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The best way to win as a black man against white cops:
Don't make it about race.
Also, being in the legal and moral right certainly helps.
This is the story of Afroman, a rapper most known for the hit single "Because I Got High". Then his house was raided by the sheriff's office of Adams County, Ohio, based off of... almost nothing, as far as I can tell.
They damaged his door, gate, and security cameras. They were looking for narcotics smuggling and kidnapping victims, but instead found a few blunts and unused pipes, and filed no charges. The repairs cost $20k, not a single cent of which was paid by the officers, who also kept $400 of his cash.
So Afroman did what anyone would do if the cops came and unjustifiably kicked down his door and paid nothing for it: He made songs making fun of the raid, complete with his own security camera footage of the cops. This led to the production of such classics like "Will You Help Me Repair My Door", "Why You Disconnecting My Video Camera", and "Lemon Pound Cake" (about the officer who was eyeing a rather delectable slice of lemon pound cake sitting on his countertop). And in a sane world, this would have been the end of it, and the raid and associated songs would have faded into obscurity.
So of course, the Adams County Sheriff's Department decided to do the dumbest thing possible: Sue Afroman.
Somehow, the case went to trial, with the deputies unironically arguing -- with a straight face -- that Afroman's videos seriously defamed their character and reputation, enough to cause $4 million in damages. This led to a hilarious examination where a female officer cries on the stand as "Licc'em Low Lisa" plays. Afroman played his defense straight, pointing out that the entire situation was caused by the cops fucking up and raiding his house for basically no reason, and that he has a First Amendment right to criticize and make fun of the police. Also, he was wearing a badass suit covered entirely in the American flag.
The jury sided with Afroman.
A couple culture war takeaways here. First, I think the biggest factor in his success was not playing the race card at all, even though he easily could have. Instead, he stood behind the freedoms that every American has, and demonstrated that this could have happened to anyone, black or white. Every American has the right to not have their privacy invaded or property damaged, and when that right is violated, they have the right to speak freely and mock those who violated their rights. The race card would have only served as a distraction at best and polarized the jury at worst.
Second, this verdict could have only happened in America, where there is a strong legal tradition of freedom of speech. If it had taken place in a European country like Germany, where calling the government "parasites" gets your house raided, he would have lost. Having a jury trial was also very important in this case, because the judge was almost blatantly biased in favor of the plaintiffs. If this case had taken place in a country like the United Kingdom, which is seriously considering scrapping most jury trials, he also would have lost. Turns out, jury trials are there to protect the people from corrupt judges.
The point is that though Americans may be stereotyped as being irrationally fearful of a tyrannical government, this fear is entirely justified, and this case is a good example of it. Or at least a good example of how small town cops abuse their power, which seems to happen an awful lot in small towns across America.
18:30 in clip is about when the crying starts. The whole thing is bizarre. They play an Afroman song on YouTube in court. There's a stripper and implied cunnilingus involved. In the actual courtroom, Afroman is wearing an American Flag suit.
This song seems clearly defamatory to me. The video makes it even worse with an actress pretending to be the cop going down on a woman and then acting out having sex with Afroman.
I can only conclude the jury hated cops enough and got caught up enough in the bogusness of the search warrant that they let him slide.
Or... everyone is just media literate enough now to find all of this funny? Rural Ohio juror grandmas watching the three strippers laying on his counter with their legs up, then the video of her actress having sex with him? "Yep, seems like non-defamatory free speech".
I'm pretty sure if I tried flirting with a barista, she shut me down, and I took revenge by hiring an actress that looked like her and then created a music video depicting her as being mega slutty and then myself having hate sex with her and her loving it and blasted it to millions of people I'd be found guilty of defamation. The jury is only okay with this because she was a cop involved in a bogus search of his house and not a barista.
They don't have to find it funny, lots of insults aren't funny or entertaining. They just have to find it not defamatory. Like one important question is would people who watched actually believe this was a serious accusation as opposed to making fun of her as an insult, like just calling someone a slut or a whore as many angry people do to women?
FIRE at least believes Afroman was within his rights here and they aren't motivated by cop hating.
Funny is not the operative part. They just have to get what he's trying to do. But it's more than just words though. There's 14 minutes of video of him trying to sexually humiliate her. My argument is further articulated here: https://www.themotte.org/post/3618/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/423167?context=8#context
Separately from that, what about this from my OP?
I'm positive I'd be found liable if I did this to a barista. But because it's a cop you could squint and argue maybe she's subject to more scrutiny but... how? She's a public official that executed a search warrant on his home, okay. Talk about how retarded she looked in his house. Talk about how crooked she is for being part of a search warrant that was bogus. Talk about her record as a cop. What does 14 minutes of soft core shot in amateur porn style video about what a raging whore she is have to do with any of that?
The difference is that the cop, acting in their official capacity as an agent of the state, performed what appears to be a bunch of unjust and legally actionable violations of his civil rights. Afroman is offering criticism to specifc agents of the state for their specific actions that in his eyes, warrant such criticism.
A barista doing her job for Starbucks is in both a socially and leglly different position. It has been long established in case law that defamation of public figures or state actors has a much higher bar than private figures.
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