Bristol cops mistake their own race relations advisor for a suspect, taser him in the face at the gate of his home

This is like something from a LKJ song.

Let’s hope the Mayor doesn’t follow your advice.
Marvin Rees, 2016 Labour Party Conference 2

Yes, I’m sure.
There are a lot of statistics available out there, and it takes time to analyse them, but I will offer you just one headline statistic:
US, 2012, black median household income 60% that of white households.
UK, 2012, black median household income 80% that of white households.

Directly comparable statistics.

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Wow, a lower than whites income at a rate higher than the US average. That completely makes up for the racial slurs I heard every day and every night.

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Policing by consent?

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I have spent time in both. The South of the US is a funny place. Restaurants are mixed and people spend more time with black people than in certain cities in the North. But one reads terrible things about how police treat black people.

Mixed marriages are a good index. Way more mixed marriages in the UK.

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You mean as in, they are public spaces and serve the public? Yes, they are. If you attempt to discriminate, you get in trouble cause it’s against the law now.

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It’s happening around here, in the white rural sticks, but in parts of London the spectrum of skin colors is as wide as it is in the French Caribbean. I know perfectly well that we have large swathes of territory full of white racists - I grew up in a progressive part of North London, but the strongholds of the National Front were only a bicycle ride away. I just feel that @anotherone is making a sweeping generalisation which isn’t correct. They obviously had a very bad experience over here but I don’t know in what places. It may be that I live in a progressive middle class bubble.
I was at lunch with friends today and the talk was about whether Trump’s victory would bring US levels of racism and aggression against minorities over here. In such circumstances I find myself defending the US, trying to explain the checks and balances and how different States behave differently.

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You mean as in, they are public spaces and serve the public? Yes, they are. If you attempt to discriminate, you get in trouble cause it’s against the law now.

I did a cross country drive in 96. I’m not originally from the US so forgive my over - generalizing. One of the things I noticed in Mississippi was that the restaurants in went into had both black and white patrons. That might seem a silly thing to remark on but in nyc most restaurants don’t have a lot of black people in them. I guess that’s mostly for reasons of income. But restaurants break down into places which are mostly black or mostly white. Like Applebee’s in Harlem or Tazo D’oro in Chelsea.

I guess places which are truly 50:50 might well exist in bed sty etc. But then there is a good reason why that exception proves the (approximate) rule.

Boston was an unpleasant comparison with nyc or Vicksburg. I went into an Italian restaurant in downtown Boston with a Russian friend of mine and we got kicked out. I think we looked like a mixed race couple. We weren’t but the owners comments made it clear that he didn’t appreciate mixed race couples patronizing his restaurant.

Ironic as my wife is from Boston.

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Thanks for clarifying.

People forget that segregation was nationwide, not just in the south, even if the south had it in legal form. The effects of that are still evident across the country in our social life.

And Boston has a horrible reputation on race, sadly.

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Back when I was in college, a long long time ago. A young lady from Rotherham who was nicknamed “Big Kim” asked me for a slow dance and then grabbed me by the neck in a death grip Darth Vader would have been proud of. It definitely ensured compliance. While dancing she leaned across and whispered "is it true what they say about black men? ". I replied “I don’t know, Ive never slept with one.” It was a mistake cos she was offended.

I mention only cos its so much more common to see mixed race relationships in the UK than in the US. Probably cos the white working class in the UK is a little more catholic in its tastes.

Just my observations and one should take with a pinch of salt. But Boston is well. … let’s just say I am unfailingly polite.

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Say what you want, but at least he’s alive.

If that was Baltimore, you would be looking at a dead man right now.

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Let’s be real here for a moment. Broad statements are all that can be made when discussing racism in the populace. To say I am making sweeping statements is a non-starter. Of course I am. I’m discussing a nation after all. Individual points are just not going to do it.

In point of fact, the system of Monarchy under which the U.K. operates is inherently racist. No non-white non-Windsor will ever be at the head of the monarchy. Such a system, at its rotten little core, is the epitome of institutionalized racism.

The problem with racism in the U.K., as I see it, comes down to a willful blindness. Did you not see the fallout from Brexit? Take a look at Northern Ireland for example which is famous for being one of the most racist places in all of Europe. But then ask a Brit and they will tell you the U.K. has little racism. Admitting there is a problem is something we have done in the U.S. a long time ago. I think it’s time the U.K. did the same

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Some of us are more than aware of it, and we get dismissed as being politically correct when we bring it up, but we also remember the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry and know it isn’t all better now. All we can do is keep trying.

I grew up in a very racist and very white city. It’s a nice enough place, it’s just a shame about the people there.

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What, seriously? No one else is going to call this? OK then, fine.
(Sigh)

Do you, @Ministry, suppose that the resemblance was the mole on both parties’ right cheeks? Perhaps a peculiar scar in an unusual place? Was it perhaps an unusual haircut? Or was it the fact that “suspicious IC3 [Afro-Carribean] male” as the key descriptor in a radio call leaves itself open to a lot of interpretation?

Seriously, that’s a genuine question. Please, please, please show me a link where one of the officers involved in this (either time) was basing their threat assessment on anything other than “suspect is black.” I don’t think you’ll be able to find one but I would be very happy if you proved me wrong.

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No. Take too long, too controversial and bound up in personal experience. I’ll just delete the post.

Except for this bit. The comment resembles the article from Pravda I’m supposed to be translating this week. The fact is that the monarch is a powerless figure, a kind of celebrity head of GB Plc Marketing. The decision of the Supreme Court this morning has just put the final nail in the coffin of rule by monarchy by deciding 8:3 that the Prime Minister cannot use the supposed Royal Prerogative to bypass Parliament, thus reinforcing what has been true since 1688 - that the Monarchy is an appointment of the Commons.
Since, unless you happen to have the right (but undefined) bit of German DNA, you can’t be monarch, the system discriminates against everybody in the country who isn’t in the direct line of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. So either it’s not just institutionalized racism but also anti-Semitism, anti-Celtic, anti-white British, anti-French, anti-American…or your post is just nonsense.
The benefit of an unelected ceremonial Head of State? I draw your attention to President Trump.

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The same Met which was described as “Institutionally racist”.

By whom? I don’t count Breitbart trollies on otherwise civilised websites, or the Daily Dirty Digger.

The Stephen Lawrence case was more than institutionalised racism, though - it was a case where criminal gangsters had infiltrated the Met and used this to protect “their own”. So far no Home Secretary has really dared tackle the Met; when Theresa May tried, they demonstrated their power to bring down a Minister and the result was something of a stalemate. The current sock puppet pretending to be Home Secretary isn’t going to make any progress either.
Met corruption is a separate issue; because it is largely by white working class men, it looks like racism, but I don’t think you can fix one without fixing the other.

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Well, obviously he looks “like” many suspects. You appear to be missing the point here.

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I think they’re saying they were mistaking him for a specific other person, and that other person was a suspect.

For instance, if Amy gets her purse snatched by Bob, and Charlie says, “Yeah, Bob did it,” Bob is now a suspect. If Dave is stopped for resembling Bob, and then let go once he shows his ID, he was never a suspect, Bob was.

The fact that they took longer to determine that Dave is not Bob, (or, in this instance, that Judah Adunbi isn’t some unnamed suspect) doesn’t mean that Dave/Judah was ever actually a suspect.

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After reading all of the article, I reached this same conclusion. But from the headline alone, one might think the world just naturally divides into innocent bystanders (who are white) and suspects (who are not). I don’t like making the police worldview any more prominent.

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