I’m going to remember this video, that when I do bad things it was only cause and effect. That someone else did something that made me upset, so that validates my anger and my inability to make rational choices, to show any level of personal responsibility.
Because all this isn’t protesting:
Onlookers cheered as a masked man shattered a hotel window while another one hurled rocks through it. Others spray-painted “Black Lives Matter” on business windows and smashed car windows.“I was right in the thick of it,” witness Zach Locke said. "People found whatever objects they could to break glasses. It was madness."Some stores were looted, including the Charlotte Hornets’ NBA store, local media reported. Freelance photographer Marcus DiPaola told CNN he saw some people knock over an ATM and grab money from it. The Hyatt House Hotel downtown went into lockdown as protesters tossed bricks through the window. A valet and front desk attendant were punched in the face by protesters, hotel manager Matt Allen told CNN.
This is protesting:
Kristine Slade, 19, a University of North Carolina at Charlotte student, joined the protests Tuesday night, kneeling in front of a police line with her hands up in the air. She said she felt like she had to protest, because "if nobody else is going to do it, then we’re still going to be in the same position."But she became increasingly worried Wednesday night as she saw rocks being thrown, fires being set and acts of vandalism committed. “It hurts us to see that these buildings are being vandalized and damaged because of the anger and outrage of other citizens when there are clearly other ways to get our point across,” Slade said.
is there a web site tracking each of these killings of black men by police? I admit its become a blur, and I think we could really use some collective memory here.
There’s this:
The best i have seen is https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/police-shootings/
It is interactive, and you can look at it by race, whether the victim was armed, and many other factors. And it is updated in real time.
They can be hateful and bigoted, and they can vote against their own interests certainly; but it’s rare that such Black people have enough wealth or political power to be bonafide racists.
You don’t need wealth and power to be a bonafide racist. Witness all these peckerwoods with Confederate flags hanging from their single-wides.
Black people can participate in and profit from a racist system, which you may not consider as being actually racist, but that’s splitting hairs. Whatever you call it, the business end has the same effect.
*sighs
I’m not having this conversation again today.
I’m not.
thanks for that link
thanks for that - incredible and depressing
Many of the real hard-core right wingers I’ve heard from lately are suggesting that we should simply pull the police out of black communities entirely.
If they’re that hard core, they believe that the police should be privatized. That way, they’re technically not racist because white people can be poor too and see how clever I am?
Legitimate question: if racism requires systemic injustice against a group of people, and a member of that discriminated group is also an agent of the system, would that person be racist against their own group? They also hold the prejudices against their own group inculcated into them by society.
Not a question for you specifically, but for anyone. I’m seriously unsure of how this works.
Sorry; while that is a really good question and probably a worthwhile exchange to partake in, I already stated that I’m not having this conversation again today… and I meant it.
If you don’t mind, I’ll DM you at a later date when I’m in a better place emotionally to have that discussion.
Right now I’m simultaneously too angry, frustrated and just down right disenfranchised to express myself in a useful way.
I’m inclined forward my assumption that the justice system (police, court and jail) is uniquely designed to take advantage of minorities that are unable to pay their way out to freedom or be granted leniency just because they don’t want to ruin their future (as they do with certain classes).
All the training and procedures are all set up with a bias against minorities so even if this police officer is black, that does not make it ok because the overall system is working as intended.
All we have to do is have the police treat Black people a little more justly. That’s it.
That’s the bare minimum of context here.
Got it, thanks.
Yes. It’s well-established that racism against a persecuted group exists within persecuted groups. See for example, Brown vs. Board of Education, where one of the most compelling pieces of evidence presented was social science research that showed even black children preferred playing with white dolls. When the dominant culture pounds certain stereotypes into you, you’re going to be affected in some way. It’s interesting to me that the idea that Black people (or gay people or women or what have you) cannot be prejudiced against their own group, itself displays a prejudice that the group is immune to dominant culture.
