My post is clear - those bearing resentment for historical injustices and carry it in their heart will find it difficult to make progress. You cannot progress amongst people you are not at ease with. This is not blaming them for racism but commenting on the psychological aftereffects that have hampered their progress. As an African, I cannot take their heightened sense of repression into my own psyche cos they sent me here to make progress, not to count bridge.
What is 'Babylon' to them is a place of promise that my people sent me to better my life. I will not join in mentally making this place a Babylon for myself.
Bro, you need to relearn /unlearn/learn many things. You obviously don’t have a clue as to what structural violence is, you don’t know how it leads to embodiment of pain/whatever, and how the effects are intergenerational and needs more than that kind of drivel you are making on here to heal from/combat/ eliminate. Repairing structural violence/damage requires more than your magic computer typing fingers to be achieved. Intelligence is, being willing to unlearn and relearn and learn what is necessary, not clinging to stereotypes and jingoisms. I pray you will come to realise this.
A40: Tense environment is not an excuse for use of excessive force. Will never buy that argument.
If your overriding aim is to arrest and not kill or rob the person of their dignity then it behoves on you to know where you have crossed that boundary.
You released dog on a man that had already hit the deck and given his hands to be handcuffed with his face to the ground. Nkan ti o da o l'oruko meji
The guy reporting says this guy first went to his mother's house and threatened her, then went to his house earlier and threatened his wife, then came back to threaten him and his wife again with guns...and just left 3 minutes ago.
Again I am NOT justifying police brutality. Only adding context.
Police hearing that a convicted felon on probation for gun charges is currently running around threatening people with guns could potentially be a little bit tense.
Perhaps the guy shouldnt de dragging with olopa in that case
A40: Tense environment is not an excuse for use of excessive force. Will never buy that argument.
Once Olopa come with choppers and tactical units, all bets are off. I have seen them come with choppers for Mark Lambie one ol gee in my hood before. They lockdown my workplace, we were not allowed to move lest we get caught in something cos Olopa was ready to shoot anything moving that day.
I have also seen what must be British version of SWAT team come for one guy before. The way they lockdown neighbourhood and were signalling, running from one hiding spot to another in pattern, signalling "cover me" and all that, I was wondering which kain gangster live in the neighborhood. The operation lasted 2 hours and I had to miss work that day. When they brought the guy out and he was doing stronghead even after handcuffing him, they gave him some good licks.
When you see Olopa coming for you like you're Escobar and you start forming agidi and dragging with them, anything can happen bro.
Bro, you need to relearn /unlearn/learn many things. You obviously don’t have a clue as to what structural violence is, you don’t know how it leads to embodiment of pain/whatever, and how the effects are intergenerational and needs more than that kind of drivel you are making on here to heal from/combat/ eliminate. Repairing structural violence/damage requires more than your magic computer typing fingers to be achieved. Intelligence is, being willing to unlearn and relearn and learn what is necessary, not clinging to stereotypes and jingoisms. I pray you will come to realise this.
Just thought i should share this nice post I came across here. It's a 4 minute read though.
HOW DO I KNOW MY BELIEFS ARE TRUE?
1)Have you ever held a false belief?
2) What made you realize you were wrong about that belief?
3) How did that realization make you feel?
4) Is it possible that you might hold false beliefs right now and you just don’t realize it yet?
5) What would it take to convince you that a belief you hold right now is false?
6) Are you passively or perhaps even actively resisting a change in your beliefs because of the emotional impact it might cause to realize you are wrong?
7) What is more important to you… Believing true things? Or believing things that confirm your existing worldview and don’t challenge you emotionally?
CHANGING WHAT WE BELIEVE IS HARD.
It’s not so simple as just “choosing” to believe something. Think of a closely held belief you have and try to remember if you chose to believe it, or if you were just exposed to enough information about it that it became impossible not to believe it. Do you choose to believe that the sun will rise tomorrow or do you believe it will based on what you’ve experienced about every sunrise before? Could you actively choose to believe that the sun will fail to rise tomorrow without some evidence that it won’t? Actually, you might say that you don’t “believe” the sun will rise tomorrow, you “know” it as a fact. Well, strictly speaking from a philosophical viewpoint, none of us “know” anything with 100% certainty. When we say we know something we really just mean that we have a very high confidence in that belief. Knowledge is a subset of belief. There are likely objective truths about reality that we can observe and make conclusions about, but personally I don’t see how we could ever perceive reality with 100% accuracy. This is a humbling concept to admit that we don’t actually know things, and even the things we have a high certainty in believing, we must admit that we may only have part of the picture.
I’m going to frame the rest of this discussion around a belief that I held very closely for most of my life. Up until I was about 22 years old, I sincerely and wholeheartedly believed that there was an eternal being who created the universe and gave us a special place in it. His only son came to Earth and sacrificed himself to give us a life after death. It took me several years, but I was exposed to enough outside information that challenged this belief that I was eventually forced to abandon it. I didn’t choose to lose my faith, in fact, there were times where I actively wished I could choose not to. Losing my faith came from a larger process of skepticism and scientific thinking.
WHEN DID I CHOOSE REASON OVER FAITH?
It started with the first question I asked you here today. How do I know my beliefs are true? When I left home for the first time to attend university, my worldviews were thrust wide open. I was being exposed to new people, new ideas, new beliefs. Often times these new things were at odds with my personal experiences to that point. I was recognizing that my perception of the world was quite small. Like I had been looking through a spyglass my whole life. I relied too heavily on that narrow view. It was very jarring to have someone take my spyglass and point it at something I couldn’t see before. I lost confidence in many beliefs, and I realized if I was wrong about even simple things, perhaps I was wrong about pretty important things like religion. I wanted to believe as many true things as possible and as few false things as possible. I started pointing my spyglass in directions I had never looked before. In fact, what I found most disconcerting was that my faith sometimes actively discouraged me from looking in certain directions. But my intent at that point was not to actively find reasons not to believe. It was actually quite the opposite. I believed in God and Jesus Christ, but I thought my narrow spyglass perspective of Christianity wasn’t sufficient. I wanted to increase the certainty of my belief, and in the process of doing so I unwittingly decreased it to the point of non-belief.
I want to use my experience and show you how you can examine your own beliefs in a similar way. If you care about holding true beliefs then I think there are some valuable tools here that you can use.
#1) NEVER EXEMPT ANY ONE BELIEF YOU HOLD FROM THE SAME CRITICISMS YOU APPLY TO OTHER BELIEFS.
The inverse is also good advice. Don’t defend your beliefs with reasoning that you don’t accept in relation to other beliefs. Almost every child of Christian parents is taught this backwards way of thinking. When they ask “If God made the universe, then where did God come from?”, they are given the response “God just is, and always will be.” This is certainly a question I asked at some point and obviously my young mind found the answer satisfactory since I continued to believe it for many years. This argument remains relatively identical even when discussed among adults; however, just with slightly more complex philosophical language. In fact, this argument has a specific name, called the Cosmological Argument. Christian apologist William Lane Craig uses the following form:
- Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
- The Universe began to exist.
- Therefore, the Universe had a cause.
From here he jumps to assuming that the cause of the universe must itself be un-caused. If whatever caused the universe to exist had a cause itself, then we create an infinite regress of causes that require causes. So what caused the universe? Well, an eternal, necessary, and perfect being called God of course. In apologetics this is called a presupposition. He jumps from requiring an un-caused cause to a god. He has exempted his god from the same criticism that he applies to the universe itself. Why insert a god at all? How does he know that the conditions required to spawn a universe could not have simply existed and been un-caused? Furthermore, scientists are relatively confident that time itself began with the big bang. What sense does it even make to claim that something existed before the universe that could cause the big bang if time itself did not exist yet? Before and after, cause and effect. These are all temporal concepts. What does it even mean to say that something existed before matter existed? Can something completely void of matter exist? If mister Craig and others who use the Cosmological Argument were consistent in their application of philosophical criticisms they would see that the only reasonable position to take is to admit that we are here, we exist, we’re not sure why, and we may never find out. From a young age I was told that our beliefs about God were special. That the normal rules don’t apply to God. I can’t use human logic to understand God. When people describe their beliefs about God as being “sacred” what they are really saying is that they should be exempt from criticism. But beliefs about God aren’t the only ones we can hold sacred. If you’ve ever talked to someone about any belief they hold who said “there’s nothing you can say to convince me I’m wrong”, then you are talking to someone who doesn’t care about whether their beliefs are true. Be open to criticisms and strive for a consistent application of logic and reason between all your beliefs.
#2) NEVER ATTEMPT TO BOLSTER YOUR BELIEFS BY ONLY SEEKING SOURCES THAT CONFIRM THEM.
This is called Confirmation Bias. Early on in my journey to increase my confidence in my religious beliefs I was absolutely guilty of practicing in confirmation bias. I wanted to believe that there was a God that cared about me and that I would get to see my family again when I died. I sought out theologians to help answer some of my most difficult questions, like why an all-powerful God would allow children to suffer and die, or why he would include verses in the Bible that detailed how you are allowed to beat your slaves as long as they don’t die within 24 hours. While many might have found their answers satisfactory, I did not
For what reason does science deny witchcraft, sorcery and black magic, if it is something that they did not even verify?
They are energies that break the laws of physics and can never be measured. By Per Jorgensen
“I have invented a machine! My machine summons the dead, turns people into newts, and also cures COVID-19.”
Astonishing! Can we see it?
“It cannot be seen with the eyes.”
Oh. Can we handle it?
“It cannot be felt with the senses.”
Can we try it out?
“It cannot be operated by just anyone.”
Why not?
“It is quite dangerous in untrained hands.”
Can you train us?
“Yes. You may enter a secret training program led by me.”
How long is the class, and what is the curriculum?
“It may be years sequestered in the secret sanctuary of Büll Chyīt to be granted the requisite robes, or you can get the E-Z Certificate in the mail for a low fee of $199. You get two free crystals with the purchase.”
OK. And the E-Z Certificate will allow me to operate the machine?
“Yes.”
And I will be able to summon the dead, turn people into newts, and also cure COVID-19?
“Provided you believe that it will, yes.”
Wait, it only works if you believe it will work?
“Yes. It is a special machine. I told you.”
Then how do we know it does what you say it does?
“Logic. When the dead are summoned, a person is turned into a newt, or someone infected with SARS-CoV-2 does not die, the machine worked. If the machine worked, that means its operator believed.”
Can we measure its operations?
“It operates outside the realm of measurement.”
But surely it must make use of the laws of physics?
“It operates outside the realm of known physics. It’s a special machine because it follows other, special laws that cannot be measured.”
OK, wait, if it does the things you say it does, then those things can be measured, right? I mean, if it summons the dead, then if it’s working we will see the dead with our eyes or hear them with our ears?
“Yes, provided you believe.”
It only works if you believe it works. You did mention that.
“Verily. The machine exists outside the realm which your instruments may detect. Only an expanded and freed mind may access the lost senses with which to detect its effects.”
Alright, let’s try a different approach. If your machine turns people into newts, we can see that they are now newts?
“Verily. Here is one of them. It is visually quite striking.”
How do we know that was once a person?
“This is quite exasperating! If you will just free your mind for one minute from the shackles of science religion …”
Now hold that thought. Maybe if we could ask someone who was turned into a newt and then turned back? Does the machine do that?
“Verily. Here is one of them. As you can see, his condition improved.”
Cool! We can ask him then?
“He will have no recollection. That is a function of my machine. Its operations are quite dangerous, therefore anyone exposed to them must be protected from knowledge thereof.“
Oh dear. How about this, can you turn me into a newt?
“It shall be done.”
I’m not a newt.
“My machine turned you into a newt, then I reversed its settings and turned you back into a human. Leaving you a newt would be evil. You have no recollection, as I stated earlier.”
Can we bring Bob in here so you can turn him into a newt while I watch?
“My machine cannot work under the gaze of those who do not believe. I sense that you do not believe, therefore it cannot be done.”
Can we film or photograph it then?
“Instruments of recording are constrained by the laws of physics and cannot record the machine’s effects.”
Very well. How about COVID-19. How many have you cured so far?
“Thousands. Thousands my machine has saved from COVID-19.”
How do we know your machine is what cured them?
“I operated my machine. They did not die. Ipso facto, my machine worked.”
I think we’ve heard enough. This machine isn’t real, is it?
“This is outrageous! How dare you … your mind is closed and your eyes covered by the blinds of the dogma you call ‘science’. If you would just open your inner eyes and break free from the constraints of your ‘measurements’ and your ‘detection’, you will be liberated to see that which exists in other realms!
“Also, show me the proof it doesn’t work!”
It’s like that: Science doesn’t need to deny anything. Science questions. If it’s real, you can show it. If its effects are real, you can show them.
If magic is real, all you have to do is show it to be real
For your posts starting from the one below. It was shared with me yesterday. Has a lot to do with your insight, understanding, knowledge about racism and or religion, knowing that one can live in Haiti and know more about UK racial relations more than someone who has lived there for 50 years ...etc. If you guys also happen not to denigrate the Biafra movement? Then I may have found my soulmates (I believe I have never been on this testosterone-filled thread, so have not encountered any posts from any of you two before).
Here goes the post from @gensteejay (I cut it to be able to manage it):people that saw the bigger picture left the white man's religion and his concept of God. Christianity and Islam are mainly political tools of the whites and Arabs, which they use for global domination. It's purely politics, and not about salivation or any tripe they invented to pursue their selfish agenda...Many blacks will still come to realize this important truth at one point in their life... ...The gold is our own native culture and indigenous gods, goddesses, and how our forefathers saw the concept of God Almighty... ...Many blacks watch movies, which influence their life outlook: There's a psychological effect (inferiority complex) produced in a black man's psyche when he watches his local gods and goddesses getting defeated by mentioning Jesus' or Allah's name in movies... ...Any man/culture/nation that gives/imposes on you things like religion, language, and education has colonized your thinking. When a man is colonized mentally, he's a slave physically to his masters as well... ...As the saying goes, fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me... ...However, demonizing our local deities, like most people do, is an ill thought-out action and has bad repercussions for the people and their land (when the majority of them curse and demonize their ancestors)... ...Enough said.
Someone shared that amazing post you think too long with me, in excitement I came to see the reaction it wrought. Alas, it has only 7 likes, and your post which is the first reply to that beautifulness is to say it’s too long. Can’t say I am surprised, just a tad disappointed. The truth hurts I know...and so we remain in the dark.
But I am encouraged by the fact that many people are gradually coming to the consciousness of Truth... Thank you @ gensteejay, for knowing the truth, for sharing it...eziokwu bu ndu (truth is life)...truth is liberating. Daalu
How many police officers do you need to take down an unarmed man. There were two attack dogs, 4 cops, a couple of tazers all to subdue 1 unarmed man that had surrendered himself
I'm with you here as this is a Clear case of Police Brutality. Once they had Him down with His hands clearly behind His back, that should have been the end of it. What came after was unnecessary and it was simply a Show of Strength from the officers.
If He is indeed a Gang Banger, He gets Zero sympathies from Me. I'd rather chanel my energy into protecting(and protesting against assaults of) decent Law abiding Citizens than Criminals. That's the reason why I would not have been caught anywhere near the London Protest/Riots that took place a few years back.
I 100% agree with you that it was police brutality.
What I'm saying is I dont think it was motivated by race.
The guy is on parole for gun charges. He's literally just come out of jail for running around with guns.
The police then get a report that a man that went to jail for running around with guns is threatening people with guns....which could explain why they came tensed up.
When I watched the full video, these people came with a police chopper in the air, and they blocked 2 streets.
They came in tension mode. If you see that at least 3 olopa came to arrest only you with dog and helicopter support, then if they say kneel down you should kneel down and not drag with them.
Again not justifying the force. Just looking at things in context.
Race was a major factor.
This likely only happens to a white guy if he attacks them or poses a major threat.
For a black guy attacking them and posing a threat in such a situation is almost certain death.
What has become clear and is undeniable over the years is that (at least for America) the thresholds for violent action by the police are very different for white and black people.
I 100% agree with you that it was police brutality.
What I'm saying is I dont think it was motivated by race.
The guy is on parole for gun charges. He's literally just come out of jail for running around with guns.
The police then get a report that a man that went to jail for running around with guns is threatening people with guns....which could explain why they came tensed up.
When I watched the full video, these people came with a police chopper in the air, and they blocked 2 streets.
They came in tension mode. If you see that at least 3 olopa came to arrest only you with dog and helicopter support, then if they say kneel down you should kneel down and not drag with them.
Again not justifying the force. Just looking at things in context.
Nihi I get what you are saying and see your logical point.
But consider this- all thinngs being equal (gang buster, threatening others, etc) do you think that guy will be treated that way if he was white?
Nihi I get what you are saying and see your logical point.
But consider this- all thinngs being equal (gang buster, threatening others, etc) do you think that guy will be treated that way if he was white?
Exactly. These guys have become experts at subtle (and not so subtle) ways of dehumanizing a person. When you kneel on a person's neck for more than 2 minutes after he has become unresponsive, when you amateurishly try to pull a dog's fangs off another man's leg despite knowing the command sound/word that can make the dog disengage immediately.
You have a combination of sadism and racism at work here. Too many low IQ, mentally unstable, sadistic white men are being accepted into the police. These policemen are just the armed tip of the iceberg of racism that permeates American society. There are many others like them who luckily do not have the legal backing of the state to use black men as point and kill.
Lastly, what we have to understand is that the culture of racism in a country like America with its legacy of industrialized black slavery is a bit different from what one would find in the UK, Canada, Australia or any other Western country.
Nihi I get what you are saying and see your logical point.
But consider this- all thinngs being equal (gang buster, threatening others, etc) do you think that guy will be treated that way if he was white?
I can't speak to that because I don't know those guys. I would not want to speculate on the unknown.
What IS known however is that this guy was considered a serious enough threat for the olopa to go and arrest him with helicopter support, K9 support, and to block 2 streets to ensure they caught him.
This is CLEARLY not a normal arrest.
Police don't take helicopter to arrest just anybody.
That's enough reason in itself for police brutality to happen, because the olopa turned up already ready for war.
Listen, police brutality happens everywhere there's police. Nigerian police act exactly the same way to Nigerians and everybody is black.
I'm not discounting the possibility that there could be a racial element to it, but from the video i saw...i saw a man refusing arrest, I saw s man threatening to knockout the police.
That's enough reason for a power hungry AK to want to show you pepper.
If the man hadn't done stronghead, and complied with instructions, and the police still set a dog on him, then I won't argue against a racial element.
But what the guy did is enough to provoke a violent response from a red-eyed ak.
Exactly. These guys have become experts at subtle (and not so subtle) ways of dehumanizing a person. When you kneel on a person's neck for more than 2 minutes after he has become unresponsive, when you amateurishly try to pull a dog's fangs off another man's leg despite knowing the command sound/word that can make the dog disengage immediately.
You have a combination of sadism and racism at work here. Too many low IQ, mentally unstable, sadistic white men are being accepted into the police. These policemen are just the armed tip of the iceberg of racism that permeates American society. There are many others like them who luckily do not have the legal backing of the state to use black men as point and kill.
Lastly, what we have to understand is that the culture of racism in a country like America with its legacy of industrialized black slavery is a bit different from what one would find in the UK, Canada, Australia or any other Western country.
Nigerian have heard so many jokes about police violence and brutality, because it IS the reality.
Any where there is police, police brutality must follow. The chances for brutality increase when the police have guns.
Before we start speculating about what could have been, let's not forget the facts...the guy resisted arrest, threatened to fight a police officer, and then tried to run...and all of this during a high-testeterone arrest involving dogs and helicopter.
Any ak with hot head can decide to teach the guy a lesson.
The real lesson here is that we should cooperate with cops during an arrest situation. It might not protect you from racism, but the odds are a lot better
Nigerian have heard so many jokes about police violence and brutality, because it IS the reality.
Any where there is police, police brutality must follow. The chances for brutality increase when the police have guns.
Before we start speculating about what could have been, let's not forget the facts...the guy resisted arrest, threatened to fight a police officer, and then tried to run...and all of this during a high-testeterone arrest involving dogs and helicopter.
Any ak with hot head can decide to teach the guy a lesson.
The real lesson here is that we should cooperate with cops during an arrest situation. It might not protect you from racism, but the odds are a lot better
Very good point. I have had 1 stop for not having my headlights on and a couple of breathalyser stops, and in all cases I co-operated with them. You make some valid points which would have been strengthened if this case was an isolated one. Unfortunately however, this is just another piece of the mosaic of police brutality on a particular people which social media has slowly but surely assembled before our very eyes.
It is easier for us to have that kind of Omoluabi reasoning when engaging the cops. It is another thing for a people that have been oppressed to unbelievable levels for generations by these same cops and the power structure they represent. There are echoes of generational hurt in the resistance (which is often token by the way) that you see from some (not even all) of these black guys when they are stopped by cops.
Lastly, what we have to understand is that the culture of racism in a country like America with its legacy of industrialized black slavery is a bit different from what one would find in the UK, Canada, Australia or any other Western country.
Exactly. Racism exists everywhere but it is more overt in some countries and more subtle in others.
People will always discriminate and do all sorts of horrible stuff to others - as long as they believe they can get away with it.
The fact that you look well and dress well as a PoC doesn’t mean you cannot be discriminated against. And if you look ragged and tattered it’s only going to be worse.
South Africa practiced apartheid less than 3 decades ago but they’ve since progressed and managed to reduce it. A woman was sentenced to jail sometime ago for racism. America, on the other hand, talk the talk but hardly wants to walk the walk. As a PoC, looking well-to-do helps but not in all situations.
I can't speak to that because I don't know those guys. I would not want to speculate on the unknown.
What IS known however is that this guy was considered a serious enough threat for the olopa to go and arrest him with helicopter support, K9 support, and to block 2 streets to ensure they caught him.
This is CLEARLY not a normal arrest.
Police don't take helicopter to arrest just anybody.
That's enough reason in itself for police brutality to happen, because the olopa turned up already ready for war.
Listen, police brutality happens everywhere there's police. Nigerian police act exactly the same way to Nigerians and everybody is black.
I'm not discounting the possibility that there could be a racial element to it, but from the video i saw...i saw a man refusing arrest, I saw s man threatening to knockout the police.
That's enough reason for a power hungry AK to want to show you pepper.
If the man hadn't done stronghead, and complied with instructions, and the police still set a dog on him, then I won't argue against a racial element.
But what the guy did is enough to provoke a violent response from a red-eyed ak.
Very good point. I have had 1 stop for not having my headlights on and a couple of breathalyser stops, and in all cases I co-operated with them. You make some valid points which would have been strengthened if this case was an isolated one. Unfortunately however, this is just another piece of the mosaic of police brutality on a particular people which social media has slowly but surely assembled before our very eyes.
It is easier for us to have that kind of Omoluabi reasoning when engaging the cops. It is another thing for a people that have been oppressed to unbelievable levels for generations by these same cops and the power structure they represent. There are echoes of generational hurt in the resistance (which is often token by the way) that you see from some (not even all) of these black guys when they are stopped by cops.
No doubt doc, no doubt.
But like I believe you have also said before, GUNS are also a huge inflammatory factor.
Police in UK were described as institutionally racist by itself after an internal investigation into the Stephen Lawrence case.
But we don't get the same level of violence here, because the police don't walk around with guns for the most part, and the criminals have relatively little access to guns as well.
Arrest situation is a less tensioned affair than in Yankee, when the olopa isn't thinking that the guy is going to arrest is packing an AK, whilst the guy beeing arrested knows the olopa coming for him is only carrying kondo and pepper spray.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that racism itself is not enough explain some of these egregious displays of police brutality in America.
Blacks are oppressed everywhere in western world, but the way and rate at which they die in Yankee suggests that racism, systematic damage, etc are in themselves not enough to explain why black people in Yankee are being used for target practice.
Imagine living in a country where you can buy a gun legally for $200. That's like 80k. Around the price of a PS4.
But like I believe you have also said before, GUNS are also a huge inflammatory factor.
Police in UK were described as institutionally racist by itself after an internal investigation into the Stephen Lawrence case.
But we don't get the same level of violence here, because the police don't walk around with guns for the most part, and the criminals have relatively little access to guns as well.
Arrest situation is a less tensioned affair than in Yankee, when the olopa isn't thinking that the guy is going to arrest is packing an AK, whilst the guy beeing arrested knows the olopa coming for him is only carrying kondo and pepper spray.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that racism itself is not enough explain some of these egregious displays of police brutality in America.
Blacks are oppressed everywhere in western world, but the way and rate at which they die in Yankee suggests that racism, systematic damage, etc are in themselves not enough to explain why black people in Yankee are being used for target practice.
I think it is a combination of things. You are right when you say that the gun culture in the USA makes the society a more violent one and makes every police stop a potentially fatal interaction.
However one can’t afford to dismiss the racial element. The per capita stats comparing white to black casualties, the increasingly common videos, and the anecdotal reports all lead to one conclusion: Blacks are being unfairly targeted.
There is racism everywhere but the USA has the most wide spread, most entrenched and the most recent slavery culture in the world. This culture is the bedrock of their racism. “Our slaves can’t be our equals”.
Only 160yrs ago whites still owned blacks the same way they owned their cattle and horses.
They even fought each other in a bloody war that cost the most in terms of American lives, for their right to still own blacks as property.
Heck, only a few decades ago white civilians lynching African-Americans for little or no reason was still common place in certain parts of the USA.
Advocacy, moral suasion, policy changes, social justice reforms, police reforms, prison and judicial reforms, economic reforms, even effective affirmative action. These are the things needed to balance the equation, and it won’t all be fixed in one day.
A system that has been in place for 400yrs won’t change in a few years unless by violent revolution.
I think it is a combination of things. You are right when you say that the gun culture in the USA makes the society a more violent one and makes every police stop a potentially fatal interaction.
However one can’t afford to dismiss the racial element. The per capita stats comparing white to black casualties, the increasingly common videos, and the anecdotal reports all lead to one conclusion: Blacks are being unfairly targeted.
There is racism everywhere but the USA has the most wide spread, most entrenched and the most recent slavery culture in the world. This culture is the bedrock of their racism. “Our slaves can’t be our equals”.
Only 160yrs ago whites still owned blacks the same way they owned their cattle and horses.
They even fought each other in a bloody war that cost the most in terms of American lives, for their right to still own blacks as property.
Heck, only a few decades ago white civilians lynching African-Americans for little or no reason was still common place in certain parts of the USA.
Advocacy, moral suasion, policy changes, social justice reforms, police reforms, prison and judicial reforms, economic reforms, even effective affirmative action. These are the things needed to balance the equation, and it won’t all be fixed in one day.
A system that has been in place for 400yrs won’t change in a few years unless by violent revolution.
Doc white people owned blacks in UK too.
Racism will never go away. You can't force people to like you. I'm not interested in trying to get people to like me.
Infact, I actually don't care about racial prejudice at all.
My own angle is that there MUST be systems in place to prevent you from acting on your dislike for me.
That way you can go on hating me from now till tommorow...as long as you cant carry a gun and shoot me, ko kan aye!
You can't be complaining that olopa are responding with disproportionate force in a country where any random 100 people have 120 guns between them.
You can't complain that police are doing too much when they work in a country where there were 15000 murders in one year and 10000 of the victims were shot to death.
Police will always escalate the violence. They are not paid much, and any simple interaction with the public is a life or death situation for them, because everybody has guns in America
On this thread alone, Raumdeueter has shown us his two guns. kimbeast has a pistol. I think roland17 is packing. Those are the Yankee regulars here and it's a 100% rate of gun ownership
In the UK, black people are still fighting racism, but in a different way - we're fighting to break the glass ceiling, we're fighting to be present in white dominated boardrooms and offices, we're fighting for better standards of living.....what we're not doing, is fighting to stay alive in the same way they do in Yankee.
We're not fighting to dodge police bullets. We're not being killed in the streets the same way they kill us in Yankee.
It's not because the police are less racist. Like I pointed out, a police internal report actually described the police in UK as institutionally racist.
We must focus on systems rather than people. You can't force people to like you, but you can create systems to discourage them from acting on that dislike.
...etc. If you guys also happen not to denigrate the Biafra movement? Then I may have found my soulmates