BlackLivesMatter

[Federberg]

^ "It does not matter what the ratio of black on black crime to crimes committed by persons in the position of authority against regular people. If this was a court case, there would be only one word the judge would say : Irrelevant. It is like saying way more people die in car accidents than police crime. Irrelevant. Got nothing to do with the subject at hand."

Couldn't have said it better

 

[britbox]

^ The judge would also find other unrelated cases where a person in authority has killed a black person irrelevant also. He should judge the individual case on the individual specific circumstances that came into play. In fact, colour shouldn't even come into it. Murder is murder whether the victim is black, asian, white or any other creed or colour.

 

[calitennis127]

^ The judge would also find other unrelated cases where a person in authority has killed a black person irrelevant also. He should judge the individual case on the individual specific circumstances that came into play. In fact, colour shouldn't even come into it. Murder is murder whether the victim is black, asian, white or any other creed or colour.

So then why did Federberg title the thread "BlackLivesMatter"?

And why is the Western media raising global consciousness about racist police brutality toward "black males" over 5 isolated incidents in the United States?

For Murat to deny the racial component is silly but utterly predictable. This whole issue is entirely about race and that's the main reason it is even being talked about. There are far more cases of police brutality against white people than black people in America (simply because there is a much larger white population) and no one talks about those. The whole reason this conversation is even being had is because it fits the narrative of white Western Christian civilization being the ultimate source of bigotry in the human race - which is the wrong way of going about Western self-criticism anyhow.

 

[calitennis127]

^ "It does not matter what the ratio of black on black crime to crimes committed by persons in the position of authority against regular people. If this was a court case, there would be only one word the judge would say : Irrelevant. It is like saying way more people die in car accidents than police crime. Irrelevant. Got nothing to do with the subject at hand."

Couldn't have said it better

As I made abundantly clear, Slager should not have shot and he is going to prison for a long time, justifiably. But anyone with an IQ above 70 knows that this media frenzy over police brutality is not just about one man in South Carolina. The only reason we are talking about this on a message board is that the media wants to teach society a lesson about white racism.

No one disagrees that Slager was wrong to shoot or that he will be going to jail. But the conversation about this event is intended to be a social lesson, and if we are going to talk about broader issues, then black-on-black crime is entirely relevant in this conversation.

You started a thread about black lives, with an emotionally charged slogan saying that they matter. Well far more black lives are taken by other black people than cops. So, the point is entirely relevant. The media that is bringing attention to these events does not consist of jurors but antiracist moralists obsessed with race issues.

 

[Federberg]

^ The judge would also find other unrelated cases where a person in authority has killed a black person irrelevant also. He should judge the individual case on the individual specific circumstances that came into play. In fact, colour shouldn't even come into it. Murder is murder whether the victim is black, asian, white or any other creed or colour.

You're absolutely right colour shouldn't come into it. It seems to me that the whole rationale for the BlackLivesMatter campaign is that there is a question mark about whether the police and perhaps society at large might not be colour blind.

You only have to look at the response from Cali to see that there might indeed be a problem (I'm not calling you a racist Cali please don't think that). We are trying to debate a specific issue, and he tries to co-opt it by talking about black on black crime. Yes there's no doubt that this is an endemic issue, but it quite misses the mark. Are black lives valued less in America by the authorities? Is it really the case that a young black man will be more severely punished by the system than a young white man, for exactly the same crime. Are the fundamental assumptions made about the different communities different? How can it be that we are trying to have a discussion about how the police might be guilty of fabrications to justify crimes against some black people (not all), but Cali can be so focussed on a depressing sociological issue that he seems to prefer to disregard the specific subject matter?

 

[britbox]

Cali is broadening the discussion much like you are mate. I think he makes a reasonable point - Why do BlackLivesMatter only seem to be focused on whites killing blacks? Is there such a fuss made when Blacks kill Blacks? If the police officer was black would there have been such an outcry? I also doubt it.

On the specific case, the law in itself should be colour blind. Murder is Murder.

 

[Murat Baslamisli]

Brit, I have to belabour the point and say again: There is no person in the position of authority in a black on black crime, that is why it has no relevance in this thread. I don't want to put words in Federberg's mouth but I am sure he had people in position of authority against regular citizens in mind when he started the thread.

My position on the issue is not about race , even though the last 4-5 examples (the last one is on tv right now, and yes a black guy is dead, his spinal cord severed by white cops in custody) have been white cops on black men, I just generally believe power has a tendency to corrupt and there are more corrupt cops of all colors than just a "few bad apples" and it cannot be a coincidence that we have seen 4-5 recent examples of corrupt cops got caught thanks to cell phone cameras and it just chills me to the bone to think how many people must have died unjustly in the hands of corrupt cops when there was no one to record the events.

 

[britbox]

Well mate, if we are just talking about authority abusing power then why aren't we talking about "LivesMatter" rather than "BlackLivesMatter".

Yes, people in authority often abuse their position.

 

[Murat Baslamisli]

Well mate, if we are just talking about authority abusing power then why aren't we talking about "LivesMatter" rather than "BlackLivesMatter".

Yes, people in authority often abuse their position.

I do not disagree. I do know why Federberg chose that thread title because it is a slogan being used here a lot in the light of recent events. It is justified. Again, he can answer it better, but maybe he ONLY wanted to talk about the recent events , whereas I am skeptical of authority in general, no matter what color. My bad if the intention of the thread was JUST to talk about the recent events.

 

[Federberg]

You perfectly represented my position Murat.

Also Britbox, for me the situation is cops killing black people. I don't particularly focus on white cops. But yes it's fair to suggest that the abuses of power are likely to be colour blind. Unfortunately the quality of the selection process and training of police in America makes racism seem like a big issue. What is particularly worrying is that the same cops who end up killing victims tend to be the ones who have a prior history that hasn't been properly investigated in several cases. If these officers had been removed instead of the authorities protecting their own these things may not have happened

 

[calitennis127]

Brit, I have to belabour the point and say again: There is no person in the position of authority in a black on black crime, that is why it has no relevance in this thread.

Then the thread should have been titled something like "police brutality", not "BlackLivesMatter". If black lives mattering is the subject of a thread, then black-on-black crime is far more of a significant issue for saving black life than police brutality.

I don't want to put words in Federberg's mouth but I am sure he had people in position of authority against regular citizens in mind when he started the thread.

Is a regular "citizen" someone who has been arrested 34 times like Eric Garner was, or someone who robbed a convenience store because he felt like it and then reached for an officer's gun and charged the officer's car?

My position on the issue is not about race , even though the last 4-5 examples (the last one is on tv right now, and yes a black guy is dead, his spinal cord severed by white cops in custody) have been white cops on black men, I just generally believe power has a tendency to corrupt

Murat, I know full well that your refusal to accept certain truths of human reality with regard to metaphysics and spirituality make you largely incapable of understanding basic issues, but I must point out the obvious: your ideological blinkers are preventing you from approaching this subject rationally.

So, let me make this clear to you: the only, and I mean the only reason, there is any conversation at all about police brutality in America is that it has to do with race. Policemen are overwhelmingly white, and the police are perceived as a "white" institution of oppression. Black people and guilt-ridden white people feel that blacks are targets of the police (or neighborhood watchdogs like Zimmerman). You may care about the state and the unjustified use of force, but that puts you in a minority of 0.005% who actually would take a libertarian thought process to this issue. But, again, you wouldn't even know about these cases from the national and international media if it didn't fit the narrative of a white racist cop beating an innocent black male and unjustifiably treating him as a suspect.

The modern governments of the West are behemoths in every sense possible, and that isn't going to change any time soon. So of course power "corrupting" people is a reality. But that applies to bureaucrats and educators the world over. At this point, who cares? Certainly not the media that has brought the Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, and Eric Garner cases to light. For them, it is all about black people being victims of a new modern racism that they can wring their hands over. It is their religion. Proving that you are antiracist nowadays is the equivalent of a medieval indulgence.

and there are more corrupt cops of all colors than just a "few bad apples" and it cannot be a coincidence that we have seen 4-5 recent examples of corrupt cops got caught thanks to cell phone cameras and it just chills me to the bone to think how many people must have died unjustly in the hands of corrupt cops when there was no one to record the events.

Cops are not perfect. Is this news to you?

And, btw, the only recently recorded event (I don't really know much about what happened in Baltimore yet) that was a case of a cop unjustifiably shooting was the Walter Scott-Slager case in South Carolina. Zimmerman and Darren Wilson were rightfully acquitted, and Holder's justice department did an investigation into the Ferguson episode and confirmed that the court was right in its decision. You won't see the likes of Riotbeard acknowledging that, but that is what happened. It's time to start looking at reality folks.

 

[calitennis127]

Well mate, if we are just talking about authority abusing power then why aren't we talking about "LivesMatter" rather than "BlackLivesMatter".

Yes, people in authority often abuse their position.

I do not disagree. I do know why Federberg chose that thread title because it is a slogan being used here a lot in the light of recent events. It is justified.

No, it's not justified. It is a slogan rooted in beliefs that are illogical, just going by numbers alone. The national media has created a movement out of 5 isolated cases that they were wrong about. This year there have already been 22 murders in Chester, Pa, a city that is 95%-plus African-American.

22 divided by 5 is a little over 4. So 22 is a bigger number than 5.

 

[calitennis127]

You're absolutely right colour shouldn't come into it. It seems to me that the whole rationale for the BlackLivesMatter campaign is that there is a question mark about whether the police and perhaps society at large might not be colour blind.

In other words, the whole reason this is being talked about is to trump up another story about institutional white racism toward minorities, particularly black people - a trivial conversation that doesn't help any regular person in their daily lives address truly significant problems. Police brutality mostly occurs under extreme circumstances of duress. It doesn't concern day-to-day realities for the vast majority of regular people of all races.

You only have to look at the response from Cali to see that there might indeed be a problem (I'm not calling you a racist Cali please don't think that).

Whatever you call me, just please don't call me whatever you consider yourself or riotbeard to be. I certainly believe that race is a reality in human life and I believe that we should embrace the racial diversity of human beings and appreciate it as something that makes life richer and more interesting. If I want a good taco, I go to a taquiero where everyone is Mexican and speaks Spanish. I don't go to the house of a Norwegian family trying to imitate the real thing.

I also do not believe in the hilariously stupid and irrational leftist notion that race is a "social construct", which has been refuted by centuries-worth of science up to the present day. Most doctors don't say anything about it in public because they don't want the inquisitors of the secular religious authorities to demand their heads, but anyone who knows anything at all about neuroscience or physiology understands that racial differences are real. There is a reason that black people comprise all of the speed positions in the NFL being just 15% of the American population - and no, riotbeard and federberg, it is not because of institutional sports racism against white people. Try to find a white LeBron James or a white Kam Chancellor; you'll be looking for a while.

And, btw, I am a racist against ideological white people. I generally can't stand them and I find them to be the most repulsive racial subgroup of human beings. They have wreaked immense havoc on the human race with their boneheaded ideas, from "Communism" to "National Socialism" to "democracy" and now to "equality". I can't stand these people and if ISIS blows up EU headquarters, then in my eyes they are only getting what they deserve. The modern incarnation of these white people pretend to care so much about African-Americans when no subset of the human race could frankly be more different from black people than they are.

We are trying to debate a specific issue, and he tries to co-opt it by talking about black on black crime.

Because you titled your thread "Black Lives Matter" and far more black lives are taken by black-on-black homicide than by cops killing black people. You apparently like statistics in tennis but dislike them on this topic.

Yes there's no doubt that this is an endemic issue, but it quite misses the mark. Are black lives valued less in America by the authorities?

The only way that this argument holds in any water in the manner that you intend it to is if you can document a pervasive pattern of police brutality with hard numbers that show a disproportionate ratio in relation to other related statistics. So, for example, if you could document that the number of homicides of cops against black people in an area with as low a crime rate as neighboring non-black areas was much higher for a period of years, then you'd be talking. But you are not providing any numbers of this sort. You are just speaking in generalities with a total of 5 cases across a nation of 320 million as your evidence.

Is it really the case that a young black man will be more severely punished by the system than a young white man, for exactly the same crime. Are the fundamental assumptions made about the different communities different?

Federberg, now you are talking about a more relevant question, a deeper question. So allow me to answer: the fundamental assumptions about these different communities made by the reality-disconnected and reality-hating media and "educators" are not different, but the assumptions made by the police in practice are different. And that is because they actually have to work in high-crime areas instead of discuss them with other white people in classrooms for their own moral fulfillment. If you were a cop, you would view a city with a violent crime rate 10 times greater than the statewide rate with added suspicion too.

So let me give you a tangible example and have you answer some questions about it. One city in the northeastern U.S. that has a major crime problem with a predominantly black community is Camden, New Jersey. (They don't have tennis clubs there with do-gooding white feminists and sociologists getting a couple swings in with their pals before going out for drinks, in case you are wondering.) According to FBI statistics, "New Jersey’s violent crime rate is moderately low, at 290.2 per 100,000 or around 2.9 per 1,000 residents. Camden’s violent crime rate is much higher than the statewide average, at 25.69 per 1,000." In 2013, there were apparently a total of 1,995 violent crimes in Camden that were officially recorded and prosecuted by police. It is also commonly known that there is widespread abuse of drugs in Camden, particularly heroin. Burglaries and motor vehicle thefts (and just thefts in general) are common. And if you combine the total violent and property crimes in 2013, there were 6,080 in the city.

So let me ask you, Federberg, two questions:

1) Given those kinds of numbers, how petty is it for us as a society to make a big deal out of a couple isolated incidents of police brutality when there is chaos with crime in general in cities like Camden? In Camden alone (just one city), we are talking about 1,995 violent crimes in a single year, including a couple hundred murders. Not to mention the welfare dependency and family breakdown.

2) If you were a cop in an area like Camden, do you think that your attitude on a daily basis would be the same as it would be if you were working in a college town or your standard boring white community in Middle America?

How can it be that we are trying to have a discussion about how the police might be guilty of fabrications to justify crimes against some black people (not all), but Cali can be so focussed on a depressing sociological issue that he seems to prefer to disregard the specific subject matter?

I am not shifting the discussion to anything irrelevant. When you look at the scale of violent crime in areas like St. Louis or Camden, it has an immediate relevance to police attitudes. There are so many crimes for them to track that of course they are going to be more aggressive in those areas than they would be elsewhere. The violent crime rate in Camden is 12 times greater than in the rest of New Jersey. Can you blame cops in that area for being more on edge and more aggressive than they are, say, in Princeton? And don't forget, they are fearing for their lives as well.

And I am saying this as someone who has seen cops be jackasses for no good reason, particularly in college towns, and generally doesn't have a very favorable attitude toward police in general. What I object to is the utter pettiness of bringing up police brutality in respect to race when there are far more significant and widespread problems in the black community than a couple of these isolated incidents.

Finally, I will conclude by saying this: the likes of Riotbeard do not want to have a fundamental conversation about these more important issues because they don't want to face the reality of what so many urban communities have become as a result of their ideas. The Great Society socialist programs of Lyndon Johnson have been in place for 50 years and they have utterly failed. The old Democratic Party activist Bob Beckel - who now works for Fox News - even admitted two years ago that was happened in these communities is not what him and his friends wanted or intended back in the 60s. He admitted it has been a disaster.

But, hey, we shouldn't talk about that. We should celebrate how black people have the "right to vote" 95%-plus in every election for the Democrats. I have a friend who in 2012 was working at an inner-city school that was all black and at the time of the election he heard the students saying that "if Romney won, he would take away condoms and bring back slavery" - clearly what they were hearing from their parents. Those are some really well-informed voters right there, I must say.

And, boy, am I glad I have never once voted in an election. Down with democracy!

 

[calitennis127]

Also, I find it amusing that murat is doing exactly what he accuses fundamentalist Christians of doing, which is allowing their religious views to cloud their perception and distort their views. In his mind, George Bush was some kind of modern-day Christian crusader in the Middle East because he was once quoted as saying "God is on our side" (never mind that his speechwriter - who put nonsense in his mind - was a Jewish man named David Frum, all of whose ideas on foreign policy center around global democracy; maybe Frum was really a closet Southern Baptist from Alabama!). But in this instance it is murat trying to somehow make these controversial episodes fit his ideological narrative of individuals being repressed by collectivist government unjustifiably using force, when that is patently not why so much attention has been brought to these issues. It has been entirely about race.

Yesterday I was watching the Mavs-Rockets game (a competition between black males which Federberg and Riotbeard could never culturally relate to) and at a commercial break I decided to hold my nose and flip to Fox News to see what skeleton Hannity was trying to rip out of Hillary's closet. But I ended up catching a segment on police. There was a black professor on the panel and he said that "this is all about racism toward black men". You'd think that by now it would be obvious to murat that this is the reason for this conversation, but I guess not.

murat is being awfully religious right now!

 

[Murat Baslamisli]

Cali, internet is the only medium that you would probably be allowed to discuss anything because you do not know anything about how to form an opinion without attacking the false positions that you create about other people and attack them moronically. I have told you a million times not to put words in peoples mouths but you just don't get it. You have tunnel vision. You just keep assuming.
I am not sure it will ever change, so, good luck with your life.

 

[Federberg]

Also, I find it amusing that murat is doing exactly what he accuses fundamentalist Christians of doing, which is allowing their religious views to cloud their perception and distort their views. In his mind, George Bush was some kind of modern-day Christian crusader in the Middle East because he was once quoted as saying "God is on our side" (never mind that his speechwriter - who put nonsense in his mind - was a Jewish man named David Frum, all of whose ideas on foreign policy center around global democracy; maybe Frum was really a closet Southern Baptist from Alabama!). But in this instance it is murat trying to somehow make these controversial episodes fit his ideological narrative of individuals being repressed by collectivist government unjustifiably using force, when that is patently not why so much attention has been brought to these issues. It has been entirely about race.

Yesterday I was watching the Mavs-Rockets game (a competition between black males which Federberg and Riotbeard could never culturally relate to) and at a commercial break I decided to hold my nose and flip to Fox News to see what skeleton Hannity was trying to rip out of Hillary's closet. But I ended up catching a segment on police. There was a black professor on the panel and he said that "this is all about racism toward black men". You'd think that by now it would be obvious to murat that this is the reason for this conversation, but I guess not.

murat is being awfully religious right now!

On what basis do you make that statement?

 

[Federberg]

"In other words, the whole reason this is being talked about is to trump up another story about institutional white racism toward minorities, particularly black people - a trivial conversation that doesn't help any regular person in their daily lives address truly significant problems. Police brutality mostly occurs under extreme circumstances of duress. It doesn't concern day-to-day realities for the vast majority of regular people of all races."
==============================================================
A trivial conversation? So are you saying that because of the civil rights legislation in the 60s institutional racism doesn't exist anymore?

Where was the extreme duress that Slager was experiencing to provoke that reaction? Where was the extreme duress the policeman in the Eric Garner incident was experiencing?

 

[Federberg]

"Whatever you call me, just please don't call me whatever you consider yourself or riotbeard to be."
==============================================================
Like I said I wasn't calling you anything, I sought to clarify precisely that point. Am I missing something here? What do you think Riot and consider ourselves to be?

 

[Federberg]

"There is a reason that black people comprise all of the speed positions in the NFL being just 15% of the American population - and no, riotbeard and federberg, it is not because of institutional sports racism against white people. Try to find a white LeBron James or a white Kam Chancellor; you'll be looking for a while."
=============================================================
I don't think it's unreasonable to speculate that there might be subtle genetic differences, but the science is a bit sketchy. Take heavyweight boxing for example, up until the fall of the Berlin wall, there was a growing assumption that black men were just physically stronger, but now we have a swathe of white eastern europeans in dominant positions in heavyweight boxing. This should go some way to refuting sports genetics. It seems to me that opportunity and culture (hunger if you will), is a more decisive factor. If everyone tells you that you can't make it because big black men are going to be better than you, you'll be less disposed to make a go of it. I recall watching an explanation on the BBC in the mid-80s about why West Indians were genetically pre-disposed to be better cricketers than Englishmen. Where are those "social" scientists now? The lesson is, that we have to be careful with these simplistic explanations for success in my humble opinion

 

[Federberg]

"Because you titled your thread "Black Lives Matter" and far more black lives are taken by black-on-black homicide than by cops killing black people. You apparently like statistics in tennis but dislike them on this topic."
=============================================================
I don't know how many times we have to spell it out for you, or which language we need to speak. The title of the thread relates to the Twitter hashtag that was created to trend a very specific issue. Police in America and their seeming over-aggressive reactions to dealing with black people. Whether we disagree with the conclusion, that is the specific issue at hand. I don't get why you need to sub-vert it bringing a wider topic into the discussion