Racism: glorified hyperbole in America

[Bluer White]

Tulsa police officer Betty Shelby charged with manslaughter - CNN.com



GRAPHIC: Chaos In Charlotte, NC; People Shot, CNN Reporter Tackled Live On Air | Video | RealClearPolitics

[Pearl]

Originally Posted by BigMacPhisto

There has to be something behind it and I don't really think it's just our country's history of racism that is solely responsible for these insane murder rates and higher rates within the community for virtually every crime.

Originally Posted by the iron horse

I agree. Also, Democrat Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan warned in the 60s that the welfare state, as it is set up, would destroy the black family. It has.

I don't believe at all that the welfare system is to blame for the breakdown of black families. There's plenty of white families on welfare that are broken as well.

To say that our country's history of racism doesn't have much to do about criminal activity within the black community is being insensitive to what black Americans have gone through. They've been enslaved, degraded, dehumanized, etc. How does that not make anyone want to lash out, especially at the society that did all the aforementioned? How does that not get internalized and make someone lash out at those of the same race? I wonder if the breakdown of the black family is related to the black family being torn apart during slavery.

I once spent two years living in upstate NY, near Albany, and at the school I went to, about a third of the students were from the local trailer park. In other words, a third of the kids I went to school with were considered as "white trash". Many of those kids regularly got into trouble at school, got into the most fights, were on detention the most, did the most drugs, dropped out, and you get the idea. The very few black students at this school were of middle class background, and didn't cause the same amount of problems.

I think poverty plays a big role in the mindset when it come to criminal activity. Couple that with racism, and you got a problem. Those kids I attended school with caused a lot of trouble, but they were still white. They had that pride going for them, albeit they were "white trash". Lower income blacks don't have that same pride. So, experiences with racism and growing up in poor areas, I think, are reasons for high criminal activity in certain communities.

Also, I think anyone who blames certain behaviors on skin color are intellectually lazy, along with being racist.

[Pearl]

https://www.facebook.com/OccupyDemoc...8628181896900/

[BigMacPhisto]

A lot of it has so much to do with attitude in my personal opinion although I'm in agreement that poverty tends to be the starting point for all of this. If you feel you're owed something and just want to lash out, then your life is just going to be a living hell until the day you die.

Often, in discussion with perpetrators of crime and their life in poverty, they often aren't even cognizant of the fact that they're poor at a young age until they compare themselves to others. So, they can often live an agreeable existence with food, shelter and family, but when they realize they can't afford the new Playstation, it can start a downhill cycle. That's part of why I think a lot of this violence is an acting out among people low on the ladder of Capitalism. The poor in a lot of third world countries don't necessarily gravitate to a "fuck you" mentality like Americans tend to when they can't get all the lavish trappings they feel they deserve.

Otherwise, if it was just poverty, wouldn't practically every black male in Africa be in the same boat as those from inner city America?

[BigMacPhisto]

Regarding the subject of our own experiences, I can say that I don't overly emphasize the amount of black crime and such that I witness. It really is almost the entirety of the pie and just last Tuesday both heavily anti-social issues that I was privy to on the way to/from and during work happened to once again be black perpetrators despite hardly any living in the Bay Area.

But I came to the conclusion that there's probably a reason for all of this beyond the sort of places I work and live and that has to do with the Bay Area as a whole. I realized that there isn't a significant poor community of, say, whites for example in this part of the country (other than the homeless) of course. So, basically, the Bay Area is rapidly gentrifying and you have the remainder black communities, chronically poor and undeveloped, sitting alongside a lot of exceedingly rich people in SF, Oakland, Berkeley, etc.

So, it's highly possible that the reason that most of the crime I see in my daily life happens to come from black perpetrators is entirely because the class of people you would expect to commit crimes in the area is almost entirely made up of black individuals.

Similar example, the SF homeless population is like 50% black despite the city as a whole being 6%.

[Diemen]

Originally Posted by BigMacPhisto

Often, in discussion with perpetrators of crime and their life in poverty, they often aren't even cognizant of the fact that they're poor at a young age until they compare themselves to others. So, they can often live an agreeable existence with food, shelter and family, but when they realize they can't afford the new Playstation, it can start a downhill cycle.

Is there a source for this speculation, or are these your own thoughts?

[BigMacPhisto]

A mix of factors...including a documentary I watched the other day about an otherwise full of potential black male who was in similar circumstances before deciding to rob a bank. It was well worth checking out and is called Evolution of a Criminal.

This thread will give you a similar idea...the poor in America usually don't realize their poverty as children through hunger pains and the like. It's usually from not being able to get the present or take the trip that they wanted

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/c...ottom-comments

[gump]

Police officers wear Make America Great Again hats and endorse a clearly racist and xenophobic Presidential campaign, but hey, there's no institutionalized racism in this country. It's hyperbole!

[corianderstem]

Trump: Make America Great Again!

People: YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY

Colin Kaepernick: America's Got Some Work To Do

People: BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO




Abortions for some, miniature American flags for all:

People: YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY

[gump]

And now this: The 2016 POLICE Presidential Poll - Article - POLICE Magazine

[BigMacPhisto]

I mean, why wouldn't they drift further to the right when a great chunk of the left just demonizes them at every turn?

And of course it effects their daily lives. A few months back, two policemen were with a woman at a stoplight and their clearly had been a bunch of cars called across the street (a gas station) for some sort of incident that she was involved with (as witness, victim, culprit...who knows?).

Anyway, I pulled up with my bike and waited for the crosswalk light and she started telling these two men that she's scared. They asked who she was scared of while trying to calm her down (it was more like she was just wanting to talk a bunch then being actually frightened) and she said them. And I was just taken aback in disbelief and even started laughing.

As if two officers trying to calm you down in the middle of the day on a very public highway are going to suddenly whip out guns or batons and start physically destroying you. This whole thing has led to an intense paranoia that people with a low mental capacity are willing to buy into with such ease.

Yes, people are being shot for no reason and it's horrendous.

Yes, there is a history of racial discrimination in this country and structural racism still continues to play an immense part in marginalizing the black community.

But these stories of people getting scared (or in this woman's case, basically pretending to be scared for whatever reason) are just laughable. If you're just walking around the street in 2016 and not involved with a crime, they aren't going to pull over their cars to the sidewalk and start shooting you, etc.

[LuckyNumber7]

I find this article title to be provocatively racist.

[Vlad n U 2]

Originally Posted by BigMacPhisto

I mean, why wouldn't they drift further to the right when a great chunk of the left just demonizes them at every turn?

The police exist to protect the state and private property. Why should it be a surprise that cops lean heavily to the right?

This is evident in most countries, and is also partly why, for example, the police treat left leaning protests much more heavily than protests by reactionaries.

[BigMacPhisto]

Well, at the very least, the election of Donald Trump will allow the black community to focus all their energy in one direction and on the actual salient issues of systemic racism that they have to live with on a daily basis. This got clouded a lot under the Presidency of Obama as the community as a whole tended to just figure he always had their best interests in mind, hence the high approval ratings and no push back among them for, say, former Wall Street appointees, etc. Suddenly, a few shootings by police, often of willing offenders, (many of them justified) seems a lot less important in the grand scheme of things.

I was away for three weeks in Europe and I have to say that it was truly eye opening. Croatia, for example, has high unemployment (and underemployment) and an average earning of like $14,000 a year. Yet both my girlfriend and I were taken aback by the lack of crime and the exceedingly friendly people. We saw one cop car the entire time and it was parked at a police station. Small cafes would let you pay after you ordered your food and people go the extra mile for everyone even though tipping culture doesn't exist in Europe.

So then I had to rethink just how much of the situation in the United States is really due to poverty. If so many people without great wealth can treat one another so humanely and have virtually no crime, then why on Earth do we have so much in the United States with far less poverty? Is it sheer jealousy?

And again, it leads me back to just how much culture actually plays a part in everything. Poverty doesn't make you murder another human being or stab someone or not wear a belt. Personal choice matters a lot.

[deep]

.

[kiwilad]

Originally Posted by BigMacPhisto

Well, at the very least, the election of Donald Trump will allow the black community to focus all their energy in one direction and on the actual salient issues of systemic racism that they have to live with on a daily basis. This got clouded a lot under the Presidency of Obama as the community as a whole tended to just figure he always had their best interests in mind, hence the high approval ratings and no push back among them for, say, former Wall Street appointees, etc. Suddenly, a few shootings by police, often of willing offenders, (many of them justified) seems a lot less important in the grand scheme of things.

I was away for three weeks in Europe and I have to say that it was truly eye opening. Croatia, for example, has high unemployment (and underemployment) and an average earning of like $14,000 a year. Yet both my girlfriend and I were taken aback by the lack of crime and the exceedingly friendly people. We saw one cop car the entire time and it was parked at a police station. Small cafes would let you pay after you ordered your food and people go the extra mile for everyone even though tipping culture doesn't exist in Europe.

So then I had to rethink just how much of the situation in the United States is really due to poverty. If so many people without great wealth can treat one another so humanely and have virtually no crime, then why on Earth do we have so much in the United States with far less poverty? Is it sheer jealousy?

And again, it leads me back to just how much culture actually plays a part in everything. Poverty doesn't make you murder another human being or stab someone or not wear a belt. Personal choice matters a lot.

This is a great post. I second it, with the disclaimer that poverty DOES contribute a lot to crime. But institutional choices, governing choices, policy choices, the messages coming from pulpits and televisions are all so powerful.

We've banned the Disney chanel in our house as the messages we see it hammering home relentlessly - that wealth, good looks and a winning sense of humour is synonymous with success - we find abhorrent. But our 8 year old girl gobbles that stuff up.

I suspect the messages being instilled in Croatian kids are quite different...

Sent from my SM-G920I using U2 Interference mobile app

[anitram]

Originally Posted by BigMacPhisto

I was away for three weeks in Europe and I have to say that it was truly eye opening. Croatia, for example, has high unemployment (and underemployment) and an average earning of like $14,000 a year. Yet both my girlfriend and I were taken aback by the lack of crime and the exceedingly friendly people. We saw one cop car the entire time and it was parked at a police station. Small cafes would let you pay after you ordered your food and people go the extra mile for everyone even though tipping culture doesn't exist in Europe.

This is sort of the typical rosy view of a tourist in Croatia. I get it, it's a very beautiful place. And you only went to tourist areas which have built up infrastructure and are not the desolate, poverty stricken places like the eastern plains for example. Think Flint.

But the level of government corruption is appalling and this despite having to meet certain standards to enter the EU. Patronage is so high that young people almost have no hope of getting work unless they are connected. Emigration levels are very high. Natality rates extremely low.

It also has a pretty reactionary right wing government which was elected by, you guessed it, the poverty stricken, nationalistic minded, religious areas of the country while the "urban elites" voted otherwise.

So you see it as some sort of comparison point to the US, but the reality is so different.

[BigMacPhisto]

I can understand that. In fact, there was actually a major protest (by Croatian standards) concerning underemployment at the Presidential Palace in Zagreb while we were there with a lot of media filming it. Not saying at all that the situation is rosy for them, but it hasn't seemed to lead to an outbreak of crime.

There's things we're never going to comprehend though and I still think enslaving a people for hundreds of years and then systematically oppressing them endlessly after that is going to have it's repercussions. But, as always, I've just argued that culture and attitude is a part of the pie albeit a small one.

[deep]

this does not belong here, but some will say it does

I will just say that this really upsets me,

this 'officer' needs to be tried again, justice was not served


Judge declares mistrial in case of former South Carolina police officer who killed Walter Scott - LA Times

[PhilsFan]

The creator of this thread has been dead wrong from the start, but the evidence continues to mount.

https://theintercept.com/2017/01/31/...w-enforcement/