There were large-scale protests around America all weekend following the release of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision on Friday. The protestors were mostly made up of unarmed women. My unscientific assessment was that the protests were generally 90-95% female. In Los Angeles, protesters shut down part of the 101 Freeway as they marched into downtown LA. The LAPD showed up and began punching, shoving, attacking, shaking and clubbing unarmed women. One of those women was actress Jodie Sweetin,
The LAPD just manhandled actress/activist Jodie Sweetin at a pro-choice protest pic.twitter.com/FMJNfjUMBW
— Fifty Shades of Whey (@davenewworld_2) June 26, 2022
The video is shocking. Sweetin really could have gotten hurt or broken something after the cop violently shoved her back. Sweetin released a statement:
Full House actress Jodie Sweetin is “OK,” a rep for the actress tells The Hollywood Reporter after video emerged this weekend showing Sweetin being pushed and falling to the ground during a protest in Los Angeles.
In the video, posted to social media by freelance photojournalist Mike Ade, Sweetin is shown close to a group of police officers. One of them appears to push her and she then appears to trip and fall onto the street. She quickly gets up and collects herself before the protesters chant “no justice, no peace.”
The protest took place on Saturday near the 101 Freeway.
In a statement, Sweetin said, “I’m extremely proud of the hundreds of people who showed up yesterday to exercise their First Amendment rights and take immediate action to peacefully protest the giant injustices that have been delivered from our Supreme Court. Our activism will continue until our voices are heard and action is taken. This will not deter us, we will continue fighting for our rights. We are not free until ALL of us are free.”
The LAPD said in a statement that it was “aware” of the video and that the officers were not letting the group get onto the freeway. “The force used will be evaluated against the LAPD’s policy and procedure,” the LAPD said. “As the nation continues to wrestle with the latest Supreme Court decision, the Los Angeles Police Department will continue to facilitate 1st Amendment rights, while protecting life and property.”
“While protecting life and property…” These women shut down a major freeway, that’s all. They inconvenienced drivers, they didn’t threaten anyone’s life or violently riot their way through brick-and-mortar stores. These women’s lives were put in danger by the LAPD. Heavily armed assailants, using the cover of authority, brutalized women and girls. The cops are also assaulting journalists covering their violence against female protestors.
Peaceful protestors marched from city hall towards a freeway on ramp where they were confronted by the LAPD. Officers quickly became physical with the weaponless crowd…@LATACO pic.twitter.com/KPZ9vDqLqH
— Mike Ade (@bellikemike) June 26, 2022
LAPD officers shoved me and jabbed @joeyneverjoe in the stomach with a baton, sending him to the ground. We both identified ourselves as press repeatedly. @LATCO pic.twitter.com/0FRTH7hlu3
— Lexis-Olivier Ray (@ShotOn35mm) June 25, 2022
Photos courtesy of Getty, Avalon Red.
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- Jodie Sweetin at the Hallmark TCA Press Tour Event, Private Residence, Los Angeles, CA 07-26-18,Image: 523412560, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: WORLD RIGHTS – Fee Payable Upon Reproduction – For queries contact Avalon.red – sales@avalon.red London: +44 (0) 20 7421 6000 Los Angeles: +1 (310) 822 0419 Berlin: +49 (0) 30 76 212 251 Madrid: +34 91 533 4289, Model Release: no, Credit line: Martin Sloan / Avalon
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- Jodie Sweetin at the Nickelodeon 2019 Kids Choice Awards at USC Galen Center. Los Angeles, California – Saturday March 23, 2019. Photograph: © Joe Sutter/PacificCoastNews. Los Angeles Office (PCN): +1 310.822.0419 UK Office (Avalon): +44 (0) 20 7421 6000 sales@pacificcoastnews.com,Image: 535671595, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: WORLD RIGHTS – Los Angeles Office (PCN): +1 310.822.0419 UK Office (Avalon): +44 (0) 20 7421 6000 sales@pacificcoastnews.com, Model Release: no, Credit line: Joe Sutter/PacificCoastNews / Avalon
Yeah they were not “not letting the group get onto the freeway.” She was pushed *into* the street. Yikes.
Men are so angry with us. No, not all men. But wow does the veneer of equality slip so easily. Won’t save a roomful of 8 yr olds but hell yes let’s brutalize unarmed protesters and journalists. This is only the beginning.
Yet and still they forget that without us, they would’ve never EXISTED and have a life! 👆
Such a well succinct statement.
Looks like the LAPD are still the same excessive use of force bastards they were since the beating of Rodney King.
LA Police are a bunch of teeny weeny peeny cowards who hate women and every minority group. These videos make me rage.
What do you expect from a militarized police force? The photo looks like they’re ready for heavy combat.
The US has a long history of brutalizing peaceful civil rights protesters. I’m not at all surprised the cops showed up ready for combat.
You can tell who is itching for a fight by who comes dressed for one!
i wonder if the implicit -or explicit- threat of tasking heavily armed police with what is essentially crowd-control (that a bunch of cops on bicycles could do just as well or maybe better, you know, deescalating) is an intended side-effect of the decade long militarization of the police in the name of the war on drugs. it’s a promise of violence, everyone can see it.
i’m just about ready to give up on men. yes, all men. they owe their life to women, are nourished by women, taken care of by women and as soon as they are grown, all they strive for, not even consciously oftentimes, is to control and to dominate the very gender they owe erverything to. however i think about it, i always arrive at the same conclusion. yes, violence is wrong, but unless men learn to fear women, the abuse of power will continue.
@anna When I was in 7th grade, our English teacher asked a question to the female part of the class after we read a book (I don’t remember which one now). She asked – paraphrased – ‘if tomorrow, power was reversed and women suddenly have power over men, they way men do over women right now, how would you treat the men?’. Every single female in that class – except me – answer with “I’d treat them like my equal.” I answered “I’d treat them they way they treat us now, so they know how it feels and never forget it” and everyone was horrified by my response. My teacher lectured me on the inappropriateness of revenge and vengeful thinking, and I was assigned an essay as homework that was essentially about how wrong I was. It did NOT help my reputation at school, but I honestly didn’t care. They started leaving me alone.
Now, years and years later, I’ve realized that I was right all along. There are studies proving that men (as a whole) do not see equality as actual equality. They only see equality when women are ‘less than.’ I don’t know if it’s nature or nurture at this point, and I honestly don’t care anymore. As a teen, I only stopped being bullied by males when I fought back – quite physically – and won. You are completely correct – men will only stop when they learn to fear women.
Damn, young Lynn was savage. Love it!
@LynnInTX You, my dear, are my hero!!
Yes. Also: I am LynnInTx’s new fan.
Lynn, my (male) partner and I greatly enjoyed your story. You rock.
Defund the police
Absolutely!!!!
That slogan has been weaponized by Republicans. I implore you to find another one.
x100000
Many countries in the world have police forces that are better screened, better trained, not actively misogynist and racist and don’t start ish for fun. Let’s have that. And FFS let’s let reality in, Nicole is right – that phrase has been hijacked by the GOP. It’s used to frighten people who might otherwise vote for Democrats.
Even Obama said that it isn’t a great term to convey what the movement wants
Reallocate funding to police
Lick the boots of the police!
Its pretty much all in that video– we have police to enact the decisions made by right wing and extremist politicians who are no longer representing the majority of Americans’ wishes or votes.
Any illusion of democracy should now be fully vaporized.
I just cannot get over how much this country hates women and this drive to oppress us and force us to have children is beyond frightening.
Misogyny is the water we swim in. The fish are invested in the water and accusing us dolphins and whales of making up the very concept of water.
Luckily in my analogy, fish can become mammals.
LAPD are notoriously violent and many are known to have ties to white supremacy groups like the Proud Boys and the KKK. This is going to be an ugly summer and a fight for our lives.
This video showing their brutality will become much more common as the marches continue. Yet, the scores of those who are behind the decline and decimation of Democracy in our country are treated with respect.
This is disgusting and f’ the police. The police have become fascist enforcers. I know there is nothing remotely funny about any of this but did anyone else think “how rude!”? I’m glad she’s ok.
That’s what they always have been.
Sadly, I think it’s just going to escalate as the summer temperatures rise.
This video … I almost burst out into tears at work. I’m so tired. The hatred for women. The hatred for POC. The hatred for LGBTQ+. The hatred for any person considered “other.” We are continuing to fight just to have equal rights? To be heard? And we are falling backwards against the onslaught.
I feel it, too. Like I could cry at the drop of a hat. This world is absolutely going to hell and I feel so helpless for myself and my daughters, one of whom is gay. The world these kids will have to endure… it’s too much.
I do as well. I don’t see how the lives will be for not only my grandchildren but children as well. How are they to survive with such increasing hatred and the matter in which our society continues to behave in such abhorrent and abusive manner? With a party of the democracy destroying not only OUR rights but also destroying OUR right to vote!!
Why would anyone think that revoking OUR rights to OUR body would not go unchecked? Or we would happily take what SCOTUS has done to us without repercussions?
I am happy to hear that Jodie did not suffer any harm from her attackers.
Hatred for women is horrific these days- it seems to be so much virulent.
Watch all these men now complain that they’ll have to use condoms because of pregnancy risks.
There’s another video from the same protest making the rounds on Twitter. In it, you see a cop being taunted by a male protester who is waving his hands at him in a “come get some” gesture. The cop stops, evaluates the man and then turns to the nearest small female already being assaulted and decides to hit her instead. It’s so disgustingly obvious that the cop wants to hurt women, not brave enough to tangle with someone his own size.
That video is linked in this article, too.
Absolutely disgusting.
FFS!
I see a lot of people asking “why do we have to continue to fight for equal rights?” and here’s the thing – there are studies, repeated scientific studies, that have proven that men have no f’ing clue about what equal actually is. There is also the blue dot phenomenon at work.
There are two studies off the top of my head that prove this better than anything else, and yes these were repeated. In one study, an equal number of men and women were put in a room, literally one-to-one representation. Men thought women were an ‘overwhelming majority’ of people in the room. They tried various ratios until men thought women were ‘equal’ and it turned out to be something like 30%. I don’t remember the exact number off the top of my head. THAT is what they consider equal. 3 women to 7 men.
A different study tested conversations. When researchers timed the amount of time spent by each gender speaking in a room, they found that a 50% split (actually equality) was perceived to be women ‘dominating’ the conversation by the men in the room. The actual amount of time that men perceived as equal was somewhere around 15%, IIRC. It was abysmally low. So, that’s what they considered equal: a woman speaking for 15 seconds to man speaking for nearly a minute and a half.
Now extrapolate that out to rights. For WOC, add racism to that. Now add the blue dot phenomenon on top of that. And now you all understand why ‘giving’ us equal rights will never happen without force. Without men fearing what will happen if they don’t. They already think we have too much.
Is this every single man on the planet? No. Do I think it’s a vast majority of men? Yes I do. Men can feel free to prove me wrong. It hasn’t happened yet, and I doubt it will before I die.
What is the blue dot phenomenon?
https://www.outlookindia.com/website/story/the-paradox-of-anonymity/283844/amp
This is a pretty good summary of the blue dot phenomenon (and evolution). Basically – the ways in which we’ve tried to protect the anonymity of sexual assault victims have also dehumanized then, while allowing attackers to retain their ability advocate for themselves as whole people – thus widening the power disparity between attacker and victim
Here are a couple of links: https://www.livescience.com/62962-blue-or-purple-dots-illusion.html
https://www.science.org/content/article/are-these-dots-purple-or-blue-your-answer-might-not-be-reliable-you-think
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aap8731
Scientifically, they are calling it “prevalence induced concept change”. We call it moving the goalposts.
It’s essentially this: Researchers showed people a group of dots, in various shades of blue and purple. They asked people to pick out the blue dots. Then, in subsequent rounds, the number of blue dots decreased; however, the number of dots picked *did not*. People increasingly picked shades of purple as blue. Even when they were warned the number of blue dots would decrease, they still did this.
Then researchers went further. They showed people a series of faces, and had them divide them into ‘threatening’ or ‘non-threatening.’ The same thing happened. As the number of ‘threatening’ faces decreased, the faces originally deemed ‘non-threatening’ became ‘threatening.’ Again, this still happened when they were warned.
Then they went even further again, and showed people series of research proposals and had them divided into ‘ethical’ and ‘non-ethical’. I’m sure you can figure out what happened.
It has really thought-provoking (and scary, in this context) real-world implications. The minor (or non-existent) transgression suddenly becomes a major one once you’ve ‘moved the goalposts’ far enough to one side.
In my town, a man actually rammed women protesters with his truck. If we didn’t have a newborn at home, we’d have been out there protesting with them. It’s scary as hell out there right now. 😔
ready to combat against weaponless protesters
but not against school shooters right?