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September 3, 2015 at 7:47 am #827470
dobroParticipant“Can we agree to focus on what’s current, or at least within the last generation?”
No, we can’t, because the present is informed by history, which creates context, and if you try to pick out a time frame for a problem that has existed for centuries and disregard its history, it leads to just the kind of irrelevancy I’m pointing out.
White privilege is something that is embedded in American society just as institutional racism is. It isn’t really just about you and what you may or may not have earned. History may help you understand that.
September 3, 2015 at 7:50 am #827471
dobroParticipant“An actual discussion is fine, but I do expect something other than insults”
This from a guy that started a post with “Listen up, you imbecile”?! Sorry, pal, don’t expect anything less than you give.
September 3, 2015 at 8:57 am #827472
JKBParticipantYeah, that created an opening for hecklers to follow. See my earlier comments to JanS/Happy. What you’re doing now in throwing it back at me is akin to what I did then, throwing it back at Kbear.
September 3, 2015 at 2:42 pm #827473
JoBParticipantJKB
i am far from a heckler
and you dismissed the points i made entirely
you chose to focus on the color of two alleged murderers instead of focusing on their mental state… as you would with an alleged murderer who happened to be white.
that focus is classic racism.
the second point is that the two murders you referenced were cases of individuals choosing murder.
the murders that black lives matter references are an appalling pattern of police behavior that is causing the death of far too many.
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/10/the-counted-500-people-killed-by-police-2015
and before you go all self righteous pointing out that the majority of those killed have been white, you might look at another statistic that should make you come up for air. 20% of those killed by police were unarmed. That’s 100 people in America by June of this year.
since then there have been at least a couple hundred more killed.. so many that i stopped counting and started estimating. if the 20% stat holds that’s 140 people killed by our police while unarmed this year.
how many does it take to get your attention?
Since the black lives matter movement focuses on the deaths of black people killed by police… it actually benefits white people as well by drawing public attention to a disturbing trend in policing.
You should be thanking them instead of trying to sweep this under some rug that you label them thinking only black lives matter.
September 3, 2015 at 3:30 pm #827474
JanSParticipantso, JKB…you’re a heckler, too? Kinda takes away from a civil discussion…again, the condescension drips…you’re not making points here…but you already know that, don’t you..
September 3, 2015 at 4:08 pm #827475
dobroParticipant“What you’re doing now in throwing it back at me is akin to what I did then…”
Afraid not. What I’m doing is quoting your own words and pointing out what I see there. That is not “throwing it back at you”.
September 3, 2015 at 4:29 pm #827476
KBearParticipantJKB, Leonard Pitts’s success as a writer has not changed the color of his skin, and as a result he is still subject to situations where he will be treated differently than a white person would. That’s institutional racism, and it’s a form of oppression. My “case” is that your use of the words “All lives matter” was racist. All the views you have expressed subsequently are well aligned with keeping institutional racism in place, including your refusal to even recognize that it exists.
September 3, 2015 at 5:28 pm #827477
JKBParticipantAnd the conversation goes downhill…
I’m often appalled at the conduct of online discussions, and should never have thought this would be any different. You can have the thread, I’m done here.
September 3, 2015 at 6:20 pm #827478
dobroParticipant“I’m often appalled at the conduct of online discussions, and should never have thought this would be any different…”
Shocking! Mr. “Listen up, you imbecile” is appalled!
“You can have the thread, I’m done here.”
I guess he forgot he already said goodbye in post 26.
September 3, 2015 at 7:42 pm #827479
KBearParticipantI got that he was mocking Leonard Pitts with his imbecile remark. The irony is that Pitts’s actual terms were “moral cowardice”. A coward sees a difficult situation and doesn’t have the courage to do what’s right. Someone who’s had something explained to them numerous times and ways by multiple people and still can’t see the situation for what it is, well, there’s probably a better word for that.
September 3, 2015 at 8:05 pm #827480
JoBParticipantan interesting read
even more interesting if you read beyond the synopsis
September 3, 2015 at 8:07 pm #827481
JoBParticipantJKB
so the conversation goes downhill for you when your statements are challenged?
imagine that
September 3, 2015 at 10:07 pm #827482
Wes C. AddleParticipantThe best post here is from JanS #43
.
You could replace BLM with many other movements and you’ll always end up with the same argument. The issue is people don’t really understand the issue and then they go off on a tangent and it turns into another argument.
I see this a lot with the God argument. Atheists don’t believe in a God. Believers say there is a God and the excuse is always “someone/something had to start the series of events which is our existence.” which can’t be proven obviously. Then the argument cycle begins again.
September 4, 2015 at 4:35 am #827483
JoBParticipant:)
September 7, 2015 at 5:16 am #827484
JKBParticipantI’d intended to let this thread die, even as several of you added some closing comments. But I have a question.
Apparently BLM activists were at at the Minnesota State Fair last weekend (yes, I’m a little behind) chanting to the police “pigs in a blanket, fry them like bacon”.
Rather than claiming any particular insight here, I’m just going to ask. What was meant by this? And if the intent is not obvious literally, how should a listener have understood it?
September 7, 2015 at 9:47 am #827485
JanSParticipantas much as I support the BLM movement, I would say these particular participants were very misguided in the way they did/said things. It may be just words to them, but not to everyone. The crazies will decide to literally take out a police officer, because they take things very seriously. Oh, wait….that did happen…twice. B
And, of course, BLM will be to blame, won’t they.And we all know that they really aren’t to blame – the shooter is to blame, period. Nothing and no one is perfect. Movements like BLM are not perfect. It does not mean the whole movement is wrong…just those people in that instance were wrong, in my opinion.
September 7, 2015 at 3:10 pm #827486
dobroParticipantI’m not familiar with this incident (links?) but I will suggest that you shouldn’t necessarily believe everything you read. Its been noted that the FBI and other LE agencies infiltrated and spied on Occupy Wall Street and BLM. From living thru the 60s and 70s I know for a fact that federal agencies have a history of doing such things and using false actors to discredit movements of which they disapprove. Google up Senator Frank Church and the Church Committee for more references.
September 7, 2015 at 6:49 pm #827487
JKBParticipantEvery group has its bad apples, true. Activists, white cops, dog owners, environmentalists, gun owners…
Also there’s selection bias: responsible stuff doesn’t make news. The Donald knows all about that.
Blame’s tricky. Agreed that the bad actors are always to blame for their own actions. But some others might be too. Incitement to riot, preachers saying violence is God’s work, etc. Whether you’re shooting white cops or AME churchgoers, whoever put the idea in your head carries blame too.
So this all turned up from my trying to read up on what the BLM organization is, and what they’re saying. What I found was…nothing. No website, no obvious spokesperson, no address, no statement of principles, no press releases. Maybe it’s out there – I could have been more thorough.
September 7, 2015 at 7:20 pm #827488
JKBParticipantSo the J. Edgar Hoover era was quite a while ago. I do think standards of what’s acceptable have changed. But it’s hard to point to any effective watchdog or check&balance, and simple trust has been abused more than once.
Good news: I don’t see any claims of infiltration or spying against Occupy or BLM, let alone evidence to back them up. Or maybe they just haven’t been caught.
Bad news: the level of profiling and tracking available now from public data is probably better than J. Edgar got through spying. It can amount to legal intimidation, and the chilling effect on free speech is a real problem.
Where does one draw the line? We really do have some bad people out there. And we know that power has always tended to be abused, at all levels. I’m not sure what criteria to use in balancing those.
September 8, 2015 at 1:23 am #827489
angelescrestParticipantJKB
Please read Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson.
Here’s a link to its content:
http://www.npr.org/2014/10/20/356964925/one-lawyers-fight-for-young-blacks-and-just-mercy
Perhaps you get back to us with a review.
September 8, 2015 at 2:22 am #827490
JKBParticipantangelescrest, hello. So there’s a lot of content in what you pointed me to. I read the NPR article and the book excerpt they linked to, but not the whole book itself.
My main impression was one of a spread argument: throw up a large number of topics and see what sticks. That’s not necessarily invalid – several of the issues raised are both genuine and difficult – but it becomes difficult to discuss them all. Whole books could be written about any of the topics raised:
Death penalty in general
Trying middle-teens as adults vs. as juveniles
Race bias in prosecution, trial, and jury
Bias against poverty, or favoritism toward wealth
Long prison terms, and the condition one emerges in
Individual responsibility after abusive or other bad background
Validity of individual vigilante or revenge-type justice
Wow, that’s a lot of ground to cover.
September 8, 2015 at 5:01 am #827491
JTBParticipantAccording to one of the organizers of the March in MN, the chant grew out of some loose joking between police and the marchers. He was on All In with Chris Hayes and, quoted on Breitbart.com. Evidently, the march was peaceful and upbeat. If that’s so, the term “clueless” comes to mind nevertheless.
I’m probably more sensitive to PR issues than many care about so I regard a comment like that, even if it was intended in a non-violent sense to be foolish. Regardless of intent, someone is going to play it up. Regardless of whether or not it represents a movement, someone is going to use it to characterize the entire movement.
Back in the day, it was a matter of course that organizers had security details in place to prevent crazies and provocateurs from having a noticeable effect on a planned demonstration. Of course, we saw in the WTO demonstration those days are gone and now organizers don’t have the ability to keep order. Anyway, joke or not, I would have shut down that chant if I were involved in organizing the event. But I wasn’t there.
According to the BLM facebook page a website for the BLM network is soon coming. I don’t think there is any surprise this is a work in progress. It doesn’t have the kind of funding or organization the early astroturf iterations of the Tea Party did. It’s probably more like OWS in that sense.
There was a very good discussion about policing and BLM on Melissa Harris Perry’s program on MSNBC this Sunday. It might be available online. One interesting data point was that police deaths are significantly down compared to some previous time frame I don’t recall, but not terribly long ago. I wouldn’t have thought that from the attention to the recent incidents we’ve all heard about.
September 8, 2015 at 4:00 pm #827492
dobroParticipantHere’s a discussion of the FBIs role in “monitoring” Occupy Wall Street…
http://www.democracynow.org/2012/12/27/the_fbi_vs_occupy_secret_docs
and something regarding BLM…
and tho the era of J Edgar Hoover was long ago, don’t kid yourself. The gov’s technology and ability to co-opt and surveil any movement they consider threatening in any way to the status quo has only grown since then.
September 8, 2015 at 4:46 pm #827493
wakefloodParticipantThat’s for sure, dobro. That is for sure.
Hope they’re spending as many resources following the militant white supremecists…
September 8, 2015 at 8:08 pm #827494
JTBParticipantWake, my understanding is they watch those white supremacists closely. At least they represent that’s the case.
As I recall, there have been several busts of those sorts in AZ in the last year. I believe undercover agents were involved in setting up stings.
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