When did it become normal to completely and utterly misstate the goals of a protest movement?
No, you’re just not getting the willful ignorance you’re spouting here.
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We already do. William and I both gave examples, speeding and marijuana, which can be accepted as fairly unimportant or treated as serious, depending on factors including the race and class of the perpetrator. Your “don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time” spiel is very much beside the point, and not because anyone here is claiming “laws don’t matter” like you keep pretending.
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When did it become normal to completely and utterly misstate the goals of a protest movement?
Maybe I’m mistaken, but the post was about celebrating a video that implies that people of color are illegally incarcerated, that somehow the rate of those people in jail are not from them actually committing crimes.
“shut it down - the whole damn system” is a call for anarchy, not reform, and definitely not for equality unless by equality you mean “let everyone slide.”
Can we start by focusing on victimless crimes then? That’s actually where the problem is the most unsettling and there’s no ethical reason to obey victimless laws (and we middle class white folk break them all the time)
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Maybe, just maybe, you are mistaken. Please read the number of prior answers to your initial thought misconstruction, as they have already answered the question you are posing here.
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I live in NYC, and I have always though stop and frisk was horrible and biased.That was an obvious example of racial profiling.
But this video, somehow in support of #blacklivesmatter has a message that’s about destroying laws in favor of socio-economic fairness. The video posts that 60% of inmates are black while only 30% of the general population is black. They conveniently forget that at least 90% of those black prisoners are in jail because they broke the law. Not tricked or forced into breaking the law, they broke the law. Yes life is hard, and life is harder if you’re black in America. But that doesn’t mean you get to break the law without facing consequences. Is someone or something literally, not figuratively, forcing the black community to break the law?
If the video advocated for equal treatment to white offenders I would be all for it, but the message of the video is to ignore illegality in the black community. Uh-uh, no. Unacceptable.
“Shut it down - the whole damn system” The video explicitly likens the state of being black in America today like the Jim Crow era and visually links today with that of running from slavery.
You’re going to tell me that’s not hyperbolic?
Fine. You want to focus on “victimless” crimes. Are you talking about drug use? Those drugs came from somewhere, maybe through the gang wars of Mexico? Maybe through slave labor in the middle east? Or speeding, which causes an estimated 10,000 deaths a year?
The point is “victimless” crime usually aren’t. We may be focusing on the wrong end of the stick to affect them, but we don’t make laws for shits and giggles these days when there’s an expensive cost to municipalities, states, and the federal government to defend the legality when challenged. You might not like the laws, they might seem trivial, but before you assume they are victimless, maybe think of the others the law protects instead of just yoruself.
I say what I do because my background is pretty humble. I come from a poor part of the country, and while I can’t claim all the factors that might affect someone so much, there wasn’t a lot to count on. I had help along the way, people focused on doing the right thing, and I had a lot of personal initiative. The point is that no one, ever, in my upbringing said it was OK to do something illegal because you had a hard life. And I understand if you’re an individual in the middle of that it may seem hard to see beyond it.
Is “it hard for people to break out of a cycle of poverty and crime?” I can see that. Is that ever an excuse to break the law? Unless I misunderstand, you seem to think that it’s OK, and that’s where we disagree. People always have a choice. Sometimes that choice is VERY hard, overwhelmingly hard, but breaking the law is never the right answer.
“Hey, maybe police should be stopping white drivers for no reason too, and arresting them if they talk back. Maybe we should also take every white middle-class teen that dares to smoke a joint and throw them into the prison-industrial complex for decades with no chance at an education or career, rent them out as cheap labor, and then leave them with a record that ensures they’ll never go anywhere in society again. Freedom! #blacklivesmatter.”
Not all our laws have proportionate punishments, and believe it or not, there is good reason to believe the ones that are selectively applied to minorities tend not to. And by “believe it or not” I meant that instead of assuming that punishing criminals is always fair, read the damn links handed to you.
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Okay, now you’re pushing it. Weed is not more damaging than alcohol and cigarettes, which are perfectly legal and have a massive societal cost. Heck, most drugs at their worst are less costly and damaging than alcohol.
So can we have a sane conversation on the topic or are you going to stick to your guns and not follow up with the resources I provided you and told you how to get yourself…because it’s starting to sound like you’re not particularly interested in being reasonable.
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You finally get my point (though you do so in a hyperbolic, and reactionary way*). Thank you.
If you want to stop unfair punishment for one group, you should be asking for the same treatment of the group in power, not for a change in treatment to the group not in power. Laws don’t change otherwise.
- again, the majority of traffic stops with black Americans are self-reported legitimate, stops where there is arrest for “talking back” are rare, only 1% of traffic violations result in physical altercation and even then 55% of those are self-reported legitimate. And marijuana possession and use is, surprise, a crime punishable by jail. And by the “prison industrial complex for decades” do you mean by up to two years like Oklahoma which has the strictest sentencing in the nation?
I think we all got your point, which is after all very simple, and have only been trying to let you know how myopic it is. But then maybe I’m mistaken, because…
…it turns out your real objection is that pointing out a group is being unfairly punished, and asking for that to stop, is a less effective tactic than to insist more people be unfairly punished? Wasn’t expect that at all. I mean, it seems completely opposite the thought-terminating “don’t do the crime if” cliché you’ve been repeating, which presumes there’s nothing unfair about any of this.
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But that’s the bullshit of this entire thread. You say a group of people is being unfairly punished. Did these people not commit crimes? Did these people not receive punishments that were within sentencing guidelines?
And if there’s anything beyond you saying “yes,” if there’s a “but” in your rebuttal you’re simply making excuses. It’s like if Johnny was white and Jimmy was black and the teacher caught them passing notes, Johnny gets a verbal warning and Jimmy gets detention, you don’t argue that Jimmy should only get a verbal warning too. You argue Johnny should get detention as well.
If a crime was committed you don’t ask for an easier sentence based on racial equity. White police officers should treat white suspects in the same manner as black suspects for their protection and the protection of others. Like this affluenza bullshit, which is bullshit. That little f*cker should be in jail the rest of his natural born life.
Dude I’ve posted statistic after statistic. We’re not debating about a disparity in how different races receive different punishments under the same law. I understand that and you keep trying to convince me of that when I’m well aware. I think the gyst you’re all trying to convince me of is that we should ease up on black criminals (and yes let’s be clear these people committed crimes) instead of coming down harder on white criminals. That I won’t agree to.
“shut it down, the whole damn system”
Is it possible for something to be unfair despite both these things being true? Do I have to say no just because you’ve declared everything but yes to be bullshit, a rule you are making up for a real conversation, and have been repeating no as if just saying so was an argument? Geez.
…because I couldn’t possibly imagine a verbal warning would have been sufficient for both of them. Maybe I just hate kids, or want to make sure there’s someone to clean the chalkboard for me. This is a good analogy to your position, in that it really doesn’t make any sense why things have to be that way at all.
Look, the way you’re going on now, I’m also done here. If you ever want to understand what other people here have been saying, explanations and links have been provided. If not, please don’t imagine for a moment the problem is that you haven’t repeated the same thing enough for us to understand. We do. It’s still myopic.
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You’ve posted TWO statistics to me. You used one to come to a conclusion it didn’t support (and I explained to you why) and the second one was unsourced in which you reported was about self-reporting and you concluded that a ‘10% decrease is pure racism?’. Everything else was opinion and anecdote.
Yes we are That’s what this whole topic is about! What the cake?
I never said anything like that. I said every time that parity is the concern and never once said that. Go scroll up and look.
I never asked you to.
What?
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We don’t disagree. If you would read what I actually said rather than attributing statements to me that I’ve never said we could have an honest discussion, and you would know I’m not advocating for lawlessness or for some people to get out of being prosecuted for crimes they’ve committed.
Congratulations on getting out of hard circumstances yourself. I hope you’ll consider the possibility that, in addition to your own initiative and the help you received you had opportunities that aren’t available to everyone.
Do you really think that’s “wrongheaded”?
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Awwww!
Wait. Let me restate that:
##Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!!!
The nerve, the gall, THE ABSOLUTE CHEEK of these people, shouting slogans and using rhetoric like that! I mean, it’s not like they’ve been treated as second class citizens for, you know, a few hundred years. And it’s not like they’re getting shot down in the streets, even when they’re not carrying weapons, or even when they don’t have a weapon and they just run away (that’s reason to murder someone, right?). Besides that, it’s not like they’re harassed in stores, or relegated to the shitty parts of town which, oddly enough, always seem to be the places cut through with huge interstate roads…you know, I’m glad that’s not happening, because that would be awful.
So cry me a godamn river as to the rhetoric being employed. Really, do. I mean, we gave them the presidency, amirite? Hell, even let 'em vote (kinda) and drive themselves! It’s just that they’re lazy, right? They just don’t take care of all the nice things given to them, do they? Actually, let’s get down to brass tacks: they’re criminally minded, these black folks, right? And now they want to get rid of the system that made things so easy for them?!?
If those black folk only realized HOW GOOD THEY HAVE IT, then life would be so easy!
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