Watch: Ferguson Mayor Repeatedly Refers To Michael Brown’s Body As ‘It’

Posted by | August 21, 2014 11:00 | Filed under: News Behaving Badly Politics Top Stories

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The Mayor of Ferguson, Missouri, was called out by CNN host Chris Cuomo after he repeatedly referred to Michael Brown’s body as an “it.”

Mayor James Knowles (R) said in explanation of why the slain teenager’s body had been left on the street for so long, “The body was covered for a while, and so it wasn’t covered — it was uncovered for a while, and there was a lot of picture of that.” He continued to say. “But as soon as they got an ambulance there, they did cover it for a while. And then they put up the screens.”

“It was left out there for a while,” he said.

“And when you say it, you mean he,” Cuomo interrupted.

“Yeah,” Knowles responded, “I’m sorry. You’re right. The body. The gentleman.”

The Mayor has made some jaw dropping statements recently after the 18-year-old was gunned down by a police officer. For example, he claimed,”There’s not a racial divide in the city of Ferguson,” after protesters poured out into the streets after yet another shooting death of a black man. 

H/T: Raw Story.

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Copyright 2014 Liberaland
By: Anomaly100

86 responses to Watch: Ferguson Mayor Repeatedly Refers To Michael Brown’s Body As ‘It’

  1. MIAtheistGal August 21st, 2014 at 11:09

    Someone’s certainly tone deaf.

  2. MIAtheistGal August 21st, 2014 at 11:09

    Someone’s certainly tone deaf.

  3. BillTheCat45 August 21st, 2014 at 11:12

    He made similar easy-to-miss gaffes when he was interviewed by Chris Hayes, something about the difference between the haves and the have-nots of Ferguson. He struck me as typically privileged and clueless.

  4. BillTheCat45 August 21st, 2014 at 11:12

    He made similar easy-to-miss gaffes when he was interviewed by Chris Hayes, something about the difference between the haves and the have-nots of Ferguson. He struck me as typically privileged and clueless.

  5. Tammy Minton Haley August 21st, 2014 at 11:36

    this guy is just the worst–from the minute i saw him, telling Tamron Hall “there isn’t a racial divide here” after 9 nights of protests…to the interview in the lily-white part of town with Chris Hayes…the most out-of-touch pol i’ve ever seen…unbelievably dense and obtuse…

    i grew up in a tiny southern town, much like Ferguson–oh, sure, we all went to school together, but living spaces and recreational spaces were totally segregated–and i’m 53…

  6. Tammy Minton Haley August 21st, 2014 at 11:36

    this guy is just the worst–from the minute i saw him, telling Tamron Hall “there isn’t a racial divide here” after 9 nights of protests…to the interview in the lily-white part of town with Chris Hayes…the most out-of-touch pol i’ve ever seen…unbelievably dense and obtuse…

    i grew up in a tiny southern town, much like Ferguson–oh, sure, we all went to school together, but living spaces and recreational spaces were totally segregated–and i’m 53…

  7. R.J. Carter August 21st, 2014 at 11:43

    Curious why a body that is scientifically not-alive must have a gender.

    • Anomaly 100 August 21st, 2014 at 11:50

      Respect for the family of the deceased would be a nice gesture at this point.

      • R.J. Carter August 21st, 2014 at 12:41

        It’s insensitive, to be sure.

        The Socratic exercise proposed, however, was that if a person isn’t alive until exiting the womb and is thus, prior to that point, “it,” then why doesn’t a corpse revert to that status upon losing the life force?

        • mea_mark August 21st, 2014 at 12:44

          Because people still attach the measure of a persons life to the body for awhile after death. Grieving takes time and should be respected.

          • R.J. Carter August 21st, 2014 at 12:48

            Like I said, insensitive. But it’s the natural instinct to respond with parallelism to another speaker, and when asked about “the body” it’s normal to respond with “it.” Had Cuomo asked “why Michael was left in the street for so long,” it would have been just as natural to reply with “he.”

            • Pistol-Packing August 21st, 2014 at 12:50

              I have the exact same argument. Cuomo led the conversation with “Leaving “the” body, and covering “The” body…

              • R.J. Carter August 21st, 2014 at 12:53

                And I don’t think either of them were trying to be insensitive.

                • Pistol-Packing August 21st, 2014 at 12:55

                  Agreed, only difference is that Cuomo caught himself after the fact, and probably didn’t realize how he stated his questions at first.

            • causeican August 21st, 2014 at 15:40

              Yes we can all agree the Mayor and many of those around him seem to be insensitive about a lot of things.

    • jasperjava August 21st, 2014 at 11:51

      A body is the remains of a human being. But we are aware that conservatives consider certain kinds of human beings to be property to be bought and sold, or subhuman entities that can be killed with impunity.

      The problem with conservatism is that it reduces human beings to mere objects to be exploited. Especially if they don’t belong to the conservative master race.

    • granpa.usthai August 21st, 2014 at 11:52

      curiousity exposes the WHITE RACIST, RJ – ever wondered if the ‘it’s’ might not enjoy being back in the chains of slavery more than what they have now?

      • R.J. Carter August 21st, 2014 at 12:42

        Oh, buy a new tune already, granpa.

      • Pistol-Packing August 21st, 2014 at 12:54

        Seriously ???? You need to get a handle on your Anger Management classes.

    • mea_mark August 21st, 2014 at 11:58

      What is curious, is your bringing it up. How detached from reality are you?

      • R.J. Carter August 21st, 2014 at 16:51

        The article brought it up. I merely adhered to grammar — to which I try to remain very attached, by necessity.

    • Cheri Laurenza Rossi August 21st, 2014 at 12:19

      There is nothing in the definition of gender that states the specimen must be alive. It is simply the state of being male or female. You are still male or female, even if you’re dead.

      • R.J. Carter August 21st, 2014 at 16:50

        True. In fact, the Romans assigned gender to just about everything — whether masculine, feminine or neuter — and it effected the entire language.

        That being said, there is also the grammatical argument made here:

        “[C]onsider that although ‘I’ and ‘you’ possess the ‘correlation of personality,’ the third-person pronoun appears impersonal or a nonperson (Benveniste 1971, 228). It falls outside the scope of direct address and so loses the peculiar discourse-dependent meaning. It indicates neither to the one who speaks nor the one spoken to but the one spoken of; it might be an inert object or a dead body that does not reverse between I and you but freezes into an irreversible it. Static, fixed, the third-person pronoun referent is deprived of speaker/addresee involvement. Even though this pronoun is consistently ascribed to people, it designates them as a nonparticipatory third party, as passive, distant, nonpresent, even though they might be in physical proximity.”

        — Source: (Beata Stawarska, Between You and I: Dialogical Phenomenology. Ohio Univ. Press, 2009)

    • raincheck August 21st, 2014 at 14:42

      What if the police were looking for a man or woman that went missing and believed to be dead… wouldn’t it help in identifying “the” body?

      • R.J. Carter August 21st, 2014 at 16:44

        Indeed it would. They would say “the man’s body” or some such phrasing.

        But the use of “it” in reference to “the body” is actually not unheard of:

        Campbell arrived and began talking with man, police said, and apparently learned that he was trying to dispose of a body. But instead of intervening, police say Campbell actually helped the man remove the body from the taxi and conceal it alongside the road.

        — Source: Detroit CBS Local

        According to initial reports by the medical examiner on-scene, it appears as though the body lay undisturbed in the room for about 5 years. There was a normal amount of rot and decay on the body to suggest that it had not been moved or touched over the course of that time.

        — Source Empire News

  8. R.J. Carter August 21st, 2014 at 11:43

    Curious why a body that is scientifically not-alive must have a gender.

    • Anomaly 100 August 21st, 2014 at 11:50

      Respect for the family of the deceased would be a nice gesture at this point.

      • R.J. Carter August 21st, 2014 at 12:41

        It’s insensitive, to be sure.

        The Socratic exercise proposed, however, was that if a person isn’t alive until exiting the womb and is thus, prior to that point, “it,” then why doesn’t a corpse revert to that status upon losing the life force?

        • mea_mark August 21st, 2014 at 12:44

          Because people still attach the measure of a persons life to the body for awhile after death. Grieving takes time and should be respected.

          • R.J. Carter August 21st, 2014 at 12:48

            Like I said, insensitive. But it’s the natural instinct to respond with parallelism to another speaker, and when asked about “the body” it’s normal to respond with “it.” Had Cuomo asked “why Michael was left in the street for so long,” it would have been just as natural to reply with “he.”

            • Pistol-Packing August 21st, 2014 at 12:50

              I have the exact same argument. Cuomo led the conversation with “Leaving “the” body, and covering “The” body…

              • R.J. Carter August 21st, 2014 at 12:53

                And I don’t think either of them were trying to be insensitive.

                • Pistol-Packing August 21st, 2014 at 12:55

                  Agreed, only difference is that Cuomo caught himself after the fact, and probably didn’t realize how he stated his questions at first.

            • causeican August 21st, 2014 at 15:40

              Yes we can all agree the Mayor and many of those around him seem to be insensitive about a lot of things.

    • jasperjava August 21st, 2014 at 11:51

      A body is the remains of a human being. But we are aware that conservatives consider certain kinds of human beings to be property to be bought and sold, or subhuman entities that can be killed with impunity.

      The problem with conservatism is that it reduces human beings to mere objects to be exploited. Especially if they don’t belong to the conservative master race.

    • granpa.usthai August 21st, 2014 at 11:52

      curiousity exposes the WHITE RACIST, RJ – ever wondered if the ‘it’s’ might not enjoy being back in the chains of slavery more than what they have now?

      • R.J. Carter August 21st, 2014 at 12:42

        Oh, buy a new tune already, granpa.

      • Pistol-Packing August 21st, 2014 at 12:54

        Seriously ???? You need to get a handle on your Anger Management classes.

    • mea_mark August 21st, 2014 at 11:58

      What is curious, is your bringing it up. How detached from reality are you?

      • R.J. Carter August 21st, 2014 at 16:51

        The article brought it up. I merely adhered to grammar — to which I try to remain very attached, by necessity.

    • Cheri Laurenza Rossi August 21st, 2014 at 12:19

      There is nothing in the definition of gender that states the specimen must be alive. It is simply the state of being male or female. You are still male or female, even if you’re dead.

      • R.J. Carter August 21st, 2014 at 16:50

        True. In fact, the Romans assigned gender to just about everything — whether masculine, feminine or neuter — and it effected the entire language.

        That being said, there is also the grammatical argument made here:

        “[C]onsider that although ‘I’ and ‘you’ possess the ‘correlation of personality,’ the third-person pronoun appears impersonal or a nonperson (Benveniste 1971, 228). It falls outside the scope of direct address and so loses the peculiar discourse-dependent meaning. It indicates neither to the one who speaks nor the one spoken to but the one spoken of; it might be an inert object or a dead body that does not reverse between I and you but freezes into an irreversible it. Static, fixed, the third-person pronoun referent is deprived of speaker/addresee involvement. Even though this pronoun is consistently ascribed to people, it designates them as a nonparticipatory third party, as passive, distant, nonpresent, even though they might be in physical proximity.”

        — Source: (Beata Stawarska, Between You and I: Dialogical Phenomenology. Ohio Univ. Press, 2009)

    • raincheck August 21st, 2014 at 14:42

      What if the police were looking for a man or woman that went missing and believed to be dead… wouldn’t it help in identifying “the” body?

      • R.J. Carter August 21st, 2014 at 16:44

        Indeed it would. They would say “the man’s body” or some such phrasing.

        But the use of “it” in reference to “the body” is actually not unheard of:

        Campbell arrived and began talking with man, police said, and apparently learned that he was trying to dispose of a body. But instead of intervening, police say Campbell actually helped the man remove the body from the taxi and conceal it alongside the road.

        — Source: Detroit CBS Local

        According to initial reports by the medical examiner on-scene, it appears as though the body lay undisturbed in the room for about 5 years. There was a normal amount of rot and decay on the body to suggest that it had not been moved or touched over the course of that time.

        — Source Empire News

  9. Pistol-Packing August 21st, 2014 at 12:26

    there is not a damn thing wrong with what he said or how he said it. Cuomo asked him a question about “THE” body and not “HIS” body, so the natural instinct would be to refer to as “IT”. Criticism is not warranted..

    • NW10 August 21st, 2014 at 12:41

      Yet every time President Obama says something, the right always gets their panties in a bunch. Case in point: his saying his son would look like Trayvon. Why is it that the right always rips apart what Obama says, but ignores and wants to give a pass on what their tone deaf politicians like this idiot say?

      • Pistol-Packing August 21st, 2014 at 12:53

        What exactly is tone deaf about what or how he said it. Cuomo led the questioning by referring to Mike Brown as an inanimate object by referring to “THE” body.

        • Anomaly 100 August 21st, 2014 at 13:10

          Yes, a body. Not an ‘it’.

          • R.J. Carter August 21st, 2014 at 13:13

            But grammatically, a body doesn’t have gender. “A body of work” or “a body of water” both have neutral pronouns.

            I don’t think either of them meant to be insensitive, but that’s just the way our grammar works.

            • Tamara Hurt August 21st, 2014 at 17:39

              Cute, but IT is a HUMAN body that was gender specific! Not ‘A body of work’ nor ‘a body of water!’ It ISN’T rocket science molehill man!

    • mea_mark August 21st, 2014 at 12:42

      I beg to differ. He should of corrected Cuomo. Perpetuating disrespect is wrong. A choice to allow something to go on that is wrong without at least questioning it, is supporting it.

      • Pistol-Packing August 21st, 2014 at 12:43

        we can agree to disagree. I don’t think any one of us would have said anything differently in the context of the way the question was asked.

    • whatthe46 August 21st, 2014 at 18:34

      what other body was there to discuss?

  10. Pistol-Packing August 21st, 2014 at 12:26

    there is not a damn thing wrong with what he said or how he said it. Cuomo asked him a question about “THE” body and not “HIS” body, so the natural instinct would be to refer to as “IT”. Criticism is not warranted..

    • (((NW10,PATRIOT! ✓ᵛᵉʳᶦᶠᶦᵉᵈ))) August 21st, 2014 at 12:41

      Yet every time President Obama says something, the right always gets their panties in a bunch. Case in point: his saying his son would look like Trayvon. Why is it that the right always rips apart what Obama says, but ignores and wants to give a pass on what their tone deaf politicians like this idiot say?

      • Pistol-Packing August 21st, 2014 at 12:53

        What exactly is tone deaf about what or how he said it. Cuomo led the questioning by referring to Mike Brown as an inanimate object by referring to “THE” body.

        • Anomaly 100 August 21st, 2014 at 13:10

          Yes, a body. Not an ‘it’.

          • R.J. Carter August 21st, 2014 at 13:13

            But grammatically, a body doesn’t have gender. “A body of work” or “a body of water” both have neutral pronouns.

            I don’t think either of them meant to be insensitive, but that’s just the way our grammar works.

            • Tamara Hurt August 21st, 2014 at 17:39

              Cute, but IT is a HUMAN body that was gender specific! Not ‘A body of work’ nor ‘a body of water!’ It ISN’T rocket science molehill man!

    • mea_mark August 21st, 2014 at 12:42

      I beg to differ. He should of corrected Cuomo. Perpetuating disrespect is wrong. A choice to allow something to go on that is wrong without at least questioning it, is supporting it.

      • Pistol-Packing August 21st, 2014 at 12:43

        we can agree to disagree. I don’t think any one of us would have said anything differently in the context of the way the question was asked.

    • whatthe46 August 21st, 2014 at 18:34

      what other body was there to discuss?

  11. NW10 August 21st, 2014 at 12:39

    Telling what happens when the sheet… err mask is taken off of these (R)s in charge. First, Kinder (R) talking about “Anglo-American” and now this (R) mayor talking about Michael Brown as an “it.”

    • Herb Sarge Phelps August 21st, 2014 at 14:32

      NW10 did you notice how Hannity and Fox News are lining up with the segregationist err, I mean Wilson supporters? One who lived in the Jim Crow South as a youth and remember the statements of that time, it is like a nightmare of those days to me. It is sad to see such regression.
      (I apologize for jumping on your comments a few days ago, I didn’t get it was satire and upon enlarging your icon I see it isn’t what I thought. I am so tired of the Flea Party Parasites, that flag is like the Confederate Battle Flag, full of hate, abuse, suppression and such that it invokes responses immediately. I apologize again for not reading deeper.)

  12. (((NW10,PATRIOT! ✓ᵛᵉʳᶦᶠᶦᵉᵈ))) August 21st, 2014 at 12:39

    Telling what happens when the sheet… err mask is taken off of these (R)s in charge. First, Kinder (R) talking about “Anglo-American” and now this (R) mayor talking about Michael Brown as an “it.”

    • Herb Sarge Phelps August 21st, 2014 at 14:32

      NW10 did you notice how Hannity and Fox News are lining up with the segregationist err, I mean Wilson supporters? One who lived in the Jim Crow South as a youth and remember the statements of that time, it is like a nightmare of those days to me. It is sad to see such regression.
      (I apologize for jumping on your comments a few days ago, I didn’t get it was satire and upon enlarging your icon I see it isn’t what I thought. I am so tired of the Flea Party Parasites, that flag is like the Confederate Battle Flag, full of hate, abuse, suppression and such that it invokes responses immediately. I apologize again for not reading deeper.)

  13. Yenta August 21st, 2014 at 15:04

    “…the officer that had this unfortunate incident…”. Yes, a Black unarmed teenager getting shot down in the middle of the street is nothing more than an “unfortunate incident”. And that’s the way the mayor seems to view this. It’s so unfortunate that the actions of this officer are being scrutinized, and his integrity is being questioned. It’s unfortunate that folks took video and photos of a dead teenager who they saw get executed. It’s unfortunate that the entire world is scrutinizing this mayor’s little empire. And it must be VERY unfortunate to have the AG visit your little town because POTUS doesn’t believe the story the FPD put out there.

    If Wilson had injuries that the FPD chief claims, then where are the photos? Where is the X-ray? Where is the medical report? Even Zimmerman managed a few photos depicting the injuries that Martin inflicted with HIS weapon…the sidewalk.

    • whatthe46 August 21st, 2014 at 18:32

      “Even Zimmerman managed a few photos depicting the injuries that Martin inflicted with HIS weapon…the sidewalk.” if you believe the facial injuries occured that night. and yes there are scratches on the back of his head. but, they sure didn’t look like someone who had it head pounded into the concrete. heII there should have at least been a heII of a knot considering he said that he nearly passed out.

      • sunnyinfl87 August 23rd, 2014 at 00:27

        And it didn’t matter one bit, people said they were fake, he did it to himself blah blah. Police can’t just go chat with the media and post pictures of themselves all over the internet as this is all evidence that must first be presented to the grand jury. Education:try it, you’ll love it!

  14. Yenta August 21st, 2014 at 15:04

    “…the officer that had this unfortunate incident…”. Yes, a Black unarmed teenager getting shot down in the middle of the street is nothing more than an “unfortunate incident”. And that’s the way the mayor seems to view this. It’s so unfortunate that the actions of this officer are being scrutinized, and his integrity is being questioned. It’s unfortunate that folks took video and photos of a dead teenager who they saw get executed. It’s unfortunate that the entire world is scrutinizing this mayor’s little empire. And it must be VERY unfortunate to have the AG visit your little town because POTUS doesn’t believe the story the FPD put out there.

    If Wilson had injuries that the FPD chief claims, then where are the photos? Where is the X-ray? Where is the medical report? Even Zimmerman managed a few photos depicting the injuries that Martin inflicted with HIS weapon…the sidewalk.

    • whatthe46 August 21st, 2014 at 18:32

      “Even Zimmerman managed a few photos depicting the injuries that Martin inflicted with HIS weapon…the sidewalk.” if you believe the facial injuries occured that night. and yes there are scratches on the back of his head. but, they sure didn’t look like someone who had it head pounded into the concrete. heII there should have at least been a heII of a knot considering he said that he nearly passed out.

      • sunnyinfl87 August 23rd, 2014 at 00:27

        And it didn’t matter one bit, people said they were fake, he did it to himself blah blah. Police can’t just go chat with the media and post pictures of themselves all over the internet as this is all evidence that must first be presented to the grand jury. Education:try it, you’ll love it!

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