With all the negative stories surrounding the police these days, it’s nice to see something positive. Alabama police officer William Stacy got called to a Dollar General for a shoplifting charge. Instead of finding someone stealing makeup or jewelry, Helen Johnson was caught stealing eggs. She had placed a few in her pockets and they cracked as she began to leave. Instead of charging Johnson, Stacy bought her the eggs. The incident was caught on video and has since gone viral and donations have poured into the police station to aid Johnson, her two daughters, her niece, and her two young grandkids:
“There’s a real trust issue between law enforcement and citizens right now, but hopefully this shows we are not robots who just want to arrest people,” Stacy said. “We have hearts—you have to have a big heart and clear conscience of mind to do this job.”
It’s good to see people’s humanity shine through.
Team Blackness also discussed Pope Francis’s involvement in facilitating relations with Cuba, the man who killed the bill to combat suicide among veterans, and, well, the fact that people are even more racist.
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satby
Tom Coburn is a despicable POS who basically has opposed any measure to improve veterans benefits or to help active duty personnel because he opposes government spending no matter what. But he never turned down his sweet, sweet paychecks.
CONGRATULATIONS!
It’s frequently not the individual cop that’s the problem (although there sure seem to be a lot of them these days) but the entire system of policing that brings out the worst in everyone that has even incidental contact with it.
At any rate, Johnson is obviously a decent guy who did a really nice thing for someone who needed the help. Keeping the community orderly and safe instead of cracking heads and making busts. Isn’t that what cops were for in the first place?
Quaker in a Basement
Dollar General sells eggs? I learned something today.
Another Holocene Human
Wow. There are decent people in the deep South, it’s the political apparatus (owned by callous 1%ers and staffed with petty bourgeois running dogs) that is evil. Lots of fear.
As compared to the Midwest where there is less inequality, better infrastructure, more functional government, but segregation has reduced the degree of exposure (a step in desensitization, empathy) and allows some really freaky racist shit to grow.
This isn’t South apology though, you can clearly see from racial attitudes and exit polls that the white population in the South is holding a grudge against Black people and would rather fuck their own selves than raise every boat.
Yatsuno
@Quaker in a Basement: They do. The real question is would you want to eat said eggs?
Another Holocene Human
@Quaker in a Basement: Probably the best thing there. They have extremely questionable meats/sausages, milk, “cheese”, colored drinks that remind you of fruit juice, and Hungryman kind of frozen plastic food for latchkey kids and working people on overtime. Cheap now, pay it back in metformin later, lol.
Another Holocene Human
@Yatsuno: Yuck yuck, working poor have such downmarket food habits, guh-huh.
It’s AL, I’m sure she knows ppl with chickens but them eggs ain’t cheap because feed ain’t cheap, maybe with this petroleum bear market food costs will go down but don’t bet on it because we’ve fucked the climate.
The end.
Another Holocene Human
@satby: That describes at least a third of the GOP animals the fear freaks send to Congress, see them under “social dominators” in Altemeyer’s Authoritarians.
There is nowhere too low because they’re narcissists with shallow affect and don’t experience shame about stuff like that. They’re only capable of feeling sorry about themselves, like a really selfish child.
chopper
@Yatsuno:
they’re fine. i mean, they’re the same as standard low-grade supermarket eggs.
Betty Cracker
@Another Holocene Human:
I hear that theory bandied about here a lot, but it doesn’t square with my personal experience with fellow crackers, even among the most overtly racist knobs. Instead, I’ve heard criticisms of black folks for the same behavior said knobs indulge in, but with copious excuses about how the blacks’ troubles are caused by laziness / immorality whereas the knobs are just victims of bad luck, etc.
But I’ve never, not once, heard a white person say, “XYZ would benefit me or my family, but fuck it since it would also help black people,” or anything even remotely resembling that logic. Have you?
I mean, that might be the outcome of conservative politics — it keeps all poor people down. But I’m not convinced that the logic involved in those choices entails consciously or even unconsciously sacrificing themselves to spite black people. I’m not saying it never happens, just that I’ve never seen it.
Yatsuno
@chopper: Fair enough. TBH supermarket eggs aren’t that terrible. But knowing the quality of the other produce there it’s a concern. It would be nice to end the damn food deserts & get folks something that nourishes instead of just allows survival.
kc
.
Yes it is! Thanks for this story.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Betty Cracker:
I think there’s a disconnect that’s really hard to overcome — racist people see government programs as being set up to benefit black people no matter how many white people also benefit from them. Therefore, those programs are bad because they’re meant for Them.
It leads to weird conversations like the one I had with my parents one time where they were simultaneously denouncing Obamacare/government healthcare and then IN THE SAME BREATH praising the care my brother’s friend got from Medicaid when he had cancer. Because it was okay for a white guy to use Medicaid even though it wasn’t really meant to help him. Very bizarre.
HR Progressive
Without meaning to suggest that individual police officers or departments need to be buying everyone’s groceries for them who can’t afford them (that’s not their function), if this were the SOP for police departments around the country as opposed to beating the holy hell out of people who don’t deserve it – or worse – then perhaps there wouldn’t be “strained relationships” between communities and the police that are supposed to be protecting them.
This is a nice story. Full stop.
But it will take a lot more than one person doing one good deed to right the violent and lethal wrongs that have been unduly foisted upon citizens of this country.
ruemara
@Another Holocene Human: if you know how to cook, you can find healthy options at dollar general. Don’t spurn it. I’ve needed them for frozen veg, soy milk, flour and, yes, eggs.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@Yatsuno: Within the next twenty years, none of us are going to have the option to be too picky about our food anymore. At least one of the monocultures we depend on to feed us all – and our food animals – will fail as a result of a disease which can no longer be controlled.