Black Lives Matter
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@Paekakboyz agree, that was the only talking point my wife and I had with it. Ignoring the historical context of African Americans that has led to them being over represented in crime and poverty. You see the same in other countries; Maori in NZ and Indigenous Australians across the ditch. You can't ignore the effects of the past on people today. But I guess the point he is making is that it is possible for people of any race to be successful today, that the system today is not explicitly racist and does not favour one group over another.
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@Paekakboyz I distinctly remember Chappelle used to be funnier!
He did well explaining the emotion behind the protests, that shouldn't be ignored but Dave like a lot of these protesting seem to be saying "Derek Chauvin killing George Floyd was murder!!!" as though people actually disagree with them. No one does, like at all. Everyone left, right, black, brown, all agree it was murder and he should be imprisoned. You're preaching to the damn quire David!. Maybe, just maybe you could find one crazy white supremacist sitting in his grandma's basement putting something pro Chauvin on an anonymous twitter account..if there is I'm sure the Guardian or Independent will find it (or create it) and set that as a front page story next week.
Chappelle listed some (most?) of the unarmed or potentially innocent black people killed by police in recent history. I think most people are pretty familiar with the names (I know I am) because they are huge stories each time. And for the most part they shouldn't never have happened (Though when you read investigation reports it isn't quite as cut and dried as Mr Chappelle says it is). What he didn't do of course..and for some reason neither does media, is compare this to the killing of unarmed white, asian or hispanic people. Surely that would be the first port of call to determine if there is a systemic racism problem in the police force rather than a number of individual problems? Why don't they do that? Shouldn't you at least look right? Or are we at the point where all statistics that don't agree with a persons point of view are automatically discarded? Are we just going to disband logic and reason and degenerate our society into chaos? I'd love to see the stats on unarmed blacks killed by police vs blacks murdered over BLM protests.
We had a thread on here year ago on 'The failed policy of multiculturalism' which at the time I thought was an insane point to make, we have problems of course but in general things were progressing ok. Looking now as activists are looking to destroy war memorial even as far away as small town NZ I'm starting to really worry about the future .
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@Rembrandt 9 unarmed black people killed by police last year. 30 something other races. Think I heard David Webb quote that or a black cop on Rubin last week. The 9 figure is what I remember best. The cop also caution that the unarmed classification doesnt account for the behaviour in that incident.
9 out of 40 million, if you want to put it that way.
And if we're going to analyse this racism thing we'll have to learn how many black police officers are involved in these confrontations too.
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@Kirwan said in US Politics:
Part that stood out for me was being pulled over the day before by the cop that killed the guy the next day.
I’m not convinced they have a racist cop problem, but they have a police brutality problem for sure.
I think they probably have both
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@Kirwan said in US Politics:
Part that stood out for me was being pulled over the day before by the cop that killed the guy the next day.
I’m not convinced they have a racist cop problem, but they have a police brutality problem for sure.
I agree on the police issue, though there are no doubt plenty of racist cops around.
But I also don't think people outside of the States can fully wrap their head around the historical context regarding race relations there. And I don't think people (both inside and outside the States) can really comprehend what it would be like knowing your direct family were slaves, and the trauma that would be passed down through the generations as a result.
The stats only tell part of the story of what has happened and how that impacts peoples lives today. As I said in my previous post, groups like African Americans, Indian Americans, Maori, Aboriginals and Indigenous Australians that have faced significant oppression and hardship at the hands of others are not doing nearly as well today as a result.
People like to throw stats relating to "black on black murder" and "percentage of crime committed by black/brown people" as a way to deflect away from the idea that racism is to blame. But the reality is extreme racism from the recent past, that is still a factor today, is a key driver for those statistics.
To generalise, at the moment a lot of what I see is people on the right basically denying racism is even a factor, and people on the left going way too far the other way and victimising the hell out of anyone that isn't white. None of this actually seeks to address any of the problems facing these communities.
I know there's no easy answer. And I strongly believe there are no obvious "good guys" and "bad guys" to blame. But much of what I see from both sides today seems to be actively making things worse.
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Also I watched the Chappelle bit and thought it was really interesting. I'd encourage people to listen to what he is saying, and try to understand where he is coming from without tying it back to anything political (particularly the "culture war" that is being waged on social media where everyone tries to one-up the other side).
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@No-Quarter I really really struggle with the notion that the lives of my grandparent's grandparents have any influence on me in the year 2020.
To subscribe to that flimsy theory is to confirm that a race of people are all born inferior to those born with no "documented" slavery.
Show me a population or society where absolutely everyone is in poverty, and I'll reconsider the idea of " ancestral oppression "
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@Siam I'm not sure how you could deny the effects when it is plain to see. To put it bluntly, children born into poverty and raised by parent(s) that are full of (understandable) resentment towards society are far less likely to be successful and far more likely to fall into a life of crime. And then the same for their kids.
That there are those who have managed to overcome that (against the odds IMO) does not mean it's not a significant factor. I don't see an issue with acknowledging that. What we do about it is a different question altogether.
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@Siam said in US Politics:
@No-Quarter I really really struggle with the notion that the lives of my grandparent's grandparents have any influence on me in the year 2020.
To subscribe to that flimsy theory is to confirm that a race of people are all born inferior to those born with no "documented" slavery.
Show me a population or society where absolutely everyone is in poverty, and I'll reconsider the idea of " ancestral oppression "
You're white aren't you mate....?
I am sure you can look right through NZ history and find examples of the indigenous people being screwed over by those in charge.
Back on the subject of the US, I watched an episode of Basketball, a love story, on ESPN. One of the players (college and NBA star), who played back in the 70s(?) recounted how his parents were essentially cotton picking slaves in the South. They got him out of the town he grew up in when he was 15 and sent him to Detroit to have a chance at a better life, because the system there would have found a way to indenture him to the cotton farm. Just like his folks. That was only 70 odd years ago
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@No-Quarter said in US Politics:
@Siam I'm not sure how you could deny the effects when it is plain to see. To put it bluntly, children born into poverty and raised by parent(s) that are full of (understandable) resentment towards society are far less likely to be successful and far more likely to fall into a life of crime. And then the same for their kids.
That there are those who have managed to overcome that (against the odds IMO) does not mean it's not a significant factor. I don't see an issue with acknowledging that. What we do about it is a different question altogether.
Those people are often very suspicious of the authorities as well. So well meaning solutions may not succeed because they can feel they have been forced on them
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It's Spencer Haywood. Read the account, you couldn't make it up, like being used as target practice by members of the local white country club