Black Lives Matter get police float kicked out of Pride Parade

[wittynickname]

Originally Posted by WhiteTiger

Because 'excessive force' is often in the eye of the beholder, and few North America folks have any actual experience with physical violence these days? Because the teen will be fighting to hurt and/or run away while the police officer is likely trying to restrain with as little damage as possible to the teen? You ever try to hold onto someone that doesn't want to be held on to, period? Then try to do it without hurting them, while they are beating the 'bleep' out of you?

Size and strength provide distinct advantages in a fight, to be sure, but they are mostly neutralized if the goal is as pain-free restraint as possible instead of a KO 'win'.

So are mental distress episodes only happening in the US now?

Why are police officers in other countries not regularly resorting to deadly force to deal with someone suicidal? Why is that only happening in the US?

At some point we have to look at the training that these men and women are getting and questioning if it's enough. Because yes, I'm sure I would overreact to someone in the midst of a manic episode who was attempting to harm me. But I'm not a trained officer of the law. I am not tasked with serving and protecting. Police are.

[WhiteTiger]

Originally Posted by wittynickname

So are mental distress episodes only happening in the US now?

Why are police officers in other countries not regularly resorting to deadly force to deal with someone suicidal? Why is that only happening in the US?

Gun culture. Mental health episodes in other countries rarely escalate to gun violence since the people having the episodes don't have that kind of access to weapons.

The US is on the wrong end of an arms race due to their love of guns. It's much, much harder to de-escalate when you start 3/4's of the way up the ladder.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

It's so dispiriting to see everything devolve into tribal narratives of Us vs Them, Heroes vs Villains, Oppressor vs Oppressed, etc. I'm starting to despair that maybe humanity can't think of social ills in any other terms.

Well, that seems hypocritical. Not like I've seen anyone on this board (including you and I) that are above it.

It's born out of a basic construct of human nature. You don't rid yourself of those things. You evolve and adapt, but human nature stays with you forever.

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by ResAlien

A good breakdown of why the all lives matter response is dumb. From Reddit

Problem is that story could be rewritten in a way that could say "only" is implied before "black lives matter"

Would the person who wrote this story say that when the kkk runs around yelling "white power" that they are really just saying "white power...too" as if they wanted everyone to be equally empowered?

To say that all lives matter doesn't include black lives "too" is really a stretch, at least in how I define "all". It says that it doesn't provide enough focus or direction on the issue to fix the current problem, so that is suggesting if black people are the only race being continually killed by unprovoked police officers, a group called all lives matter won't focus on that? If the response to that is: "well they would be busy focusing on other atrocities" I would ask how would they not have the resources to protest the same issues if the people in what is now called BLM were in a group called ALM instead? Same amount of activists choosing to protest an issue.

As much as I disagree with some of the methods groups like PETA and green peace use to get bring attention to their causes, I respect the fact that they are universal in their beliefs and strive for any type of positive impact for their causes.

I just hate the thought of a well intentioned group of activists setting themselves up for possibly avoidable resistance over something as simple as a misinterpretation of what they represent because of their name.

As a person who agrees with the goal of black lives matter, I want to see them achieve this goal in any peaceful way possible, but I feel their name may give people the wrong impression and not only hold back their progress, but also gives certain groups (like the kkk) an easy way to build up support against their cause.

[PepsiFree]

While I agree that Black Lives Matter is not the most ideal name for a group that is seeking equal treatment and respect, the point of that Reddit post is that saying "Well, ALL lives matter" is response to Black Lives Matter is ignorant and dismissive.

It's not a valid response.

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

While I agree that Black Lives Matter is not the most ideal name for a group that is seeking equal treatment and respect, the point of that Reddit post is that saying "Well, ALL lives matter" is response to Black Lives Matter is ignorant and dismissive.

It's not a valid response.

It really depends on the way the response is delivered, if someone says "well All lives matter" that can be taken as dismissive and ignorant. If someone responds to black lives matter by saying "yes, because all lives matter" it is not dismissive or ignorant, it validates the concern and promotes the addressing it without risking being misinterpreted. I just believe the best way to promote equality is without reference to the labels used to create a perception that we're different whenever possible. If we can stop labelling ourselves as different from one another, maybe we'll start realizing we're not so different from one another.

[peter12]

I really dislike the use of political slogans when it comes to the value and dignity of human life, anyway.

And of course, black lives matter.

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”

Martin Luther King

[Resolute 14]

Originally Posted by iggy_oi

Problem is that story could be rewritten in a way that could say "only" is implied before "black lives matter"

Would the person who wrote this story say that when the kkk runs around yelling "white power" that they are really just saying "white power...too" as if they wanted everyone to be equally empowered?

To say that all lives matter doesn't include black lives "too" is really a stretch, at least in how I define "all". It says that it doesn't provide enough focus or direction on the issue to fix the current problem, so that is suggesting if black people are the only race being continually killed by unprovoked police officers, a group called all lives matter won't focus on that? If the response to that is: "well they would be busy focusing on other atrocities" I would ask how would they not have the resources to protest the same issues if the people in what is now called BLM were in a group called ALM instead? Same amount of activists choosing to protest an issue.

As much as I disagree with some of the methods groups like PETA and green peace use to get bring attention to their causes, I respect the fact that they are universal in their beliefs and strive for any type of positive impact for their causes.

I just hate the thought of a well intentioned group of activists setting themselves up for possibly avoidable resistance over something as simple as a misinterpretation of what they represent because of their name.

As a person who agrees with the goal of black lives matter, I want to see them achieve this goal in any peaceful way possible, but I feel their name may give people the wrong impression and not only hold back their progress, but also gives certain groups (like the kkk) an easy way to build up support against their cause.

The problem with "All Lives Matter" is that it is a response in the vein of a "White Pride" month or "Heterosexual Pride Day". The point is to trivialize the issues being raised by an aggrieved/oppressed party.

I think Resalien has tread too close to equating distrust with BLM (Toronto's) actions with distrust of the idea behind BLM, but he's very much right in arguing "All Lives Matter" should be the slogan is only an effort to discredit the group's stated goals.

[ResAlien]

FFS, long post lost to a timeout. Sorry res if I was coming across that way about Toronto, I'd sort of moved on from the Toronto business altogether. Since two men were executed in two days and no threads were started I figured this had become the defacto BLM thread.

I agree with the rest of what you said, especially the analogy to white or hetero pride days. The idea to some that the marginalized group isn't doing enough to include those in power is maddeningly sad and shows a level of tonedeafness to how real life works in the US.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by ResAlien

Since two men were executed in two days and no threads were started I figured this had become the defacto BLM thread.

And that basically spells out the problem, and why things like BLM matter and "All Lives Matter" is ignorant and useless.

Everyone knows white lives matter. 5 cops die, a couple of them white, we get a thread that blows up, huge story. Same way in the media, things go crazy.

An innocent black man gun downed by police? No worries, happens all the time, it's not race related it's because they're poor! Or had a bad upbringing! Or some other stupid excuse that completely fails to recognise the impact of systemic racism in the US.

Everyone in North America knows that "All lives matter," but do they know that black lives matter, too?

Clearly, they don't. That's why the group exists. Some of the arguments in this thread have been incredibly naive.

[Flash Walken]

Why have there been so many police killings of black men in recent years that an activist group focused on stopping police violence, Black Lives Matter, has come to prominence in American politics?

African-American comedian D.L. Hughley fears he knows the answer. Our children and parents and friends are "brutalized and nobody says anything," he said on CNN Thursday, his eyes welling with tears. "It's too much. It's too much."

Hughley later posted to Facebook an article published last year by law professor and former military police captain Samuel V. Jones. The article refers to a 2006 FBI report that warns of a concerted, decades-long attempt by white supremacists to infiltrate law enforcement.

"[T]he term 'ghost skins' has gained currency among white supremacists to describe those who avoid overt displays of their beliefs to blend into society and covertly advance white supremacist causes," the FBI report states.

There is no evidence that the officers involved in the St. Paul and Baton Rogue shootings have any ties to white supremacist groups or hold racist views. Official investigations will determine whether the shootings were justified or not. The frequency of such incidents, however, suggests at the least that commonplace cultural attitudes about class and race make police stops very dangerous for young black men. And the 2006 FBI report argues that sometimes there are even worse motives at play.

"Several key events preceded the report," Jones wrote. "A federal court found that members of a Los Angeles sheriff's department formed a neo-Nazi gang and habitually terrorized the black community. Later, the Chicago police department fired Jon Burge, a detective with reputed ties to the Ku Klux Klan, after discovering he tortured over 100 black male suspects. Thereafter, the mayor of Cleveland discovered that many of the city police locker rooms were infested with 'White Power' graffiti. Years later, a Texas sheriff department discovered that two of its deputies were recruited for the Klan."

For many white Americans, the typical policeman of their imagination remains the one that the late illustrator Norman Rockwell made iconic: the kind, dedicated, soft-hearted man of the community. And that officer certainly exists in police departments across the country. But for black Americans, as expertly showcased in the recent ESPN documentary about the OJ Simpson murder case, the reality of policing in the U.S. is very different. Last year, another African-American comedian, Chris Rock, posted to social media several photos of him being stopped by police. In one post, he wrote: "Stopped by the cops again -- wish me luck."

http://www.oregonlive.com/today/inde...s_into_s.html#

[PsYcNeT]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

Everyone in North America knows that "All lives matter," but do they know that black lives matter, too?

Clearly, they don't. That's why the group exists. Some of the arguments in this thread have been incredibly naive.

Or worse, their deaths are "more justified".

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by PsYcNeT

Or worse, their deaths are "more justified".

Kill a man in uniform, it's an outrage.

Kill an innocent black man, oh... well he probably wasn't innocent.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

And that basically spells out the problem, and why things like BLM matter and "All Lives Matter" is ignorant and useless.

Everyone knows white lives matter. 5 cops die, a couple of them white, we get a thread that blows up, huge story. Same way in the media, things go crazy.

An innocent black man gun downed by police? No worries, happens all the time, it's not race related it's because they're poor! Or had a bad upbringing! Or some other stupid excuse that completely fails to recognise the impact of systemic racism in the US.

Everyone in North America knows that "All lives matter," but do they know that black lives matter, too?

Clearly, they don't. That's why the group exists. Some of the arguments in this thread have been incredibly naive.

I disagree. The dozens of shooting deaths of unarmed white and latino Americans at the hands of police every year get almost no media attention. When black Americans are shot by police it elicits far more media attention and public debate, because of the political climate around race in the U.S.

If you ran a poll of how many unarmed whites are killed by police in the U.S. every year, what number do you think most people would come up with? I doubt it would be close to the real number.

[Flash Walken]

One of the groups left behind is African-Americans. Their unemployment rate, 8.8 percent, is more than double the rate for whites, 4.3 percent, and is actually closer to the 9 percent unemployment rates whites experienced in the depths of the recession. And for blacks, the rate actually went up last month.

Lowell Blackmon, 20, is working on getting a GED — and on getting a job.

"Right now, any type of job that, you know — that can pay me," he says. "I'm good with my hands, so I like to work a lot. They got a lot of jobs out here, you just gotta have your stuff to be able to do it."

Valerie Wilson, an economist with the Economic Policy Institute, says part of the reason the unemployment rate for blacks may have gone up is because more were looking for work.

"Perhaps people who were previously unemployed were encouraged by last month's numbers and are now looking for employment," she says, adding that while there's good news for everyone in this months' report, "we still maintain that roughly 2-to-1 ratio between black and white unemployment."

"That disparity is very persistent," Wilson says, "and it's present whether we're in a recession or in a recovery. It's present at all levels of education."

Gwendolyn Cole hopes she's one of the workers headed in the right direction — she's been out of a job for two years, but just got an interview with the utility company Pepco.

"I'm so happy about it, 'cause I did 15 years with D.C. Public Schools, and then I turned around and did 15 years as home child care provider," she says. "So I went into electronics, and it's a wonderful field, because it's more data entry, customer service."

Cole's work history shows why many African-Americans are struggling to make their way out of the last recession, says Imara Jones.

African-Americans are more likely to be teachers and firefighters and police than their white counterparts — in part because of the strong anti-discrimination laws that exist for government jobs that you don't have in the private sector," he says. "And of course during the Great Recession, one of the greatest lagging sectors in jobs was that — in government."

http://www.npr.org/2016/02/05/465748...mployment-rate

[PsYcNeT]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

If you ran a poll of how many unarmed whites are killed by police in the U.S. every year, what number do you think most people would come up with? I doubt it would be close to the real number.

I get what you are arguing here, but public opinion regarding the number of minority deaths is pretty useless considering there is actual data available.

[ResAlien]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

If you ran a poll of how many unarmed whites are killed by police in the U.S. every year, what number do you think most people would come up with? I doubt it would be close to the real number.

Well using the data you provided in your link it would be 32 white and 38 black for 2015. Again considering the 63% vs 13% breakdown of the population that's abhorrent that 13% of the population accounts for 55% of those who are unarmed and killed.

When accounting for Hispanics and Asian that percentage drops to a measly 41%. Definitely no longer in problem territory *he said sarcastically*

[sworkhard]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

Are those restrictions more severe on uneducated women than on educated women? And you're making a big assumption that most births outside of marriage are unplanned.

I didn't see much of a response to this so...

Most definitely; educated women have several major advantages the uneducated do not.

1. They are usually more aware of the support services and organizations that are available because campuses and campus support groups do a good job of sharing this information on campus.
2. They are more likely to earn a wage where they can afford birth control.
3. Women that are going through a college or university program often have access to free or reduced cost birth control that is not (as easily) available to those who choose not to go to college or university.

I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that a large proportion of births outside of marriage / enduring union are unplanned; I think this is especially true among poor communities like the poor black neighborhoods and white trailer parks in the US. At the very least we can reliably suppose that these areas have a higher rate of unplanned pregnancies as they have some of the highest abortion rates in the US.

But this is somewhat off topic and should be it's own thread.

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

I disagree. The dozens of shooting deaths of unarmed white and latino Americans at the hands of police every year get almost no media attention. When black Americans are shot by police it elicits far more media attention and public debate, because of the political climate around race in the U.S.

If you ran a poll of how many unarmed whites are killed by police in the U.S. every year, what number do you think most people would come up with? I doubt it would be close to the real number.

Are you suggesting the attention now being paid to police shootings is not because of the factual evidence of systemic racial bias, but merely sensationalism?

[peter12]

Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist

Are you suggesting the attention now being paid to police shootings is not because of the factual evidence of systemic racial bias, but merely sensationalism?

There is certainly a cognitive bias at play.