Another "I can't breath" death: Police Reform & Protests in the USA

[Themius]

https://www.reuters.com/investigates...y-civilrights/



It ain't just law enforcement, the military continues to have significant problems of racism within their uniformed and civilian ranks. And most victims have stopped trying to address the problem, as incident after incident has left the racist perpetrators unpunished while the victim is often on the receiving end of harassment and forced out of the military.

I have a lot of family in the military.

They were new Americans... there is so much racism. There is less racism in the areas they're stationed than within the military itself.

[Themius]

This comes across as grasping at straws, at best. While racism is definitely unacceptable, it should not be based on vague suspicions and feelings of people who got discharged for mental issues (and who then try to blame that discharge on vague suspicions of racism). I'm sure there are better examples out there, but this one isn't it.

You people are so weird.

"Oh my god someone said something about racism being a thing that exist that affects people at every levels. QUICK I NEED TO DOWNPLAY THIS!!"

Also we have a history of investigations about this exact thing happening by the way. Why is your first response to be like "oh no, that racism couldn't be all that bad nope it can't be, I know becuase... "

Well who the fuck made you the authority on that? Why do you think you suddenly know it all and more????

I mean you sound like a German blond guy in the 30s saying "Oh I know there is some anti jewish sentiment but it can't be all that bad." Aka someone we really don't need an opinion from, or someone with an opinion that is worth little as it seeks to immediately belittle the huge issue rather than try to understand the issue.

Gurl bye.

[downnola]

This comes across as grasping at straws, at best. While racism is definitely unacceptable, it should not be based on vague suspicions and feelings of people who got discharged for mental issues (and who then try to blame that discharge on vague suspicions of racism). I'm sure there are better examples out there, but this one isn't it.

So when faced with an example of the excesses of imperialism within the military, your first reaction is to not believe the victim and blame it on their mental health.

Really gets the noggin jogging there m8.

[Edge-]

Yeah, I wasn't really expecting much reasonable replies to pointing out the obvious.

But I wasn't blaming it on mental health, it was just right there in the article:


It would be a mistake to take the story at face value.
Too many things don't line up, why didn't the Equal Opportunity Office take his complaints seriously? etc.

As I said, I'm sure there are better examples to hang your coat on.

Why? Because people with depression and/or anxiety aren't trustworthy or something? Because there's not additional reporting on the issue being more widespread than just one guy, that you didn't appear to read?

[downnola]

Yeah, I wasn't really expecting much reasonable replies to pointing out the obvious.
(Which is also why I won't reply to other comments regarding it.)

But I wasn't blaming it on mental health, it was just right there in the article:


It would be a mistake to take the story at face value.
Too many things don't line up, why didn't the Equal Opportunity Office take his complaints seriously? etc.

As I said, I'm sure there are better examples to hang your coat on.

Let's be reasonable here, it's not like discrimination and passive-aggressive threats cause depression and anxiety.

[Edge-]

A militia member patrolling the streets of Kenosha on Aug. 25 claimed that police on the scene told him they planned to herd demonstrators toward the armed men — and then leave.

In a widely shared video from that fateful evening when two people were killed, Ryan Balch, who said he served a “tactical advisement role” among the armed citizens, is seen telling protesters: “Do you know what the cops told us today? They were like, ‘We’re gonna push them down by you, because you can deal with them, and then we’re going to leave.’ ”

It is unclear to what extent such a plan was carried out, and Balch insisted in a lengthy Facebook post the next day that the militia members “never agreed to this.” By 11:45 p.m., two protesters were shot to death and a third was wounded by a teenager from Illinois who had answered the call to take up arms and protect the city.

Balch makes the same allegation on a video captured minutes before the shootings. Balch tells citizen journalist Kristan T. Harris of The Rundown Live, an independent news and talk radio program: “The cops told us they were going to send them [protesters] at us and then run.”

“It is my belief that we only faced one monster out there that night. The Government,” Balch wrote on Facebook. “It sought to agitate, and create a situation where this would happen.”

Harris, who livestreamed hours of the protest, said from his vantage point, it did appear the police moved the protesters closer to the militia.

“Why would they send them [protesters] this way?” Harris said in an interview with Wisconsin Watch. “Out of 360 degrees, you choose the one degree that is right down the militia's throat? And I think that's a question for the police.”

https://www.wuwm.com/post/militia-me...oting#stream/0

Report on comment from one of the militia members in Kenosha.

Note: He talked about the alleged police plan to force protesters to clash with the militia guys and then take off before the shooting took place, so this isn't just a reaction to the shooting.

There needs to be a serious investigation of this, because this is not just the police trying to get others to do their job for them, but actively putting both parties at risk in the process.

If this is true, this is emblematic of the more widespread, systemic problems within law enforcement nationally.

[postman1782]

Your side keeps pretending there aren't problems then they do what they can to take away any avenue people have of expressing the issues non violently (remember when you and the rest of your ilk were just so damn upset about peaceful kneeling as protest?). This is the end result of that.

You should have listened.

What is really funny is, that there was literally comparison that happened in the last couple of days with a white guy and resisting arrest with cops.

https://newsone.com/4014947/tulsa-po...r-shoots-cops/

Resists arrest, refused to follow orders, assaulted the cops attempting to arrest him, shoots and kills one and severely injures the other, pepper sprayed him, and he was taken into custody without incident, even though he murdered a cop.

But if a black guy does even one of those things, like not following orders, he gets killed.

Just like with Dylan Roof, that fucking kid killed 9 people, 9 black people, and they took his fucking ass to Burger King on the way to the jail.

[Draco-Onis]

How so? Fortune 500 companies are looking for highly educated people coming out of college. Colleges likewise prioritize education. Colleges explicitly lower standards for minorities (sometimes significantly) but they are still under represented other than the very top schools who get first pick for everyone. This coupled with data from the SAT points to a real problem. 21% of African American test takers met the benchmark in math, compared to 59% of white and 80% of Asian students. The gap is enormous.

That to me all points to a lack of qualified candidates for high paying jobs, which seems important when talking about the income gap. What am I missing?

And to remind you, I'm not saying that there's no problem at all. I'm saying this focus on racist cops is reductive and is not going to fix anything. I'm highlighting another issue that to me needs a lot more attention. I think that if you solve the education problem, the problem with cops resolves itself. I think that the efforts focused on attacking the cops would be better directed towards education for the youngest students. How are they so far behind so fast? I would be curious to see stats on students who are below grade level by 3rd grade, I imagine it's hugely predictive of future success.

It's pretty simple if you are poor you are going to attend substandard schooling because resources are allocated due to taxation not to mention your environment and peers. This leads to a lower graduation rate for minorities and less who are able to perform on those test because in order to do so you need to spend money on expensive tutors and prep programs. Even if you make it through those loopholes you still have to be able to afford the cost associated to going to those schools even if you have full schorlaship.

I think your numbers are actually higher than what I found only 8% of people in Ivy league schools are African Americans. Also another factor you are ignoring is legacies, the vast majority of people attending those ivy league schools are not there because of scores but connections and money something people don't complain about. You won't find many African American families who can make 6-7 figure donations to those schools to make sure generations of their families always get in.

[Themius]

There's a whole separate conversation on schooling, I don't want to derail the thread too much, my point is largely that I don't see how the racist cop issue is close to the level where it makes any real difference. Even if we somehow find a magic pill that eliminates all implicit and explicit bias from policing, there's going to be a huge achievement, and therefore income, gap. I think there's been a bit too much piling on to police over the past few months because it's easier to find a scapegoat.

Do you have some weird appeal for being in the dark??? Because there are studies on the effects of policing in minority communities. So you don't have to just "guess" due to ignorance of the topic you can literally just listen and fucking learn.

When i am ignorant about something I LOOK THE SHIT UP AND TRY TO FIND DATA

[Draco-Onis]

There's a whole separate conversation on schooling, I don't want to derail the thread too much, my point is largely that I don't see how the racist cop issue is close to the level where it makes any real difference. Even if we somehow find a magic pill that eliminates all implicit and explicit bias from policing, there's going to be a huge achievement, and therefore income, gap. I think there's been a bit too much piling on to police over the past few months because it's easier to find a scapegoat.

I agree income inequality due to the fall out of slavery doesn't fall on the police they are just part of a larger system that keep people of color and the poor down. However they do play a role in this because having your parents in jail or dead due to bias policing isn't going to help you succeed in life.

[Endus]

There's a whole separate conversation on schooling, I don't want to derail the thread too much, my point is largely that I don't see how the racist cop issue is close to the level where it makes any real difference. Even if we somehow find a magic pill that eliminates all implicit and explicit bias from policing, there's going to be a huge achievement, and therefore income, gap. I think there's been a bit too much piling on to police over the past few months because it's easier to find a scapegoat.

"We shouldn't fix this one injustice because it doesn't magically fix all injustice" is an argument that basically just amounts to a support for the status quo, the current systemically racist paradigm, and an opposition to any attempt to address it.

It is not an argument that makes any sense in and of itself, and it has no internal merit whatsoever. It's nothing more than a semantically empty dogwhistle.

[Endus]

That's not my argument and I think you know it... my argument is that you're better off focusing on the big problems, not the small ones.

So, exactly the non-argument I said you were making, and which you protested that you weren't.

I fail to see where you think your phrasing is in any material way different.

[Elegiac]

That's not my argument and I think you know it... my argument is that you're better off focusing on the big problems, not the small ones.

Porque no los dos?

Sounds like you're just making excuses to keep the status quo in place, tbh.

[postman1782]

Porque no los dos?

Sounds like you're just making excuses to keep the status quo in place, tbh.

For as adamantly as he has been defending the murders in Wisconsin and other things, you honestly surprised?

[Elegiac]

For as adamantly as he has been defending the murders in Wisconsin and other things, you honestly surprised?

Not in the slightest. I still very much agree with Jane Elliot's assessment that people in America are racist by default by virtue of the educational and media environment they live in, unless otherwise demonstrated.

[Pannonian]

That's not my argument and I think you know it... my argument is that you're better off focusing on the big problems, not the small ones.

So... people getting executed by goon squads is a small problem?

[Noxx79]

There's a whole separate conversation on schooling, I don't want to derail the thread too much, my point is largely that I don't see how the racist cop issue is close to the level where it makes any real difference. Even if we somehow find a magic pill that eliminates all implicit and explicit bias from policing, there's going to be a huge achievement, and therefore income, gap. I think there's been a bit too much piling on to police over the past few months because it's easier to find a scapegoat.

You don’t think the body charged with enforcing the law being racist is a big issue? What exactly constitutes big issues then?

[Endus]

Not in the slightest. I still very much agree with Jane Elliot's assessment that people in America are racist by default by virtue of the educational and media environment they live in, unless otherwise demonstrated.

I think the simplest way to frame it all is thus;

First, take my point regarding systemic racism as I laid it out above; are there demographic inequalities observable on various grounds, in the USA? Your options are, to repeat;
1> Deny those inequalities exist, which is observably, definitively false.
2> Admit that they do, and that therefore there are systemic injustices inherent to your society.
3> Admit that they do, but argue that they're "natural", which is just straight-up bigotry, nothing "systemic" to it at all.

Once you acknowledge #2 to be the only reasonable conclusion, you've acknowledged society has enshrined systemic injustices. Let's focus on racial injustices, systemic racism.

Now that you've acknowledged that the status quo is systemically racist, the question becomes; do you support ending those injustices, or do you oppose doing so? Binary question, really.
If you support ending those injustices, congratulations, you're a decent human being.
If you oppose doing so, for whatever reason you want to use, your position is inherently a support for the status quo, of systemic racism.

And given that the systemic racism in the USA is against people of color, and in favor of white Americans, we can sum the current status quo of the USA as "systemically white supremacist". Which means, if you're opposing working to correct that injustice, you're a white supremacist. If you accept the status quo as "normal", you're a white supremacist.

The education system certainly doesn't help, but I think it's a lot deeper than that. And I think that properly framing it as "white supremacist" rather than simply "racist" helps to mitigate the "everyone's a little bit racist" dogwhistle bullshit.

[Felya]

The main counter-argument against that reasoning for me is how it disregards the acceptance of cultural differences.

Do you believe 'black culture' exists? And if it exists should it be respected?
Should it be respected even if it is one of the main causes for demographic inequalities?

I would call you racist for coming up with bullshit black culture, instead of American culture. It’s kinda how I called you out doing similar when you complained about Islam effect on American youth.

[Endus]

The main counter-argument against that reasoning for me is how it disregards the acceptance of cultural differences.

Do you believe 'black culture' exists? And if it exists should it be respected?
Should it be respected even if it is one of the main causes for demographic inequalities?

Should black culture disregard it's ties to 'a history of oppression' and how that ties them closer to not having as much respect for career-building or the system of western academics and how those academics tie further into the professional market?

If you're arguing that "black culture" leads to systemic failure to achieve, that's just straight-up #3; rank bigotry.
If you're arguing that "black culture" is not supported or tolerated and thus they face discrimination at multiple levels, then you're just describing systemic racism but somehow trying to blame it on the victims.

Either way, you're not actually making a counter-argument to anything I said; your position fits entirely within the framework I established.