USA "Black Lives Matter"

[Josiah]

I "get" it.... I honestly do.... there ARE people who come with racism and who think Black lives don't matter, at least not as much as their own race. Yup. That's true.


But IN MY FAIRLY WORTHLESS OPINION, this slogan (shouted loudly and everywhere) only makes things worse. Slogans often do. The sole FUNCTION of this is to radicalize and divide and to stop all conversation. And of course, while it PRETENDS to rebuke racism, the slogan itself is racist, the whole point is race, the color of one's skin.

People may respond "White Lives Matter." It's unavoidable, it IS what will happen. And so it serves to divide us. And to do so largely by race.

And of course, like most slogans, it functions to close off any and all conversation (and thus progress). People SHOUT this.... and people are expected to post "right on, bro!" And if you don't, you are therefore a hate filled racist. And if you post "ALL lives matter" you are a racist or you are just ignorant of the problems Black people face (um, for "Black Lives Matter" folks, it IS about race), "ALL Lives Matter" folks are just ignorant racists.

We NEED to get past this..... We NEED to stop this.... We NEED to end the slogans and efforts to radicalize and divide and shut up others.

Is their discrimination against some based on race, gender, color, nationality, religion, weight, and many other factors? Obviously, no one denies this. Is there at times hatred? Obviously, no one denies this. Are some killed while being innocent and defensiveless (as in 600,000 babies every year in the USA)? Yup. No one denies this. But we don't end racism by being racist. We don't end radicalization by being radical. And we don't encourage conversation by cutting it off.

If race doesn't matter, then stop obsessively focusing on one thing - race.
If life matters, then stop focusing on the life of only SOME.
If conversation is needed, then invite conversation rather than insisting all don't agree with self are THEREFORE stupid, racist, hate-filled idiots.


I see this on all sides (not just the race one). We seem to have replaced discussion with radical, divisive slogans - and who can shout the loudest and pronounce all who don't agree to just be STUPID, HATE-FILLED, idiots. And while this has been with us forever, social media now gives all this a huge soap box. What happened to civility? What happened to respect? What happened to conversation? What happening to THINKING?



End of rant



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[tango]

Thinking is best left to the experts. You just get to choose which experts you listen to and bash anyone who prefers different experts because they are brainwashed by CNN or Fox, depending.

If the experts spout things that a moment of thought would debunk you still don't get to question them because, you know, they are the experts. Never mind logical thinking, it becomes an endless appeal to authority. 100,000 lemmings can't be wrong and all that.

It is sad that so much has moved to social media, a platform that stifles discussion in favor of the echo chamber and rules that anyone who disagrees on the slightest point must therefore hate you and everything about you.

 

[NerdGirl123]

All lives matter.

Obeying the law matters.

Respecting each other matters.

Two wrongs (or in this case, two thousand wrongs) don't make a right.

 

[Lamb]

Not too long ago we were told to stop looking at color. Now we're back to looking at color?

 

[Krissy Cakes]

All lives matter.

Obeying the law matters.

Respecting each other matters.

Two wrongs (or in this case, two thousand wrongs) don't make a right.

Amen and Amen!

 

[tango]

Not too long ago we were told to stop looking at color. Now we're back to looking at color?

Black lives matter, but only if they are ended by a white person. The black lives ended by black people in the inner cities (you know, the places run by Democrats for decades and therefore shining examples of utopian living) apparently don't matter.

 

[Josiah]

Obama (violating nearly 250 years of American tradition) is all over everything insisting the Trump do "SOMETHING" to help Blacks...

What did he do for the African American community for 8 years? Can anyone mention anything?



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[Albion]

Obama (violating nearly 250 years of American tradition) is all over everything insisting the Trump do "SOMETHING" to help Blacks...

What did he do for the African American community for 8 years? Can anyone mention anything?



.

Obama had a beer with that guy Henry Gates and the cop who thought Gates was breaking into a house that turned out to be his own. Obama said the cop acted "stupidly."

And he said that if he'd had a son, he would have turned out to look like Trayvon Martin, the young man who tried to pound George Zimmerman's head into the pavement merely because the latter looked at him.

I'm not sure if these would be considered major breakthroughs in the search for racial understanding or not.

 

[tango]

Apparently the livelihoods of blacks in Philadelphia, already struggling due to being shut down by the fuhrer's diktat don't matter either. At least not to the looters, who decided what struggling black people needed was to have their stores looted and burned.

 

[Lamb]

Apparently the livelihoods of blacks in Philadelphia, already struggling due to being shut down by the fuhrer's diktat don't matter either. At least not to the looters, who decided what struggling black people needed was to have their stores looted and burned.

This is the exact type of thing I've been trying to explain to people on Facebook who are all for the rioting when they try to compare it to the Boston Tea Party. I explain to them how the looting and riots will oppress the black neighborhoods even more. Their stores are closing, they're losing jobs, they need to feed their families so drugs and prostitution are brought back in and that brings the cops down on them hard again. Oppression. Is that what they want?

OH and to add...the truckers refuse to deliver to the areas where the riots are....the pharmacies have been looted so people in the community cannot get their needed medications, UPS drivers (my cousin is one) say they won't deliver and on and on and on.

How is the looting and rioting helping again?

 

[tango]

I suspect your biggest mistake there was trying to explain anything on Facebook. It doesn't seem to be about discussion, any dissenting opinion seems to be a violation of the echo chamber.

It is hard to see how black lives are helped by having their businesses destroyed, but then it's also hard to see why a tiny number of black deaths at the hands of cops prompts national rioting but dozens of black deaths at the hands of other blacks is just business as usual.

 

[Lamb]

I suspect your biggest mistake there was trying to explain anything on Facebook. It doesn't seem to be about discussion, any dissenting opinion seems to be a violation of the echo chamber.

It is hard to see how black lives are helped by having their businesses destroyed, but then it's also hard to see why a tiny number of black deaths at the hands of cops prompts national rioting but dozens of black deaths at the hands of other blacks is just business as usual.

Did you see Tucker Carlson's show that posted the numbers from the Washington Post? The amount of black deaths (unarmed men/women) at the hands of police last year was relatively small in number. Wasn't it like 10?

 

[JRT]

The number of people killed by police in the USA last year was 1004 of whom 234 were black. This is about 2300% higher than Lammchen's estimate. By comparison 376 whites were killed. The comparison says a great deal.

 

[tango]

The number of people killed by police in the USA last year was 1004 of whom 234 were black. This is about 2300% higher than Lammchen's estimate. By comparison 376 whites were killed. The comparison says a great deal.

The article she's talking about was unarmed people killed by police.

If someone is pointing a gun at a cop and the cop shoots them nobody can really get to fussing over the race of anyone concerned.

 

[tango]

From the article (you can read the full article, if you're interested, here: https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/tuc...rn-apart-by-a-total-complete-but-provable-lie)

Since 2015, The Washington Post has maintained a comprehensive database of fatal police shootings in this country. Last year, The Post logged a total of 1,004 killings.

Of the 802 shootings in which the race of the police officer and the suspect was noted, 371 of those killed were white, 236 were black. The vast majority of those killed were not, in fact, unarmed; the vast majority were armed. And African-American suspects were significantly more likely to have a deadly weapon than white suspects, yet more white suspects were killed.

Overall, there were a total of precisely 10 cases in the United States last year, according to The Washington Post, in which unarmed African- Americans were fatally shot by the police. There were nine men and one woman.

If black criminals were significantly more likely to have a deadly weapon we should hardly be surprised that they were significantly more likely to be shot by police. It's a question that always needs to be asked when statistics appear to show disproportionate racial representation - since we're talking about the black population here, if the proportion of black people being arrested is significantly higher than the proportion of black people in society as a whole we need to consider whether black people are more likely to commit crimes and therefore get arrested or whether the police force is harsher on black suspects than white suspects. The latter clearly implies the presence of racism; the former merely that the police are doing their jobs.

 

[JoyFreak]

It's really worrying with what's going on around the world right now, especially with us still dealing with COVID-19. I'm all for #BlackLivesMatter and wish the world to be a safe and peaceful place in the near future. We should never discriminate and should treat everybody equal regardless of religion, race, sexual origination, gender and anything else!

 

[JRT]

The article she's talking about was unarmed people killed by police.

If someone is pointing a gun at a cop and the cop shoots them nobody can really get to fussing over the race of anyone concerned.

I agree.

 

[Lamb]

The number of people killed by police in the USA last year was 1004 of whom 234 were black. This is about 2300% higher than Lammchen's estimate. By comparison 376 whites were killed. The comparison says a great deal.

Was that unarmed like I said in my quote?

 

[hedrick]

Did you see Tucker Carlson's show that posted the numbers from the Washington Post? The amount of black deaths (unarmed men/women) at the hands of police last year was relatively small in number. Wasn't it like 10?

That is way low. The Post has a database. Here are 2019 numbers: https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/national/police-shootings-2019/. 376 out of 811 whose race was known (1004 total).

I agree that you really need more context. What are difference in crime rates and armed criminals, among other things. But the fraction is still pretty visibly high, 46%.

 

[tango]

That is way low. The Post has a database. Here are 2019 numbers: https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/national/police-shootings-2019/. 376 out of 811 whose race was known (1004 total).

I agree that you really need more context. What are difference in crime rates and armed criminals, among other things. But the fraction is still pretty visibly high, 46%.

Hence the question I mentioned above - if black people are disproportionately represented in adverse police encounters we need to figure whether the problem is police racism or simply black people committing a disproportionate amount of crime.

If 10% of the population commits 50% of the crime we can hardly be surprised if they make up 50% of arrests, 50% of jail population etc. The trouble is that we get totally unacceptable incidents like George Floyd, at which point everything turns into a racial issue and the howling drowns out anything that even looks like a rational assessment.

ETA: To address the numbers in your post, those are situations in which a person was killed by the police. The much lower number relates to the times an unarmed black person was killed by the police.