Thought we'd start the day with a positive note:
A teen who spent ten hours cleaning up after a protest in Buffalo and rewarded with a car and a college scholarship - CNN
Thought we'd start the day with a positive note:
A teen who spent ten hours cleaning up after a protest in Buffalo and rewarded with a car and a college scholarship - CNN
The 2 to 1 ratio here says to me even if the polling is off it still is pretty real...and considering the source perhaps a certain group will begin to get the message...Americans Are More Troubled by Police Actions in Killing of George Floyd Than by Violence at Protests, Poll Finds - WSJ
Last edited by htwoopup; 06-07-2020 at 09:34 AM. Reason: Shouldn’t post before coffee
« If I knew what I was doing, I’d be doing it right now »
-Jon Mandel
I’d recommend bringing the reason the protests kicked off in the first place and first watch the recorded violence in the murder of George Floyd if you haven’t yet.
Totally.
It just struck me that there was a nonchalance to it....the sunglasses on the head, the hands in the pockets, the look of “oh, what’s the big deal that there’s a guy dying under my knee”...that anybody would see and then perhaps it would make them think a little deeper about so many of the others. That perhaps that arrogance, that nonchalance could at last wake folk up through revulsion to the attitude to recognizing revulsion of the act itself and acknowledging how awful the problem is.
« If I knew what I was doing, I’d be doing it right now »
-Jon Mandel
Maybe I've misinterpreted them because of what your post emphasized. I am stealing this from a stranger on the interwebs because I think it illustrates what I'm hearing:
You say, "It's horrible that an innocent Black man was murdered by the police but destroying property has to stop."
Try saying, "It's horrible that property is being destroyed but police need to stop murdering innocent Black men."
You're prioritizing the wrong part.
GO!
Davids, Of COURSE the murder(s) by the Police are horrible, it goes without saying.
And as I stated before, it's the 11 dead and hundreds injured that is paramount to the property and looting. It's the whole package.
Violence is met with Police, because (like it or not) it's their job. So if the violence stops (not the protest, the violence and crime), the Police don't respond in the same way. The "agitators" know their actions bring the Police, the cycle continues. The Police haven't had time to suddenly weed out the bad, be re-trained, union busted, reformed as needed, etc).
Don't we want all the violence to stop so everyone can begin the "change"?- for lack of a better term. 2nd thought, not all of us- I guess the anarchist want to keep up the cycle...
The police are the agitators.
Got some cash
Bought some wheels
Took it out
'Cross the fields
Lost Control
Hit a wall
But we're alright
Guy Washburn
Photography > www.guywashburn.com
“Instructions for living a life: Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.”
– Mary Oliver
.
Got some cash
Bought some wheels
Took it out
'Cross the fields
Lost Control
Hit a wall
But we're alright
Not your life and that's not what most of us worry about or worried about. But it almost always costs you a few days of labor and sometimes a few days of freedom.
Or you could call them because a naked old guy is masturbating outside your sister's house. Then wait 2 hours. Then call again and embellish that the elderly homeless guy is exposing himself to minors. Then they show up. But they can't do much. They don't like to criminalize homeless people.
I called the cops last year. Someone dropped a bag of meth on the ground. And after a few hours and several phone calls a cop came to collect it. He didn't ask me any questions and I didn't fear for my life. Because I have white privilege.
Calling a cop on a minority for almost anything? Nah. Not worth risking a life.
Cops are in the service industry. So naturally conservatives should look down on them and insist they don't make a living wage. Their ingrained white supremacy is why that doesn't happen.
Got some cash
Bought some wheels
Took it out
'Cross the fields
Lost Control
Hit a wall
But we're alright
I Am Not Your Negro - Wikipedia
PBS is streaming 'I am not your Negro'. If you have never watched this, it is certainly timely for today. There is a particular scene of a cop in Birmingham kneeling on the neck of a black woman.
It does not seem much has changed.
(I think you can also get this on Amazon or Youtube if you purchase)
I am generalizing a lot but when we were kids, good kids wanted to be firefighters, violent ones wanted to be policemen or soldiers. Here lies the problem which is exacerbated by the power of unions and a kind of mafia like culture.
Now how do we make the police better and make sure the bad ones are reported, punished and prevented to do harm ?
--
T h o m a s
Your statement of "So what, the cost of them doing a competent job when I need it is killing some other citizens unjustifiably? " is a reply to something no one said.
We've all agreed the Police need to change. You don't have to reply to everything I post for the sake of arguing.
Portland Police, on their own livestream, tackling an innocent man off his bicycle for no reason.
This after another night of them gassing and shooting the press, kids, and other citizens.
They say sunlight is the best disinfectant - well, what now? We can see them for who they really are.....what are we going to do about it?
I worked with the police in NYC on many occasions. Many. They were racist, no question. They were helpful when prompted. They had a shitty job. Few were remotely happy about the work they had to do.
The first time a person made a concerted effort to stab me I was happy to see them show up. First words out of their mouths were, "he was black, right?" I hadn't noticed. What I learned that day is that the social contract I had imagined we lived under is a fiction enforced by a power structure I was the beneficiary of. The homeless guy who wanted my bike had a different take on things. The innocent black man who they grabbed in the park and coached me to ID? I could only apologize abjectly before they hustled me out of the room.
What I need is a reasonable certainty that we are all protected by an understanding of our respective Constitutional rights. Equal under the Law.
We have a ways to go yet.
I am hoping we'll get there.
Jay Dwight
Apologies, I'll let you continue your blithe, patronizing assertions.
The cops are the problem. Even in a week where people protesting police brutality, the police bring brutality to those protests. The only out of control group I've consistently seen across the country the last week are cops.
Police forces are fundamentally broken in this country, from their actions to their protection of the "bad cops" with too few "good cops" speaking out. Time to try something different.
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