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

[Laughingjack]

Or maybe...just maybe...some people value lives more than a dollar.

Topic for another thread. If we are talking about individuals sure you can make that argument. If we are talking about societies we can easily put a value on life.

[Elegiac]

So, you see there's no way out. Either way, you're guilty.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_defensiveness

Textbook, lol. Frustration based the belief that having to come to terms with an oppressive system means that you are actually oppressed.

[Laughingjack]

And that's a fundamentally racist viewpoint, regarding the US.

If you don't want to hold a fundamentally racist viewpoint, maybe...I dunno....revise it based on the actual evidence?

Yes... the factual evidence of what exactly? The 99% of arrests that are warranted where nothing untoward occurs?

Or are laws themselves racist now or is it simply their enforcement?

[Kumorii]

That's what we call useless fence sitters who too cowardly to stand for anything. So instead they sit on the sidelines and pretend people actual care about their 'enlightened' points of view when the only goal is to appear even more smug.

What? You are sitting here condemning the cops, no? Same as me condemning looters and cops?
I'm fence sitting as much as you do.

[Elegiac]

Yes... the factual evidence of what exactly?

That in the US, more police tends to make people, especially people of color *less* safe rather than actually reduce crime or deescalate any existing problem.

Or are laws themselves racist now or is it simply their enforcement?

Hun, you really don't want to get into an exploration of racism in a legal system where the founding document lists "other persons" as being worth 3/5ths of a regular person.

Y'all can't handle one pig being outed as a Klansman, what makes you think you can handle that topic?

[Kumorii]

I said I, like everyone, had internalised racist viewpoints. The entire point about internalisation is that you are not generally cognizant of them until you are made so - and I even gave you specific examples of viewpoints that I have had to come to terms with previously.

You're still clearly operating from a position of believing that "racist" just means "a bad person". It's a very simplistic viewpoint that isn't appropriate for nuanced discussion.

no, you can be a bad person and not be a racist... what are you on about?
What's up with you trying to tell everyone what they are doing, what they are thinking and what they are saying?
You are attacking strawmans you concoct on your own and think it's gospel.

Didn't you say this to me just a few minutes ago?
Funny how you think you're better positioned to comment on the motivations of these protesters rather than...you know...The protesters.

You are doing the same thing you accused me of. You are talking to others like you know best, even know more about the person that they do... are you this blind to your own behaviour?

[PACOX]

This particular framework of power dynamics doesn't allow room for anything else but for the collective "White" category to acknowledge that they're racist, regardless if they know it or not. If you do not, you're ignorant and don't truly understand the system at play.

Imagine you're born "white" - whatever that means - and you're told you need to exorcise your internal racist tendencies. Not only must you do this for yourself and the betterment of your respective group, but for others as well, particularly for the collectives who've been a target of your racist heritage.

This is, after all, your inheritance from your colonial ancestors. They oppressed their "targets" so much, that the latter slowly and gradually internalized that oppression and in turn uses it on itself.

So, you see there's no way out. Either way, you're guilty.

Wait wait. So you're crying about being a suspected racists, which really means fuck all in America at least, when being black gets you choked out for maybe writing a bad check.

Its easy to not be viewed as a racist. Just stop doing and saying racists shit.

Jesus Christ. He was right about people being fragile.

[Elegiac]

Why is there a white self-proclaimed "anti racist" guy insisting that he cares so much about the issues minorities face? You're part of the problem.

Gee, couldn't be because I find it absolutely disgusting to live in a society where certain people are subjected to brutality and oppression by virtue of their skin color?

Couldn't be because I as a gay man am quite well acquainted with what legal and social discrimination looks like?

Couldn't possibly be because empathy is an emotion that well adjusted humans experience, either.

[Freighter]

are you this blind to your own behaviour?

Yes, he most certainly is.

[Grimbold21]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_defensiveness

Textbook, lol.

And so he retorts from his ivory tower, assured of his righteousness.

Why did I not join some more social theory classes and become as enlightened? All of that Foucaltian power dynamics juicy knowledge.


How wonderful social theory concepts are, that every time you attempt to undermine or criticize them, you're faced with yet another "concept" meant to somehow shut you down.

We live in wondrous times, where criticism is a reflection of racial fragility.

[Laughingjack]

[url=https://theappeal.org/new-york-subway-police-make-us-less-safe/]That in the US, more police tends to make people, especially people of color *less* safe rather than actually reduce crime or deescalate any existing problem.[/url



Hun, you really don't want to get into an exploration of racism in a legal system where the founding document lists "other persons" as being worth 3/5ths of a regular person.

Y'all can't handle one pig being outed as a Klansman, what makes you think you can handle that topic?

Well I can offer some simple advice for that in this informative and education video.


and yes,yes its very tragic how in the past bad things happened. I'm sure its relevant today and isn't just people who haven't accomplished anything with their lives clinging to any kind of excuse they can think of... it surely must be?

[PACOX]

Topic for another thread. If we are talking about individuals sure you can make that argument. If we are talking about societies we can easily put a value on life.

No its not. The victim was killed because the possibility of a writing a bad check was held to a higher regard than his life.

People are more worried about Target being looted than actual centuries of systemic racism in America.

[Elegiac]

Jesus Christ. He was right about people being fragile.

It's no joke. There's recorded instances of White Fragility so bad that it resembles a full on panic attack.

Here's some more literature on the subject:

Why is it so hard for white people to talk about racism? It is a question posed by the white academic Robin DiAngelo, whose book White Fragility has now spent seven months hovering at the top end of the New York Times bestseller list and has just been published in the UK.

“The problem with white people,” she says, “is that they just don’t listen. In my experience, day in and day out, most white people are absolutely not receptive to finding out their impact on other people. There is a refusal to know or see, or to listen or hear, or to validate.”

Over a video call from her home in Seattle, DiAngelo is emphatic and forthright. As a sociologist, she has worked as a diversity trainer across the US for more than 20 years and has a PhD in multicultural education. More recently, however, she has received abuse and criticism for starting a conversation that she felt “my people were not having”. “I got a death threat recently that called me a bully, and I thought, ‘Wow, do you not see the irony here? You just threatened to kill me over some words that I say.’ ”

But, of course, DiAngelo’s words provoke. They cause discomfort and defensiveness. She picks at the disbelief and sensitivity white people exhibit when they are told they are complicit in society’s institutional racism. She challenges rather than gives solutions. Her book is a harsh wake-up call for white liberals, who she thinks could be much more progressive if they first listened.

DiAngelo says she encounters a lot of “certitude from white people – they insist ‘Well, it’s not me’, or say ‘I’m doing my best, what do you want from me?’ ”. She defines this as white fragility – the inability of white people to tolerate racial stress. This, she says, leads to white people “weaponising [their] hurt feelings” and being indignant and defensive when confronted with racial inequality and injustice. This creates a climate where the suggestion or accusation of racism causes more outrage among white people than the racism itself. “And if nobody is racist,” she asks, “why is racism still America’s biggest problem? What are white people afraid they will lose by listening? What is so threatening about humility on this topic?”

DiAngelo’s book is a radical statement at a time when the debate is so polarised. It seems we are forever talking about race. Or talking about why we can’t talk about race. So the problem isn’t a lack of conversation about racism but the different levels of understanding about what it is.

“We have to stop thinking about racism simply as someone who says the N-word,” she says. “This book is centred in the white western colonial context, and in that context white people hold institutional power.” This means understanding that racism is a system rather than just a slur; it is prejudice plus power. And in Britain and the US at least, it is designed to benefit and privilege whiteness by every economic and social measure. Everyone has racial bias but, as DiAngelo is determined to establish, “when you back a group’s collective bias with lingering authority and institutional control, it is transformed”.

That is why she is scathing of those who claim “reverse racism” exists; after all, people of colour can show prejudice against white people. It is equally condemnable, but this form of discrimination does not come with systemic privilege and so is not racism as per the modern definition.

“Reverse is an interesting term,” she says. “Why not just say racism is racism? Reverse suggests it is going in the wrong direction. People who complain about reverse racism never seem to complain about racism otherwise. These are not racial justice advocates.”

[PACOX]

What? You are sitting here condemning the cops, no? Same as me condemning looters and cops?
I'm fence sitting as much as you do.

Both sides are wrong

Definition of fence sitting.

[Elegiac]

You're not doing anything beyond arguing with people on a forum and attempting to appear smug while claiming you are so against racism and care so much about minorities.

Sorry that I don't post my daily itinerary for randos on the internet, Becky.

I'm calling bullshit on it. I've seen this act too many times. You people always turn out to be some of the worst racists with your condescension bar the violent and discrimination ones.

The fragility is real.

"The phenomenon, which has also been described interchangeably as white fragility, can find expression in silence or shutting down, denial, accusations of reverse racism, as well as upset, anger or rage at an interpersonal level."

[eschatological]

People who bitch about capitalism are just people who lack the will or intelligence to raise above the base level of the populace. Anyone capable of learning even a trade has a life of luxury non capitalist societies can only dream about.

I assume the police are in the right. Sure there are a few bad apples here and there like this case but for the vast majority they protect the people.

I bitch about capitalism all the time.

Hint: I am, and my family is, very successful. We are literally in the 1%. My father came to this country with $20, and made it. But he was always very clear: he could succeed because he was given opportunity in our home country (India) that he would have NEVER gotten here. Back when India was a poor, firmly 3rd world country, and decidedly socialist, they determined that anyone with the intellectual merit can and should have a university education. So my dad, who grew up in poverty Americans couldn't even understand, got to attend and graduate from the national university, with honors, and without debt. And then could become a CPA off of that. After which he came to the U.S. for his MBA. Had he started in the U.S., he would have been mired in a cycle of debt and poverty that likely would have killed his American Dream. I grew up in the ghetto. But I knew we were getting out, so I never gave in to it, and I had that knowledge not because of the opportunity America gave us - but because of the opportunity India gave us.

Capitalism, as implemented in the US, is a crony system of oligarchy, that serves only one purpose: to make the rich richer. I don't have to work another day in my life if I don't want to, because I could literally liquidate all my assets, put it into a low yield bond, and live off the non-taxed interest for the rest of my life, at a "salary" higher than 90% of the population......and make money doing it. It is a broken system.

And it disproportionately negatively affects black and latino communities, who are, because of historical reasons, more likely to start in that cycle of violence and poverty.

[Laughingjack]

No its not. The victim was killed because the possibility of a writing a bad check was held to a higher regard than his life.

People are more worried about Target being looted than actual centuries of systemic racism in America.

Why wouldn't they be?

One is an actual problem the other every person involved is dead and buried. One has actual effects on our world today.

[Grimbold21]

Wait wait. So you're crying about being a suspected racists, which really means fuck all in America at least, when being black gets you choked out for maybe writing a bad check.

Its easy to not be viewed as a racist. Just stop doing and saying racists shit.

Jesus Christ. He was right about people being fragile.

Hold on a minute. I criticize the theoretical notion that a white individual must acknowledge their inherent racism, and on your first phrase you accuse me of "crying about being a suspected racist"? Am I misreading your post somehow here?

What racist thing was I doing or saying?

As I said on my previous post, this thing about fragility is the same cheap tactic and logical fallacy people use countless times as means to undermine character. I'm criticizing a theory about white guilt, ergo I'm fragile.

Easy, isn't it?

Moreover, you will note that I did not remark on the actual content of this thread, but on a specific point being made.

[Elegiac]

I'm criticizing a theory about white guilt, ergo I'm fragile.

"So, you see there's no way out. Either way, you're guilty" isn't criticism, Karen. It's bitching about how oppressed you are.

[PACOX]

Why wouldn't they be?

One is an actual problem the other every person involved is dead and buried. One has actual effects on our world today.

Right back why issues with capitalism were brought up in the first place, valuing a dollar over an actual life.