They can condemn police shootings till the cows come home, garland, but as long as the message remains the same…
What I think is that there should be a great effort made to focus solely on unjustified shootings and to jettison the rest from the narrative. Purge ‘hands up - don’t shoot’ from the lexicon. That the administration should refrain from doing follow-up civil rights investigations, other than in the most egregious cases.
Can’t see this ending well, no matter what, but maybe it might not end as badly.
@catahoula Stop with the " BLM caused this" bs. The reason BLM exists IS NOT because they believe cops target Blacks and kill them. The movement started, and Ive stated this previously, and if you took time you would know this, because they/we are tired of officers not even being held accountable! Yes Blacks are disproportionately killed by cops, that doesnt mean cops are racist murderers! There are a myriad of reasons why we are killed at a higher rate, more crime, is one, but also because there is more contact. Why is there more contact, some of that is due to profiling. With the advent of Twitter, etc, ANYONE can claim to be part of BLM and put out incendiary statements.
I hope you are just as passionate about the nasty tweet a former congressman put out declaring war on our President?
BLM wants a lot of things to stop, police profiling, deadly force, etc. No one is advocating what happened in Dallas. What you need to realize is that this isnt about white cops against POC, it cops. The cop who shot Castile was Asian. For a host of reason many cops, always view an encounter with a Black person, as potentially life threatening, and that needs to stop. We also want cops to be held accountable when they make a mistake.
I would love to know what you had to say about Dylan Roof, probably nothiing. But folks in SC, didnt go around accusing their white residents, of being responsible.
“The reason BLM exists is a belief that cops target blacks and disproportionally kill them. It’s a message that has been relentlessly pushed for years and if one believes it, one necessarily believes cops are racist murderers. And if not every one of them is, the rest are covering for the ones that are. All guilty by association, and it’s difficult for me to see why this isn’t considered incitement.”
I find this just a ludicrous interpretation. Let me try to fix it for you.
"The reason BLM exists is a belief that some cops target blacks and disproportionally kill them. It’s a message that has been relentlessly pushed for years ** which now has more video evidence to support it ** and if one believes it, one necessarily believes that some, keyword somecops are racist murderers. ** Of course this doesn’t reflect on the majority of cops who are good people putting themselves in harm’s way to keep the rest of us safe.**. "
Honestly, it is more than a little weird that you think that the message is “all cops are guilty by association.”
One can have subtlety of thought here.
I can acknowledge that black people are more likely to commit violent crimes, AND also that that doesn’t mean that every black person who crosses my path is a bad person.
I can acknowledge that cops are harder on blacks than they are on whites, AND also that some of that may be driven by what they see and the situations that they are in, in which it is natural for them to be more suspicious.
I can acknowledge that some cops have done very bad things and gone trigger-happy AND that the majority of cops are still good people motivated by wanting to serve their communities.
@Catahoula --I wouldn’t call it a “message”: I would call it an observation. Some cops are racist, there is a disproportionate number of blacks being killed unjustifiably; there is a lack of accountability.
These things need to be pointed out so they can be dealt with. You cannot expect people to keep quiet, and, if they don’t, call them responsible when a crazy acts like a crazy.
“Law enforcement officers have provided NPR with what they believe is a manifesto from Johnson, which says it should be released after Johnson’s death. In the short purported manifesto, the writer points to police shootings of black Americans as his motivation and criticizes the Black Lives Matter movement.”
I don’t understand what is so problematic about wanting to ensure that black civilians going about their everyday business are treated fairly. I am whiter than white, but it would seem that as a human being, I would want that to happen. When people “object” to that, it makes me wonder about the color of their soul.
At this very minute there are probably dozens of people holed up in apartments all over the nation plotting to target and shoot innocent victims. Some of them have fooled even those closest to them. Others have left enough clues for people to contact the proper authorities.
We need more ways to stop them before they walk out of their apartments wearing bulletproof vests, armed with bombs, and carrying a longarm rifle and a hand pistol. There are far too many targets to successfully defend them all.
Maybe a special intelligence unit could be one option to track them down before they hunt the rest of us down?
*I don’t think the CCP discussion is as obviously part of the gun control discussion as I am sure some do, but in the end it leans that way. So I am deleting the long post about that, and apologies for missing the other post about that topic. There were a lot to go through is my only excuse. To be clear, it is permitted to start a thread narrowly focused on that one aspect of gun control, if people think that will break new ground as compared to previous gun control threads. Something like “Would more use of Concealed Carry Permits help or hurt in a situation like Dallas, Orlando, etc.” And God help me for suggesting it
It’s not that gun control is 100% irrelevant to this thread and similar ones about Orlando, etc. It is that gun control is a broad issue that has a lot of relevance as a global topic, but little relevance to any one incident, because we cannot possibly know if it would have mattered. Rather like the single anecdote versus a broad statistical proof. It makes far more sense and is tons more useful to examine the more unique aspects of Dallas, Orlando, Sandy Hook, and a list that is tragically too long. Once gun control is brought up, everything else is lost, and truly nothing new is learned*
It has always been difficult for me, living in white privilege, to see outside my bubble.
PG: If I recall correctly, you just got enthusiastically on board with Black Lives Matter the last few days.
I think these videos are changing a whole lot of perceptions. It reminds me of the “rape” threads where (especially male) posters sometimes say they don’t recall anything like that ever happening and they find it unbelievable. Well, it didn’t happen to them or around them. It still was happening.
I don’t believe anyone is arguing isolated incidents any longer. This was always happening. Some of us just weren’t seeing it. We should have been listening and paying attention.
This is probably uneasy for me to say, but yesterday as I was going about my business (running errands, stopping for a bite to eat, nothing particularly noteworthy), I felt more conscious than ever of the black people around me (who were all just doing the same and going about their business), went out of my way to smile, make a positive comment, etc. rather than just my usual minding-my-own-business vibe that I direct towards anyone of any color.
Because I feel awful that their community has to deal with something I, as a white suburban woman, don’t have to deal with. I have no fear that I or my loved ones would be killed during a routine traffic stop – and I really hope that they know that the majority of whites (or at least the ones worth knowing) are appalled by this.
I really resent how the actions of a few are taken to represent the actions of a majority, or how it’s supposed to reflect on everyone who shares the same skin color.
I’m sure the “good” black people resent the fact that their bad, violent brethren cast shade on them too.
Likewise, “good” white people resent being told that we are the enemy for being white.
And “good” cops resent the fact that their bad, violent brethren put them all in danger.
I wish there was a word for the idea for the notion of painting all people who happen to share a particular characteristic as the same. Hmmm, I’ll think of one day.
“Sometimes, for white people, it’s difficult to appreciate how real that is,” Gingrich said during a Facebook Live conversation with former Obama administration official Van Jones. “It’s an everyday danger.”
“If you’re an African-American, then you’re raising your teenage boys to be very careful in obeying the police,” Gingrich said to Jones, who is black and the father of teenagers. “Literally, their lives are at risk [if they interact with police], and they can see that on television.”
The former House Speaker’s comments came as the nation collectively mourned the five Dallas police officers who were killed on Thursday following a peaceful demonstration against police brutality. The protest was prompted in part by police fatally shooting two black men earlier this week ― Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and Philando Castile in Falcon Heights, Minnesota.
“If you’re a normal Caucasian,” Gingrich continued, “you don’t see that, because it’s not part of your experience. What we need is to have a conversation about mutual experiences.”
To say I was shocked by Newt Gingrich is an understatement.I truly hope he was being sincere, as we are in the heat of veepstakes. Nevertheless, it will take non minorities to speak up and acknowledge there is a problem to effect change. The reality is, we are not in a position of power, hence the problem, and until those who are realize this is an issue, nothing will change. When Jessie Williams made his powerful speech, he acknowledged he was in a unique position, bi-racial, light skinned,(because yes, dark skinned blacks are perceived as even more threatening) and an actor. We need more everyday people stand up and call out their friends and neighbors when they are spewing nonsense.
But just to play the other side of the coin for a moment, I (suburban white woman) have a legitimate fear of going into majority-black neighborhoods in my city (Chicago) that I don’t have when I go into other neighborhoods. It’s a fear that’s very easily supported by the crime statistics.
It’s an easy solve for me – I have the luxury of not going into those neighborhoods. The police don’t.
I think EVERYONE should try to clean up their act.
@Pizzagirl, you are doing the typical but what about black crime? The thread is was regarding BLM. I have any many of posts stated, that some of the reasons we have more encounters with cops is due to our crime, I have also stated that this was a bad cop issue, and not a white cop issue, and there plenty of black cops that abuse their authority, look no farther than the LA police dept
No one is asking you to go to the south side of chicago, to recognize that we are being treated unfairly, and to call it out when you see it. I live in a predominately white neighborhood, top 3 school district in the city, the median income in my neighborhood is $105000, yet none of that protects me when I leave my neighborhood. Heck we have been followed home while in our neighborhood. Just as you reserve the right to remain safe and not go in bad neighborhoods, we should be able to drive in "good"neighborhoods and feel safe, and right now that is debatable.
Everyone has subconscious bias, even minorities, so I get it. But right now, we are tired of some officers being trigger happy, and not being held accountable.
There are a million initiatives targeting black on black crime, but you wouldnt know about them because one you are not black, two you probably only get your news from mainstream media, and you dont listen to Black radio, etc.
It would be nice to see people for once not need to bend over to supposed balance by saying “oh but black crime too.” Like that has anything to do with these shootings.
The reason I am more cautious in a bad neighborhood is not because of the color of their skin, but because of the level of poverty generally increases crime. It’s a bad neighborhood because of the crime. Not because it’s mainly inhabited by minorities. The sooner people get that, the better off we will all be. There are certain areas of the country inhabited by whites with less education, living in poverty and more apt to be racist and I would certainly be more cautious in those neighborhoods too.
