We have seen numerous videos of unarmed blacks being murdered
The title was taken from a point Nina and Krystal talked about. How many videos have there been before we watched this one of Ahmaud Arbery being murdered by white men and mostly cops without any real conversation of what has happened to African Americans just because they were black As Nina says here, this happens because they exist while being black. Tamir Rice was murdered for having a toy gun in a state where it is legal for people to open carry with no repercussions for his murder. Eric Garner was murdered by being choked by a cop with no repercussions for his murder. Sandra Bland was illegally pulled out of her car after being pulled over for not signaling when the cop came up fast behind her. How many names don’t we know because right now in this country cops can murder over 1,000 of us in cold blood and get away with it?
The most disturbing video I watched was more than one cop at the scene making a black man sit, stand, move towards me, stay put, do this and do that because he was getting more than one set of instructions. This went on for over 20 minutes and at any time any one of the cops could have placed cuffs on him while the others covered him. They finally made him crawl towards them down a long hallway maybe 20 feet or more and when his shorts were falling off he reached to pull them up the cops opened fire. He was on his knees and at any time one cop could have placed cuffs on him. He did everything that he was told to do and yet he was murdered and the people that murdered him faced no repercussions. Cellphones are guns. Ipods are guns. Nothing in their hands are guns.
We have been seeing people from the right protesting the lock down with their guns which is their right. However we have already seen what happens when black people do the very same thing.
I was just going to post this with no comment, but I had too much to say. What say you?
Comments
After two months the men have been charged
Ahmaud Arbery: former police officer and son charged in shooting of black man
Scientists are concerned that conspiracy theories may die out if they keep coming true at the current alarming rate.
Wish I had some happy story
about a white person being charged with assaulting or killing a black person.
(My former local sheriff, in his 30's, back in the 60's, impregnated a 13 yr old black chick. At his funeral in about 2002, his wife acknowledged that son. The black woman was my Mom's best friend, I represented her son from time to time.)
I have listened to Texas Dept. of Public Safety officers (highway patrolmen)and Sheriff's Deputies brag about beating and killing "n's". It is their right, their duty to do so. Their reason for being a cop.
I have heard Houston firemen say they would never give mouth to mouth resuscitation to an "n".
The more guns white people buy, the more the presumption that "n's" stole them and are armed enlarges. All cops everywhere assume all poc are packing.
We are a shitty country.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
We're also not the same everywhere
People have gotten this idea in the past few years that "America" is a monoculture from sea to shining sea - and everyone everywhere (so long as it falls under the purview of the federal government of the United States of America) is equally racist/sexist/etc. Not only is there no reason to believe this, not only is it a tremendous insult to those parts of the country that are in fact better while taking the pressure off of places that are worse, but it's downright dangerous; innocent, vulnerable individuals could be killed or have their lives destroyed if they figure something like "well, it's all equally racist/whatever everywhere, so why don't we go somewhere cheaper to live?"
I have 2 stories about that (both courtesy of my parents' Unitarian connections):
- a minister from Africa came to America to visit the local UUs - he came here very frightened, because he'd been told about how bad they are to black people in America. His experience upon arriving, however (this would be in New Mexico), completely contradicted that; he found everyone was perfectly nice to him.
- Conversely, there was a married couple: a black man and a white woman. They were happily married, as fine a match as any...back when they lived in California or New Mexico (not sure which). They then moved to the South for some reason, and that was all it took to destroy their marriage. They suddenly could not manage to be together simply because of how utterly different the common attitude toward interracial couples in their new residence was from their old.
This whole thing kind of reminds me of an extra-malignant version of the "y'all are hypocrites" line that the South has been throwing at the rest of the country since before the Civil War (and that was back when "the rest of the country" was just the states directly above them; don't get me started on how the West can barely manage to have its existence acknowledged).
Why THE FUCK does nobody talk about America in the terms we probably should be talking about it, despite the scholarship having been done and acclaimed???: https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2013/11/08/which-of-the-...
In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.
Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!
$$ required
Hey TLM, do you know of any other link to that WP article that's not behind a paywall?
Not allowed to read it without forking over the bucks. Bezos has enough money...
Fear not, it's not exclusive to WaPo
That was what I could find in my vast library of bookmarks on short notice.
Try this: https://www.neatorama.com/2015/07/29/The-11-Cultures-of-America/
Or this: http://www.colinwoodard.com/
I seem to remember an even better-looking site/article about the same thing, but I can't find it and I'm tired.
In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.
Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!
Oh, yes, now I know!
I just didn't recognize what it was. Have the book on my library "To read" list – if our library ever reopens...
I mentioned Texas numerous times
in my comments.
I applaud any place in the US that racism does not exist. I thought I had visited the entire country. Where did I miss?
I believe America SUCKS for it's overall racism, treatment of workers, of the poor, it's banking system, medical system, a war machine, the crooked election system, rampant CIA propaganda, and a justice system that rarely sends a white person to the gurney for murdering a poc. My defense specialty, when court appointed, is cases with racial overtones.
Why would you think I am insinuating all Americans suck because America sucks? I know I can't leave and live in Austria. I do not have enough $ to ex-pat there.
Isn't most of the commentary on this site about really great people trying to influence others, and spread the word about peace, love, equality?
I certainly meant no offense to the racially fair places or people.
Texas. I targeted my home state.
USA. Where we are mostly all stuck and can't leave.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
I didn't say you said anything of the sort
I meant nothing personal - I was just bringing up another related point.
For me, I think it might've just triggered a sore memory from DailyKos where a similar topic got aggressively Orwellian (or should I say 'monotheistic', if you catch my meaning?).
In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.
Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!
I would appreciate it if, in the future,
that you make your comment clearly generic.
It is easy: "Otc, you reminded me that...
See?
Even a second read of your comment made me think I had specifically said something dangerous.
I am glad you and I explained ourselves, hope we have cleared the decks.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
Try this:
As long you're dealing with me, assume NOTHING is personal; I'm one of those rare souls for whom metaphysics and concepts prove much more "real" than people.
In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.
Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!
Pronounce yourself as a ghost
and you will be thus treated.
You are more than welcome to pm me and 'splain what is going on.
This is not you, proper. We are all subject to having a bad day.
I beat up people for a living, not for leisure.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
What fool treats ghosts anything but well...?
In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.
Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!
Sorry, I don't know what you are talking about.
Please read my comment above.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
Don't worry about that, then
Our little chain here's starting to get tangled.
In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.
Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!
???
Please tell me how this relates to the topic of this essay? Which is the murder of an innocent man just because of the color of his skin. Did you watch the video and see how he was murdered just because two white men thought that he was a burglar? That this happens to blacks every day in this country?Did you miss the part where cops murders over 1,000 people a year without any consequences? And even when they are charged and put on trial they get off because the jurors don’t think that they should be held accountable?
Did you see how this incident affected Nina Turner?
Scientists are concerned that conspiracy theories may die out if they keep coming true at the current alarming rate.
I was not replying directly to your OP
See my exchange above.
The last thing I need is more emotional badgering, regardless of who or why; it is not. My. Element.
In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.
Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!
This is a common mistake in America
"a minister from Africa came to America to visit the local UUs - he came here very frightened, because he'd been told about how bad they are to black people in America.
Conversely, there was a married couple: a black man and a white woman. They were happily married, as fine a match as any...back when they lived in California"
The black community says they always find it "weird" that foreign born blacks are not subject to the brutal racial discrimination that is enforced on native born blacks. They note it must be the accent. Funny thing...back in the 60's at the height of Jim Crow...some blacks would wrap their heads in turbans to be able to eat in segregated restaurants. One waitress noted to the turban wearer..."good thing you ain't no nig---."
When Africans first settle here in America, because of their accents are given the VIP treatment by Americans. They in turn, turn up their noses to native-American blacks. Until of course they begin to have children in America, who grow up without accents. Guess what happens to these newly born native blacks?
Well done is better than well said-Ben Franklin
That IS weird
It seems to prove one thing, though: It's NOT about color.
It seems like we'd been turning a corner on that particular reality, only to suddenly skid way the hell back as part of the recent "racist is now not-racist and vice-versa" wave.
In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.
Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!
That is your perception
"one thing, though: It's NOT about color."
My point was the accent was the only thing saving them from discrimination. But you go ahead and believe it is NOT about color.
As I also said, when the African babies grow up in America without accents...what saves them from discrimination? Surely, nothing.
Well done is better than well said-Ben Franklin
How does what you said not prove that?
Something else has to be the true governor of people's behavior, otherwise how could accents and accessories completely change things?
FCS, I'm just working with what you give me. This isn't my wheelhouse; never in my life have I lived in an area dominated by the "white/black" paradigm (which I increasingly view as a fundamentally regional mentality that just kind of runs roughshod over the rest of us, because both Yankeedom and the Deep South are ragingly provincial), I might as well be from Japan or something.
In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.
Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!
I would say
"Something else has to be the true governor of people's behavior, otherwise how could accents and accessories completely change things?"
That that "something else" would be nationalism. To abuse foreign born blacks could possibly raise the ire of their native country.
Now if the black is born here in the good ol' US of A, where would be the ire of the US? The same US that had previously enslaved these very people.
I really do not understand your need to brush American racism as just some sort of "fundamentally regional mentality that just kind of runs roughshod over the rest of us". Who are "the rest of us"? Surely you cannot mean black people? What "region"? Across the entire US, there is a frustration with racism. This is something blacks have been alarmed about for decades. As MLK said: "Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will."
Well done is better than well said-Ben Franklin
COULD be nationalism,
,
could be that certain persons will show respect to a black foreigner in high position, but will NOT respect a black child with no accent because they MUST be the descendants of slaves.
"I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.” —Malcolm X
I think we might be making headway now
...even if it does feel like the kind of headway made with a machete through underbrush (but such is communication, I find). Nonetheless, I think we might actually be saying some of the same things.
Strange answer. On the one hand, such reasoning seems contrary to American (or should I say Jacksonian?) nationalism as I have always witnessed it, which responds to perceived foreign threats with (occasionally literally) "bring 'em on!!!"
On the other hand, it is fascinatingly consistent with the behavior I daresay everyone on this site has had cause to experience by now: The notion that "if you're a part of my group, that means I own you". It's just like how the Demstablishment treated Berniecrats despite playing nice with Republicans, to name only one other example. Some of the implications are kind of eye-popping, now that I think about it (like, what if they KNEW the 'BernieBro' smear was the inverse of true???).
I cannot overstate just how much I sympathize with that particular quote. Quotations are an interest of mine (as opposed to a hobby; hobbies cost money, interests are free), and I have to say, Dr. King has more than his share of the best I've ever come across. He spoke truths that apply (potentially) to everybody, not just African-Americans - and that's a big chunk of what I'm objecting to really; I'm seeing nationalism (AKA "the measles of Mankind", as Albert Einstein, another phenomenal quote-factory, once dubbed it) and ethnocentric thinking come from directions I've never seen it come from before, and it's nothing but alienating. I'm seeing African-Americans (or at least those who claim to speak for them) act like these experiences are uniquely theirs, and they're NOT. The whole world is being murdered, not just any one little group! The root problem is the concept of group identity itself.
As it happens I pretty specifically don't mean black people. What you're saying is kind of what I'm talking about. America is a maddeningly diverse empire, formed by numerous historically distinct waves of immigrants, each with our own stories and perspectives and baggage, AND there is an endless chaos of NEW cultures emerging all the time...but suddenly it's all just being paved over, obliterated, and assimilated into a monoculture (as an old friend of mine put it) of "Blacks VS Whites"...with no ontological space left for the rest of us, as groups or individuals.
I'm sorry I'm not conveying this better; I am chronically fatigued, and I had a lot of better stuff to say here before I went AFK for a bit and lost a lot of it. I have my own needlessly sad story, and it doesn't have its own dedicated publicity team.
In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.
Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!
Why look for, or engage in a fight, at this of all times ???
Especially when innocent people are tragically dying.
I just don't get it.
...
[video:https://youtu.be/fi2wHYRCR8Q]
The country (world?) is spiralling out of control.
This is the time of the wrong phrase said that sends otherwise normal people into the realm of insanity.
I am no exception.
You aren't either.
I am on the side of fight to the death, you are on the side of carrying a white flag of truce for negotiation.
History shows both work at various times.
Nobody is right, nobody is wrong, in theory.
But their will be a winner.
I can't think of more than 2 or 3 treaties in all of world history that held against the tide.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
You present them as
possibly un-negotiable contrasting possibilities. I'm not convinced that the purpose is to define a 'winner'.
I never said there was a winner.If there is, it is short lived,
as are negotiations and peace treaties.
I prefer going out this way, you prefer another way.
Truth, we both die some day. This is our time to make a difference.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
Cheers!
[video:https://youtu.be/_rBBKmDIUtY]
They have to find an excuse
To use all the weaponry they bought. Gun sales have increased 10 fold since the pandemic. Everyone is afraid to lose the resources they have stock-piled against the "zombies" who were/are too poor to be able to stock-pile food for themselves.
Have to go out and test these new weapons. Better to kill a black then a stray puppy that's for sure. Killing a puppy? That would surely raise outrage, immediately, and not some two months later...uh...after a video surfaces.
Well done is better than well said-Ben Franklin
What ever happened to shooting ranges,
or putting beer cans on posts, for safe practice?
Not that any shooting practices should be encouraged, especially by trigger-happy people.
It's still all too much for me to wrap my head around.
Oh men and women, get yourself together,
this back and forth between some of the commentators is not becoming. I feel snoopydawg's pain already.
I feel tempted to ask you questions:
What kind of relationship gets you more emotionally uncomfortable and how different would be your answers dependent on your own racial markers?
1. If a black man is in partnership or marriage with a white woman ?
or
2. if a white man is in partnership or marriage with a black women ?
and
3. which marriage has more success to survive over their both their life-times ?
and
4. in which country of the world or state within the United States
would be easier for them to live in ?
5. how generous are you with people who fall in the trap to draw general conclusions from individual examples of racial hatred and violence?
a.) Very generous, b.)undecided, c.) I would never do that kind of thing ...
Good lord, do I really want to know your answers and martyr my head who is lying and who is honest?
Why does a Zebra not do it with a donkey, or a dog with a cat? Jeezus, the dna is always a good excuse for denial of the obviously failing humanity when it comes to racial cross-overs.
I found it painful to see Nina Turner being dragged in front of the cameras. I bet the folks from Rising felt uncomfortable too doing what they did. Nina had some amazing and respectable nerves to make herself available for that interview.
Anti-Blackism and racism is a world-wide "musical" with different sounding tunes dependent on the cultural histories of the country, who play that muscial.
Georgia is on my mind a lot these days.
I heard him life in Berlin, Germay in 1968, and I listened to his original album over and over. I don't go into personal experiences for obvious reasons. It's nobody's business.
https://www.euronews.com/live
When I saw the first video
way before Trayvon Martin, I was shocked. When I saw the tenth, I was shocked the cops arrested the videographer. When I heard for the fiftieth time the sops "forgot" to turn the bodycam on it was "eyeroll" After all this and nothing changing I wonder why we have a government at all, because the one we have does nothing.
If Obama were president it would be Trayvon Martin all over again. No change. Thoughts and prayers. One thing, one of these murderers is a former higher rank cop. Police Unions are one of the most powerful, and they take care of their own. No matter what the initial verdict, if there is a trial, look for the outcome of numerous appeals. When no one is caring anymore, where all charges are ultimately dropped.
'hands up! don't shoot!
Hell you Talmbout?
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHIUve8V2zo]
thanks, snoopy. from 2013:
[long jump]
Ajamu Bakara, writing at Dissident Voice calls the reports findings ‘the New Face of US Fascism’:
In the introduction to the report Kali Akuno, National Coordinator of MXGM, offers an explanation as to why there has been an escalation of state sponsored violence in black communities and the relative acceptance of that violence by the broader society.
What Operation Ghetto Storm reveals is that the practice of executing Black people without pretense of a trial, jury, or judge is an integral part of the government’s current overall strategy of containing the Black community in a state of perpetual colonial subjugation and exploitation.
the rest is...here what's changed? as i remember it, there were almost no comments.