Peaceful protest does not work. That is the legacy of the last 50 years since the civil rights movement. Not a lot has changed. Black men are still being lynched. What would the conversation be if it weren't for video? Even with video, the conflicting autopsy from the county makes it sound like Floyd had either a pre-existing condition or drugs in his body.
I'm pretty irritated with the media, allowing various leaders to claim that they support peaceful protests. No they do not. Not Republican leaders, who consistently impugned the peaceful protests of Colin Kaepernick. They demanded these were vile, unpatriotic, and un-American. These are not mere talking heads, but the V-POTUS, and the POTUS, among others. They do not support peaceful protest, they hate it. They hate all criticism and all protests.
America is getting exactly what it deserves. It claims a contract of freedom and equality of all before the law. And this is provably, deterministically not true. And if it is not true, then why listen to any of it? The social contract is dust. If it is not wrong to lynch black men, then it is not wrong to loot, and burn, and pillage, and create widespread chaos. That is the central problem with loss of trust of the social contract, it begs the end to civil society, when we blatantly for all to see do not have a civil society for all. The deck is stacked in favor of some, and against others. Plainly. Clearly.
The contract we really have is Amy Cooper contract. The one where a black man asks her to put her dog on a leash per the law, and then she uses her whiteness as a weapon, and his blackness as a deficit, with the threat to call the police to get her way and her revenge and assert her white superiority. And knows the force of the police will make sure only one of them has a bad day. And then demand she's not a racist, right after having perfectly demonstrated racism. Hers and the system. That is the hallmark of institutional racism.
Excuses for bad actors on American's police forces must end. Not tomorrow, not next week, not next year.
Today.
As Chris Rock put it in his widely shared comedy bit, we don't tolerate bad actors in industries such as airlines when it's a matter of life and death. We don't excuse pilots who just so happen to crash planes into mountains. Furthermore, we don't excuse surgeons who get upset during a procedure and sew the wrong body part back on out of spite.
Some professions just require zero tolerance for poor behavior. ZERO. Police officers fall under that category.
My question is how is destroying small businesses and disrupting the lives of innocent people in your own community protesting cops? If anything, they created jobs for the police. And they've caused people that otherwise would support them to not support them (except out of fear for their lives).
In situations of institutional inequality, the bottom row considers everything above it complicit. https://i.imgur.com/vpv5anc.jpg
It's a have vs have not, opportunity vs not. A business owner is a have. It's a form of leveling a playing field by destroying what others have. Similar to the intention of the terrorists in Fight Club or Goldeneye, a reset to blow up banks and financial institutions.
I don't think the rioting mob necessary has thought it out that well, but the anger causing it, and targeting business moreso than residential is an attack on the benefactors of protection rackets, whether they be law enforcement, banks, anyone who gives some a different opportunity than others. In this case business and land owners. It's a belief that "fixing the system from the inside" has failed.
It's a group of people, not an amoeba, not everyone has the same motivation, so of course if you consider them as Them, then Them will have logically inconsistent behavior.
Not all police forces are bad. And the ones that do have a higher percentage of bad apples aren’t all this bad.
But yes, there are some out there that seem bound and determined to exhibit the exact behavior that people are demonstrating against. Contrary to all logic, there it is.
Blaming the problem on the individual morality of police officers feels good. But the real problem, why police are getting away with crimes like murder, is something called "qualified immunity" and police unions. Until those are reformed, judging the individual morality of police officers isn't going to be enough to solve the problem.
The "groupism" of lumping "white", "black", "cops", "Republicans", etc is just not useful. Just distracting old tribalism instincts. Take personal responsibility and expect it from others.
You're not wrong about the importance of taking personal responsibility, but I do think there's an important distinction between 'white/black' and 'cops/republicans'.
The former is just what you are, with all that comes with it. The latter is a choice, and comes with various benefits (and to some degree drawbacks).
The exact details of how these tribal affiliations affect your character stats, so to speak, is obviously hotly debated. But 1) they're not irrelevant so useful to consider, and 2) once again not having a choice of tribal affiliation strikes me as more than just a little detail.
Unfortunately chaotic times are magnifying tribalism. It's apparent in the fabric of our discussions, even among intellectual peers in this industry. I'm finding it rather difficult to find any place to discuss things in a dry rational way. Maybe a dryly rational conversation can't exist.
Of course they do. But to say all police (or whatever group label) are the same and have same faults is a stretch. Making similar blanket statements about minorities is racist.
I’d say they’re in a pretty tough spot. I certainly wouldn’t have the patience to be the punching bag of a bunch of assholes who are so sure that if they were in charge, things would be better... I guess that’s why I’m not a cop.
Maybe multiple cases are being conflated here. In the case of the cab hauling the FedEx trailers where one attacker got caught in a rear wheel, the truck had stopped, but multiple people climbed onto the cab and tried to break in while members of the crowd shouted, "set it on fire!".
I'm pretty irritated with the media, allowing various leaders to claim that they support peaceful protests. No they do not. Not Republican leaders, who consistently impugned the peaceful protests of Colin Kaepernick. They demanded these were vile, unpatriotic, and un-American. These are not mere talking heads, but the V-POTUS, and the POTUS, among others. They do not support peaceful protest, they hate it. They hate all criticism and all protests.
America is getting exactly what it deserves. It claims a contract of freedom and equality of all before the law. And this is provably, deterministically not true. And if it is not true, then why listen to any of it? The social contract is dust. If it is not wrong to lynch black men, then it is not wrong to loot, and burn, and pillage, and create widespread chaos. That is the central problem with loss of trust of the social contract, it begs the end to civil society, when we blatantly for all to see do not have a civil society for all. The deck is stacked in favor of some, and against others. Plainly. Clearly.
The contract we really have is Amy Cooper contract. The one where a black man asks her to put her dog on a leash per the law, and then she uses her whiteness as a weapon, and his blackness as a deficit, with the threat to call the police to get her way and her revenge and assert her white superiority. And knows the force of the police will make sure only one of them has a bad day. And then demand she's not a racist, right after having perfectly demonstrated racism. Hers and the system. That is the hallmark of institutional racism.