Michael Berry Cracker-splainin’
Michael Berry is a small-time radio talk show host in the Houston market. His former jobs included being on Houston City Council, being married to the Texas Secretary of State, being a full time self-described Southern Baptist, being an admitted hit-and-run driver, and secretly hanging out in Houston gay bars on drag queen night.
As you can see, he’s just your average run of the mill regular rightwing talk show host. He also advocated bombing a mosque, which I think is kinda required to keep your RightWing Nut license.
Michael was plenty upset about the goings-on in McKinney, Texas. He got to running his mouth and just could not bring himself to stop until he got dangerously close to using the N word.
“Let me ask you, how many among you would put on a badge and a police uniform today?” Berry said. “How many of you would put on a badge, police uniform and be the first to respond — by yourself — to a crowd of teenagers, amped up — watch ‘em! Man, they’re screaming! ‘Get outta here! Who are you?! You don’t know what you! You go! You get! Who are you?! You can’t do that! No man, we gon’ get you! You bet — !’ I mean you’re talking about like jungle animals. I mean this is wild, crazy, out of control.”
And then, to make white people in Texas look even more like idiots, he goes on a few minutes later ….
Berry said white people had probably been the ones to call the police at the pool party.
“Yes, they’re probably white people, scared to death, peeking through the blinds, ‘Oh my God! There’s a bunch of black people and they’re out on the streets and they’re fightin’ and carryin’ on and they’re playing that music from Jay-Z,” Berry said. “They’re scared to death! That’s who his bosses are. He’s there to keep the peace in his community.”
God in heaven above, not Jay-Z! And, oh yeah, nothing scares white people like black people at a pool party.
Thank you for cracker-splainin’ that to us, Michael.
If you want to hear Berry do his imitation of a black minister or black parents, listen here.
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People like that guy make even Kansas look good, and that’s not easy these days.
1How would he explain this: http://crooksandliars.com/2015/06/armed-couple-planned-shoot-teachers#disqus_thread
My sister thinks the “bad people with guns” weren’t shot immediatley is because they are white.
I think it’s because they are evangelicals… the police know their own.
2Actually, this cracker behaves like this cuz he really hasn’t anything to lose. The worse he behaves, the better ratings he gets. That is, until he’s nabbed at his own pool party by cops alerted by his own intimidated neighbors. Yup. Karma.
And from what I can glean, the party crashing theory doesn’t hold up all that well. Most of those kids had pool passes. And even if that wasn’t the case, since when does a bunch of kids in swim suits warrant a swat team type take down? Apparently this one cop simply did not know what he was doing whereas the others who showed up did.
3You know, Michael Berry is totally giving rightwing racist douchebags a bad name. Shame on you, Michael.
4A long time ago, my field training officer a sergeant who was a giant of a man, 6’5 or so and who had copped for 30+ years (and would retire from our little PD and serve as chief deputy in the next county over for another 20+ years). We drove up on a bar fight one evening that had spilled out onto a parking lot. My first fight as a street cop! I had at least a month of street experience at the time. This was protectin’ and servin’ at its highest level! (I was 21, gimme a break.) I scream “Let’s run down there and arrest that guy” pointing at the apparent most aggressive combatant. Sgt FTO says “Lets walk down there and arrest ’em all.” Sounds like the punchline of a bad joke but it’s not. We arrested everyone. But this I learned, and it was echoed by a Bobbie I met later, as a police officer, you do not run up to any situation. If The situation is chaotic you have to show observing citizens and the bad guys that you are in total control of yourself and this gives others confidence that you will get the chaos under total control as well. And you do this even if your BP is in the 200 range and your heartbeat at 180. Because that’s how cops should do the job. These kids needed a professional adult to be present because apparently there was an out of control adult near the pool screaming at the kids.
5The worst behavior was that of the white cop, not the black teens. That tells us exactly who the jungle animal is.
6So music from Jay-Z is frightening and should not be allowed, but open carry is just great? Personally I would be more afraid of anyone carrying a gun around me than carrying a boombox.
7When puppies are learning to play fetch, they’re entirely too cute as they over run the ball and roll in the grass. A police officer with ten alleged years of experience tripping over his own two left feet, not so cute.
Ready to climb out on a limb here and “identify” the pork chop in the t-shirt and short pants jeans as probably the minimum wage employee security guard of the gated community. He “knows” blacks are inferior to him, so those children couldn’t possibly live in that complex. He was an epic fail from the start.
Enter officer Steroid von Shortboy to compound the failure. Points to the two officers who instructed officer puny to holster his weapon. But … yes that big word … why did they leave to chase teens in swim apparel, while their obviously out of control comrade in arms was exhibiting way too many symptoms of ‘roid rage?
8I am not afraid of a 14 year old girl and am not a cop.
9So he believes that the police work ONLY for the white people? And he says this outline as if it isn’t a scandalous accusation? I mean, the police do seem to believe that they only work for white homeowners, but he seems like he’s perfectly ok with this!
10@Micr—Thank you for this comment! My son-in-law is a police officer here in Texas and I can’t imagine him behaving in an out of control way as that officer in McKinney did. My son-in-law is a detective now, but when he was on patrol he treated people who were verbally abusive to him in a calm, authoritative manner that didn’t allow incidents like this to escalate. It’s too bad that jerks like this guy give the officers who maintain their professionalism a bad name.
11There should be more of a personality test on police applicants than “I wanna wave a gun around and yell at people and make ’em do what I say! Especially the jungle animals!”
US had more people shot dead by cops in the first 24 days of this year than Britain has had in the last 24 years… and more lopsided numbers:
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/09/the-counted-police-killings-us-vs-other-countries
12If he had listened to the police chief, 11 officers and this idiot responded to the call.
Not just 1, 12. He was the only officer out of control.
You know, that God someone taped the incident because otherwise people would be defending……. oh wait I forgot about Fox news.
The idiot cop resigned.
I wonder how many of our cops, state troopers and whatever else we call them are former soldiers. Something is stirring the violence that is happening.
Or, are police afraid that every encounter they have now, that person will have a gun? If you arm the civilians, that potentially every call is at risk to turn violent.
Except for bathing teenagers.
13@PKM
IM<HO, Cpl Casebolt's trip over his own shoe laces and resulting shoulder roll is likely the pi$$er he took into his face to face with the kids. embarrassment followed by anger. Pride.
It also riled me that the two slick sleeved officers felt a need to corral Cpl Casebolt, because they WERE slick sleeved officers. This situation did nothing to strengthen morale at PD McKinney.
I made a similar interpretation of the Kevin James/Paul Blart lookalike on the scene as well. The least the homeowner's association could do was go by Omar the tentmaker and buy the gut a fluorescent yellow t-shirt with SECURITY on it. Unless of course he was undercover that day.
14Close your eyes and imagine this:
15Lindsay Graham is elected President. Michael Berry gets to be one of the ‘alternating’ first ladies.
Is this the loser that does commercial spots for painters that painted the “redneck country club”? I’m sure there’s a bevy of open carry nuts there. Maybe the police should be called.
16Well, that girl was gettin’ pretty uppity…
17To answer his question I WOULD!!
18But the cops in this country would not accept me as I would not carry a gun!
With a gun you have two options draw & kill OR
you have a very bad club in your hands.
Threaten me with a gun and when close enough I will beat you with it.
ah, good to know we’ve got the crazies side of the story.
19“I mean you’re talking about … jungle animals.”
-Michael Berry
Speak for yourself Michael Berry. You might be talking about jungle animals, but I’m not.
20I mentioned on another site that I thought the cop tripped over his own feet and did a “pretend” barrel roll like that’s what he intended to do all along. And, yes, he had his gun out when he did it.
So I’m with Micr all the way on this one.
21Oh, goody. Another Limbaugh/Dan Patrick wannabe AM radio hate merchant. I hope this little creep pays for running his mouth like that.
22@TexasTrailerParkTrash
Thanks. I realize I am a dinosaur fossil. But I am because of how I learned policing from my Chief and my FTO.
My Chief and my FTO Sgt entered law enforcement in 1945 upon returning from the Pacific. They felt like they owed their little hometown everything, so they stayed and inculcated the next generations of cops what they had learned in Pacific combat and in our town in the 40s through the 70s. They were pre-Miranda but understood its importance. They criticized at Texas police organization meetings PD Houston when it came out how street officers there had murdered Joe Torres. And so on.
23Michael Berry and his wife adopted two black children from Ethiopia. I worry about the impact on them when their father talks like this, and when he ridicules black people on his radio show.
24From what I have gleaned, it was a young African American girl and resident and member of the club who was having the party. Officer Roid Rage completely misread the situation.A little power, mixed with even less intelligence is a recipe for disaster.
25Average salary range for that community is $92,000 per yr. The newspaper didn’t say if that was per person. The community is 11% black, but there’s many black homeowners in that one homeowners association. Along with the white parents who were mad, and the black parents who were mad, the Chief had no choice but to fire the cop. The cop was a DPS for two years, wonder if he got fired for the ‘roid rages? I doubt if any of those black kids had even seen a street fight before this. They are well educated and speak proper English. The cop should have known that too.
26As Michael Berry now is played in Portland, Oregon, on the local far right talk station I guess I have a dog in this fight, too. He is a severely racist person who uses lame ass vocal and other effects to mock anyone who is not white, preferably male. I also have concerns that he is raising two African boys and I think he essentially hides behind that fact to give himself cover to say anything at all about black people. Funny enough, I am a man who raised a black son, now grown, and so I listen to him sometimes in a sort of creepy amazement that someone can be so hateful, self-important, and clearly – at least in his mind – a rising star in Right Wing Creepiness. In a slightly previous age he would have been wearing a hood and cajoling his buddies at the Redneck Klu Klux Club to “be sure to bring Ethyl” to the cross burning. I would spit in his face if I saw him.
27What ever happened to police showing up and simply asking the uninvited to leave?
Personally, I would’ve been yelling at officer stunt roll to stop hurting that poor child. The dead silent mega-belly guy makes me worry even more, because he was standing RIGHT THERE and said NOTHING….
28@ Micr, those Joe Campos Torres and Randall Webster days were pretty dark for HPD weren’t they? But my <HO is that the worst behavior here wasn't even the out of control cop; the WORST behavior here was white suburban Kate, who was so incensed that those "section 8" hoodlums were having a good time with their peers in a place where SHE had to see them. She and her SO called the cops and reported a lot of fake crap about wild juveniles with no passes invading HER neighborhood pool and brawling. Well, the only one bawling and brawling like some ol' pissy cow in a pasture was HER and this is the fourth incident I can think of in the last two-three years where white KKK attitude types have got the police in a froth over a "clear and present danger" or a "threatening situation" where there was none and the had an ugly outcome as a result. In two of those cases, young men were killed; in the other two juveniles were assaulted, one in his OWN HOME! This festering racism and bunker mentality that the right wing noise propaganda machine continues to generate with their constant grinding us vs them presentation is tearing this country apart, and we are rapidly reaching-if we haven't crossed it!-the point of no return!
29Somehow we must MUST find ways to be peacemakers.
30Has anyone noticed that all these rightwing christiany people always use those goofy slanty shoulder pictures? I thought that went out with, like, the 60’s.
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