500 milligrams because they thought he weighed 220 pounds, but he weighed only 140 pounds and should have received 315 milligrams.
It is a matter of record that they injected him with 50% more than he ought to have received. As for your claim. It's not merely that this isn't true it isn't so far as I can discover even claimed by the police.
It's not even clear what you mean by the words "the prosecution" he didn't get tried for anything whatsoever by dint of being already dead because they screwed up and provably killed him.
I'll need to re-read it at some point with a fresh perspective, but after reading it just now I'd love if this could be required reading for anyone engaging in political arguments on the Internet. It puts into words what I've been trying to find a way to convey for a long time: there probably isn't a conspiracy and "they" probably aren't evil - it's all just emergent behavior in a system simply following the rules of information spread and human attention (also capitalism). No idea what to do about it, but it helps to keep this in mind.
Excuse me, but this is absolute nonsense. Did George Floyd deserve to die because he went to prison? (That too, prison in a society that specifically targets and incarcerates people of colour)? White media always character assassinates PoC in these situations; I'm sure if the McClain incident blew up, somebody would have found something negative about him.
The fact that you're more concerned about what white people will think about who's being talked about, instead of the fact that a black person was killed entirely without reason, shows me that you don't really "support BLM". MLK said the same back in the 60s, and nothing has really changed:
"First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom [...] the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; [...] who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action";"
Parks was considered the ideal plaintiff for a test case against city and state segregation laws, as she was seen as a responsible, mature woman with a good reputation. She was securely married and employed, was regarded as possessing a quiet and dignified demeanor, and was politically savvy. King said that Parks was regarded as "one of the finest citizens of Montgomery—not one of the finest Negro citizens, but one of the finest citizens of Montgomery"
Did only finest citizens have a right to sit wherever they wanted on the bus? No. Is it smart to run a test case like this with a person who is not going to be dragged down in character assassination? Yes.
> Parks was considered the ideal plaintiff for a test case against city and state segregation laws,
George Floyd wasn’t a test case. He wasn’t a selected volunteer to go have a racist murderer-in-uniform kneel on his neck so that legal action could be taken. So, you know, it “ain't the same ballpark, it ain't the same league, it ain't even the same f**in' sport.”
Actually, Rosa Parks was chosen by the black community because she was more respectable - the original black woman who stood up to segregation in seating was Claudette Colvin, but she was pregnant at the time and unmarried[0].
You have to remember, he did not just commit countless petty crimes, "something negative", he did an armed home invasion. It's hard to emphasize with someone like that and someone like that won't be missed by most people.
Its rather easy to emphasize with him. You have to breath. He has to breath. Try holding your breath until you absolutely can't do it any longer then imagine someone was keeping you from taking that breath. See trivial.
He wasn't killed while doing a home invasion or even because of it. He was wantonly senselessly murdered by someone who figured they could trivially get away with it by being deliberately smothered for over nine entire minutes when he was accused of passing a fake 20.
There can be no increase of justice obtained by unjust means, no decency obtained by indecent means, no peace in our streets obtained by unlawful violence by men who have no respect nor love for the law but kill under color of law and degrade and destroy the power of this essential institution to preserve this peace by their actions.
You say casually that we wont be missed by most but if we allow this behavior to continue we have a lot to lose and much to miss starting with peace. If the Derek Chauvins, trash in uniform, are allowed to dispense death penalties I cannot imagine why you believe they will reserve their wrath for the especially guilty. Something that ultimately we struggle to accurately judge when given the benefit of careful deliberation and extensive process.
There are many more worthy victims than Floyd but if we can't punish his killers for killing him slowly and deliberately I have little hope that they are future victims will receive justice.
Looking at his history, he was clearly someone who was constantly trying to turn his life around and move past the mistakes of his past and become rehabilitated; he actively spent time volunteering and checking himself into places to get help. That should be something that we aim to encourage in society. I'm sure a lot of people affected by the positive impact of his volunteering will miss him.
If white supremacists will start celebrating South Park tomorrow, or it will turn out the scenario authors there are white supremacists, would it instantly make everyone quoting South Park "blatant racists"?
Your comment seemed to imply that, which made me feel a strong revulsion.
> It's hard to emphasize with someone like that and someone like that won't be missed by most people.
It either isn’t for most people, or empathy with the victim isn’t necessary for people to see that he was murdered and the murderer should be punished. (I would hope both are true, but from civic standpoint, the latter is probably more important.)
> The Data for Progress poll asked respondents about another policing issue in the news: Derek Chauvin’s murder trial. Most respondents say he should be found guilty for his role in George Floyd’s death: 68 percent of people feel this way, including 91 percent of Democrats, 63 percent of independents, and 46 percent of Republicans.
> White media always character assassinates PoC in these situations
The media has consistently supported the BLM narrative, refusing to so much as consider white victims of police brutality or explore other factors (e.g., crime rates) which might have contributed to the disparity in killings.
BLM probably wouldn’t have gone far if it weren’t pushed by the whole of the media. Of course there was a time when the media was anti-black subtly or overtly, but the idea that the media is trying to impugn the character of black Americans in 2020 is beyond credible.
you're never going to get your "perfect case" to debate whether you want to empathize with a dead American or not
capital punishment has been abolished by the will of the people using their representatives in all of the states in question
extrajudicial capital punishment was never the will of the people, yet it slivers through the institution of the autonomous state concept with almost complete impunity
Denver/Aurora is very much talking about Elijah McClain still. The protests over his death last summer were impossible to not notice. The ongoing fallout in Aurora has rocked the city to it's core and many people have had careers ended over them (some may argue that it's not enough). Many local municipalities have made changes to laws and enforcement and the statehouse can be considered to be quite progressive, nationally speaking. The fallout from his death still is a large issue in local politics and the larger front range community.
I am unconvinced. His interpretation seems to require assuming a morphological error. The contrary hypothesis assumes an odd word choice. Among native speakers, odd word choices are far more common than morphological errors.
(Note: I only have a BA in linguistics and only took one class on American dialects. Unlike the OP, I am not an expert in AAVE.)
We are given the choice between two phrases that most seem to fit the audio. Both phrases are marked, i.e., not particularly common, and potentially indicative of an idiolect.
- I ate too many drugs.
- I ain't do any drugs.
"I ate too many drugs" is only marked in terms of word choice, not grammar. A different verb (e.g., "took") would be perfectly acceptable across a wide array of dialects. A further problem with OP's objection here is that people do sometimes use the verb "to eat" with regard to drugs.
On the other hand, I believe "I ain't do any drugs" is ungrammatical in AAVE, which requires negating both the verb and the noun phrase (cf. "I ain't do nothin" rather than "I ain't do anything").
So what's more plausible? That Floyd used a word in a way the OP is unfamiliar with? Or that Floyd - a native AAVE speaker - uttered a linear, clear, yet ungrammatical sentence?
> On the other hand, I believe "I ain't do any drugs" is ungrammatical in AAVE
But the OP says
> "I ain't do any drugs" is a normal, grammatical sentence in AAE
And you concede that the OP is an expert and you are not.
For what it’s worth, and it’s not much because I’m neither a linguist nor a native speaker of any kind of English, I consume a lot of content made in AAE and have friends who speak it, and I would not bat an eye at seeing or hearing ”I ain’t do any drugs”. I think your interpretation of the grammar is too strict.
Not proof either way, but searching for "I ain't do any drugs" and excluding floyd and chauvin gives like two dozen results on Google. Doing the same with "I ain't do no drugs" gives a few thousands, including song lyrics and memes.
My family speaks a related dialect (Southern Appalachian) , and I grew up in an area where many of my neighbors, teachers, and peers spoke AAVE (Charlotte). I can confidently say that you're misunderstanding the concept of double negation in dialects related to southern english.
Specifically: Double negation is not mandatory, it's emphatic.
There is nothing ungrammatical or confusing about saying "any" instead of "no" in that sentence. There is a slight difference in emphasis conveyed ("no drugs" emphasizes that the amount is none, and "any drugs" emphasizes the subject of "drugs"). It's also possible he just chose the the word "any" because he was trying to tailor his speech to a particular audience.
Another similar example from my family's dialect would be the use of "might could" in place of "could" to convey uncertainty. It's commonly used, it adds additional context, but it would not be incorrect, weird, or misunderstood to just say "could".
This is my natural manner of speech, and both sentences sound weird to me. The first, "I ate too many drugs," even sounds weird in standard English, situationally, because that would imply that there were a lot of different types of drugs eaten. I'd say "I ate too much drugs."
The second one of course sounds weird because the natural way to say it is "I ain't do no drugs." But the situation I could imagine saying it in is in reply to someone who just asked me if I had taken any drugs or if I were on any drugs. I might say "I ain't do any drugs" to be compliant, submissive, and clear - mirroring the words in the question.
This is the weirdest blog I've ever read, it makes sense that it's a relic from a stupid twitter war.
89 comments
[ 4.3 ms ] story [ 160 ms ] thread"I ate too many drugs" something nobody says according to this author.
I have spent time in drug harm reduction. The phrase "I ate too many drugs" I have heard more than once. Especially in online drug communities
This author tries really hard to prove that he didn't say "I ate too many drugs" to the point of absurdity. Who knows what he said? Nobody really. There isn't a reason to conjure reasons to pidgenhole a dead man's words to fit a narrative
Especially considering one of the two things isnt even factual if you read the autopsy. Floyd definitely was incredibly intoxicated
https://www.google.com/search?q=%22I+ate+too+many+drugs%22+-...
https://vidmax.com/video/103748-car-stopped-on-highway-drive...
Also, even if Floyd said that, he did not deserve to be killed. In this position the police literally have guns and tasers. They have the physical and tactical advantage over a "intoxicated" person. To then kill the person they're supposed to detain is incompetence at best (unlikely), and malice at worst (much more likely).
Nobody is suggesting anything remotely close to that.
Besides that, Floyd almost killed himself with an overdose of opioids a month earlier. This was cofirmed by his partner with the telling nickname "Momma".[1]
Also there is the bodycam footage from 2019 during which Floyd cadmitted he swallowed his stash of drugs to hide them from the cops. Suffering from an overdose once more.[2]
There appears to be a pattern.
[1]https://apnews.com/article/derek-chauvin-trial-day-4-live-up...
[2]https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-race-georgefloyd-idUS...
What's your angle? What's your actual opinion on the case?
Yeah, I don't think anybody can reasonably interpret exactly what Floyd said under the influence of drugs, given the quality of the video. Hearing it two different times I came to two different conclusions, depending on the setup following up the clip. Many people I've asked have heard it both ways too - it's simply too borderline.
> Especially considering one of the two things isnt even factual if you read the autopsy. Floyd definitely was incredibly intoxicated
Exactly. I think the number was something like four times the lethal amount and there is video evidence that he was foaming at the mouth.
In any case, if he said "I ain't do no drugs", it was clearly a lie given the drug dealer in his car (refusing to be a witness) and the high levels of drugs found in his bloodstream - the same type that almost killed him previously. If he said "I ate too many drugs", then it's just an admittance of the state he was clearly in from the evidence seen so far. In any case, I don't see how it helps the prosecution in the Floyd trial.
I'm going to wait out for more evidence of course. In any case, I will be annoyed if after having had the opportunity to present all available evidence and an independent jury has reviewed it - if there are violent protests/riots in reaction to whatever the verdict is.
I think context matters here a lot, and occams razor suggests that a man being attacked by police officers because he is supposedly on drugs will deny the drug taking, rather than invent a whole new category of problem for himself.
Also have you seen the footage from the store? There is no alleged about his intoxication level.
"I ate too" vs "I ain't do"....
The linguist actually has a point here. It is more likely the second option, again, because to assume the first is to imagine a new entity (in this case, a separate rationalisation outside of the context of the interaction).
As to why you might be seeking to dispute such a moot point (as the question of the case isn't whether Floyd was intoxiated)... I leave that as a problem for the reader.
https://www.hennepin.us/-/media/hennepinus/residents/public-...
Occam's razor suggests that he said "I ate too many drugs" because that is the logical thing for someone to say if they were panicking that they overdosed
Responding to your other comment here to keep things compact, I also disagree with your statement that the author of the article believes "I ain't do no drugs" is acceptable English. What he claims, apparently as an expert, is that the grammar of this phrase fits a standard pattern in the particular dialect known as African American English (AAE). Given the relatively flawless academic English of the article, I'm almost certain the author distinguishes what is standard in AAE from what is acceptable in (unmodified) English.
That said, your personal experience of hearing the phrase "I ate too many drugs" is a very useful datapoint, and does undercut this part of the authors argument.
When you're used to the police, you behave a certain way around them, but it's not fear of authority. There's wariness, but you know what the police, at least the ones you know, are there for and what they do. It's not just blind fear and animosity.
Wealthy people are worried about their credit and what probation would mean for their reputations and careers and would do anything to avoid engaging with the court and criminal justice systems. When you have no expectation of generational wealth, when engagement with the system is the norm and none of this is new to you, your family, or anyone you know, you don't worry about maintaining plausible deniability or not giving police evidence. You're in, your out, that's life.
I don't think anyone who doesn't already understand what that's like would be able to model how someone could possibly do something that wasn't in their best interest like tell a police officer they're about to OD.
It’s entirely plausible someone would deny doing something illegal while being placed under arrest.
If you know Black men routinely kill police officers, any reasonable person would be afraid of them.
Also, seems that over half of police deaths are accidents: https://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/fbi-release...
So maybe try to back up your racism in facts next time?
(And of course it goes without saying that even if he did lie, it doesn't justify being murdered).
Ignoring toxicology is an abuse of medicine.
That may be true, it's not for me to decide. Feel free to ping me when the authors are struck off for this abuse. Until then I'll assume that their autopsy is valid. Anyway, you're just confusing matters if you keep saying "the autopsy" without referencing the one you mean. I'm not even asking you to acknowledge the other one explicitly if you don't like it.
Also, you're splitting hairs about the exact way that George Floyd was killed by the police. Both autopsies ruled homicide. The only people interacting with him were police officers. According to both autopsies, the police therefore killed George Floyd. We do agree on this, right?
And re: the autopsy listing as homicide https://forensicresources.org/2019/homicide-manner-of-death-...
Thank you for this source. So the police killed George Floyd possibly without "criminal intent", but certainly through "one or more intentional, volitional, potentially harmful acts directed at the decedent", "committed by another person to cause fear, harm, or death". Sounds like a fair description of a baseline of what happened. Intent will have to be determined by the court.
Although it makes me wonder - if he DID have a lethal dose, why are they even bothering with this? Seems like it would weaken the case because it's such flimsy evidence.
Also, the word "fatal" implies causality but a fentanyl user can take a dose that would kill a non-user, and survive.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/08/us/george-floyd-fentanyl-...
In that case, he should have been very easy to control, and the ambulance crew should have been able to treat him.
No matter how you slice it, kneeling on his neck as he cries for his mom and pisses himself, while preventing the medical professionals from helping him, led to his death.
You can't shift culpability for the actions that we saw on video. If anything, the drug factor makes it more egregious how Floyd was treated.
> highly implausible
I disagree. In numerous parts of the US the act of "eating drugs," would typically refer to taking a pharmaceutical pill with recreational value, taking an illicit "ecstasy" pill, or orally ingesting amphetamine/methamphetamine. I've heard this phrase used in the northeast, the south, and the south-east, in both privileged communities and inner-city neighborhoods.
This [0] is a recent thread from Quora demonstrating the commonality of "eating meth" in drug-user parlance. Meth was one of the drugs found in Floyd's system, at amounts that suggest he had recently consumed it.
[0] https://www.quora.com/Does-eating-meth-get-you-just-as-high-...
Anecdota of me and all, but eating drugs was normal and understandable parlance to my friend group growing up.
> No one deserves to die because they abuse drugs.
Perhaps, but people do die due to their drug abuse often - whether through first- or higher-order outcomes of those choices. If someone ODs on drugs and dies, I'm not sure saying they "deserved," it would be appropriate or fair, but it would not incorrect to state that their own actions did not lead directly to the fatal outcome.
Is it appropriate or fair to force people to conduct themselves in such a way that arguably avoids a fatal outcome in the special case of drug abusers? What about in the case of self-defense or law enforcement?
I've watched the full unedited body cam footage. Cops approached Floyd in a running car, making his intoxication a significant public safety risk that could have led to injury/death. Especially after several viewings of the footage, there's no reason to believe that was not the origin of the heightened tensions and the anxieties that led to the chaotic police work carried out by Chauvin and his buddies.
When is it appropriate to say somebody deserves something?
When their own voluntary actions led to that outcome?
[0]: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53182122
>Paramedics were called and injected McClain with ketamine, but they incorrectly estimated his weight, giving him more than 1½ times the dose he should have received. He got 500 milligrams because they thought he weighed 220 pounds, but he weighed only 140 pounds and should have received 315 milligrams.
https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-08-22/ketami...
It is a matter of record that they injected him with 50% more than he ought to have received. As for your claim. It's not merely that this isn't true it isn't so far as I can discover even claimed by the police.
It's not even clear what you mean by the words "the prosecution" he didn't get tried for anything whatsoever by dint of being already dead because they screwed up and provably killed him.
Thanks for the link!
The fact that you're more concerned about what white people will think about who's being talked about, instead of the fact that a black person was killed entirely without reason, shows me that you don't really "support BLM". MLK said the same back in the 60s, and nothing has really changed:
"First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom [...] the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; [...] who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action";"
https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham....
Parks was considered the ideal plaintiff for a test case against city and state segregation laws, as she was seen as a responsible, mature woman with a good reputation. She was securely married and employed, was regarded as possessing a quiet and dignified demeanor, and was politically savvy. King said that Parks was regarded as "one of the finest citizens of Montgomery—not one of the finest Negro citizens, but one of the finest citizens of Montgomery"
Did only finest citizens have a right to sit wherever they wanted on the bus? No. Is it smart to run a test case like this with a person who is not going to be dragged down in character assassination? Yes.
George Floyd wasn’t a test case. He wasn’t a selected volunteer to go have a racist murderer-in-uniform kneel on his neck so that legal action could be taken. So, you know, it “ain't the same ballpark, it ain't the same league, it ain't even the same f**in' sport.”
[0]: https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-43171799
He wasn't killed while doing a home invasion or even because of it. He was wantonly senselessly murdered by someone who figured they could trivially get away with it by being deliberately smothered for over nine entire minutes when he was accused of passing a fake 20.
There can be no increase of justice obtained by unjust means, no decency obtained by indecent means, no peace in our streets obtained by unlawful violence by men who have no respect nor love for the law but kill under color of law and degrade and destroy the power of this essential institution to preserve this peace by their actions.
You say casually that we wont be missed by most but if we allow this behavior to continue we have a lot to lose and much to miss starting with peace. If the Derek Chauvins, trash in uniform, are allowed to dispense death penalties I cannot imagine why you believe they will reserve their wrath for the especially guilty. Something that ultimately we struggle to accurately judge when given the benefit of careful deliberation and extensive process.
There are many more worthy victims than Floyd but if we can't punish his killers for killing him slowly and deliberately I have little hope that they are future victims will receive justice.
Your comment seemed to imply that, which made me feel a strong revulsion.
It either isn’t for most people, or empathy with the victim isn’t necessary for people to see that he was murdered and the murderer should be punished. (I would hope both are true, but from civic standpoint, the latter is probably more important.)
https://www.vox.com/22372342/police-reform-derek-chauvin
> The Data for Progress poll asked respondents about another policing issue in the news: Derek Chauvin’s murder trial. Most respondents say he should be found guilty for his role in George Floyd’s death: 68 percent of people feel this way, including 91 percent of Democrats, 63 percent of independents, and 46 percent of Republicans.
The media has consistently supported the BLM narrative, refusing to so much as consider white victims of police brutality or explore other factors (e.g., crime rates) which might have contributed to the disparity in killings.
BLM probably wouldn’t have gone far if it weren’t pushed by the whole of the media. Of course there was a time when the media was anti-black subtly or overtly, but the idea that the media is trying to impugn the character of black Americans in 2020 is beyond credible.
capital punishment has been abolished by the will of the people using their representatives in all of the states in question
extrajudicial capital punishment was never the will of the people, yet it slivers through the institution of the autonomous state concept with almost complete impunity
what you're wishing for is an absurdity
Instead of trying to deflect and distract, what do you think about the Floyd case and this particular article?
https://www.denverpost.com/tag/elijah-mcclain/
(Note: I only have a BA in linguistics and only took one class on American dialects. Unlike the OP, I am not an expert in AAVE.)
We are given the choice between two phrases that most seem to fit the audio. Both phrases are marked, i.e., not particularly common, and potentially indicative of an idiolect.
- I ate too many drugs.
- I ain't do any drugs.
"I ate too many drugs" is only marked in terms of word choice, not grammar. A different verb (e.g., "took") would be perfectly acceptable across a wide array of dialects. A further problem with OP's objection here is that people do sometimes use the verb "to eat" with regard to drugs.
On the other hand, I believe "I ain't do any drugs" is ungrammatical in AAVE, which requires negating both the verb and the noun phrase (cf. "I ain't do nothin" rather than "I ain't do anything").
So what's more plausible? That Floyd used a word in a way the OP is unfamiliar with? Or that Floyd - a native AAVE speaker - uttered a linear, clear, yet ungrammatical sentence?
> On the other hand, I believe "I ain't do any drugs" is ungrammatical in AAVE
But the OP says
> "I ain't do any drugs" is a normal, grammatical sentence in AAE
And you concede that the OP is an expert and you are not.
For what it’s worth, and it’s not much because I’m neither a linguist nor a native speaker of any kind of English, I consume a lot of content made in AAE and have friends who speak it, and I would not bat an eye at seeing or hearing ”I ain’t do any drugs”. I think your interpretation of the grammar is too strict.
Specifically: Double negation is not mandatory, it's emphatic.
There is nothing ungrammatical or confusing about saying "any" instead of "no" in that sentence. There is a slight difference in emphasis conveyed ("no drugs" emphasizes that the amount is none, and "any drugs" emphasizes the subject of "drugs"). It's also possible he just chose the the word "any" because he was trying to tailor his speech to a particular audience.
Another similar example from my family's dialect would be the use of "might could" in place of "could" to convey uncertainty. It's commonly used, it adds additional context, but it would not be incorrect, weird, or misunderstood to just say "could".
The second one of course sounds weird because the natural way to say it is "I ain't do no drugs." But the situation I could imagine saying it in is in reply to someone who just asked me if I had taken any drugs or if I were on any drugs. I might say "I ain't do any drugs" to be compliant, submissive, and clear - mirroring the words in the question.
This is the weirdest blog I've ever read, it makes sense that it's a relic from a stupid twitter war.