I think most people can agree that the police officer that killed George Floyd is guilty but violent protests are the worst thing you can do. All I see now are videos of businesses being burnt down and looted that have NOTHING TO DO with the actions taken against George Floyd. It's sad to see a small business owners mangled corpse outside on the ground after being beat to death because he was trying to stop rioters from destroying his business. Honestly, I don't even think these people are rioting for George Floyd, I think it because they want an excuse to steal and harm others. Protest peacefully and be reasonable.

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System works, you killed somebody you got a legal process, you rob or riot damaging other people or their possessions property, boom, you got your legal process, I envy the american legal system, is not perfect, has it's flaws but works.

4 years ago
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I envy the american legal system, is not perfect, has it's flaws but works.

In some cases, it does. Usually the ones that attract the attention of the media. Not even all of those.

4 years ago
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Hence the media is the enemy of the people. They do not inform, they enflame and sensationalize. They are trash, the entire lot of them Left and Right.

4 years ago
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It really doesn't. We have the highest per capita incarceration in the world. The majority of people charged with a crime never see a courtroom, they are pleaded out and sentenced, otherwise the courts would be utterly swamped. We have a 3 strikes law that puts people in prison for life, under the pretext of violent crime but a large proportion of them are not. Private for-profit prisons, both state and federal, are a fast growing and lucrative business that hinges on keeping as many bodies in prison as possible at the cheapest possible cost,at the expense of nutrition, medical care, rehabilitation, programs etc. When a legal system is based on throwing people away because there is no means to give them their day in court, it's broken.

4 years ago
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Kinda makes me think this melting pot experiment is a failure.

4 years ago
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I think melting pots are fine, it's the "everything should be for-profit" mentality that's a problem. Some things should not be done for profit - for example essential services like prisons, hospitals, police departments, fire departments, etc. When you make something that's providing an essential civil service for-profit, that service invariably suffers because the way to make a profit is to cut costs and charge more.

For hospitals that means higher prices, more procedures and tests ordered, and minimizing the time you spend with a doctor to maximize patients per day. For prisons, it means crowding more inmates into the same space, putting inmates to work in sweatshop conditions, and cutting rehabilitation resources. For municipalities that fund themselves through legal fees that means high fees for misdemeanors - and those high fees, along with the threat of much higher fees if you plead not-guilty but are found guilty, end up putting people that can't afford those fees, let alone a lawyer, in prison.

Also having a system of crimes and punishments that is woefully out of date doesn't help. For example, a felony is considered the most serious of crimes, and includes murder, aggravated assault, manslaughter, animal cruelty, vehicular homicide, arson, or smacking someone's cell phone when they shove it in your face causing it to fall and break.

4 years ago
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Melting pot working better than expected. It's the libertarian capitalist experiment that I have my doubts about.

4 years ago
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I also like to equate unrelated things. That's why the public pooping problem in San Francisco shows that Xzibit's second season of Pimp My Ride was an absolute failure.

4 years ago
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We are too soft on criminals. In Kalifornia we have $0 bail right now. I have read several stories of the same person being arrested 3 times in one day for different crimes. Catch and release is stupid. We have decriminalized just about everything and Capitol Punishment in underutilized.

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I do agree that there are many and complex causes, but I also maintain that the criminal/judiciary system is part of those causes . I assumed that it was commonly understood that a high per capita incarceration rate points to a plethora of underlying social and economic dysfunction and inequities. But maybe I shouldn't have made that assumption - my perspective may be different, I suppose, since I live here.

To explain, in the US, we do not have a "well working criminal/judiciary". Our courts are swamped with cases precisely because of those underlying conditions, but its way of dealing with that is to compel defendants to give up their right to trial, under threat of much higher sentences if they lose, which is a very real possibility (actually, very likely) for people who cannot afford counsel. As a result, many people end up in prison who might otherwise have been acquitted or received probationary sentences if they had money. This absolutely is a real problem for a person who is presented with the option to plead out for a 1 year sentence or go to trial and risk 10 years (with a very high probability of getting it). And it's hardly the correctly applied process that we expect from a judicial system that was intended to meet out justice from on high with impartiality for all. In reality, it serves to incorporate our justice system into the machine of oppression of disenfranchised people. So no, while I agree there are multiple causes, this system is not only one of those causes, it's one that enables and propagates the others.

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I think you may have misunderstood me. I'm not arguing with the notion that there are many other causes both social and economic of the US incarceration rate. My post was specifically in response to another regarding the dysfunction of our legal system and its particular role in contributing to the problem. No doubt plea bargaining works just fine in other countries, but in the US it is over used and abused to such an extent that approximately 94-97% of all cases are pleaded out. It's not a small part of the problem. It's a very large part because it helps get more people into prison who shouldn't be there in the first place.
https://theoutline.com/post/2066/most-criminal-cases-end-in-plea-bargains-not-trials?zd=1&zi=tdhszx4w

4 years ago
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Yeah, I just saw the Adam Ruins Everything prison episode the other day. I didn't realize how horribly broken the system is before then.

4 years ago
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because of this 3 strikes system a man is now in jail for life cause he stole a box of cookies

4 years ago
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Yup, outstanding system

View attached image.
4 years ago
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Remember that. 2015-2016. A man was shot in the head by a cop for NOTHING. Someone made a false call, and the degenerate from police system humiliated and killed a man for absolutely no reason.

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other then a dead body, what am i looking at here?

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The image doesn't explain, it seems to be more a 'remember this' for people who already heard about it, but basically someone called the police saying someone was randomly aiming a rifle around. If I'm remembering correctly, the cops turned up and began evacuating the rooms sequentially, issued confusing instructions along with warnings/threats of being shot, and one of the people was drunk so was unable to follow the commands, started panicking and begging not to be shot, and while crawling on the ground his pants started to fall down. He tried pulled them up, and he got gunned down with an SMG.

Commands such as (from laying face down, with hands extended and palms down), to cross his legs, then push himself upright, and then raise his hands, and then from that position (while drunk) shuffle-crawl on his knees, upright. He was told that if he was going to fall over, he should land on his face rather than lower his arms. At some point, he misinterpreted their commands, I think when he was told to get up on his knees, and his ankles uncrossed while altering his position as commanded. Which led to shouting about being shot if he doesn't comply precisely, which further panicked him. When they told him to crawl, he took it to mean 'crawl on your hands and knees'. When he lowered his hands, they screamed at him to not lower his hands. In his panic, he entered a bowing "under arrest, cuffing" position with his hands behind his back to show that he was no threat, which caused even more urgent screaming. He panicked further, and instead put his hands behind his head in another "keep your hands up there" position commonly used. Further threats. The man was sobbing, pleading not to be shot, trying to say he isn't trying to disobey. He gets cut off and told to shut up with more yelling. He is clearly inebriated. Eventually with more commands, he in fact begins to crawl on his hands and knees towards them, and is barely able to do this (his arms are disorganised, his movements are sluggish, and he isn't even crawling in a straight line). His pants start to fall down during this. He tries to pull them up. They open fire.

Given the call was (if I'm recalling correctly) about a rifle, and even if he somehow managed to conceal it down his entire trouser leg, it's very unlikely he would be able to bend his leg at the knee, much less draw it with one hand, clearly drunk, and crying. The shooter and the person issuing commands were two different people, but their methods were clumsy, and caused fatality due to bad-decisionmaking. Not all people have equal capacity. Imagine if an individual on the autism spectrum was having commands barked at them with threats, or if the individual had a physical condition that prevented them from maintaining exhertion in certain muscle groups (keeping hands raised, or balancing in the weird ways required), and were not allowed to state as such? Hell, even if we assume an individual is high, or using illegal drugs, that should not justify mishandling where their confusion, fear and compliance are apparent. If I recall, it was a typical 'investigated and found no wrongdoing' situation, and he quickly retired on a decent package due to 'PTSD' and moves to the Phillipines. Now, I get that in certain situations the police have to use caution, but unless I'm misremembering, it happened in a state where carrying was legal too.

He was one of the people the early BLM people actually championed in their protests, calling his name with others, along with another white guy that died due to compression injuries when cops knelt on him. I forget his name, but there was a photo of the aftermath of being knelt on, and basically the pressure was sufficient for blood to have pooled in his head, neck and arms, unable to circulate back out due to the amount of locational pressure. I don't think I found out what led to the police situation with that second guy, but the degree of negligence / force is again pretty astounding.

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View attached image.
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View attached image.
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It works if you have enough money to afford good legal representation.

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It is not because over the dead of one person, it's so they claim "they don't feel heard or recognized", on top of it that this isn't the first incident, THAT is their reasoning for rioting, making "noise".

But forget about corona when you are riotting...

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One thing is making noise, another is burning down businesses and killing innocent bystanders that aren't participating in your riot.

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Police are hitting on bystanders too, actor John Cussack actually being one of thtem.

Then again you shouldn't be there taking pictures, but just getting the hell out.

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Then again you shouldn't be there taking pictures, but just getting the hell out.

I globally agree, however it's also thanks to those people who stand here taking pictures that we're getting informed about those fucked up riots

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Cussack is a complete tool. It was likely staged. Just like CNN's little stunt.

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Telephoto lenses are pretty good nowadays... I wonder why they don't use one and be at safe distance?

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CNN's stunt?

Are you referreing to when they got arrested while asking where to move to?
Because I've heard people repeating "fake news" and "staged" and stuff about that, and really... just... what? How do you stage that? Ask the officers to arrest you after you start filming, because you want to portray them as incompetent and hostile? :P

Or is there a different incident that happened? It's easy to miss events given how social media posts propagate in a wonky manner.

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Honestly, this goes to show that as time moves forward; humanity does not. Many people while being instigated into feeling their voices are not being heard refuse to lobby their actions properly; assuming they are unheard when in fact they are unheard due to not following the actions to be heard.

Write to your congressman/woman, set up appointments with Town Hall or your local Government Official(s), bring forth lawyers or other political influences into your standing.

Riots will get you news time; but hurt your cause. It's sort of like stabbing yourself in the foot before a race and hoping to place first. Everyone gawks and gives you attention; sure, but not the attention you need or want.

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well said

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+1

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very reasonable comment.

4 years ago
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Go back to kneeling during the national anthem?

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Honestly, I never understood the significance of this. Personally, I think it ranks about as high on the protest-o-meter as taking a quick walk around a block does for a diet.

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Protests are about bringing attention to an issue so that it cannot go unaddressed. Kneeling at the football brought so much attention that the president of the country got involved and it upset people so much that star athletes lost their jobs, bringing months of international media coverage, so it certainly brought the subject into the public arena.

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It is not because over the dead of one person, it's so they claim "they don't feel heard or recognized"

You're assuming the people looting and rioting actually give a sh*t about George Floyd.

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You assume i assume, There will be good people, bad people, not everyone might give about Floyd, some start to see a shop with windows wide open, and only then go "oh free tv" instead of being malignent in the first place.

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I'm not assuming anything. I'm just saying without any evidence about who is doing the rioting, you can't just put it on people who "don't feel heard or recognized", whoever "they" are.

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Offcourse atleast part of them is rioting, they are the ones angry, those plundering, stealing those are the ones abusing things, it's being naive to think otherwise, it aren't exactly a group of hippies or gangs plundering now and setting things on fire.

You know what's meant with "they", black people that are angry (which is what it is all about), i seen it on tv them telling they don't feel heard or recognized, one woman saying it's bad (that it's happening and we are doing it) but good (as in we need to be heard) not something i am making up. Even though you clearly could see white people protesting too with them.

It's human instinct, corona f.e didn't we stock on stuff? Suppose this corona thing would last 2 more years and supermarkets can't restock most things, that we all don't riot either? We will and that isn't based on any color of skin or even racial issues, but human instinct.
Many are just when it comes to it, savages, selfish and so much more. How many are still keeping distance or why there are these #antilockdown protests too?

People used to strike (mostly in a non violent and civilized way) but somehow that we stopped learning how to do that (or striking all together and so our goverments think we are okay with everything and they do whatever they want).

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Okay apparently it's a group called Antifa (which are a nasty bunch here too).

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Worth bearing in mind that there is not, nor has there ever been, an organisation or group called "antifa". It's just a label popularised by trump and fox to demonise all protesters against racism anywhere, by painting them as a homogenous, inherently aggressive unity.

Much like in the era of McCarthyism anyone who could remotely be considered to be critical of the government or status quo was CLEARLY A FILTHY COMMIE...

4 years ago
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Ehm they exist, It's short for Anti Facism, i can't speak for the US, But they exist in Europe, they spoke out themselves, many times and usually got a very agressive tone. in short left winged extremism.

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In France we have lot of antifa or black bloc, it's not Trump or Fox News word

4 years ago
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Sarcasm alert
Yeah I think it's clear he knew what he was talking about, obviously Antifa never has or will exist and this is all part of a big conspiracy, probably all Bill Gates' doing, and being spread by 5G.

4 years ago
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They exist ... stop dissimulating ...

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You must be watching the cable networks. The people who don't feel heard or recognized that initiated the protests are very dismayed about the rioting, arson and looting. They understand that it's hurting their case. The family of the victim is pleading for people to stop the violence.

4 years ago
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We only have 2 channels with foreign news, in which it might get 2 minutes about the riots, i didn't even know about the floodings in Michigan until i zapped across the daily show.

4 years ago
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It's unfortunate. I look at various news sources and it often disappointing how US news is automatically filtered through cable new bias. Even Reuters and France24. Makes me wonder how accurate the info I am getting out of Europe about Europe is. Oh well.

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Couldn't even find 1 channel either yesterday about the space shuttle landing.

It's very hard to know what to trust anymore, like last week read a story about how a bunch of spam bots were posting false stuff about corona.

I must say we had a good long period of daily bad (economic) news which just led to a depression just thinking about it, now it's all corona 24/7 even in talk shows, i tend to avoid it, i read the headlines from an online newspaper in the mornings, sometimes i got my tv on and sometimes the news is on, but it can save a lot of grieve if you sometimes just not watch or read anything at all (you know it's never/hardly good news).

There was a plan for some good news only paper but don't think that ever came to fruitation.

4 years ago
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If you want help separating fact from fiction, you could check things with me. Just a suggestion.

4 years ago
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HA

4 years ago
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Nah. We'll just ask Jack Dorsey. He'll help us out :D

4 years ago
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It's not easy. I sort through a lot of stuff daily just to a get a basic idea about what's going on. And of course it all has to be sifted and taken with a grain of salt. I've actually gotten to like the news crawl on the Bing homepage lately. When you click on a story you get a lot of different options from various news outlets, so you can choose and compare coverage and avoid getting caught in one of the ubiquitous echo chambers. And agreed, the constant onslaught of Covid news gets really tiring.

4 years ago
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Couldn't have said it better

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Black people in America comprise of 13 percent of the population, yet commit more than half the crime. 90+ percent of black people killed are killed by other black people.

You make it sound as if "only" 10% is ok. A cop kneeling on the neck of a guy (who was suspected of using a fake bill, not a violent criminal) for 10 mn, it's just not ok. It wouldn't be ok whatever the color of the skin of the guy who died. I doubt that would have happened to a white guy suspected of using a fake bill though.

And if you're looking for statistics, look them all up. While only making up 13% of the population, African American people make up for 50% of the incarcerated people. I'm not even looking at death row stats because they're depressing.
Do you think it's because black people are more violent and more criminal or because white people get off easier with similar crimes?

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I'm sorry if I made it sound like you were excusing anything, of course I wasn't.

I'm not sure about stats from 1993 because there are recent stats that say 50% of jail population is African American.

And yes, according to statistics, black people are way more violent than white people unfortunately.

I was not disputing that. I am however disputing the fact that it's related to race. Poorer people tend to be more violent than the rich. However, the odds of going to jail for raping a woman go up the darker your skin is. It's about money and class.
Most people on death row were represented in court by public defenders who raised less than 5 objections during their trial.
You can tell they were not white and that they had no money just from that.

I'm not saying there's not a problem. I'm saying statistics can say a lot of different things and they don't always paint the whole picture.

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There is no excuse for what the cop did. The single most thing I hate in the world is abuse of power

I don't even know if he meant to abuse power or if it was just carelessness. It's still no excuse and it's a crime, regardless because a life was lost, for no reason at all, and by "the hands" of someone sworn to protect. But regardless you are right and I had to force myself to watch that video after two failed attempts because I just could not understand how the other officers present didn't tell him to back off.

I do believe that there is a problem in America and I hope that something good can come out of all this horror.

If only people would stop rioting and looting and diverting the focus from what actually matters.

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It's quite amazing how you appeal to "% of African American incarcerated people" statistic while quoting the fact that they "commit more than half the crime"
Each example like this one (obviously cop exceeded authority here) are exaggerated by mass media and brainwashed liberals every time it happens.

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while quoting the fact that they "commit more than half the crime"

Where did I quote that?

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"Black people in America comprise of 13 percent of the population, yet commit more than half the crime."

you replied to this one, or you read only first part of the phrase?

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Oh I thought you meant I quoted a source saying that. Ok.

No I read everything but I disregarded that second part indeed because there are no actual statistics on crime. Only arrests and even those, we don't get. We get the stats on people being charged, and people being sentenced. So these stats are most likely false, incomplete and incorrect, and lead people like you to assume that the justice system is not racist.

4 years ago
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Watson - "Comments on race" section (differences in average measured IQ) as one simple example of reversed racism and ignoring facts that also explain higher amount of crimes and plenty of social issues (try to google average criminals IQ).
But people like you prefer to think that white racists rule America, ignoring facts like this one, shaming "racists" (Racist in US today is anyone who'd say something bad about minorities, even if it's true, freedom of speech doesn't exist if you're talking about minorities) and disgracing scientists. America could turn into South Africa 2.0 in 30-40 years if you'd continue doing so.

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[](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Watson - "Comments on race" section %28differences in average measured IQ%29 as one simple example of reversed racism and ignoring facts that also explain higher amount of crimes and plenty of social issues)

Ok so one guy, by all indication an educated and smart, and old, white man, which doesn't mean he's right, argues a correlation and you just take it as a fact because it justifies your views and anyone who thinks it's debatable is suppressing your freedom of speech?

But people like you prefer to think that white racists rule America

Well, look at your twitter in chief's words and you'd have a hard time finding anyone who is honest disputing that.

I really don't see why you're playing the victim card here, considering your neck hasn't been crushed under a cop's knee, and that it responds in no way to my arguments that the "and yet they commit more than half the crime" being an oversimplification of meaningless sentence stats but ok.

Anyway for anyone else, reading this who is not already pre-sold on the argument, here's another way of seeing it:
Saying that African American people are more violent because they commit "half the crimes" (ie, because they represent half the inmates in jail) is a circular argument. The number of African Americans in jail doesn't mean they commit half the crimes. It just means that they are more likely to go to jail for their crimes, which is not an argument against the racism of the justice system, quite the opposite.

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"In January 2019, following the broadcast of a television documentary made the previous year in which he repeated his views about race and genetics, CSHL revoked honorary titles that it had awarded to Watson and cut all remaining ties with him."
Not suppressing freedom of speech at all.
It's not only his opinion, I have plenty of books on my hands where iq differences between races are described. But today it's not politically correct to talk about it so we are all equal of course -- there's no melanine, asians are doing great in basketball and are famous for huge D's in porn, black chess player just won a world championship and black players are great in E-Sports, also in swimming, olympic 100m finals are full of white sprinters (quite racist, right - we should have more diversity in sports!). Totally no signs of differences.

4 years ago*
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You haven't been watching the same JAV I have then ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

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( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

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So you cherry pick someone that hypothesizes (yeah, just an hypothesis, there's no scientific proof) about something and take it as valid, ignoring all scientists that are against it.

I don't understand your reasoning.

Maybe, just maybe, it's better to rely on better sources?

There's a good read here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_intelligence

If you read it all, you'll find out that the difference in IQ test results between black and white people are not really because of the race, but because of socio-economical and environmental reasons.

I'll only quote this:

A series of studies by Joseph Fagan and Cynthia Holland measured the effect of prior exposure to the kind of cognitive tasks posed in IQ tests on test performance. Assuming that the IQ gap was the result of lower exposure to tasks using the cognitive functions usually found in IQ tests among African American test takes, they prepared a group of African Americans in this type of tasks before taking an IQ test. The researchers found that there was no subsequent difference in performance between the African-Americans and white test takers.[85][86] Daley and Onwuegbuzie conclude that Fagan and Holland demonstrate that "differences in knowledge between black people and white people for intelligence test items can be erased when equal opportunity is provided for exposure to the information to be tested".[87] A similar argument is made by David Marks who argues that IQ differences correlate well with differences in literacy suggesting that developing literacy skills through education causes an increase in IQ test performance

[edit]
In any case, IQ tests are crap. They don't test how intelligent you are, they test how good you're at doing these specific kind of logic tests (and you can easily get better at them by training, and you'll be good at them if you like this kind of problem solving even if you're very stupid at anything else).

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from same link
"The Minnesota Transracial Adoption Study (1976) examined the IQ test scores of 122 adopted children and 143 nonadopted children reared by advantaged white families. The children were restudied ten years later.[138][139][140] The study found higher IQ for white people compared to black people, both at age 7 and age 17."

If you ever did IQ test - you should know that you don't need "preparations" and "equal opportunities". Guys from your quote most likely picked black and white people from same university (same job etc.) for example, of course they would be equal there.

"IQ tests are crap. They don't test how intelligent you are"

Yes, they just show your possibilities. It's like checking how powerful your phone is, compared to PC from 1960s that people used to send first astronauts in space and now we're throwing birds in pigs on more powerful devices. But it's still better to have more powerful one, right?

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"The Minnesota Transracial Adoption Study (1976) examined the IQ test scores of 122 adopted children and 143 nonadopted children reared by advantaged white families. The children were restudied ten years later.[138][139][140] The study found higher IQ for white people compared to black people, both at age 7 and age 17."

It's funny how you stopped the quote there, not quoting the end of the paragraph:

"Acknowledging the existence of confounding factors, Scarr and Weinberg, the authors of the original study, did not consider that it provided support for either the hereditarian or environmentalist view."

So, not even the authors of this study think that it proves anything.

Then there are 3 more studies that show the IQ gap happens for environmental reasons. But you ignore those.

And the final conclusion, which is what ultimately matters:

"Reviewing the evidence from adoption studies, Mackintosh finds that environmental and genetic variables remain confounded and considers evidence from adoption studies inconclusive, and fully compatible with a 100% environmental explanation.[137] Similarly, Drew Thomas argues that race differences in IQ that appear in adoption studies are in fact an artifact of methodology, and that East Asian IQ advantages and black IQ disadvantages disappear when this is controlled for."

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If you ever did IQ test - you should know that you don't need "preparations" and "equal opportunities". Guys from your quote most likely picked black and white people from same university (same job etc.) for example, of course they would be equal there.

You don't "need" preparation, but having done similar tests, or just doing similar kind of problems, makes you better at the tests. If you've never been exposed to these kind of linguistic-logical problems you're going to perform notably worse. One of the studies even prove that these IQ tests (some of the questions commonly found in IQ tests) have a cultural bias.

Why would they pick people from the same university? That's not how these studies are done. At all.

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+1 - that's how you interpret results.
Not "read until one data point matches what you want and discard the rest".

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+1

(This discussion reminds me of the B.I.T.C.H. test.)

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so glad you finished that cut-off section - the repeating of this vapid hypothesis is something that makes me just crazy - those studies in the early years have been debunked many times - and it can clearly be seen with university graduates from ethnic backgrounds that their IQ is no less than anyone elses - indeed many clearly exceed my IQ in more ways than one :P

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I mean, if the stuff I read was correct, he also resisted arrest (which only ever causes more problems and makes you look worse), but that still is no reason for the corrupt cops to do what they did (which is why they were fired and the one was charged with manslaughter). But yeah, the whole thing is pretty ridiculous and all of this is being blown way out of proportion.

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He was handcuffed and struggled mildly against cops who outnumbered him 3 to 1, when they tried to put him in the back of a car and yeah he was big. So while I understand them subduing him and letting him cool down on the ground for a bit, that certainly doesn't justify a responsible adult thinking it's ok to stand his weight on the neck of a guy who stopped struggling 10 mn ago.

I don't know if it was racism (I somehow doubt a white guy would have been treated that way for using a fake 20 bucks but I can't say for sure), it certainly was abuse of authority, carelessness and negligence; especially when the guy started saying he couldn't breathe, several times, and then lost consciousness, as was obvious for every by-standers (several of whom tried to tell the cops to let up on him) but not for any of the three cops present.

Now does that justify more violence and destruction of property, most of which belongs to people who most likely are as outraged at Floyd's death? No. And it certainly doesn't help the real issue be front and center either since the only thing we hear about now is the looting and the unrest and riots and curfews, conveniently.

Then again it's hardly surprising, considering the last half of this decade has consisted of childish irresponsible behavior and escalation.

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Yeah, all of the many, many times a white cop purely coincidentally happens to murder a black person everyone throws such a hissy fit.
It's like, we get it. You can't breathe, you think your lives matter, but just... keep it down, OK? The quieter you are the more things will change 👍

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I just want to clarify one thing.

Black people are 13% of the population, but make up over half of all CONVICTIONS for crimes.
Black people are more likely to be stopped by police than white people - https://www.aclu.org/news/criminal-law-reform/san-diego-police-stop-black-people-at-a-rate-219-percent-higher-than-white-people/
Black people are more likely to be arrested than let go than white people - https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/rdusda.pdf
Black people are more likely to be charged than given a warning than white - https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/12/us/prosecutor-race-blind-charging.html
Black people are more likely to be convicted than acquitted than white people - https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/ascii/SPOUSMUR.TXT](Black people receive longer sentences than white people
and Black people are more likely to be wrongfully convicted- https://research.msu.edu/innocent-african-americans-more-likely-to-be-wrongfully-convicted/

https://repository.law.umich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2413&context=articles

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It might clarify to say "black people doing the same thing as white people is more likely to get arrested/charged/convisted than those white people". Otherwise it might be read as "black people are just more likely to do bad things than white people".

Also your 4th link has a problem with the link formatting.

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every step of the way it's disproportionate, which makes the final tally even more out of whack.
Think about it. If 1/5 black people get stopped, vs 1/10 white people, and of those stopped, 1/5 black people get charged vs 1/10 white people, and of those charged 1/5 black people get convicted vs 1/10 white people, it means that 1 out of 125 black people get stopped, charged, and convicted, but only 1/1000 white people.

That same system gives black people a lot more priors. If a white kid and a black kid both get caught shop-lifting and the white kid gets a warning and the black kid gets charged, now the black kid has a prior and the white kid doesn't.

I've spent time in court rooms, and I'll see some 15-year old white girl dressed as nicely as possible, with her parents and her lawyer asking for, and getting, a warning, and in the same court room there's some poor black boy, same age, dressed as a 15-year old typically dresses, no parent, no lawyer, not particularly articulate and with no guidance, getting a fine, community service, and a criminal record, for essentially the same conduct.

When the treatment is disparate every step of the way, statistics don't tell the true story

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"I've spent time in court rooms, and I'll see some 15-year old [] girl dressed as nicely as possible, with her parents and her lawyer asking for, and getting, a warning, and in the same court room there's some poor [] boy, same age, dressed as a 15-year old typically dresses, no parent, no lawyer, not particularly articulate and with no guidance, getting a fine, community service, and a criminal record, for essentially the same conduct."

That's not racism, that's the power of capitalism, or education (and perhaps proper parenting). See, if you take out the racial labels put upon it the story stays the same... and you get the real factors.

Of course if you want to cut those out and go full black and white...

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You may want to look deeper into your statistics. A very large number of black people are arrested/convicted/incarcerated every year, it's true. But this is because blacks are disproportionately targeted by law enforcement. They are more likely to be pulled over than whites, more likely to be subjected to police harassment and brutality, more likely to get harsher punishments for lesser crimes, and more likely to be taken in on false charges, or sometimes no charges at all. Getting blamed for more than half the crime is not the same as actually committing that much, and it's systemic, institutionalized racism that drives this statistic.

The percentage of black-on-black violence rates in the US is actually a bit lower than 90, closer to 80. Which is still a lot, sure. But the rate of white-on-white violence is also around 80%. Same with virtually all other races and ethnicities. Folks tend to kill people they know, and the various races and ethnicities tend to stick close to and primarily socialize with themselves over other groupings. Focusing only on the black-on-black violence while ignoring the statistics regarding that of other groups is one of the things racist instigators do in order to make the black community look bad.

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that's not a matter of racism. Black people are more likely to be poor. Poor people are more likely to commit crime. White people are more likely to be affluent. Affluent people are more likely to be victims of crime. Likewise, gangs are most associated with poverty, and in NYC, blacks are twice as likely to be below the poverty line.

Also, white people are more likely to report a crime to the police than black people. Black women are a lot less likely to report a rape, for multiple reasons, especially if the perpetrator is white, whereas white women are more likely to report a black rapist than a white one

edit: after factoring all that in, yeah, I'll give you that it's still more likely that blacks are committing crimes disproportionally. I'd attribute the difference more to culture than to color, but I concede there's no way of knowing the true numbers

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When black men keep getting arrested, of course black women end up as single parents

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You can see that statistics don't really show the whole picture when leaving out nuance, but then go on to try and continue using statistics without included nuance? Absolutely astounding.

What's truly sad is that you apparently don't understand that systemic racism in the justice system is far more potent and destructive than personal, individual racist acts, and that said systemic racism is the very reason various crime statistics are hopelessly skewed, as dingbat pointed out. And that's regarding the ACTUAL crime statistics, just to be clear, not the inflated ones that you have cited both here and in your original post.

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Here, let me restate my argument more directly for you: You are using inflated half-facts and a general dismissal of the effect of systemic racism as a flimsy platform for supporting racist conclusions. You pay lip service to understanding the problems inherent in doing this, but then continue to do so regardless. The only thing you are adding to the discussion is the propagation of already debunked racist talking points.

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Oh, well, if you say my argument isn't a good one without actually addressing any of the issues I brought up, then it really must not be good!

So seriously, do you have an actual defense, or just baseless dismissal?

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Ahahaha, the old "I'm not a racist, YOU are for pointing out that I'm a racist!" ruse! And "Some of my best friends are black!" on top of it! You really are ticking all the boxes here. If you don't want to be called a racist . . . I dunno, maybe stop saying racist things?

I mean look, say a guy is getting beat up. Saying "He's just as capable of not getting beat up as anyone else!" doesn't mean he's not getting the crap kicked out of him. Further, a few exceptions here and there do not erase what's going on to the whole, and blinding yourself to the systemic racism doesn't mean that said racism doesn't exist, it only helps it spread, as does posting half-truths and spurious statistics.

So anyway, still no actual defense against my argument, I guess? Just deflection and assumptions and more racist talking points. Are you actually going to back up your statistics or refute mine or address the points I've made or anything remotely like that?

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Dismantled by who, and where? It wasn't by you, and it wasn't here, that's for certain. You still can't come up with any defense against my original points, after all.

But hey, at least you're admitting that trying to convince a closeted racist like yourself is impossible. I mean, it's a small step forward, but it's still a step. Once you've moved on to not using half-truths in an attempt to demonize the victims of systemic racism, you'll have really made some progress.

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I can certainly provide links to the data that I mentioned, if that's part of your beef. Since you've given absolutely no proof at all to back up your own stats and apparently a "rough sketch" is enough for you to condemn an entire race as criminal thugs, it just seemed like actual proof wasn't something you really cared about. Would you like said links, and would you also be providing your own by any chance?

In the meantime . . . CAN a black person become a multi-millionaire/billionaire/president or what-have-you? Of course. All of those things have already happened, so there's no disputing those facts. But by pointing at those examples and trying to use them as proof that systemic racism doesn't severely negatively effect other blacks is an exception fallacy. I mean, you do understand that both of these things can be happening at the same time very easily, right? There can be some blacks that are doing perfectly fine and then many other blacks who are not, and the reason they're not is because of issues like redlining, police profiling, and mindsets like yours. Your attempted erasure of the large number of blacks who are indeed victims of the system is blatantly racist whether you mean for it to be or not.

It's not me that's trying to make them feel like victims. It's the people who are victimizing them that are making them victims, and you are helping the oppressors under the guise of caring for the oppressed. Kind of caring, at least. I mean, you DID start off this conversation by erroneously claiming black people are rampant criminals who kill each other at the drop of a hat and are the REAL racists here. Then going on to later claim that I'M the real racist here? I dunno, seems to me like I'm not the one just casually throwing around "RACIST!" as a defense in this conversation. Something to consider.

Now, as for Mr. Larry and Miss Candace? Yeah, they're falling into much the same traps as you, using half-statistics, fallacies, and outright incorrect statements to present their case. When cops get less aggressive, crime actually has a tendency to go down. Larry tries to justify his statements to the contrary by saying crime went up in places like Ferguson, MO. I mean, of COURSE it did. It was in response to the shooting of Michael Brown and various other underlying issues involving aggressive policing policies regarding black communities. Same with the other examples he gave, the jump in crime happened after similar incidents with similar underlying problems of abuse of authority. It happened because of the exact OPPOSITE of police backing off. I can give you links regarding the correlation between police aggressiveness and crime, if you like, as well as info on the other wrong things they said in that piece.

Now, is this the part where you concern troll at me over the fact that I just said a couple of black people were wrong about something? And then I have to say no, I called two people wrong about something, the fact that they're black is completely incidental? And you go on about how surely black people would know better about it than other folks, and I have to remind you that we were just talking about how some black people do indeed make it big and the "I GOT MINE" mentality is a documented thing that happens to a lot of folks who get theirs, and so on and so forth, or can we just skip that entire tedious, predictable, and pointless conversation?

In any case, in general, a lot of what they were saying is the exact same sort of white liberal claptrap that MLK tried to warn people about, tried to keep other black folk from falling for. We all wanna think that we've progressed oh so far, but we really haven't. We as a society just keep recycling the same old nonsense over and over again, pretending that at least the wrapping is new.

Bleh. Good night.

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Ah yes, the old "The world isn't fair, so why bother trying?" bit. It's a shame you're so willing to just give up on trying to help people that are getting hurt by the system. I'm sure they'd appreciate knowing that folks like you would rather believe that their struggles either aren't real or aren't important than to actually do anything to help them.

I think what's healthier is to help each other so that we ALL have a chance to live our lives with dignity, without pain, not just those lucky few that manage to buck the system, a system that you help enable by pretending it doesn't exist. Closing your mind off to the suffering of those who can't do anything about it themselves is the sickness that continues to rot away humanity.

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It's funny that you want to try and paint an awareness of how systemic racism is hurting folks as "comfortable" when it's anything but. Seems to me that going "But look at OPRAH! SHE made it, so the rest can too!" is the more magically comforting position one could take (not to mention absolutely being a case of focusing on statistical outliers). All people truly being able to do all things ever through sheer pluck would be a much nicer world to live in than one where we have to revolt against riot gear-suited cops that are brutally beating the shit out of unarmed BLM protestors. Which, y'know, is something that's actually happening. That's the reality.

But perhaps reality isn't something you're acquainted with since you seem to believe that blacks are somehow actually never really victims despite also being victims of white people who trick them into believing they are victims and also being victims of other black people who murder each other constantly. They're like Schrodinger's victim, pre-waveform collapse.

But hey! At least you've begun putting a few links in here and there to back up what you're saying! That's progress, and in reciprocation, I shall now start doing the same. Let's start with the problem of getting financial support to the victims of shootings. GoFundMes and dropping CashApp tags have indeed become more prevalent as a way for people with all sorts of medical needs recently, including victims of mass, drive-by, and other shootings. Great and wonderful in and of itself, but as a part of the bigger picture, it's a sign of just how badly the system is failing people that they have to resort to such measures instead of getting the help they need immediately.

Thing is, many US states set aside funds to assist victims of violent shootings, but those funds are difficult to access for a variety of reasons. Firstly, not everywhere has access to such programs. Further, like many government assistance programs outside the big'uns like social security, SNAP, etc., general awareness of this type of assistance is sparse due to lack of advertisement of its existence. And finally, even for those who do know about it and apply, many black people get turned down by the system, often because they have a felony on their record. Some folks might say "Oh, well, they committed a murder or something, so they don't deserve to be helped!" which is not only wrong and dumb and a big ol' separate conversation of its own, but also quite often not the case. Possession of a few ounces of marijuana, for example, can result in a felony charge, and blacks are disproportionately arrested for marijuana possession even tho' blacks and whites have similar usage rates. So, even if they know about the system, they can still get screwed by that system because they've already gotten screwed by another system. A delightful little bureaucratic pretzel knot, yeah?

So, do I care about victims and families of victims of drive-by shootings? I absolutely do, but setting up piecemeal crowdfunding is only a bandage for a much bigger problem, one that would be better solved through things such as universal healthcare to treat the victims without bankrupting them, reform or removal of the police actions and laws that make access to existing programs difficult, and improvements to the living conditions, wages, education, race relations, and other factors that lead to issues like gangs and drive-by shootings in the first place.

Now, as for blacks killing blacks being such a scourge, as the FBI's data shows, both black on black and white on white homicide are between 80 and 90%, and stay that way going back a long while despite minor fluctuations up and down for both statistics. So as I said before, the 90%+ numbers you were talking about earlier are not only an inflation of the real numbers, the real numbers are well within expected parameters for any racial grouping. This is not to say it isn't also a terrible situation, as any murder is of course awful, but trying to portray the percentage of black on black violence as if it's so much worse than other relevant statistics is misleading at best and outright wrong at worst.

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Many, though not all, of the things you mention are actually addressed in the second part. I had to split the post in half because SteamGifts has a character limit. In any case, I shall wait for you to read and reply to the second part before replying in full myself.

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Now, is it concerning that the hard numbers of homicide offenses for each group ARE so similar despite the disparity in each group's overall population? Of course it is, but not for the reasons that you've thus far espoused. I've already mentioned a few of the actual reasons - for example, the disproportionate arrests for minor offenses with prohibitive punishments - but the biggest reason that there are indeed more homicides and other crimes in general in black communities is not because they're black but because they're poor.

"Ooooh, you're saying all black people are poor, meh meh meh meh meh!" Yeah no, slow your roll, that's not what I'm saying. Just give me a moment to lay out the data. To start off, around 27% of black people in the US are below the poverty line, the highest percentage of any race in the US (though Hispanics aren't too far behind). This is the result of several actions and policies, both past and present, such as redlining, an atrocious practice whose effects are still being strongly felt to this day because, even though the practice itself was stopped, the damage it did was never actually fixed.

So no, not all blacks are poor, but a relatively large chunk of them are as a result of the actions of the US government and other institutions of power like banks and business owners. And so we come to the fact that there is a very tight correlation between poverty and crime that's the same regardless of skin color. This makes it a class issue on top of being a racial issue, which isn't terribly surprising given that the two issues often walk hand in hand.

And so the pattern emerges: Blacks get screwed by systemic racism that leaves many of their families poor for generations to come, crime rates rise due to this impoverished state, and then folks like yourself either ignore or are ignorant of the causes, instead just looking at things in their current state and saying things like "SEE, BLACKS DO ALL THE CRIMES". Instead of actually trying to help, they choose to victim-blame and try to essentially tell these suffering folks "Look at how well your older brother Denzel Washington is doing, why can't you be more like him?"

Now, as for why drive-by shootings don't get as much attention as police killing folks. Well that's easy. There are several factors, but primarily it's due to the power disparity involved.

Yes, children and other innocent bystanders are sadly sometimes the victims of drive-by shootings. This often gets overshadowed by incidents were more children are more likely to die, such as school shootings, but it also isn't quite as much of a noteworthy incident (which is sad in and of itself) because many times the children involved are part of a gang, and the perpetrators also tend to be young gang members themselves. As such, the difference between the two parties involved is usually not very much.

Cops, however, have authority. As legally ordained agents of the government, they hold the majority of the power in any interaction they have with the public. This makes it incumbent upon them to be more careful during such interactions, and when they act with undue violence towards a private citizen, it's an extremely serious issue.

Now, here's were I should address the video you posted, which I did watch, and wowee was she wrong about just about everything she said. I could go through it all, addressing each issue point by point, but that could take up one or two more entire posts just as long as this one. I mean, just in the very first study she cites, they were observing cops during SIMULATED incidents. Naturally the cops would know they were being watched and therefore adjust their actions accordingly so as to stay out of trouble. I mean, duh.

Anyway, instead of going through all that rigamarole, I'm going to point you to Mapping Police Violence, in particular their 2017 Police Violence Report, since they contradicts almost everything the lady in the video was saying. They also have pretty exhaustive listings of their sources, should you wish to delve deeper into all of it.

The main takeaways, in the meantime, is that about 24% of people that were killed by the police in the US that year were black despite blacks being just 13% of the population, they were three times more likely to be killed than white people, and slightly more likely to be unarmed at the time. And as bad as the numbers regarding blacks are, the stats regarding police violence overall paints an even nastier scene. Most of the people killed were stopped for either minor offenses or for no reason at all. Many were unarmed at the time. And most damning, almost none of the cops involved got charged with a crime. Usually those that do get any sort of punishment are simply suspended or at worst fired from the police force, relative slaps on the wrist.

Two gang members getting in a fistfight or a shootout will both face roughly equal repercussions for their actions if they get caught, so (relatively speaking) no big deal. If an officer of the law attacks a regular citizen, fighting back can lead to serious repercussions for the citizen, even if the cop is attacking them for no reason or even a very bad reason. The cop, on the other hand, is far more likely to walk away from such incidents completely unscathed.

Now sure, there are supposed to be balances to this, such as IA and other watchdogs keeping the police honest and accountable. But as the data shows, they aren't working near well enough. Thus, due to abuse of power, the imbalance of said power that is already bad becomes horrifically worse. The continuing and escalating police brutality during the current protests is ample proof of that on their own. As the police are a vital part of the current system, the whole thing is therefore a systemic issue, and that means it is a VERY big deal.

As for the whole blackout thing, I didn't take part in it yesterday, nor do I intend to take part in any future blackouts. Silence on the issues is another major part of the problem and not in any way part of the solution. Screw that (lack of) noise.

So, what is the solution? Among other things, not being silent and not trying to erase/blame those who are suffering due to circumstances beyond their control. Addressing class disparity, particularly its racially-driven aspects, of which there are many. Hold the police accountable for their actions through either extensive reform or complete replacement with a better system. More and better education. Rebuilding and improving infrastructure. Systemic changes that can benefit all of us in general and people of color in particular.

Definitely not things like "rebuilding inner-city culture", whatever that even means, or "re-valorizing marriage before having children", which would have little to no effect at all and is, wow, not just a racist thing to say but also pointlessly prejudiced against single parents in general.

Essential point is: Don't try to fix the people because the people don't need to be fixed. Fix the problems surrounding the people, the rest will follow naturally, and we will all benefit from it as a society. Win-win and all that.

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Hope you're ready for this, 'cause it's gonna be a long one, split into several parts.

Affirmative action is geared to help groups that have historically been affected by things like systemic racism, so I suppose it's not a surprise that you believe a policy specifically set up to make things more fair is unfair itself. Disappointing, but not surprising. Perhaps the most frustrating part is that you continue to admit that the systemic issues are there ("The system is not perfect," "Sure there is police brutality," "I acknowledge that many black people must endure suffering from past policies," etc.), but also continue to either downplay or completely ignore the effects that they have. So lemme just address that before anything else.

You say that I don't believe in personal accountability, which is not at all true. People should absolutely do the best they can with the tools they have, and if they don't, well that's on them. The problem is when the tools they have are broken, missing, or actively harmful to the user, hobbling their ability to do as much as someone with a full, proper toolset.

"It's a poor craftsman that blames his tools," the saying goes, but that saying is complete bull. Try turning a screw with a coconut and then tell me whether it would be easier, harder, or equally difficult to do with a proper screwdriver.

The systems we have in place are where we get our tools from, and many of those systems are skewed toward certain groups and away from others, while others are just busted entirely. So it is that some folks get perfectly nice screwdrivers while others are forced to bang away with those coconuts. Even if they do manage to fashion a crude screwdriver out of the husk somehow, that just means they had to work magnitudes harder to achieve what others take for granted.

So we come to the part where you admit that life isn't fair but somehow also hold onto personal accountability being the more powerful of the two forces. If you're born with no arms or lose both of them later in life, taking on the challenge personally means learning to do things with your feet or mouth that others do with their hands, and yeah, many folks do in fact manage to do this. Hooray for personal accountability! The problem is the fact that they had to take the extra time to learn how to operate in a hand-based society (especially those who were already used to using their former hands) that folks born with arms and still have them didn't have to take, and there are still some tasks made more difficult if not impossible to do due to their status. So what's personal accountability to do? Are they supposed to just grow a new set of arms through sheer pluck and determination? They could potentially learn to build their own prosthetic arms with their feet, but again that would involve extra time and effort that other people don't have to go through. So even if they do manage to overcome the problem all by themselves, it still puts them at a disadvantage.

Now, let's introduce systemic solutions into the mix. Professions like caregiver and prosthetic engineer. Public and private buildings set up to accomodate people with physical disabilities. Groups - governmental or otherwise - that help provide resources that would be difficult or impossible for the disabled to get on their own. Even the crowdfunding thing is a systemic solution, albeit a rather poor one, as I pointed out before. I'm betting even folks in your own community help each other out from time to time rather than depend solely on their own capabilities for everything.

And none of this is a handout. Helping other people is not a bad thing, nor is needing and receiving help from others. Denying people that help and insisting that they pick themselves up by their bootstraps IS a bad thing and only causes harm. This is because systemic issues trump personal capability in most cases when the two butt heads. Life is not made up entirely of one or the other, but one is indeed a more potent force and must be directly addressed so that personal capability can do its thing without hindrance.

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Okay, so, on to peaceful protestors getting attacked. Over on Twitter, there is a thread compiling videos of this happening. The link goes to post #162, apologies for that, but as the post below it points out there's a scrolling issue if you link to #1. As of right now there are 250 videos in the thread, filled with instances of protestors getting beaten, shot with rubber bullets, and tear gassed, the last of which is supposedly just fine to use on civilians but is designated a war crime internationally if used during combat.

Are some folks looting places? Are some attacking cops directly? Yeah, of course they are, but that's not everybody, it's not even most folks, and it's not in any way a good reason to commit legal war crimes on 'em. And one of the main reasons is, again, the disparity in power between the groups. The police have riot gear, non-lethal and lethal weapons, training, and authority. The violent protestors have makeshift weapons. The looters have a television set. The peaceful protestors have signs and harsh language. There is no balance in the fight when things get violent, and it's emerging that many if not most of the times violence occurs, it's the cops that instigate it.

More cops doesn't mean less crime, you see, and part of the reason for that is the way police handle things. They handle them poorly? Commit acts of police brutality? Routinely harass black people and communities? Then it doesn't matter how many cops you apply to the situation or where, it either isn't going to change or it is actively going to get worse, and in the case of the current protests, police mishandling of the situation is causing it to get worse. This is again a systemic problem that requires changes to the system for it to truly be solved.

Next comes . . . oh. Oh, dear. "All lives matter"? Really? Well okay, let's delve into that cesspool, I suppose.

Do all lives matter? Yes, of course they do. Is saying "all lives matter" whenever things like "black lives matter" comes up an appropriate response? No, it absolutely is not. It is an erasure of the issues that these folks have to overcome, a denial of the inequality that they regularly face. It is, even if not intended, racist. And it's certainly not helpful, similar to saying "All houses matter!" while ignoring the fact that your neighbor's house is burning down.

When folks say "Black Lives Matter", they aren't saying that other lives don't. They are saying that there are lots of folks out there who believe black lives DON'T matter, that the system is set up to enforce that belief, and that both that belief and the system that upholds it are wrong. And unfortunately, that's all true. Sadly, I live in an area with a heavy KKK influence, where black lives aren't seen as particularly important at all to many folks.

Not that it's limited to just black people, mind. Folks around here are also not too keen on any of the browner races, anyone on the left side of the political spectrum, homosexuals, transgender folk, or foreigners. Of course and unfortunately, a lot of people in the US in general aren't fond of foreigners, so since you've indicated you're from Indonesia, yours would likely be one of the lives they would think wouldn't matter very much if at all. It's one of the reasons the US as a nation is perfectly fine and happy with bombing the crap out of folks elsewhere for any reason or sometimes no reason at all. It's easy to vilify and eradicate people when you don't really view them as people as such.

Ultimately, while "all lives matter" is absolutely true, it also spends a lot of time being used as a bludgeon to keep certain groups in line, usually by people who don't really believe it, work to keep it from being put into actual practice, and only trot it out when it's convenient for them.

4 years ago*
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Next, ew, the National Review. Absolutely not a good source for getting your statistics, I'm afraid, or anything else for that matter. It was founded by William F. Buckley Jr., and both it and he are big reasons behind the further rightward shift of politics in the US. As such, they are also two big factors in why we are in the disgusting mess we are currently in. Any info coming from them has to be taken with a large grain of salt, as much of it is either demonstrably false exaggerations like this particular case, or complete and outright fabrications with no bearing on reality whatsoever.

Now, as for blacks killing whites versus whites killing blacks, the numbers aren't really all that different, especially given how low they are on both sides, and what difference there is is as easily explainable as why there's a higher hard number of black on black murders versus white on white.

Let's say your ancestors were sold out by their own people or local enemies by literally getting sold to folks from another country as slaves. Let's further say that even after getting freed from slavery, your people are pretty much constantly treated as lesser beings on both individual and systemic levels. That while things do get somewhat better over the decades, that change is infinitesimally gradual, constantly contested, and sometimes even taken away. That you still live in poverty and crime no matter how hard you've worked to get out of it and get blamed for not being able to overcome having the deck stacked against you. Having had all this weight put on you by your environment and other people, what do you think the odds are that you would lash out against your oppressors?

I'd say pretty high, myself.

Okay, back to why only providing black-on-black violence statistics is misleading. I mean, I already explained this I'm pretty sure, but I'll do so again. It's because white-on-white violence is statistically on the same level. Only providing the first stat without the second stat and using it to say we really need to worry about black on black violence is misleading because it makes it seem like it is a statistical outlier. Like somehow black-on-black violence is somehow unusual amongst other forms of racial violence. You say that there's no way you could be hypocritical about it since you didn't bring up other races, but that's actually exactly how you're being hypocritical. There's the outrage for the percentage of black-on-black violence, but where's your outrage for white-on-white considering it's an almost equal percentage?

It's all a dodge, see, a distraction from the importance of cops killing black people disproportionately. And as I pointed out in the other part of my post, the reason that's important is because of the power disparity involved.

It's like the "all lives matter" thing. Is it important that black people are killing other black people and to do something about it? Yes. But it's not really an unusual situation in comparison to the percentages amongst other racial groups. Using the metaphor in the comic I linked to, this part is the house with dry rot. Meanwhile, cops WITH power are committing violence, harassment, and various other aggressions against regular citizens WITHOUT power, and that's the house on fire. If we don't take care of the cop problem first, it's just going to make the black-on-black violence worse, not to mention the black-on-white violence as well. Violence from above breeds violence below.

4 years ago*
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Regarding the "8 times the amount of killing" thing. I find that math highly suspect, but I don't think it's particularly worth getting into. The important part is that, actually, you answered your own question but then dismissed that very answer. Poverty is one of the strongest driving forces on crime, but it's not the only one. Further, these different forces are not always just additive, many of them are multiplicative, acting and reacting with each other in ways that make them and other factors worse, and it often happens in a downward cycle. Systemic racism causes poverty. Poverty causes more crime. More crime gets blamed on their race. Racism gets worse and makes everything else worse as it starts the cycle over again. Police get involved due to more systemic racism, driving the number of reported crimes (whether real or false) up, which just feeds back into the racism again.

And so on and so forth. You may think that the numbers are higher than they should be - and they are, as they should ideally be 0 across the board - but there are perfectly good reasons why they are that high, and it isn't because they're black. It's because of how the system effects them because they're black, and how that system feeds on itself over time.

But hey, let's not ignore the single parenthood thing after all, shall we? Firstly because single parenting isn't actually quite as damaging as people tend to think, but also because many of the problems that DO arise from single parenthood are also systemic. Our society has long been and still for the most part continues to be geared toward dual parent families. This is an extremely outdated way of doing things, and it causes a great deal of stress on single parents and their children. Improvements in things like the availability of childcare, better schools, higher wages and the like would make great strides towards lessening this stress and its resulting damage, not to mention how it would also all benefit dual parent families as well.

Now, as to how this relates to black families and the higher instances of single parent households. There have been several studies over the decades regarding the correlation of single parent households and poverty. Many of them conclude that single parent households have a tendency to become impoverished and further contribute to the overall poverty problem. These studies are faulty. They ignore the risks of single parenthood stemming from poverty caused by other, systemic sources as well as the other systemic problems single parent families face that I talked about above.

Thus the weight of black poverty does not rest primarily on the shoulders of a high percentage of single parent households. The high percentage of black single parent households rests primarily on the shoulders of poverty caused by systemic issues, and then each exacerbates each other in a cycle. The solution is t fix the systemic issues causing higher poverty in black communities and fix the systemic issues that cause damage to single parent families. Just going after single parent households is attacking one of the symptoms, not the actual cause.

4 years ago*
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It would indeed be great if there were fewer lethal encounters between cops and black people, but trying to put it on there being more violent black people is not at all the answer. As I have pointed out, there are reasons that there are higher crime rates in many black communities. Remove reasons like poverty and you remove those higher crime rates. And police brutality - a lot of which, again, I must point out involves non-violent or relatively harmless individuals - is a big part of that problem.

Regarding the amount of police brutality that happens every year going down, there is unfortunately no hard data on that, certainly nothing official. The Mapping Police Violence site that I linked to you is one of the few major collations of that information, and even then they can only work with what's been reported. There's no telling how many unreported instances of police brutality there have been, but likely it's pretty high considering, again, the power disparity involved. The data the site shows is pretty clear on how reporting the cops to the cops doesn't exactly get you anywhere.

So, for one, we can't really say that police brutality has gone down. Can't really say that it's gone up either. But that isn't really the point. The fact that it exists at all is a major issue that has massive and extremely widespread effects. To paraphrase Chris Rock, a "bad cop" is one of those things that shouldn't really exist at all. People are supposed to be able to trust these institutions with their lives, so even a single member of that institution violating that trust and then being protected from repercussions by the institution itself? Yeah, that crap can't be happening. That's a danger to all of society, particularly those parts most vulnerable.

Now, the idea that we can rule out systemic racism because of how things are in the UK? Wow. I mean, that's just wildly inaccurate. While it's true that they didn't have a whole civil war over owning black people like the US did, that doesn't even remotely mean that race relations in the UK are hunkey dorey. So yeah, no, we can't rule out systemic racism because of the UK. Where exactly do you think the US learned it from in the first place? It wasn't invented here. It was imported.

Finally, the single-parenthood thing being racist and insulting. Well actually, the insulting to single parents in general part I already covered, but a short recap: Single parent households are not as damaging as many studies have tried to show, many of the ways in which they are can be accounted for by outside systemic pressures. So yes, disparaging single parents is insulting because most of them are doing the best they can under strenuous conditions outside their control.

As for how it's racist, perhaps we can chalk this one up to you being from out-of-town, as it were? Here in the US, one of the more prevalent racist stereotypes of black people is that none of them know who their daddy is. Which isn't true, just to be clear. So it's possible you didn't know this, but trying to slam black communities for having a higher incidence of single parent households feeds into that stereotype.

None of this is a deflection of "simple truths that are hard to hear" because much of it isn't actually the truth, and the real truth surrounding those issues isn't really that simple.

4 years ago
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Your apparent belief in the almighty power of personal responsibility is not an uncommon one around here, and its prevalence is one of the main reasons we have the problems we have. Working hard and improving yourself and so on are very important values for sure, but as I said before, the problem comes in when those values are used to silence others that are suffering, when it's used as an excuse not to examine and improve society as a whole. When the brakes fail in a truck due to a flaw in the manufacturing process, you don't blame the failure on the pedestrians that are getting hit by the runaway truck, right?

Personal responsibility can only do so much when the overall system is working against it, and it's up to all of us to change that system so that personal responsibility can then flourish.

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4 years ago
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What's disingenuous is ignoring every single example that I give of how a disadvantage is exponentially compounded by systemic issues, the lack of systemic solutions, and the limitations of personal accountability. Instead of harping on about "You can't grow a new arm!", how about actually giving an example of how personal accountability can overcome the issues that I described without leaving said person still disadvantaged in some way? THAT would go a long way toward addressing the point that I was making.

And trying to put crime entirely on personal choices? That doesn't just ignore the things I said, it ignores the things you yourself have already said. What happened to the big difference between stealing shoes because you want 'em and stealing food because you're hungry? Why not just make the life choice to starve to death instead then? Apparently they made the life choice not to have any food already, so it's all their fault really. I guess no one on the planet ever goes hungry due to circumstances outside of their control. No such thing as drought, or blight, or people who horde food, or the like. And hey, what about a person who had food stolen away from them? I guess they'll be fine because they must've made the life choice to have their food taken away.

And now choice to join a gang or not, eh? Never mind the fact the neighbor kid that doesn't join then becomes more likely to be a victim of the local gang, I suppose, or that he won't get any kind of protection from the local gang if a rival gang rolls in and decides he must be part of the local gang just because he's in the same area. He and his family can try to move out of the area, but whoops, what if they made the life choice to be part of the 24% of blacks under the poverty line and therefore can't afford to move somewhere safer? Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

"You're just coming up with problems instead of seeing solutions!" is often the reply I get at this point in the argument, which is completely untrue. For one, I have usually at this point already given several potential solutions to the problem, exactly as I have this time. And for another, the big problem with extreme reliance on personal accountability and demanding that others do the same is that said position generally proposes solutions that IGNORES the surrounding problems in the situation. Pretending there are no surrounding problems only makes those problems worse and makes your individual accountability solutions less effective, entirely ineffective, or actively harmful. "If you believe the system makes it impossible" is completely missing the point of whether or not the system is actually making it impossible, a question that HAS to be asked before a person's personal accountability is blamed and/or personal accountability solutions can effectively be implemented.

The cops beating up folks during the protests are not facing consequences. Hell, all the cops that kicked this off are only just now starting to face anything resembling a consequence, and it's only due to the pressure being applied by the protests. And this is exactly what I'm talking about, that the system is both enabling these cops to apply undue violence AND working to protect them from repercussions.

As for you seeing lots of white people getting beaten in the videos, it's possible there is more of that going on, maybe not. I haven't done a digital headcount or anything myself. But if it is indeed the case, it does make sense. For one, remember the whole thing about there being far more whites in this country than blacks, and fortunately many whites believe as I do in helping out their black neighbors, friends, and family members in this. So it's very likely that they have a sizable presence in the protests.

For another, funny thing is that when white men have recently staged protests, many of them openly carrying rifles, other such weapons, and nazi flags, the cops stayed back then, giving them space to do their disgusting thing. I'd dig up a few links about it if you missed it, but unfortunately they're currently buried under a whole bunch of links about white men with guns hanging out during the CURRENT protests. White people bearing weapons and/or shouting nazi slogans? Everything goes smooth as glass. Unarmed black and white people protesting police brutality against black people? Batons and tear gas and rubber bullets. And when those protestors don't actually give them a reason for it? Well, as the videos I linked clearly show, they'll either make one up or not bother giving any reason at all. They just escalate.

Is the deciding factor in how they've treated these two groups of peaceful protestors that one was advocating for white people while the other is advocating for black people? I mean, the mounting evidence does seem to suggest prooooobably! And as a result, the white protestors end up taking their share of the damage too.

Anyway, back to where you continue to ignore things I've said. Specifically, the extra weight given to the "statistical outlier" of cops killing black people due to the extreme power disparity between the two groups. Any argument you might make against this being an important topic HAS to address that disparity or it is completely missing the point.

The whole reason "all lives matter" is an inappropriate response to these kinds of situations is that it tries to equalize two inherently unequal positions. Here, look, if you want simple, then let me try to boil it down to a simple thought experiment.

Person A is getting beaten with a weapon by someone wearing armor. Person B is not getting beaten at all. Person C yells "We have to help Person A!"

How exactly would telling Person C that "all people matter" help the situation? How exactly would saying "all people matter" be an appropriate response to the problem? And finally, how exactly would anyone saying "We have to help Person A!" in any way devalue Person B? Or any other person, for that matter?

Next, hey hey, now instead of ignoring what I'm saying to you, you're accusing me of saying things I never said. At what point did I claim that you do not have black sisters? Please point it out to me. In the meantime I will point out that what I DID say was that trying to pull out the "some of my best friends are black" card is racist. And it absolutely is. Knowing black people personally is not an argument. They are not props for you to use to score points. They are not automatically right just because they are black. They do not represent every single black person on the planet. Knowing them does not automatically make you not a racist. Showing me pictures or video of them or even coming to my front door to show them off in person only proves that they exist, not that they, or you, are actually correct in any way. Trying to use them as a tool in this way is thus both racist and completely irrelevant to the topic as it does not alter the data in any statistically significant way, if at all. I believe you just fine about having black half-sisters and a black stepfather. But it doesn't change anything either way.

I mean, what exactly did you expect my response to be? "Oh, well, you know some black people so I guess me and everyone else - including all the other black people that disagree with them - must be wrong, sorry about that!"? What credibility, exactly, is it supposed to lend to you or your arguments? Would that credibility be canceled out if I then called up three black people I know, ask them their opinions, and then let you know that they agree with me? What if you then got a fourth black person who agreed with you, tell me, how would that effect things?

What, in short, is your endgame with this display?

The whole reason I say that the National Review and its founder are bad sources is specifically because many of the things they have said and ideas they have pushed have commonly been demonstrably wrong. Same with Reagan, so quoting him doesn't really help your case any. Reagan was wrong, and not just about that. One of the biggest examples being the trickle-down theory that was one of the centerpieces of Reaganomics (and still used with depressing regularity today). After a temporary boost it shredded our economy and widened income inequality a horrendous amount because when the folks at the top get more money, the tendency is to keep it instead of trickling it anywhere they don't absolutely have to. And then there's the pointless wars and other conflicts, selling weapons to terrorist organizations, installing fascist dictators in other countries, so on and so forth, much of it driven by the advice and ideals of Buckley and his National Review. What good they did was completely overwhelmed by the bad.

So yeah, that's why I took the oh-so-extreme position of "take their opinions with a grain of salt".

4 years ago
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Now, back to the misleading statistics thing, you yourself HAVE to be being obtuse at this point. What you posted regarding the 90%+ stat in your initial post was, in its entirety: "90+ percent of black people killed are killed by other black people. So to answer your question, no, this is completely bizar. I believe the media has an agenda to make it look like America is overrun by violent white people who are racist, and whenever there is a white cop who happens to kill another person who is black, the media goes wild. The same people don`t care about all of the other black people being killed every day."

You don't mention the raw numbers. You don't mention the percentage of white-on-white homicides. You do mention a lot of crime is committed by a small number of folks, but you don't address any of the reasons why this is and you don't show any real connection between that and the percentage. You do mention white-on-black violence, but don't mention the amount of black-on-white violence. You don't mention ANY of the other justifications you are now trying to lay out. You don't, in fact, make any attempt at all to give a reason as to why the state of affairs you mentioned is happening.

As a result, all you did do was tell us a lot of black people are killing each other and doing crime and how totally unfair it is that people are paying attention to how the people who are supposed to be protecting people's lives are instead snuffing them out. "Don't be so hard on cops that are murdering people, because black people BAD!" is not a good look, but it's exactly the one you put in your first post. You may not have realized that's what you were doing when you wrote it, but it is what you did, and continuing to try and justify or pretend it didn't happen after the fact is REALLY not a good look.

As for those current attempts at justification, they're all rehashes of things we've already covered, and you still have not satisfactorily addressed my points regarding them. Instead you want to say that I'm trying to justify crimes committed by black people when all I'm doing is giving the reasons and causes, which is a different thing. A serial killer's reason for murdering people might be that he believes they are agents of Satan, but just because he had a reason does not necessarily mean that his actions were justified.

Some of the crimes that black people commit due to their environment might be justifiable, like stealing food. Other crimes that they commit due to their environment might not be justifiable, like stealing a pair of sneakers. It's never going to be completely one or the other either way, and I am not and have not in any way attempted to make such judgement calls here. What I have done and will continue to do is point to the systemic factors that have placed them in an environment that rewards, does not adequately punish, is entirely indifferent to, and/or absolutely necessitates the theft of property.

And again, I am NOT taking personal accountability out of the equation, I am simply giving it the proper amount of weight in relation to the systemic issues involved. That weight simply happens to be far less than that of the systemic issues because they involve elements that are out of the scope of most if any individual's ability to overcome with personal accountability.

It's simply the way things work. Pre-American Civil War, there were black people who were freed by their masters and slaves that escaped from their masters to get to freedom. But there were other slaves that were physically unable to escape on their own. Others that could've gotten out themselves but weren't willing to leave behind friends and family members who couldn't also escape. Do you look down on these people? Think that they should have taken more personal responsibility to not be slaves? Think that changes to the system like the abolishment of slavery and the accompanying war shouldn't have taken place, and instead everyone should have just waited around for however long until the rest of the slaves finally chose to free themselves?

Yeah, this is an extreme example, but the mechanics behind the whole thing are exactly the same. Just like the institution of slavery was altered on a much more massive scale due to systemic solutions rather than individual efforts, so too can the problems of poverty and crime.

Back to the single parenthood thing, hoooooooly crap, I figure it is quite likely that you just don't know about just how crappy sex education is for everyone in the US as a whole. It is, in short, atrocious. In a little more detail, there is no overarching gameplan, leaving everything up to individual states so it's a complete crapshoot how good of an education you might get. About 2/3rds allow kids to opt out of some or all of the course. Just less than half teach about contraceptives. Less than half are even required to inform kids that getting teen pregnant is a bad thing. Most teach abstinence, with many of those stressing abstinence-only, which not only doesn't work, it actually makes teenage pregnancies rise. And most damning in my opinion? Only 1/3rd of them require that sex education be MEDICALLY ACCURATE! Is that not insane?

Our educational system overall is pretty awful to be honest. We are technically second best in the world, but that comes with a LOT of qualifiers. The main issue is very similar to the state of income equality in the US. We have some very high quality schools just like we have some extremely wealthy people, but the rest is either meh or entirely in the gutter. And surprise, surprise, white folk mostly end up in better, more expensive schools, while black folk are generally relegated to public schools, which are not all of equal value.

So, in general, black people tend to get a poorer education overall, and even if they were on an exact par with whites, there's still no telling if they would get a proper sex education. The numbers on teen pregnancies between blacks and white aren't really so bad comparatively, but I absolutely agree that they are still much higher than they ought to be. This isn't because they're all making a decision to have so many babies so young, however, because the fact is that too many of them either don't get a proper enough sex education to make any kind of an informed choice in the matter, or they're being taught WRONG.

Speaking of wrong information, let me explain again that the Mapping Police Violence website is one of the very few comprehensive sources for that information. There is no full and complete data on the trends that I've been able to find from official sources like the FBI, the police themselves obviously can't be trusted to provide entirely accurate information on such things even if they were willing to do so, and police brutality has a negative effect on people's willingness to report crimes of any kind. Reporting the police to the police isn't exactly productive, and many other law enforcement agencies are only just now starting to consider maybe they should look into the problem thanks to the current protests.

Because of all this, naturally it takes extra time to get all the data together to craft a full report, and yes, even that information is not going to be complete. Even then, 2017 or even 2015 is not in any way, shape or form "conveniently outdated". It was only three to five years ago. Data like that stays relevant for a long time, and again, this is one of the best if not THE best source for this information. So, y'know, if you have something that's newer and also as relevant and accurate, go ahead and cough it up. Until then, this is what we've got to work with.

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Now, I gotta ask for some clarification on a couple of things, because for the life of me, I can't seem to find where you're seeing 'em. First would be the 41 unarmed (9 black) people killed in 2019. The other is the part about a cop being 18 times more likely to be killed by a black male than an unarmed black male was to be killed by a cop. I mean, I don't doubt they might be there, I just seriously am not seeing them.

In the meantime, I do have issues regarding both of those things. First, regarding the decline of police brutality rates . . . who said there was no decline? I certainly didn't. I'm pretty sure the MPV site didn't. I even tried a word search here and I don't think anyone else in this thread said it either. Fact is that both police brutality AND crime in general have been in a slow decline over the past decade or two. So I'm with you on that, it's absolutely true. Like I said, I can't find the 41 number for some reason, but I don't doubt at all that might be the case because it does fit the general trend. This does not, however, mean that it can't swing back up at any time. In fact, if nothing else, the current protests are undoubtedly gonna spike 2020's numbers for both stats quite noticeably, even taking into account how the quarantine may have depressed them. And even if it didn't, the number of acceptable police brutality cases against anyone of any color is exactly ZERO. This is, once again, because of the power disparity involved and the fact that the police are the people we are supposed to trust to protect us from violence. If we can't trust them to do that, then we need an entirely new system.

The second statistic is a bit more problematic, unfortunately. Did you perhaps mean to say 18 times more likely to be killed by an UNARMED black male than an unarmed black male being killed by a cop? Because if you mean to include armed black males at the start but not include them at the end, then that's an extremely skewed comparison and might explain why I can't find that data on the site.

Anyway, I do hope you're able to provide the sources for that info . . . and perhaps the info regarding most of the people killed by cops in 2019 being armed and dangerous. Your assumptions regarding such aren't relevant to the discussion, after all.

Regardless, there are several ways to de-escalate the situation before the use of lethal force, even if the person involved is armed. Lots of cops in the US are not required to use them or find loopholes, and even when those ways are absolutely required and followed properly, they don't really work as well as they should a lot of the time. And if you really don't see an issue with trying to fearmonger by talking about the danger of an unarmed people versus cops with training, gear, and authority, then it's no wonder you're still struggling with the whole power disparity thing. I'm not saying they don't have a chance at all, but it's just really weird to talk about warning the lions that some of those Christians can be kinda wily.

Y'know, that website DOES kinda look like there are officers who are criminals that go around beating and killing people. Imagine that! It's almost like the data reflects the reality. Would you perhaps like to go back to the Twitter thread of police brutality videos for a refresher on just how true it is? I'm sure they've uploaded a lot more since you last checked it out.

Now, finally, debunking the claim that white cops target black men! I . . . um. Hmm. What? Who claimed anything about it being white cops? You, in fact, are the only one I can find that has specified their race, and I only realized you had after I followed your link and got immediately confused as to why you had put it in. I mean, maybe someone else has talked about the cops being white and I'm just missing it, but I certainly never said anything about it. All of my statements have been about any cops at all, whether they're targeting black people or otherwise. I don't actually have any idea what the exact data is about the races of the police officers involved. Not because I assumed they were all white, which I didn't, but because it's not a relevant statistic.

To begin with, I've already known for quite a long while that black and other cops are just as susceptible to racism as white cops. I've never read this particular study, but it's been reported on the news before, and I've seen it mentioned elsewhere on the 'net as well. And, well, I'm really not sure what your point was supposed to be here, because that study saying that minority suspects are disproportionately targeted by cops for police brutality regardless of the race of the cops involved is more proof that the racism issue is baked into the US law enforcement system, not simply a matter of individuals choosing to be racist.

And one more time, it's not about the cops as individuals, it's about the disparity of power that exists between them and their victims and the systemic issues that mold them. It doesn't matter if they're white. It doesn't matter if they're some other non-white color or even the exact same color as their victim. When a cop commits an unnecessarily violent act on a citizen, it is a BIG DEAL. And since they demonstrably and disproportionately target black people regardless of their own race, when a cop commits an unnecessarily violent act on a black citizen, it is a VERY BIG DEAL.

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Fwoof, thank goodness, yes, I think you are indeed getting it now, awesome. Only little adjustment I would make is to point out that the problem isn't so much weakness as it is vulnerability. A child doesn't have to be weak, for instance, to be taught the wrong thing by parents, teachers, or other authority figures. And since none of us know every single thing there is to know about everything, we as adults also have our vulnerabilities, our blind spots where bad information can get in despite our best efforts. Even big, strong Superman has certain things that can hit him below the belt, after all. This is one of the reasons I mentioned education as one of the solutions for systemic issues and bemoaned the state of general and sex education in the US. A good, proper, thorough education can go a long way toward helping us be able to sort through and properly judge incoming information, thus building up our defenses against bad info, bad actors, and bad systems that try to influence us. Not much different from learning which snakes are venomous, how to protect yourself against getting bitten, and what to do if you are, for example.

Anyway, yeah, Dems need to do better. Republicans and Independents too. Trying to get any of them to make things better of their own recognizance . . . well, that's a long wait on a train that don't come. Thankfully it seems the protests are having a real effect. It may still take a little while longer for the major changes to come along, but at least things are in motion and no longer stuck in the old status quo standstill.

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if you want facts check out Colin Flaherty , he exposed the black on white crime.

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Sorry, but comparing murder/manslaughter with looting/criminal property damage is plainly wrong. Both are criminal actions, but that doesn't make the actors bad on the same level.
And no, I neither think that violent protesting would be okay or ever helped its cause.

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don't forget all the innocent people killed by the violent protesters.

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May I ask you to share that information? There are reports about several victims during the protests, but no details given out by the police yet.

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Police reports usually take a while to be released so I guess I can't give you anything official but it doesnt take a rocket scientist to connect the dots. Several reports of dead + thugs with guns + videos showing dead people in the street = Dead people

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What if the dead are protesters? Would you regret bringing it up then?
As said before, I'm completely against violent protesting, but the comparisons in your title and in your first sentence imply that protesters have killed "innocent" people, though this isn't proven yet and readers like me will wonder: "Why is damaging property or injuring people just as bad or even worse than killing?"

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I doubt you intended to imply that killing non-protestors is fine with you, but that is how it is coming across.

Personally, I believe that killing people is a bad thing, regardless of who killed whom. Even when there are specific reasons for the killing (e.g. execution for murder), it is still not something to be desired. We should never be blasé about human beings suffering and dying lest we lose our humanity.

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Nah, I'm never fine with it. I'm against execution and glad that it isn't a thing here.
I just haven't seen any official reports about protesters killing people, while Floyd is pretty obvious. And the term "violent protester" usually doesn't include killing/manslaughter for me.

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Not protestors, but rioter and looters

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And no, I neither think that violent protesting would be okay or ever helped its cause.

It definitely doesn't help, which also makes you wonder who starts those riots in the first place.

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I believe it was discovered that a cop did it. His name has been out for days now.

Not to mention in Eugene, Oregon there was an undercover cop caught on video vandalizing a store.

But let's totally ignore the protestors being shot at, even people threatened to be shot in their own homes, politicians and children being maced and gassed and losing their eyes for it by police. Sure, the vandalism seems "just as bad".

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I believe it was discovered that a cop did it. His name has been out for days now.

Well, I have a friend who left the intervention unit of the police force here after finding out some colleagues had been inflaming peaceful protests a couple of years back. Never found out if it was for someone else or just because of their own politics but it's not unheard of.
Not that it happens every time there's a riot, and you still need people to keep it going, those are not all cops.

But let's totally ignore the protestors being shot at

Well, the twitter in chief says "when the looting starts, the shooting starts" so I guess that says it all.
I'm opposed to looting but I don't think anyone who is not threatening a life should be shot at.

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I'm just answering your question. The person all along was the one that wanted people to be trapped for it, for whatever insidious reason that may be. There was even a dude telling him to stop, but he's stoked the fire already, and here we are.

The origin of that phrase comes from the lynching days, so the optics of that is certainly not very good. Not very good at all. But I should expect that anyway.

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This exactly. I'm not in favor of violent manifestations but in this case, when people don't care anymore, the only way to be heard is to make noise. Info: I'm not saying what people is doing is enterely right.

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So the solution is to destroy businesses and kill people that have nothing to do with your "systematic racism"? It's senseless.

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I understand living in fear and being angry. But more violence is not the solution to stop violence.

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Peace is never a failed solution.

I get it. And I would get rioting against a police station or a government building, a court house. It wouldn't help either, imo, but I'd get it.
Rioting and destroying small businesses, some of which may even be owned by minorities, is not a solution to anything.

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You're right of course. Human life is more precious than property.
However look at the coverage now. More and more the media are covering the rioting and less and less the injustice.
All that is only helping turn people's attention away from what matters in the first place.

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I would argue that while media might be embattled ATM, they also have a vested interest in the status quo.

Oh very definitely. When I see people say that media are "sooo liberal" it makes me laugh. The media just love anything that will make the most people tune in for the ads. Whatever works, and they are not the ones trying to solve anything.

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But wouldn't that money be better spent to tighten local communities, help at risk kids develop their skills and find a perspective, provide more funding for free clinics and similar things than to rebuild police stations and other goverment buildings?

Not saying that 100% of the money would go to these causes but the burnt out police stations WILL be rebuilt and the money for it will be missing elsewhere.

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I dont get how anyone can buy the whole systematically murdered. Yeah, maybe by other blacks but not by police.

Even in the article they wrote "U.S. Police Shootings: Blacks Disproportionately Affected"

Maybe because Im tired, but if whites are shot to death twice as much as black people and if blacks are 13% of the population and commit about 50% of the crime. How is it systematically for black people to be shot to death even if you try to spin it that they have higher deaths per million?

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I wrote a response here if you have any opinions on it.

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Your graph is showing deaths per million. So according to that graph you are about 250% more likely to be killed by a police officer if you are black.

Think of it like a shitty lottery you never would want to play.
Odds are:
12 in 1 million if you are white
22 in 1 million if you are hispanic
30 in 1 million if you are black

The loser in that lottery gets shot by police.

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You pretty much wrote the way everyone does by claiming they are 2,5 times higher chance of getting shot if you are black. This was exactly the point I didnt get even if there are higher deaths per million. If I dont misunderstand the graph it shows deaths/million and it takes in concideration of all races/people? So for it to be valid pretty much everyone is up for concideration to get shot which is ridiculous. A majority of those that get shot by police arent innocent people.

If we take your lottery analogy and assume it would be random to win the "price".
It makes sense that white would win more because they are in the majority of the population.
Now we have blacks, they are 13% of the population but they "win" 2,5 times more than whites. That doesnt make sense and something would be seriously wrong if a group that is only 13% of the population would win 2,5 times more than 72% of whites. And if this was true I would agree with you.

But like I said, isnt the graph of ALL races and it checks the chance of winning per million. But in the real world not everyone partakes in the lottery.

Now if we leave the analogy.
If blacks are 13% of the population and commit about 50% of the crimes, isnt it more likely they get shot to death by police at a higher rate then whites?
Whites get shot to death by cops about 50% more in total than blacks. That makes sense concidering they have a higher population. But if blacks commit 50% of the crimes and there are other races except white and black, I would assume whites commit a bit less than 50% crimes and it would seem that actually whites have a higher chance of getting shot by police regardless of the death per million. Because like I said, not everyone is a criminal. And I dont assume everyone that gets shot is innocent.

I might be wrong it the way I think because I dont have all the facts and I made a few assumptions. Thats why I thought someone would have better info after my first respons than just: Because of "systemic oppression" and "250% higher chance of getting shot just because they are black"

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It pretty much coincides with poverty.

Blacks are twice as likely than whites to live in poverty. Poverty and crime have always been inter-linked.

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Thank you for posting this. I considered to ask them myself why some think that "protest peacefully and be reasonable" should satisfy anyone but those satisfied with the status quo, if history already shows that it results in no improvement.
Add a president like Trump (who didn't even manage to listen for a minute to Floyd's family during his call) and then explain those hurt how they should expect from him (and GOP) out of all people to do them more justice, if only they would protest in a manner that isn't forcing anyone to take them serious enough.

Would I prefer improvements in a peaceful and sophisticated manner? Absolutely.
But try achieving that with an administration which hurls insults and lies as a daily business. A group of people that only knows black and white on every level. See foreign politics, even with allies. Inner politics ... do we really need to point out all the division? Heck, even if someone dares to user their head within their own ranks they are instantly labeled a "RINO" aka traitor.

What surprises me though is that people don't consider a general strike. Add the effect of such a strike to the economic troubles covid-19 already causes and you'd have them on their knees. Though they probably would consider that terrorism too, if their precious economy suffers.

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Thanks for apologising lol

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I thought you were ignoring? bye

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no worries, your good.

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And since the topic is in the title, you could have ignored the thread entirely instead of not only opening it, but then commenting in it, and then letting the OP know you've blacklisted them.

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This reminds me Futurama

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All I see [...]

Thankfully, the more violent protesters seem to be a vast minority.
Otherwise, (for the most part) agreed.

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I didn't hear about this. Did they start shooting people and setting businesses on fire?

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From the reports that I can find: No shots where fired, nobody was hurt, no property was damaged. That's the definition of a peaceful protest.

Edit: So to answer your question. No, I would not have made a post about it because they weren't harming innocent people.

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I would encourage it as long as you follow your local gun laws and use the firearm responsibly.

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Following your state's gun laws, being trained with the gun your using, knowing when and when not to draw your firearm, basic firearm safety.
A gun is only a tool, it does what the person behind it wants it to do.

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Carrying a gun can be used as a deterrence just by knowing that somebody has one. A (smart) criminal wouldn't rob a police station because he would know that there are a lot of armed officers inside. In other words, a gun doesn't have to be pointed or shot to prevent a crime. Part of using a gun responsibly in public is to know when NOT to use it. The only time you should draw a gun in public is when you are going to use it to protect yourself. That's the answer to your question, even if you don't think it is.

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So responsible use of a gun is using it to intimidate, and then maybe kill if the intimidation alone wasn't successful. I hear ya.

That's not at all what he said. You're leading the conversation where you'd like it to go.

Edit: Keep in mind, I don't even support carrying handguns, but I've been watching you lead the OP for a while now ...

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Good try but that's not what I said at all. I'm always down for a conversation but if you're going to start twisting my words then I'm done here.

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If a law changes then the protesters must change with the law

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I'll tell that to those protesting in Hong Kong

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Different countries and government types, we have basic rights in the USA that they don't in China.

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Yes, although it doesn't change the underlying point - which is that laws get changed to try and restrict those who protest, and so merely pushing the line that those who protest should always obey the law and if the law changes that the protesters should always comply with that law is not right, and if it can be used with USA it can be used by much more repressive regimes as well.

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We have a Constitutional right to protest peacefully, they can't enact laws to stop that. China doesn't have protection like that for its citizens.

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Cool, you also have the Second Amendment, didn't seem to matter much when both parties voted to restrict gun rights in response to people protesting who they didn't like.

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+1

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Their whole basis was to defy the state health orders to social distance and wear masks, and their only solution for "defense" was to bring their guns. For a friggin' debate!

But in all other cases, police would respond to people with guns (especially towards black people) for whatever threat level was assessed from there, if there even was one.

But what did the cops do? Nothing. They were the only barrier between the "armed militia" and the state legislators in a state building. So, imagine all those angry shouty voices , who might be mad enough to shoot the guns against lawmakers because they had them on hand, and the cops doing nothing.

Fast forward here: the cops have been outright maiming people (especially politicians) to the point they lose their eyes. Not even for the vandalism, but being confronted with their violence, and not any of those people were armed. People being shot at, even threatened to be shot at in their own home, by police. Even John Cusack got his bike vandalized with a baton Complete 180. I know a guy, who has (so far) counted over 60 incidents across the country from the last couple days to now of such incidents, so you know it hit the fan. The only harm against other people the protestors have committed in spite of this were against people who had weapons and used it against them. One of them the media mentioned was a store owner, until the idiot outed himself as the guy who was beat up, confessed he really wanted to hurt people, and admitted that it was an outright lie that he didn't own a store.

So, yeah, I am NOT worried about vandalism. Property can replace the stuff with insurance. People's lives cannot.

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You are acting as if half the world wasnt laughing at those man-childs overcompensating and parading their attachment issues.
But how are they even comparable ? This is bunch of animals destroying a city against peaceful protest. If people rioting would have taken up similar methods and instead of making clowns of themselves went on an actual protest there wouldnt be such a huge fuss about it.

also - at first it was about police brutality. But of course americans like to turn everything around and in the end make it about racism. So in the end you are fighting something bigger then the actual problem. Havent you noticed you cant eradicate racism ? People hate each other no matter what, and to some whats a better reason then another mans race. Ever been to europe ? People here are extremely racist. And this "cause" that protestors have taken upon is only ruining stereotypes already in place. If anything this is fueling racism. And now we have completely forgotten that it was about police brutality which is an actual american problem. Test, screen and train new recruits. Recruit policeman with sense of decency that wouldnt use excessive force and abuse his power....... but you cant, because you turn everything into racism and always abandon the actual problem.

Im not saying racism is not the problem. All Im saying is that the problem here was police brutality. And these "protestors" just set your fight against racism 10 years back. And of course we have completely forgotten it was about police brutality and nothing will change yet again. Until the next time policeman kills someone and we will see this shitshow happaning again without any results.

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"Ever been to europe ? People here are extremely racist."
As European... what now?

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What now ? Nothing. That was my point in showing that its not a problem that we can eradicate that simply - especially with riots and the way Americans are going at it. Of course the fight has to go on and equality must be achieved, but lately it seems that people somehow tune out racists and think that they have fixed the problem. Just because you flaunt around "BLM" with hashtags and graffities doesnt mean they somehow become enlightened and think "OH, how wrong was I, I'm not racist anymore".

Hence, swaying away from police brutality and making this about racism masks the real problem and the war on racism continues without result. Again - Im not saying that has to stop - keep BLM movement going and fight for equality. But dont forget to fight the actual problem - police are recruiting assholes who happen to be racist. You want to tell me rioting somehow will change their mind ? If anything racism breeds on these events.

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You still haven't seemed to explain how Europeans are "extremely racist"... which is just plain wrong.
It's the USA that got the biggest racism issue I have ever seen. Don't project that onto the rest of the world.

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USA is very "verbal" with its racism and very open. Basically all of the world sees whats going on in USA and its one huge melting pot where problems arise constantly.

It's cool you dont know many racist people. I suppose Netherlands (if your steam info is correct) is probably rather progressive. But did you forget refugee crisis ? Not all of the countries are the same of course, but there are many countries that simply dislike different races (I'm generalizing of course, Im not saying everyone is racist). Europeans are rather passive and will be racist indoors so its just natural for others not to even know someones racist

Maybe I overshot with "extremely".. But racist nonetheless.
All I'm saying is that racism is a problem. I'm not trying to make either USA or EU sound more racist or whatever. All I'm pointing out is that racism is a problem and it doesnt have an easy fix so we should work at it systematically problem by problem. Firstly - lets get working on fixing police force instead of ruining god damn cities in the name of fighting racism because obviously that doesnt do anything

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The refugee crisis isn't a racism issue though, it's one of space, resources and the potential of ISIS members joining along with the actual refugees.

It would be nice if all immigrants could be allowed, but you can see with the US/Mexico or Australia sending back boats it really isn't a race/country thing.

And used to be much better. The yearly battle around 'Black Pete' definitely created a lot more racists than would exist otherwise.

And yeah, agreed on that. Don't really know a sollution though since I'm not fully sure why the situation is as is in the USA. It's not rampant cartel corruption. Is it the fact anyone could be armed? Probably doesn't help but I doubt that's the sole reason...

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Well, lets hope so no one has. Seeing from what the discussions have shifted towards makes me really think they have.

And about riots - its debatable, as I really cant notice anything good coming out of this. Getting attention ? Sure.... but what kind of attention ? To police brutality ? Hardly.

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Some people are only pacifists when the poor or opressed protest. I see this type of comment being made on the French Revolution: "Why are they killing the monarchy? Violence is wrong, let's perpetuate the same problem for eternity and the class system!"

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So, violence is good then

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Well, to be fair, the french revolutionists killed the people killing them, ending their oppression. The protests as of right now are hurting more (if not near entirely) innocent people. If they killed only people that killed them, then I'd still say murder isn't right, but at least they'd not be killing innocent people.

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Wouldn't be surprised to find out we have people being paid to riot.

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Peaceful protests have a better track record than violent ones.

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It's a shitstorm.

I mean, I have to ask myself, how many of these rioters and looters actually care about what happened, and aren't simply looking for an excuse to loot and raise hell? All they're doing is eroding away the efforts of those who are trying to find a solution to this sort of problem, and terrorizing innocent people in the process.

I certainly don't believe the rioters are as bad as the officers involved (I can't honestly compare destruction of property and looting to taking someone's life), but I also don't believe that violence is the solution to an ongoing issue. It will only lead to more violence and prejudice in the future.

Edit: worth noting - I have a good friend of 10+ years who was working in his PC shop last night when the roof was set ablaze by rioters. The tavern across his street was burned down, and the police precinct two blocks away was burned to the ground. I wonder if the people who set all those fires know that many of those people (I know for certain my friend is) are likely against what happened to George Ffloyd, and would love to effect positive change to avoid this sort of thing in the future. The rioters are hurting people who'd like to help things.

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Sigh, I live about 350 miles away from where all of this took place (my buddy with the PC shop lives in Minneapolis), and now the rioting and looting has spread here. The news is reporting (and showing video) of WalMarts, Targets, CVS, jewelry stores, and other businesses being pillaged and destroyed (according to reports, most of those arrested were coming from out of state) and are now closed. A friend of mine was at work this morning and just told me her place of business was looted as well - she and a co-worker had to hide and call the police.

This is no way to get anything accomplished, and the rioting and looting is only overshadowing the efforts of proper protesters and making their voices more difficult to hear.. Welcome to the Divided States of America.

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When we had our revolution in Ukraine in 2013-2014, there were no shop looting or unnecessary property damaging (except for the hammer smashing of illegal slot machines by certain radical groups). People were able to make their voices heard by simply coming out to the streets. I must say that there were attempts to hire special groups to create a staged picture of anarchy and property damage for the cameras, but they failed. I believe the same incidents happened during Hong Kong protests, the looting looked very staged to me. So I'd always take those news of looting and property damage with a grain of salt unless it becomes clear the majority of the protesters support such acts.

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The images you provided only further prove my point: none of them show business property damage or looting. The fighting was on the streets, the tires were brought there by cars from various places, the only damages were to certain governmental facilities which were in direct relation to the criminal government we had at the time.

As for the escalation into war, that was the result of the Russian government using this moment of weakness and disarray to invade Ukrainian territories.

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I enjoy this chat, finally blocked list and liked list have a use.

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Antifas are the new Fascists

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Huh?

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How is antifa even involved in these riots?

Antifa is just a bunch of disorganized kids who fight with nazis and kkk at their rallies. Giving them credit for national race based riots is a stretch.

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Bro that twitter account is probably some 12 year old basement dweller who doesn't have any friends, let alone any connections to organized subversive groups of any flavor.

In fact, the hashtag for BLM is wrong, and most of the euphemisms are incorrect. No one talks like that.

None of that threw any red flags for you?

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Of course, of course. Here in Chile was the same ;)

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My mistake, but anyway the antifas are behind all the violence in the protest, and not only in USA.

If you believe that antifas are saints or good people, you're wrong. They're at the same level that fascist.

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Yeah, keep telling yourself that.
I know it's beating a dead horse, but "the antifas" do not exist.
There is no centrally organized Antifa group, there is no official Antifa playbook.
The only thing that connects people who label themselves as Antifa is the common belief that Fascism is wrong. Would you say that is a bad thing?
And yes, of course there are black sheep who like to put on that label. Just as there are violent cops, just as there are violent black people, just as there are violent white people.

I just don't get how people can so willfully miss the point of everything that is going on: DO. NOT. GENERALIZE.
Being a cop is not a bad thing. There are bad cops.
Being black/white/asian/whatever is not a bad thing. There are bad people in every demographic.
Being against fascism is not a bad thing. There are bad antifascists.

On the other hand:
Being a white supremacist is objectively bad. You are not better than everyone else because of the color of your skin.
Being a KKK member is objectively bad, because their only common denominator is "We hate everyone who isn't like us"

It's just so exhausting to see people constantly distract from the real problems by spewing bullshit like that.
You know who does that kind of stuff? Dictators and their fellowship. It's always the fucking same. It's just so tiring...

4 years ago*
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Yeah, sure, antifas are not organized and don't exist. Yeah, totally true.

https://renovamidia.com.br/antifa-queima-bandeira-do-brasil-em-curitiba/
https://www.marcha.org.ar/brasil-las-hichadas-antifascistas-se-manifiestan-por-la-democracia/

So peaceful people.

I also believe that Fascism is wrong. But I'm not in the streets destroying the city. And also, I don't attack other people that don't think like me.

Antifas are equally violent and censors than fascist, and worst even, because they are leftist.

4 years ago
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"antifas are not organized and don't exist. " - That's not at all what I said. Read my comment again.
Sadly I don't speak Portuguese, so I have no idea what these links are supposed to tell me.
Since you obviously only read the parts of my comment that you wanted to read and somehow managed to STILL not get my point, I don't see any use in continuing this "discussion" (I'd be happy to be proven wrong by you reading and trying to understand my last comment and replying on the main point, and not just the few sentences you've cherry picked). I don't see how I could make my intended message any clearer, but you chose to ignore it.
Have a nice day.

4 years ago*
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That's exactly what you say. And it's false.

So, if you don't speak portuguese, use Google Translate (a little, little effort) and then come to say something meaningful.

The only true point is that violence is wrong. Antifas are violent. Please don't defend antifas.

Bye

4 years ago
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"use Google Translate"... Maybe that's why you keep misunderstanding what I'm saying? You know that translating more than single words or simple sentences with google often twists what was actually said, right? I will give it one more try:

"THE Antifas do not exist" vs "antifa's don't exist"
"not CENTRALLY organized" vs "not organized"

Spot the differences?

4 years ago
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new?

4 years ago
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back to 4chin

4 years ago
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They are old fascists

4 years ago
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You guys think its bad now just wait until the cop is found not guilty, it will make the Rodney King riots look like a MLK march.

History just repeats itself.

Glad I don't live in NYC anymore.

4 years ago
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I remember that. I happened to be living right in the middle of it. Got attacked because of my skin color, too, by some racists I had never seen, before.

I am thankful that not all people are sheep, but so many of them are that it saddens me.

4 years ago
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The real sheep are the people who don't try to see things from all sides. Plenty of them to go around.

4 years ago
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Also, you seem to be claiming that it was, in fact, homicide, yet you do not have sufficient evidence to make such a claim, nor are you in a position to properly investigate the matter.

Irony.

4 years ago
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Irony.

How so?

4 years ago
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How could anyone watch that video and not see an unlawful death?

4 years ago
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No one act can be compared to another, but to simplify it down to simple values. Murder like that is like 10/10, where as while rioting is bad and leads to people being injured, if its not resulting in someone being killed by the riot, or the riot was not planned to kill someone then I'd stop it at a 9/10. It also depends on how bad the riots are, and that one there putting so many at risk make it the worse type of riot.
For comparison, a riot thats just an angry mob of people shouting in places they shouldnt and being super pissy (like those feminist extremist rallies(Not feminst rallies, feminist extremists)) it's at least a 5/10. As their protest isn't legal and theyre disruptiing the peace and probably some people's time.

4 years ago
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Violent police are the problem, both in the killing of George Floyd and during the protests. Can't even keep police brutality under wraps in a protest about police brutality.

4 years ago
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USA just showed us that there is no freedom in even there and all that media says or we look in either movies or medias was a big fat lie , theire police is as bad as other places , theres no equlty in the world not just there , ppl just just compelled to believe such a nonsense ,,,

i`m a white guy and personaly i think that black ppl (could not find a better word not to be racist poor eng ) are not less than us
i dont even care about someones color how those police mans still thinking about something like this and call themselves civilized
and actually i know of to many friends(black colors) that are more loyal and kind than white ppl dont make theire life harden this
they dont get enough money , no one takes them serious and im sure there is more than this savage assault on that poor guy who was killed brutaly by some pigs , may the god helps them cause no one does ppl came out but in the end all will forget and dont do shiit . hope this changes one day ,we all are humans no matter wich color we are

4 years ago*
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yes

4 years ago
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I'm not from the US. But the police there looks like little bit crazy... There are lot of videos of police beating innocent people without a reason or resisting. I mean, taking in consideration that everyone can have a gun, a tool meant to kill, on them wihtout any restriction...

4 years ago
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That's something you may want to research more through unbias channels. There are several restrictions, it's not like you can just walk up and buy a gun. There are ownership permits, age restriction, waiting periods, concealment laws, carry permits, and gun modification restrictions. I don't mean to come off as pretentious or a jerk but you probably don't get the full story being outside of the US. We have a huge problem with media bias so unless you get your information from an official US government source then the information is probably wrong.

4 years ago
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actually, you can just walk up and buy a gun at a gun show
and you can order one online

4 years ago
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4 years ago*
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Online purchases, not really, guns online are sold through licensed dealers. Gun shows are a grey area in terms of purchasing and vary by state. Dealers still (usually) do background checks because they don't want to be held legally responsible for selling a gun to a felon or someone that's underaged. Regardless, gun laws still stand --> Cant carry without a permit, must at least 21 to even get a carry permit. Guns must meet regulations. Guns must be concealed while carrying ( in most states). Can't have a gun if you are a felon. And those are just the obvious ones, there are many smaller regulations that I can't remember off the top of my head.

4 years ago
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you must be living in a "liberal" state. None of that applies in fly-over country.

In the state where I live:
1 - licensed dealers only need to check the federal database. Usually takes just a few minutes. If not rejected within 3 days, gun sale is permitted
2 - exceptions for gun shows, online sales, private sales, and antiques
3 - no need for any kind of permit or license (actually, a license is required to carry a loaded handgun)
4 - open carry at 18, concealed carry at 21. No minimum age if under parental supervision
5 - concealed carry permit is not required, but if you want one for reciprocity with another state, it costs $50 and shall be issued automatically
6 - no restrictions to magazine size, silencer, assault weapons, anti-tank missile, or rocket propelled grenade
7 - local municipalities are prohibited from enacting their own restrictions and buybacks are prohibited
8 - if federal law requires certification from local police, certification shall be provided unless the local police knows the applicant is banned from owning a weapon; ND law only restricts persons convicted of a felony involving violence or intimidation from owning a firearm, for 10 years, or a class A misdemeanor for 5 years, and people confined and committed to a mental institution for 3 years

4 years ago
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The fact that legislation can vary so wildly from state to state mean that in some places it is enormously generous to suggest there is any regulation whatsoever. Even aside from that, compared to the rest of the western world US gun regulation in its entirity is incredibly lax.

Which some might imagine in some part contributes to the staggering level of mass shootings. BUT WHO KNOWS?! It is obviously an enormously complex and multi-faceted issue. It would be deeply reductive to imagine constant shootings could be connected to a pathological obsesssion with hysterically challenging anything close to meaningful regulation of ownership.

If there is any channel of information which would suggest things as they stand are just fine, they are either psychopathic, the polar opposite of unbaised, or - more likely - both.

4 years ago
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Sure things can improve for sure, but to suggest you can just walk up and buy, use, and carry a gun with no restrictions is just wrong.

4 years ago
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there's a strong correlation between the states with the most generous gun laws and the most gun accidents and crimes

4 years ago
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I am SHOCKED to my CORE.
WHO COULD POSSIBLY PREDICT SUCH A THING?!?!

4 years ago
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Interesting. I've head there is a strong correlation between states with the most restrictive gun laws and the most gun accidents and crimes involving guns. As I have not taken the time to do exhaustive research on the subject myself, I have no way of knowing which position is more solidly supported by evidence. (In fact, both positions could be accurate.)

4 years ago
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There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics

Its almost as if you cant generalize based on one outtake of statistics.

4 years ago
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Its almost as if you cant generalize based on one outtake of statistics.

Imagine that.

When I was young, I tried to gather data so that I might reach a conclusion. Often, though, my conclusion was wrong due to insufficient data.

As I got older, I attempted to gather data sufficient enough to draw correlations. I found, however, that the correlations I drew were sometimes inaccurate due to a failure in understanding their meaning.

Now that I am much older and much more experienced, I gather data and attempt to understand its meaning. Sometimes, I even gather enough data to draw correlations between what I have previously discovered and what is new. Most of the time, however, I recognize weaknesses in either my sources or my reasoning and am therefore forced to take the position of Wisdom. That is to say, I encourage people to think for themselves.

4 years ago
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most gun friendly/unfriendly places
most and least gun violence

Note the second statistic which shows the violent crime rate in the state; Idaho has a lot less violent crime than any of the gun-unfriendly states, but has significantly higher gun deaths. Likewise, California has a pretty high violent crime rate, but a very low rate of gun deaths.

Most gun friendly:
1) Arizona - 15.2 firearm deaths per 100,000, 470.1 per 100,000 violent crimes (16)
2) Idaho - 14.6 firearm deaths per 100,000, 230.3 per 100,000 violent crimes (19)
3) Alaska - 23.0 firearm deaths per 100,000, 804.2 per 100,000 violent crimes (1)
4) Kansas - 13.3 firearm deaths per 100,000, 380.4 per 100,000 violent crimes (23)
5) Oklahoma - 19.6 firearm deaths per 100,000, 449.8 per 100,000 violent crimes (5)

Most gun unfriendly
47) California - 7.9 firearm deaths per 100,000, 445.3 per 100,000 violent crimes (43)
48) Hawaii - 4.5 firearm deaths per 100,000, 309.2 per 100,000 violent crimes (47)
49) New Jersey - 5.5 firearm deaths per 100,000, 245.0 per 100,000 violent crimes (45)
50) Massachusetts - 3.4 firearm deaths per 100,000, 376.9 per 100,000 violent crimes (50)
51) New York - 4.4 firearm deaths per 100,000, 376.2 per 100,000 violent crimes (48)

4 years ago
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I remember a story about an UK journalist (I think) that went to the US. He got hold up for speeding. So he stopped, and got out of the car and walked to the police car, just as he was used from home.
SWAT got called in and he got put down at gunpoint.

It always baffles me how crazy things seem in the USA.

4 years ago
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So... was it "he was used to doing that" or you can actually get out of the car when you want in UK ? Because at least in my country you can only get out of car if policeman asks you to. You cant get out of the car on your free will. Because if you cant in UK then just because he was "used to" doesnt warrant him doing that in other countries. How can a journalist be so dense and not realize countries have different rules and you cant go around as you would in your home country ?

It doesnt necessarily mean USA is crazy mind you, thats why Im only pointing this out.

4 years ago
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I'm with ChrisKutcher, most countries I'm familiar with, you do not get out of the car unless/until the police tell you to

4 years ago
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Far right is hijacking the protest to get the race war they always wished for and uninformed morons are gonna buy into antifa/far left boogeyman they are currently spinning. Amerikkka the next nazi germany of humanity.

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Closed 4 years ago by problemlemon.