Another man dies in police custody after disturbing video

[pnewton]

Yes, James Byrd who was killed for no reason other than being black by three who wanted to kill a black man.

 

[RyanBlack]

I do not find it surprising that in the protest videos we see so many young people. There is a perspective of historical trends that comes with age, or possibly study of history.

I am 49, not 19 or 29. I have studied history. Progress has been made, but not nearly enough, and it shouldn’t be used as a reason to minimize current injustice. I will also say that almost every single African-American I know well-and there are quite a few, and their ages span from young enough to be my children to being old enough to be my parents believes that the African-American community still is opposed. They have no trust in police forces and courts, and little trust in legislators and executive leaders (at every level). I will add that my experience is that these beliefs are widely held among a wide range of age groups, educational levels, and levels of income within the African-American community.

 

[RyanBlack]

Anyone who takes a historical perspective knows that we as a nation have made progress in race relations.

I take a historical perspective. It’s nowhere near enough.

 

[meltzerboy2]

I said we still have a long way to go, but to deny that progress has been made in the last 60 years is just plain incorrect. One thing is for sure, though: violent behavior such as rioting, looting, and burning is no help to better race relations at all.

 

[pnewton]

My experience is quite the opposite. That is why we need to rely on data. Maybe the differences are regional.

 

[RyanBlack]

I don’t deny progress has been made. However, I insist, largely on the basis of having no good reason not to believe the claims of many Black friends, co-workers, and students that they regularly experience racism. I think it’s unacceptable to place the burden on them to wait. That gives racists an out never to change. The burden must be on the white majority to do the right thing. I’m simply not willing to tell people traumatized by racial injustices that they have to wait.

 

[RyanBlack]

My experience is quite the opposite. That is why we need to rely on data. Maybe the differences are regional.

I have lived in FL, NC, and TX. That has been my experience in all three states. It has also been my experience in both rural and urban areas. However, I find it to be less of a problem here in Houston than in other places. However, it’s a problem here as well. I have witnessed black students of mind treated differently from students who are not black. My whole 49-year existence has been one that convinces me that progress has been made, but not nearly enough.

 

[meltzerboy2]

And how do you propose making the White majority do the right thing? By burning their businesses? Or by enacting political changes in the system?

You must realize too that in places like where I live, New York City, we have many minority groups. It’s not just a Black-White issue, but there are other people of color as well who are discriminated against, including Latinos and Asians of all kinds. The issue of race relations is more complicated in such regions, particularly because not all minorities are of the same mindset.

 

[pnewton]

Okay, I have found data.

50 years after the Kerner Commission: African Americans are better off in many ways but are still disadvantaged by racial inequality

The 1968 Kerner Commission report pulled together a comprehensive array of data on the specific economic and social inequities confronting African Americans at that time. How have things changed (or not) for black Americans in the 50 years since?

www.epi.org

Two points of interest I read. One is that educational strides have been great, economic and housing, less, but still improvement. More to the point, and I think the point being made here, incarceration rates across the country have gotten worse, thank you President Nixon. Our justice system as a whole is a black eye on this nation, competing with China North Korea for the most oppressive incarceration rate. But more surprisingly, the racial disparity has also increased.

I admitted I was ignorant. I grew up in a bubble, mostly of low to middle class, blue collar worker. The town I grew up in was a company town thrown together to provide labor for the petrochemical industry, and as such, had no history of racial tension, as it had no history. People just came together integrated because that was the way the town was designed. So, if I were to make two suggestions to improve race relations they would be.

1. End the war on drugs. It affects the poor disproportionally. The damage done to families by drugs is not as much as the damage currently being done by incarceration for drug crimes. Spend the money used to warehouse people on rehabilitation for the willing, palliative care for the unwilling.
2. Integrate the country, not just the south. Forced integration was, in the long run, the best thing that happened to the South. It is regretful that this has not been extended everywhere.

 

[RyanBlack]

And how do you propose making the White majority do the right thing? By burning their businesses? Or by enacting political changes in the system?

I don’t advocate the violence, but peaceful protests aren’t getting it done. And there isn’t much more to do in terms of changing actual laws. However, who actually administers the laws, and who serves in the courts aren’t getting it done. So what are minorities supposed to do? Wait forever? How extra-judicial killings are they supposed to accept without justice being administered? How long can we ask them to protest peacefully, while they are demonized when they do that? These questions have to be part of the conversation. I say this not to advocate violence, but because I recognize they aren in a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” scenario. Such people may eventually resort to what is most satisfying emotionally in the moment, or acting in survival state. Those scenarios easily lead to violence.

 

[Rubee]

If you put it that way, I agree. However, I was drawing an analogy to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, in which the violence by the Palestinians in reaction to the oppression and violence by the Israelis meets with counterviolence and renewed oppression every time, so that the cycle of mutual violence and hostility repeats itself.

Out of curiosity, what do you think Palestinians should do? Just sit back and let Israel take all their land in peace? They should just happily be displaced and ghettorized in their own home like good little pacifists?

 

[meltzerboy2]

Both the official representatives for the Palestinians and the Israelis have to be seriously locked together in a room from which they will not emerge until they reach a negotiable peace that does not compromise either Israel’s existence or the Palestinians’ freedom. If the governments and leaders of these people will not do this, those governments and leaders need to be voted out of office. Only the good will of the people on both sides can ensure that this happens. No third party can negotiate a lasting peace, and definitely violence will just incite more violence in perpetuity.

 

[do_justly_love_mercy]

And to be honest, I just don’t like people treating him as a hero.

Out of curiosity, why do you not like people treating MLK as a hero? Is it that you object to the concept of heroes in principle, or only where MLK is concerned? I would say that he was a hero. A flawed hero, of course, but a hero nonetheless. Churchill was flawed, FDR was flawed, Pope John Paul II was flawed. Heroes do not have to be perfect.

 

[Rubee]

In the meantime, Palestinians are supposed to just turn the other cheek as Israel keeps taking their land until some miracle puts officials in a conclave?

 

[meltzerboy2]

Violent behavior on the part of Palestinians will cause more than the taking of their land. It will cause their deaths in greater numbers. And in the meantime, innocent Israeli civilians are also being killed. Violence breeds more violence on both sides and solves nothing.

Not a miracle, but the political, social, moral will of the people will lead to negotiation and a lasting peace.

 

[Rubee]

Violent behavior on the part of Palestinians will cause more than the taking of their land. It will cause their deaths in greater numbers. And in the meantime, innocent Israeli civilians are also being killed. Violence breeds more violence on both sides and solves nothing

So sit back and take it quietly it is. I think thats quite a good example of ‘priviledge’ right there. You can afford to preach pacifism to a desperate people with the glasses worn from the life you enjoy but sometimes even something as “good” as a call for non-violence betrays great injustice. No one should be asked to just accept losing their homes. They are a people acting out of desperation.

 

[pnewton]

There might be one more avenue of change. One thing said above about burning and looting was out of line with morality, but there was a note of truth. People do respond when their wealth is at stake. I am thinking that civil litigation, even if new statutes have to written, to go after those the officers who arrest, use force, detain, or take any police action without cause, or if it can be shown, based on race. I think it justified making even the use of racial language during a police action actionable civilly.

I do not want to make police afraid to act, but I think they should all be afraid to act based on race. Those that cannot trust themselves to holds such a standard should not be in law enforcement.

 

[meltzerboy2]

Not sit back quietly but actively protest without the violence and elect leaders who are open to non-stop negotiation. This is not a matter of privilege; it is a matter of living in a society according to a legal and moral system that does not depend on violence and death. Otherwise, without the Law (today happens to be the Jewish Holy Day of “Shavuot,” which celebrates the giving of the Law at Mount Sinai), there is no freedom and no peace.

 

[dvdjs]

They should probably wear masks anyway, with or without a pandemic.

A mask may make them seem suspicious and lead to their immediate demise.

 

[niceatheist]

In general, the Law does an extremely poor job of holding lawbreaking police officers to account. So perhaps a more fulsome conversation as to why the Law, which fails so many African American, should be held as sacrosanct by them.