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After a night of violent protests, Milwaukee residents gathered Sunday evening to mourn an armed man shot to death by police and begin the healing process.
Family and friends of Sylville Smith, 23, held a candlelight vigil at the site of Saturday's shooting in a residential area of North Milwaukee.
The shooting triggered unrest in the city's north side Saturday night as protesters torched businesses and threw rocks at officers. Four officers were injured and 17 people were arrested, Mayor Tom Barrett said.
Tensions on Sunday gave way to calls for peace as activists gathered outside the affected businesses.
Smith's sister, Sherelle Smith, condemned violence carried out in her brother's name, saying the community needs those businesses.
Black Lives Shatter
Source: http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/14/us/milwaukee-violence-police-shooting/
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Monday August 15 2016, @12:07PM
BLM really ought to choose their fights better. Maybe this armed black man was part good, part bad. Maybe he was just good. Maybe he was just bad. I withhold judgement. But, he was armed. He knew the score, or he was just Darwin Award material.
What kills me about BLM is, they don't make enough noise for the truly innocent. Rice and Crawford come to mind every time I think of cops shooting UNARMED young black males. Instead, BLM gets up in arms over people who may or may not have deserved being shot. In some cases, they protest and riot over people who most certainly did deserve being shot.
BLM's voice would be a lot more forceful if they just stuck to the guys who are obviously killed unjustly. Like, ohhh - let's say a care giver pleading for his life, and the life of the youngster in his charge, only to be shot in the leg by an idiot cop who can't hit the broad side of a barn.
Stick to the obvious innocents, and the almost obvious innocents. Or at least stick with the maybe-innocents. An armed man running from the cops isn't exactly innocent. And, FFS, some guy who dives into the cop's car and tries to wrestly the cop's gun from him IS NOT INNOCENT!!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday August 15 2016, @12:21PM
Not necessarily true. Being armed in and of itself is the right of every citizen and should not be construed to necessitate the use of lethal force or even the unholstering of an officer's gun. Having drawn your weapon... That's another matter entirely.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Monday August 15 2016, @12:55PM
Being armed in and of itself is the right of every citizen
Well... not every citizen.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday August 15 2016, @01:03PM
Well, every citizen who hasn't thrown said right away by becoming a felon. That's a choice though.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Monday August 15 2016, @02:44PM
Being under the age of 16 isn't a choice! Won't someone please think of the children?!
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday August 15 2016, @03:52PM
Under 16 it's up to your parents. I owned a shotgun at 8.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by t-3 on Monday August 15 2016, @04:35PM
For all too many people, becoming a felon is simply bad luck. Born the wrong color, in the wrong place at the wrong time, vindictive girlfriend (or boyfriend I guess but I rarely hear of that), encounter the wrong cop, you'll end up a felon even when you're innocent. If you have no money to fight the case, you lose. The system doesn't listen to the poor or racial minorities when they claim innocence, it tells them to accept the deal or get hit twice as hard for fighting the case. Even if you have resources, you'll get fucked if you're ignorant of the law and your rights (and the system will never tell you your rights, they'll always try to push you through the system fast and make waiving your rights seem like standard procedure).
(Score: 3, Insightful) by julian on Monday August 15 2016, @05:04PM
There's luck of course but our drug laws are, from the top to the bottom, deliberately racist through design and enforcement. Drug laws would be the single biggest, most efficacious, change we could make. If BLM had any sense they'd focus on that instead of this radical social justice overhaul of society which the majority of people will never go along with.
The civil rights movement of the 1960s succeeded because MLK et al realized they needed white people to be on board. Passion, even anger, are understandable. MLK was passionate. He wasn't out shooting at police, burning cars, demanding cash money reparations.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Thexalon on Monday August 15 2016, @07:53PM
Yeah, about that:
1. BLM largely does support ending the War on Drugs.
2. I'm trying to figure out why "cops shouldn't shoot black Americans for no good reason" is a "radical social justice overhaul of society which the majority of people will never go along with". I'll put it this way: If that's true, then it strongly suggests that BLM is long past due.
And neither are the vast majority of BLM activists. For example, the BLM folks in my city are talking about the need for community policing, external investigation of police shootings, punishment of officers who break the rules, better vetting of would-be officers (e.g. the cop who killed Tamir Rice had been fired from another department for being mentally unstable, and the Cleveland Police either didn't know that or ignored it), and improving job opportunities for black youth to keep them out of trouble in the first place.
Also, I think it's worth mentioning that just about everything that is being said about Black Lives Matter was said about Martin Luther King's various organizations.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 15 2016, @09:08PM
Except BLM incites violence the same way trump does towards Muslims.
How many police officers have been killed in retaliation in the last few weeks? How many buildings and cars were set on fire after MLK spoke to a crowd? How many cops did MLK's followers kill?
BLM should focus on why so many young black males are killing each other, if you put a stop to black on black crime, then the police won't be involved.
(Score: 2) by julian on Monday August 15 2016, @09:55PM
I actually support all the things you listed. But this latest conflagration in Wisconsin wasn't the result of a policeman shooting a black man for "no reason." He stole a gun, had it drawn, and refused to surrender to police. That's exactly the situation I would expect deadly force to be on the table. I do consider any loss of life to be a tragedy, and our society undoubtedly failed that young man as much as he failed himself.
Those other incidents you mentioned are more straightforward examples of criminal misconduct by police.
I recommend listening to Sam Harris's last podcast with Glenn Loury. [samharris.org] Some of the statistics they go over were rather surprising and illuminating.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday August 15 2016, @05:05PM
Yeah, the less than a percent error rate of the jury trial is intolerable. We should go ahead and allow felons to have guns. I mean they're going to have them anyway so we might as well make it legal and tax them, right?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Tuesday August 16 2016, @12:14AM
Yeah, the less than a percent error rate of the jury trial is intolerable.
Even if I were to agree that that was the actual error rate, it would still be intolerable. People shouldn't be punished forever in the first place.
Besides, I consider it an error when someone is convicted of violating an unjust and/or unconstitutional law, whether or not they are actually guilty of doing so.
We should go ahead and allow felons to have guns.
I'd be fine with that. Why are they out of prison if they're still deemed to be highly dangerous?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday August 16 2016, @04:11AM
Well, for starters there's this thing called "parole". Most everyone in prison gets out early on it. But really I'd just rather criminals not be legally armed. They've already proven they can't be trusted.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Tuesday August 16 2016, @05:59AM
I'd rather the government have no such power, because it has shown it can't be trusted. And the government is astronomically more powerful and dangerous than any individual criminal.
(Score: 2) by dry on Tuesday August 16 2016, @02:56AM
You mean follow the Constitution? Next you'll be saying that felons should have free speech, need a warrant to be searched and horror of horrors, have the right to due process and be protected from self-incrimination and double jeopardy.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday August 16 2016, @04:18AM
You don't so much get the concept that committing a crime means giving up your rights, do you? A hell of a lot of them, really. Every sentence ever was a violation of the defendant's rights if you want to be reductio ad absurdum about it.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by dry on Tuesday August 16 2016, @05:28AM
Sentences are given by Judges and often end. Division of power, legislature writes the laws, executive enforces them and judiciary decides on guilt and punishment. This is why the 1st says Congress will pass no laws limiting speech rather then the government will never limit speech.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by frojack on Monday August 15 2016, @06:31PM
For all too many people, becoming a felon is simply bad luck.
Nice theory.
Too bad it isn't even remotely true.
Oh yes, everybody likes to trot out arrest rates, and their lopsided nature.
But nobody likes to look too carefully as actual crime commission rates. Because its embarrassing.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 15 2016, @10:44PM
> But nobody likes to look too carefully as actual crime commission rates. Because its embarrassing.
What does that even mean? Please provide a link to these "crime commission rates" so that I can be embarrassed.
(Score: 2) by t-3 on Tuesday August 16 2016, @04:32AM
You've obviously never been to jail, never talked at length worth anyone who has, and place an inordinate amount of trust in the abilities and ethics of law enforcement officers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 16 2016, @12:07AM
It's not a good idea for the government to have the power to arbitrarily strip people of some rights forever simply because they were felons, especially since many laws are unjust and/or unconstitutional.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday August 16 2016, @04:04AM
No, it's a fair enough idea. I do agree the laws that can land you as a felon need fixing but that doesn't mean you throw out all the good ideas with the bad.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by CirclesInSand on Tuesday August 16 2016, @02:40AM
The 2nd amendment doesn't mention felons. If you are willing to throw away the 2nd amendment over felonies, then what meaning is there in the 8th amendment?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday August 16 2016, @04:12AM
S'a fair point. It should be amended in instead of its current state.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by dry on Tuesday August 16 2016, @02:41AM
I've read the 2nd amendment, it's really simple, people have the right to bear arms. Not honest citizens have the right to bear arms. Not Protestants have the right to bear arms as the Bill of Rights of 1689 stated.
I'm not American and my country doesn't have that right, yet it takes a Judge, as part of sentencing, to remove the privilege of bearing arms. And it's only done when someone deserves it, eg doing something stupid with a firearm such as the guy who recently lost the privilege for 10 years (after getting out of prison) for trying to shoot a cop.
Your founding fathers knew that arms were important for dealing with unjust laws, just like voting, another thing Americans remove from citizens for simple shit like possessing a plant.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday August 16 2016, @04:15AM
Criminals routinely have their rights taken away. The whole concept of going to jail is a massive rights violation if you want to be picky about it. I'll agree this one should be codified as an amendment but it's not remotely exceptional.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Touché) by dry on Tuesday August 16 2016, @05:32AM
Criminals also routinely have their rights restored after finishing their sentence. The idea of a blanket law removing rights forever seems very repressive.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 16 2016, @04:33PM
Many criminals are repeat offenders. Why should any criminal, including violent ones, be allowed to purchase fire arms upon release? Your choices in life have lasting effects, not that it really stops ex-cons from access to guns anyhow.
(Score: 2) by dry on Wednesday August 17 2016, @03:21AM
Lots of people are potential criminals, why should anyone be allowed to purchase firearms? Oh right, it is considered a right, at least in the USA.
If you don't like your Constitution, change it (assuming you're an American)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 15 2016, @01:05PM
Only if not all citizens are "People". You know, as in "The Right of the People..."
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Monday August 15 2016, @01:13PM
Alright - I can imagine instances in which an innocent man is running from the cops. But, that isn't the kind of thing that happens every day.
But, more important than the man's innocence, is the percieved necessity to use lethal force against a man who is RUNNING AWAY. Given body cameras, facial recognition programs, and ever improving technology, WTF do they need to shoot anyone? Because the suspect might enjoy an extra day of freedom, before the cops kick down his mama's door?
I'll say it again - in our old "wild west", it was a given that shooting a man in the back was an act of cowardice, and murder.
(Score: 2, Touché) by khallow on Monday August 15 2016, @03:20PM
Because the suspect might enjoy an extra day of freedom, before the cops kick down his mama's door?
Because an armed suspect may kill or injure someone before they are caught.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 15 2016, @03:45PM
that's pretty fracking stupid! so, some young dumbass who's scared of the cops runs to keep from getting busted for selling weed or something else that is none of the government's business and you figure just shoot him in the back cuz who knows maybe he'll do something else? why don't we just let the pigs shoot everyone who makes them do their jobs?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday August 15 2016, @03:56PM
Because he's drawn a weapon is reason enough.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Oakenshield on Monday August 15 2016, @04:03PM
He was shot in the chest and arm. I hate to have to confuse you with facts. It looks like you have your mind already made up.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anal Pumpernickel on Tuesday August 16 2016, @12:17AM
They might do something violent in the future, so kill them now. That could apply to anyone. If someone isn't armed now, they might be later. This can't be construed as self-defense or defense of others, since there isn't an imminent threat to someone's life.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday August 16 2016, @12:29AM
They might do something violent in the future, so kill them now. That could apply to anyone. If someone isn't armed now, they might be later. This can't be construed as self-defense or defense of others, since there isn't an imminent threat to someone's life.
No, I don't grant your point at all. A reasonable person would expect that this person would be a far greater danger to others than "anyone". And this is defense of others despite your assertion to the contrary. Imminent threat to someone's life is not necessary.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anal Pumpernickel on Tuesday August 16 2016, @03:15AM
A reasonable person would expect that this person would be a far greater danger to others than "anyone".
Who cares what a hypothetical "reasonable person" would expect? I can simply assert that any hypothetical "reasonable person" would agree with me; it's painfully easy.
Imminent threat to someone's life is not necessary.
I would say you have to have at least some evidence that they either do pose an imminent threat to someone's life or will pose an imminent threat to someone's life, or else what reason do you have to kill them? Because you imagine something bad might happen if you don't? How much danger is enough before you can just kill someone based on what you imagine might happen if you don't? How is the probability of the bad event happening calculated? This seems awfully subjective.
Furthermore, does this apply to anyone with a gun? Just those who deal with the police? Only those who run from the police? What if someone runs from the police but doesn't have a gun? What if they later get a gun and then shoot someone? Just because someone doesn't have a gun at the moment doesn't mean they can't get one later. Imagine the frightening things that could happen if they did.
This is just a convenient excuse for government thugs to kill people unnecessarily.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday August 17 2016, @12:40AM
Who cares what a hypothetical "reasonable person" would expect?
Courts do.
(Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Wednesday August 17 2016, @01:32AM
Courts don't even define it in any rigorous way, and often use the term to justify authoritarian rulings.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Tuesday August 16 2016, @10:58PM
So are you saying police have a right to execute people on the street rather than trying to ensure suspects are tried before a court of law? Or are you advocating a "pre-crime" system where they execute specific people who they suspect might commit a crime in the future?
In case you aren't familiar with it, that's not how the US legal system works. Criminals are supposed to be caught and brought before a judge, and the judge determines the sentence. The fact that some cop on the street decides you deserve an execution isn't sufficient justification for that to be carried out. Punishment is never legal unless it is determined in a court of law, generally involving a jury of one's peers. Of course, every citizen including police officers also have a right to self-defense, which is wholly separate from the act of bringing criminals to justice. The law states that: "[a] person is privileged to use such force as reasonably appears necessary to defend him or herself against an apparent threat of unlawful and immediate violence from another." Whether the shooter is a police officer or an average citizen, to legally kill someone else outside of a court-mandated execution, they must be an immediate threat. Not a hypothetical one.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday August 17 2016, @12:38AM
So are you saying police have a right to execute people on the street rather than trying to ensure suspects are tried before a court of law?
How about you? Are you saying that?
Maybe we should read what people actually write.
Here, we have a person fleeing the police with a gun out. It's not just Joe Blow walking down the street. It's not execution to shoot someone who presents a danger to others.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Thursday August 18 2016, @01:21AM
Just holding a gun is not an immediate threat. It's not even illegal!
Running away *certainly* is not an immediate threat either. Quite the opposite.
So where exactly is the threat which made the officer fear that he would or someone else would lose their life within seconds if he did not shoot that suspect?
If the guy turned around and aimed the gun at the officers, then yes, that shooting is justified as self-defense. Otherwise, it's homicide.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday August 18 2016, @02:27AM
So are you saying police have a right to execute people on the street rather than trying to ensure suspects are tried before a court of law? Or are you advocating a "pre-crime" system where they execute specific people who they suspect might commit a crime in the future?
now
Just holding a gun is not an immediate threat.
Running away *certainly* is not an immediate threat either. Quite the opposite.
You have yet to describe the actual circumstances of the shooting. It wasn't a pre-crime execution of a future murderer, it wasn't police executing a man for being on the street, and it wasn't just holding a gun or running. You also have greatly downplayed the danger here. We can't be concerned merely about "immediate threat", but future danger as well.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Thursday August 18 2016, @02:37AM
Federal law says otherwise.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday August 18 2016, @03:55AM
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Thursday August 18 2016, @08:20PM
Yeah I already posted it....but here you are again:
"[a] person is privileged to use such force as reasonably appears necessary to defend him or herself against an apparent threat of unlawful and immediate violence from another."
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-defense_(United_States)#cite_note-1 [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday August 18 2016, @09:49PM
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Thursday August 18 2016, @11:25PM
Police aren't people? Since when? What is this, Robocop?
They certainly don't have a right to just ignore laws that they find inconvenient. They don't get to decide what is legal or not. Unless there is another law which explicitly defines a more general definition of "defense" for police officers, they ARE bound by that same law. They're unlikely to actually be tried and convicted, because the prosecutors are playing for the same team, but that still doesn't make it legal.
So...where is the law that you claim exists which gives police greater leeway here?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday August 19 2016, @11:37PM
Police aren't people?
Police are legally distinct from people in general which is an obvious fact. Why are you pushing this angle?
They certainly don't have a right to just ignore laws that they find inconvenient.
You have yet to cite such a "inconvenient" law. Police have special powers and special restrictions that regular people do not have.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Monday August 22 2016, @07:28PM
They are legally distinct only where there are specific laws that make this so. They are still required to obey the law.
I've cited that law twice now, and I'm waiting for you to cite the law that gives them special powers to ignore it. I'm not saying they DON'T have any special powers, but those special powers must be enumerated in law as well. Police certainly do not get to just do whatever the hell they want at any time for any reason.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday August 22 2016, @07:42PM
They are legally distinct only where there are specific laws that make this so.
Which is the case here.
I've cited that law twice now, and I'm waiting for you to cite the law that gives them special powers to ignore it. I'm not saying they DON'T have any special powers, but those special powers must be enumerated in law as well. Police certainly do not get to just do whatever the hell they want at any time for any reason.
I'm not wasting my time. Courts would be ruling differently, if your assertion were true.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Monday August 22 2016, @08:34PM
Yes, because if there's anything we learn from reading this site, it's that courts ALWAYS make the right decision, especially when they're discussing the actions of government officials...right?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday August 23 2016, @01:08AM
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday August 15 2016, @03:59PM
Guy has a gun out, waving it around, it's a legit kill. Doesn't matter which way he's facing. "Shooting a man in the back" in the old west assumed he didn't know you were there and hadn't drawn his gun to defend himself. Once his weapon cleared the holster all bets were off.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 15 2016, @09:48PM
Guy has a gun out, waving it around, it's a legit kill
...but the chances of it going down the way you describe seems HIGHLY dependent on the skin color of the non-cop with the gun.
A 63-year-old white man, [alternet.org] clad in pajamas, was waving a large gun around, threatening people
[...]
Cops [...] showed up in a cruiser and attempted to convince the man to "put the gun down," so they could talk to him.
[...]
The man says, "shoot me." The cops don't.
.
[White woman] [alternet.org] Julia Shields, 45, drove around a Chattanooga neighborhood Friday just before 4pm dressed in body armor, randomly shooting into vehicles
[...]
Police were called and she was found in a parking lot, where she then led police on a chase and continued to point her weapon at passing cars, and at police during the chase.
Shields was taken into custody without incident or injury
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday August 16 2016, @03:53AM
Not remotely. Cops take a dim view of anyone waving a gun around. That you can find exceptions only means that you can find exceptions.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 15 2016, @02:33PM
What does BLM want? That violent criminals should get a free pass just because they're black? It's not like this guy was a non-violent burglar. Non-violent burglars don't keep the guns and draw them in response to a police stop. The cops had reason to stop the car, which we don't yet know. Sure it could've been a racial-profiled vehicle stop, but it caught actual criminals who would rather run than surrender peacefully.
The protests are also not just people holding hands and marching down the streets. Here's a video, repeatedly taken down from Youtube, which shows 'protestors' shouting "Black Power" and urging each other to beat up any white people they can catch. http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=956_1471230717 [liveleak.com]
This may not be actually representative of the typical protestor, but this video itself shows more terrorism than protest. Is it terrible this man was shot and killed? I sure think so. Terrible he did what he did to get shot, and terrible that certain people are praising him under the aegis of BLM.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday August 15 2016, @03:53PM
Which is why i mentioned it.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 15 2016, @04:23PM
this kind of shit won't end well. keep teaching your kids to hate white people and all you're going to do is activate the true nature of spoiled, repressed whites all over the country. Genes don't change that quickly. They are still the same raiding barbarians they were before but with the illusion of safety and success. take that away and they will revert to their true selves.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday August 15 2016, @05:08PM
Heh - surprised that moderators haven't modded you to hell. Half of them don't see AC posts though. But, I actually agree with you. Thin veneer, and all that - http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-07-07/thin-veneer-civilization-we-all-take-granted-evaporating-all-over-globe [zerohedge.com]
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 15 2016, @09:40PM
So, you're saying we shouldn't hate white people because they are violent barbarians?
They are still the same raiding barbarians they were before but with the illusion of safety and success. take that away and they will revert to their true selves.
In short, we should fear white people whether we hate them or not! Grate! Damn whites! Now who is going to make America grate again? You will have to take my shredded cheese out of my cold, dead refridgerator! Moron Labia!!
(Score: 2, Flamebait) by jmorris on Monday August 15 2016, @06:43PM
What does BLM want? That violent criminals should get a free pass just because they're black?
Yes. They want police to stop policing in 'black areas' and give them a free pass. They want the prisons emptied of all blacks. They won't say these things openly but it is the only rational policy direction discernible from their demands and actions. It is of course utterly irrational so it isn't said.
Or it is utterly irrational to any K selected mind, makes perfect sense to r types. Random predation by dindu doesn't worry them all that much but any selective pressure does. Random street crime is just random predation, exactly like foxes hunting rabbits, it just is and there is nothing to be done but keep breeding. Police eliminating criminals by jail and gunfire is selective pressure that touches any r type deeply in their subconscious.
Makes even more sense to the people pulling their strings, they just want chaos and fire so they can reforge the world 'closer to their heart's desire.' Look up the Fabian Society and see that their goals match the American Progressives so closely they might as well be the same organization. Hmmm.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday August 15 2016, @09:14PM
This is some Alex-Jones-level crazy here. Much as I clash with Uzzard up there he's at least (mostly) rational. You? You've gone off the damn reservation, probably years ago.
What the hell makes you think humans are r-selected? We're almost the textbook example of K-selected breeders! The rest of your pseudoscientific rant doesn't even make sense from the perspective of r-type (no, not the Bydo...) reproduction: the entire point of the r-selected strategy is to overwhelm a smaller number of predators with a flood of offspring, believing that "well they can't kill ALL of us" as, for example, insects and small rodents do.
The very existence of a movement like BLM is testament to our K-selected strategy; were we truly r-selected, our immediate and visceral reaction would be "eh, no lives matter THAT much, really...". Which means everything that follows this accusation of r-selected breeding by "certain people" is good ol' scientific racism again. Tell us about how, being r-selected, "those people" don't put resources into their kids, don't mind some of them dying off, and are lower-IQ and deserve to be squelched because of it, go on...
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Monday August 15 2016, @10:09PM
What the hell makes you think humans are r-selected?
Go read Anonymous Conservative's book for the gory details. Humans actually use both r and K reproductive strategies based on resource abundance. Some people can go either way, early childhood seems very important, others are pretty hard set. And the tendency seems to be highly inheritable. And we in the West have been in abundance for a long time now.
Glenn Beck has had his (actually William Strauss) four cycles of history theory but couldn't/wouldn't propose a mechanism driving it. Anonymous Conservative does and it is horrifyingly clear in both the power to explain and in the long term implications. We go through four basic phases:
K is when civilizations are born from strife, chaos and lack of resources. It breeds hard men who form strong nations. They bring order, hierarchy and laws. These things work every time they are tried and success beings plenty.
K into R is the phase usually described in histories as the flowering of civilizations as resources increase and permit more r types to
survive. Since they also tend to be where you get your highly creative types, as long as the K types maintain a stable order they boost growth of knowledge and the arts.
R is the phase typically described as the decadent phase. Prolonged resource availability keeps increasing the r selected population. The K types begin to lose control and crazy things become normal. -We are Here Now-
R into K is the collapse when the stupidity from r behavior finally overwhelms production and brings on a shortage of resources. Coming soon to a Western Nation near you.
this accusation of r-selected breeding by "certain people" is good ol' scientific racism again
Not really. Hipsters and SJWs are the poster children for r selected behavior just as much as the hood rats they have bred up as a voting bloc. When we tip back toward K, Trigglypuff is going to be toast faster than anyone in the hood.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday August 16 2016, @04:30AM
Ah, I see where you're going with this now.
It's not worded properly though. We don't have true r-selection; what you think is it looks more like an overly-successful K-type strategy. We see this among K-selected large mammals all the time; take deer population booms for example. Just because some aspect of this looks, at a shallow glance, something like r-selected breeding, doesn't make it so. If we were actually r-selected, if we really had a "disposable soma" strategy, we'd have about the same attitude toward our kids as a queen ant does to her brood.
And, I can't help but notice, the classic cultural "hooks" for fascism and populism to gain hold are evident in your explanation. The Golden Age, the idea that everything must be fighting and struggle and warfare, the feeling that "those people" are doing anything from holding "the deserving" back to outright stabbing der Volk in the spine, the drooling anticipation of societal collapse (which you OF COURSE, being a good K-type, will come out of as one of the new elite...), all of it. This is all so predictable, and so half-baked. I've seen this memeplex play out over and over and over again through the last 6,000 years of human history.
Here's a better idea: how about we, as intelligent beings, tell mother nature and her abusive pimp Malthus to go cram it with walnuts, figure out thorium fission and thermal solar and tower farms and synergistic desalinization, and stop tearing one another apart?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Tuesday August 16 2016, @05:55AM
Very hard to summarize a 300 page, heavily footnoted book (The Evolutionary Psychology Behind Politics: How Conservatism and Liberalism Evolved Within Humans - ISBN: 0982947933) in a forum post so let me recommend you follow up with the actual book. But in a nutshell his thesis is that evolution embedded both strategies in humans, environmental triggers to push us toward one or the other and very different psychologies to go with each because they are both the winning strategy at different times. If resources are abundant or new territory is available to expand into, complex social structure, tribal warfare and all that K stuff really is counter productive. Don't fight, go forth and multiply. But the world isn't infinite so we would always hit a limit and K selection would kick back in before we became too degenerate.
But we aren't animals anymore. We have civilization (and now atom bombs) and that vestigial programming is likely to get us killed. It is why every single civilization has went bust, often in very messy ways. If he is right there aren't any good solutions, your suggestion to just science the shit out of things until we have unlimited resources will just get us Idiocracy, where we eventually become so dumb we can't maintain the science keeping us alive. The author(s) really don't have an answer. I think there has to be a way out of the trap but I'm still thinking on it.
And, I can't help but notice, the classic cultural "hooks" for fascism and populism to gain hold are evident in your explanation. The Golden Age, the idea that everything must be fighting and struggle and warfare, the feeling that "those people" are doing anything from holding "the deserving" back to outright stabbing der Volk in the spine, the drooling anticipation of societal collapse (which you OF COURSE, being a good K-type, will come out of as one of the new elite...), all of it.
Reread what I wrote. The high point of a civilization is when both groups are in balance but the K groups is still maintaining order and productivity. But it can't last because they are utterly incompatible and at that point the abundance of resources assures the eventual dominance of the r types, they will simply breed uncontrollably until they win... kinda like what is happening NOW with the wrinkle of science and birth control throwing things slightly off the usual plot but not enough to save us. That is the part that is depressing, the inability to find a way out of the evolutionary trap we are in. The pointless cycle of history that will just keep spinning around and around unless we do manage to figure out a way to beat the trap. Otherwise, as you note, it is going to play out exactly like it has for 6,000 years and counting.
If we were actually r-selected, if we really had a "disposable soma" strategy, we'd have about the same attitude toward our kids as a queen ant does to her brood.
The example r selected animal used in the book is rabbits. They reproduce heedlessly with low parental involvement with only the mother involved, early onset of sexual activity, low attachment to offspring, they almost never fight over mates or territory, etc. Wolves are the K example: highly social, complex structure, very territorial, high parental (both) involvement,later onset of sexuality, emphasis on low number of highly fit offspring capable of survival in a competitive environment and high chance of success in attracting a fit mate.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday August 16 2016, @04:53PM
You don't actually seem upset about all this so much as annoyed that "those people" (sed s/nigger/r-selected breeders/g -i /mnt/jmorris/racial_theory.sh) are pushing the more "worthy" (read: people like jmorris) out.
I swear to Cthulhu, this whole thing is the same eugenics/Lebensraum propaganda that the elite have been pushing since the late 19th century. It's got all the elements. What's next, are you going to tell me that the putative r-types are life unworthy of life? That only proper K-types deserve to breed or even live? Christ on a Sea-Doo, there's even the classic identification with the "virtuous predator" contrasted with the stupid, useless, and most of all WEAK breeders...fuck 'em, right?
This book you're talking about sounds like the social-Darwinist version of Das Kapital: mostly right about the problems it describes, but wrong in subtle and important ways, and God forbid anyone follow the proposed "solution."
I also disagree very strongly with you that solving the symptoms of these issues through technology will lead to Idiocracy; it's well-documented that birth rate drops with prosperity and especially womens' education. I can't think of a more K-type strategy, in fact, than using tech to bring the material standard of living up. It doesn't, of course, solve the mental and spiritual problems on its own...but it's like people who say money can't buy happiness: that's strictly true but anyone who's ever had to scrounge in a dumpster will tell you it buys security and peace of mind, which allows you to pursue happiness.
Plus, remember, we're a social species. We're all connected at some level, even if Dunbar's Number limits us to about 150 people we can concretely care for. We're capable of agape, which you can think of as transcending that number if only in an abstract way. Especially now that we can communicate almost instantly across the internet. Why not encourage this to follow to its proper conclusion?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Tuesday August 16 2016, @06:07PM
so much as annoyed that "those people"
Of course I hate them. I'm rational. :) Burning yer own shit because you are mad is so dumb there are few words in human tongues to describe it.
What's next, are you going to tell me that the putative r-types are life unworthy of life? That only proper K-types deserve to breed or even live?
Well all of our social and moral codes are K selected. But if you would read the whole book and not attempts to summarize it on a web forum.... You would find the truth to be even worse. There isn't any simple answer, even if the K selected types could overcome their altruistic impulse to aid anyone in their in group and 'do the hard thing' and wipe/drive out the r selected folk it wouldn't help. Remember where almost everyone carries both sets of genes and environmental triggers in early childhood control which dominate? Every time civilization succeeds it creates safety and excess resources, and because K selected people are high investment child rearers.... guess what happens next? HInt: Britney Spears rocks in the new Century dancing on a pole with a snake is what.
More Science is where the only hope seems to be, if we understood the mechanism better we might be able to adopt child rearing customs intentionally designed to create the proper environment to bring on more K selection even if the society isn't living on the ragged edge of war, famine and general lack of resources.
Das Kapital: mostly right about the problems it describes, but wrong in subtle and important ways..
No excuse for not actually reading enough of Marx to avoid saying things like that. Marx is not wrong in subtle ways; He is obviously wrong from fifty pages in, starting with his Labor Theory of Value and everything else rests weakly on that bad foundation. It wears the cloak of Science but is purely a work of political philosophy. Anybody who got taken in by that old fraud wanted to believe. Envy is a powerful motivator in weak minds.
Or maybe I'm just suupar smart and stuff? But I didn't fall for Marx, didn't fall for Jesus and even avoided the Ayn Rand trap. Those three get 99% of folks. Same for Moldbug, some of his stuff is great but some of it..... needs work. They all have useful things to teach but all of them have obvious flaws if you are looking for them.
Which is why I liked Anonymous Conservative, he/they admit the limits of where the Science can currently take their work. It is why there is no solution proposed though. His book is an attempt to explore the current state of the art in Science applied to humans and limits itself to where the rest of the scientific community could go if they weren't afraid. There is probably a reason the author is "Anonymous Conservative" after all. The footnotes tend to point to science and history, not political and philosophical tracts.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday August 16 2016, @06:22PM
Keep telling yourself that. You're still fatally and permanently stuck in an egoistic mode of thinking, and NO solution scientific or otherwise is going to solve THAT. The irony here is just sickening...
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Kilo110 on Monday August 15 2016, @12:32PM
Does BLM even have leadership? From what I see they're just a bunch of loosely tied people working under the same banner.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday August 15 2016, @01:04PM
It's also very spread out. Most of the protests are going to be local. BLM is just a convenient banner to unite under. It's not like there weren't protests against police killings/beatings before BLM. It's just that they get more attention and participants now, making them harder for the police to brush off.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 15 2016, @04:05PM
I think this particular "protest" is just an excuse to do some lootin'.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday August 15 2016, @01:05PM
Yes. And no. Officially they don't but in practice they do.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 15 2016, @01:31PM
Yes, they are run by George Soros and the Sylvia Rivera Law Project.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 15 2016, @04:56PM
Yes, they are run by George Soros and the Sylvia Rivera Law Project.
Dispatches from the loonyverse where anyone the far right considers an enemy is part of the same vast conspiracy!
Get the actual facts. [snopes.com]
TLDR; Some BLM groups have received minor amounts of funding from a social progress group that Soros founded 15 years ago.
And the SRLP [srlp.org] is even more a stretch. They are a trans-rights group.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday August 15 2016, @01:58PM
It kinda does: There are now some official organizations and such, but really it's more of a rallying cry than an organization.
However, and this is important, there are some cops would like to treat Black Lives Matter as a terrorist group, complete with being able to arrest anybody who is in any way associated with the idea. This is not surprising when you consider that the FBI treated Martin Luther King as a threat to national security - apparently nothing says "threat" like a large group of people walking down the sidewalk holding signs and singing.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by curunir_wolf on Monday August 15 2016, @04:46PM
Well. Maybe they should [youtube.com].
I am a crackpot
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 15 2016, @12:40PM
> What kills me about BLM is, they don't make enough noise for the truly innocent.
That's because you don't understand what BLM is about. It isn't just about innocents being killed. It is about an entire culture in which the lives of black people have been marginalized. The killing of the 'truly innocent' gets headlines the same way non-violent protestors getting beat during the civil rights era got headlines. In both cases that's just the tip of the iceberg, just symptoms of a far greater problem. Telling BLM to ignore anything less than the utterly egregious is like telling MLK that the March on Washington was going too far — which was a common refrain at the time.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday August 15 2016, @01:09PM
King would be disgusted by BLM. King fought for a colorblind nation, BLM (and pretty much every other anti-racism movement/organization today) is anything but colorblind. They, in fact, go way the hell out of their way to see color and point it out.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 15 2016, @04:02PM
> King fought for a colorblind nation,
Stop buying into racist revisionism. You could not be more wrong.
MLK jr in his 1964 book, Why We Can’t Wait:
Whenever the issue of compensatory or preferential treatment for the Negro is raised, some of our friends recoil in horror. The Negro should be granted equality, they agree; but he should ask for nothing more. On the surface, this appears reasonable, but it is not realistic. For it is obvious that if a man is entered at the starting line in a race three hundred years after another man, the first would have to perform some impossible feat in order to catch up with his fellow runner.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday August 15 2016, @04:56PM
You're saying the "I have a dream" speech is racist revisionism? Cause that's where I got the idea.
The problem with your quote is that the starting lines are equal nowadays. Or at least equal enough that we have a black President, black scientists, black CEOs, black pretty much everything; even black hockey players. Some people, however, do not care about facts because taking the win would mean they're out of a very lucrative job or might have to face the fact that they paid tens of thousands of dollars to be lied to for four years and whitey is not in fact the cocksucker their professors told them he was.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 15 2016, @05:01PM
> You're saying the "I have a dream" speech is racist revisionism? Cause that's where I got the idea.
In your entire life you've read one paragraph that King wrote. You have no context other than the denatured interpretation fed to you by people with the agenda of neutering his message. Learn a thing or two about MLK before loudly proclaiming what King would think.
> The problem with your quote is that the starting lines are equal nowadays.
False beyond all measure. When the median white family wealth is 13x the median black family wealth the starting lines are not even close to equal.
> Or at least equal enough that we have a black President
Lol. We have a black president so racism is over! I don't think you could be less incurious if you tried.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday August 15 2016, @05:25PM
You know what I've read now? Go ahead, tell me more on this subject. I'm interested in how I, of all people, listen to talking heads to give me my views. Please let me know which ones they are so I can start paying them any attention at all. Oh, wait, this is coming from someone who got spoon-fed his views from his professor. Project much?
Starting wealth has nothing to do with anything. In with "correlation is not causation" before you spout some bullshit statistic. Going from rags to riches isn't easy but it is simple. I could give you the recipe in one short paragraph.
There is one, and only one, significant problem to someone having to grow up black vs growing up white in this day and age: black culture. It is poisonous. The things it teaches them to admire are toxic to any hopes of a successful life. Those who figure this out discard that culture and go on to make something of themselves, by in large. It is also not something that can, or should, be solved by white knights. If you really want to help them, tell them to spend more on their house than on their car. Tell them to marry their baby-mama and raise their fucking kids or tell them to take it in the butt unless they got a ring on their finger. Tell them to go to school and learn something useful. These aren't hateful stereotypes; these are the hard fucking truths about the average black person.
Get a fucking clue and stop parroting what you "learned" in college.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 15 2016, @05:39PM
> You know what I've read now?
Are you being ironic? The guy who goes around falsely telling people what King would think is indignant about being mischaracterized?
> Starting wealth has nothing to do with anything.
So now you are denying the very words that King wrote. That only proves beyond the shadow of a doubt that you don't give a damn about King as an authority on the issue, just as only a prop you can co-opt to justify your own views.
> Get a fucking clue and stop parroting what you "learned" in college.
Who said I went to college? Go ahead, tell me more on this subject.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday August 15 2016, @06:14PM
Falsely only if you do not read anything but what you want to see in King's words.
As for denying his words, of course I do. King was a great man but he wasn't always correct.
With these words, he hit it out of the park, even if he may not have known it at the time. Not being judged by the color of their skin necessitates equal treatment under the law. Any action taken on their part because of their skin color, harmful or helpful, negates his dream. So King logically contradicted himself and it's left up to us to decide if we prefer equal treatment under the law for all citizens or creating special classes with special rights. You know, the definition of privilege.
I may have been mistaken about you going to college. It's happened before once or twice. Do please tell me where you got these blatantly racist ideals if it wasn't in college though. I like to know where my enemies are.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 15 2016, @08:00PM
> With these words, he hit it out of the park, even if he may not have known it at the time.
He didn't know it at the time, but you are sure it defined his world view. Do you hear yourself?
The fact that of everything King has written and said, books worth, the only thing you can cite to support your wishful thinking is a single sentence is all the proof anyone needs that you know absolutely nothing else about the man.
> Do please tell me where you got these blatantly racist ideals if it wasn't in college though.
Do please tell me, when did you stop beating your wife?
> I like to know where my enemies are.
Wow, "enemies." WTH is wrong with you?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 15 2016, @09:54PM
So your comebacks are tired cliches and emotional outbursts?
Lol. TheMightyBuzzard claims another victim. It's been fun watching from the sidelines but, mon AC, you have been thoroughly trounced. Fight another day as you've lost this one.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 15 2016, @05:54PM
Starting wealth has nothing to do with anything.
Sounds like an argument for a 100% inheritance tax.
Who would have guessed it? Buzz is a commie!
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday August 15 2016, @06:15PM
Ha! That's funny, that is.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 15 2016, @11:39PM
> black culture. It is poisonous. The things it teaches them to admire are toxic to any hopes of a successful life
Is that some sort of old man complaint about gangster rap? That went out with tipper gore. If you think "black culture" is anti-intellectual, then you are just repeating talk radio myths without bothering to actually research them. [nytimes.com] This ideology concerning nerds and geeks did not originate in the African-American community, but in predominantly White, middle-class, suburban communities. All races have nerds.
> tell them to spend more on their house than on their car.
Are you kidding? When you can't get a mortgage how the fuck are you supposed to spend anything on your house?
> Tell them to marry their baby-mama and raise their fucking kids or tell them to take it in the butt unless they got a ring on their finger.
You think that matters? Marriage doesn't make a child's life better, resources make a child's life better. Correlation is not causation. Marriage is just a proxy for having the resources to be able to marry. [washingtonpost.com]
The actual out of wedlock birthrate for black women is down more 50% from 1970. [theatlantic.com] It is the lowest its ever been since we started measuring. And that hasn't helped economic circumstances in the black community. At the same time the out of wedlock birthrate for white women has more than doubled in the same time period.
> These aren't hateful stereotypes; these are the hard fucking truths
That's exactly what they are. Every damn bigot ever has claimed their bigotry was honestly based on "truth." It is the first line in the playbook. Stop parroting what you learned on stormfront.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday August 16 2016, @04:03AM
No, it's coming from a guy whose town is half black and from the US Census Bureau.
It's not hard. Here's how not to do it: live in income based housing and have a car nicer than mine with rims that cost upwards of a single paycheck.
Yeah, I know damned good n well it does. You either have two incomes or free childcare if you're married. That alone alleviates a very significant financial burden for those in lower income brackets and it's pretty damned nice in any but the top few as well. It also means boy children have a present male role model who isn't in jail or abandoning his kids. Seriously, how fucking stupid are you to argue otherwise?
Facts are racist now? Check. I'll stop using them and just call you an SJW cocksucker then.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 16 2016, @04:15AM
> Facts are racist now?
What facts? All you did was post your own absurdly unresearched opinions.
Get back to us when you actually address the provided citations.
Or is intellectual effort beyond you?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday August 16 2016, @04:34AM
The wapo story was an opinion piece. You know, as in emotional positions rather than statements that are provably true.
The one from the atlantic is just irrelevant. What particular too-damned-high-percentage doesn't matter; that it's too damned high does.
I shouldn't have to explain these things to you though. You already know them. You just don't have an actual argument to put in their place because you know I'm right.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 16 2016, @11:39AM
> The wapo story was an opinion piece.
No it wasn't. It was a layman's accessible description of the analysis from the brookings institute.
> The one from the atlantic is just irrelevant.
If your theory is right, then a 50% reduction in out of wedlock births should produce positive results. Instead, racial inequality has increased.
> You know, as in emotional positions rather than statements that are provably true.
Are you being ironic? That's ALL you have. Angry, ignorant, racist stereotypes. No wonder you hate academics, people who actually study these issues with rigor completely contradict your racism. It isn't black culture that has a problem with anti-intellectualism its YOU.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 16 2016, @08:17AM
Yeah, I know damned good n well it does.
All of the same benefits could result from the couple simply remaining together without getting married. People don't have to get married to stay together. Maybe it's just that the type of people who decide to get married are also more likely to want to remain together for a longer period of time. There's plenty of magical thinking tied to a silly concept like marriage, and it also bestows some unjustifiable legal benefits as well.
Yes, it would help if the parents stayed together, but that doesn't require marriage.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by jmorris on Monday August 15 2016, @07:10PM
When the median white family wealth is 13x the median black family wealth the starting lines are not even close to equal.
Factually correct but doesn't matter. They didn't build this civilization so why should they have accumulated generational capital in it? But they are welcome to stay and build some and if they would be willing to do that they would find almost universal support.
If they instead decide America is irredeemably racist and that they would therefore be better off returning to the civilization they were sold off from generations ago, they would again find widespread support for that decision. Let us hold a massive telethon to raise the money to book their passage back. The nation of Liberia was founded for this very purpose.
Any rational mind observing the situation would have to say that it is a far better lot in life's lottery to have been born a poor black child in America than the median in any of their countries of origin but they are free to disagree. That while their great grandparents endured slavery[1] the result is that they themselves were lucky enough to be born here at a time when they are nominally free... to the extent any of still retain the blessing of Liberty in these dark waning hours of our former Republic.
What we won't do is open Pandora's Box of reparations. What we are increasingly unwilling to accept is the insanity of affirmative action on the basis of skin color, where a poor Appalachian thown out of work coal miner's son rates lower on the SJW scale of merit than Will Smith's brat for college admissions. We aren't going to accept riots every time some hood rat does something stupid and gets shot by a cop.
[1] Which was a normal part of the human condition worldwide, and still is in some parts, right up until a group of White people, starting in England, decided differently. The only places where Africans freed themselves from slavery turned into Hells on Earth that persist to the current day.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 15 2016, @07:37PM
> They didn't build this civilization so why should they have accumulated generational capital in it?
In fact slaves did build this civilization. Why do you think the South was so willing to secede? Money. Tons of Fucking Money. On the eve of the Civil War, the slave South had achieved a level of per capita wealth not matched by Spain or Italy until the eve of World War II or by Mexico or India until 1960. One crop, slave-grown cotton, provided over half of all US export earnings. Thus slavery paid for a substantial share of the capital, iron, and manufactured goods that laid the basis for American economic growth.
In addition, precisely because the South specialized in cotton production, the North developed a variety of businesses that provided services for the slave South, including textile factories, a meat processing industry, insurance companies, shippers, and cotton brokers. Slavery was the economic engine that created the United States.
You have inadvertently made the best argument for reparations. Good job!
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday August 15 2016, @09:37PM
He's a real piece of fucking work, isn't he? I wish that kind of ignorance were excruciatingly painful...
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 15 2016, @09:40PM
So you're saying the millions and millions of immigrants after the civil war didn't do shit in helping to build america?
I guess the blacks just did everything back then, and fuck history and the truth. After all, black lies matter.
http://www.migrationpolicy.org/programs/data-hub/charts/immigrant-population-over-time [migrationpolicy.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 15 2016, @10:23PM
All those immigrants wouldn't have come here were it not for what the slaves built.
The USA would have been just another banana republic otherwise.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 15 2016, @09:57PM
Lol. Slaves didn't build shit. They took orders from their masters. If the slaves were so good at creating a society and infrastructure then what the fuck happened to Haiti and the entire continent of Africa?
(Score: 2) by t-3 on Tuesday August 16 2016, @05:00AM
Intentional destabilization by white men with resources.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 15 2016, @09:31PM
Starting wealth not equal? Are you fucking kidding me?
Who taught you American History, because I want to punch them in the face while kicking you in the balls.
How many people migrated to the US after the civil war?
How many of them were poor and worked 16 hour days to give their children better lives.
How many white children have fathers in their lives compared to blacks these days? How many black parents put in the effort needed so that their children will be better off?
My ancestors came to NY in 1909 with nothing. BLM can go fuck themselves. Somehow suggesting hardwork gets you ahead is racist these days. Tell that to my grandfather as he smacks you in the face for being a lazy shit.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by edIII on Monday August 15 2016, @06:53PM
Who gives a shit if the starting lines are equal? What are those lines again?
That sounds an awful lot like race reparations, which I hear is a new platform element of the BLM. That is just idiocy conflating the actions of great-great-great-great-great-grandparents and their children. Whether true or not, ultimately the destination is the following:
- EdIII - White, but not albino white, or fluorescent. 96% white, so 96% of the race reparations tax for 2018 is $1,532.
- John - Black, and black as a struck match. 100% black, so he will receive 100% of the race reparations tax credit of $5,000 for 2018.
- Halle Berry - Black, closer to coffee with cream. 67% black according to the Pantone-Race-Reparations color sheet, and 100% women according to the womens-reparations-and-making-men-pay-for-all-that-fucking-laundry. Much of that is offset, as she must pay for her 33% whiteness.
There's a huge fucking problem with this that none of the offensive idiots in the BLM can admit too, nor any idiot calling for race reparations. That is that I never performed racism, or specifically, never performed the actions that reparations are supposed apply too. In legal terms, John has no legal standing whatsoever to ask for reparations, and EdIII is absolutely and utterly inappropriate as the defendant having performed them.
Who pays? Who receives? Why?
In it's entirety race reparations is an idiotic journey of racism and making children suffer for the actions of their long dead ancestors. I'll never pay a fucking dime. Those lines are even more stupid, since a stupid offensive fuckstick like Trump (white IIRC), didn't enjoy the same starting lines that you and I had either. So it's ludicrous to compare "starting lines" across racial demographics when those lines are just as prominently found everywhere else in society as well. Either that or BLM believes that multi-generational white trash living up in the hills for the past 100 years has a "starting line" more advantageous than a black youth in some suburban sprawl. The truth is everyone is equally fucked in the starting lines, as only the 1% ever gets ahead anyways, making us fight each other across all the demographics we can delude ourselves into believing.
I'm a huge fan and supporter of MLK (donated for the only edifice in Washington of an honorable man), and I do not believe he believed racism could ever solve racism.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 1) by Eristone on Monday August 15 2016, @09:55PM
Isn't what is going on today making black children suffer for the actions of long dead ancestors?
Actually, yes, that multi-generational white trash living up in the hills have a starting line more advantageous than a black youth in suburban sprawl. Bring that white guy down into the city and he'd blend in with the local white folk (until he opened his mouth.. but we're talking first appearance). Black guy brought in to the city and he's still a black guy. Up until 1965 or so, that white trash guy could still order food from a counter the black suburban raised guy would get arrested for ordering from. Up until the late 80s, that white trash guy could rent an apartment that no black guy would ever be able to rent. Skin color in the U.S. changes the starting line. Yes, there are other factors, but they don't come into play upon first appearance. The white guy could open carry an AR-15 and not get a blink from local law enforcement beyond being asked a couple of questions. The black guy would be on the ground with guns pointed at him for exercising that same right. (link. [youtube.com])
(Score: 2, Insightful) by edIII on Monday August 15 2016, @10:34PM
That would be suffering from what again? Not being fast enough to outrun their fellow countrymen that sold them into slavery a couple hundred years ago? You're missing the big point, and that is everyone who was wronged by slavery IS DEAD . There is nobody to sue that enslaved anyone, and nobody to force to pay money to somebody else, that in turn never suffered from the actions of enslaving anyone in the past.
Answer these questions:
1) What is the specific act I performed, that I've been found guilty of in a court of law by a jury of my peers, that violated the civil rights and dignity of another person based on race? In doing so, how have I have harmed them (specifically), and to what degree, that justifies remuneration?
2) If I've performed no acts, but are simply "mostly the same skin color" as the known offenders (past and/or present), why am I being grouped in with them at all again? Under what legal theory am I grouped with others into this legal battle?
3) If reparations are to be paid, will they come from my taxes? (It's rhetorical, I know)
4) If #3 is yes, than how am I being represented fairly when it's simply been assumed I'm guilty of #1 either directly or by virtue of #2?
NO. I will never be held guilty for the actions of a bunch of greedy fucking Capitalists that formed my country a couple hundred years ago. Certainly not when the ONLY thing you can say is, "But... but... but... EdIII you're a little white so we think you owe this other guy some money because he is a little black". Yeah, you can fuck right off with that specious offensive logic.
Bullshit. Bullshit on so many fucking levels. You really need to go visit the super poor areas where these people live, and you will see they live no better than any poor black family anywhere else. In fact, I've never seen a black family live that poorly unless it was A) In the movies about tougher times in the past, or B) Fucking Africa and an infomercial asking for money. I'm pretty damned certain that *any* child in a suburban sprawl will have a better chance at life than *any* child living in crushing poverty in the rural areas of the country we've forgotten and left to their fates. You've been ridiculous attempting to compare those children and place the black child at a disadvantage regardless.
I see plenty of young black children around that look well-fed. Let me tell you, especially on a scientific basis, that well-fed children have serious advantages in their starting lines. You really think that the 1/4 children suffering from malnutrition in America are 100% black? These starting lines are not simplistically based on race.
You want reparations? Then prepare for civil war to get it, as there is simply no way you're telling that many white people (all of the good, decent, progressive ones too) that they owe money to black people based on offensive shit they never actually did. It's exactly like forcing austerity measures on people that never deserved it in the first place. How do you expect these people to feel good about their world, and themselves, when they live with less because of the color of their skin? How is that reparations, and just revenge instead? How does that not just create a new cycle of racism and subsequent resentment?
*SOME* black people just need to fucking get over the reparations bullshit. There's nobody to take the money from in any way, shape, or form, that can be considered legal, ethical, moral, or anything approaching correct. Now if you can create time travel, well then just maybe, you can go back in time and sue the people truly responsible.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 16 2016, @03:19AM
> NO. I will never be held guilty for the actions of a bunch of greedy fucking Capitalists that formed my country a couple hundred years ago.
If you are not responsible for the sins of the father, then why do you think you deserve the benefits of those sins?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by edIII on Tuesday August 16 2016, @03:47AM
No child is responsible for the sins of their parents. Period. It's utterly ridiculous to attempt to quantify blame and assign liabilities to people that are long since dead, and shockingly immoral to go after people 200 years later that never even met the accused, or victims. If you think you can come after me for the actions of my ancestors, well, then I have some fucking news for you. Come with plenty of fire power since the ancestors I most identify with are Cherokee and Lakota. Go back in time and the assumption that my apparent whiteness means I simply *must* be the beneficiary of slavery is asinine.
That's why people such as yourself are abhorrently stupid. It's not like we kept racial segregation 100% for the entirety of our societies in the last 300 years. How do you punish (which is what the tax is) somebody for being apparently white, but whose parents are clearly one black and one white? WHY do you feel you get to punish an immigrant from Europe, who looks white, but is in fact descended from slaves themselves?
See. None of it is that simple, as trying to assign blame and benefits based on skin color today for the actions of people many generations back is completely, totally, and utterly stupid. There were black men that needed to be killed because they would never utter their slave name. Well, take a wild fucking guess if this Kunta Kinte is ever going to say the name Toby.
I ain't your Toby, mother fuckers. I won't be paying a bill for shit I never did, and certain as fuck, don't benefit for today. If there are any benefits, they belong to the elites and 1%, and I'm the 99%. Period. If you come to me telling I owe money because I'm white, and for nothing else, then just shoot me. It's the only thing you will be able to do. You won't break me, beat me, or force me to work for you, and the only thing you can do is kill me and steal what I have left. Go for it.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 16 2016, @11:49AM
> Go back in time and the assumption that my apparent whiteness means I simply *must* be the beneficiary of slavery is asinine.
Nope. You live in a country built on the backs of slaves. You don't have to be white to benefit from the status quo.
> It's utterly ridiculous to attempt to quantify blame and assign liabilities to people that are long since dead,
So, by that logic, all the looted nazi gold and art should not be returned to their owner's descendants either, right?
(Score: 2) by edIII on Wednesday August 17 2016, @12:41AM
ROFL. You can't be that fucking stupid. You just stated that non-white people have benefited from the "backs of slaves". So how does reparations work again? Take taxes from both whites and non-whites... to pay the non-whites?? If Native Americans benefited... but also suffered.... do they get reparations too?
All you want to do is negotiate a multi-billion dollar shift of money from one group to another based on damages that happened over 200 years ago to neither group of people . You can' get around that, and your attempts to assign blame and benefits to living people based off actions that haven't occurred in the memory of anyone alive is just asinine.
There's nobody to get the reparations from, and as you just admitted yourself, even black people benefited from their own slavery, as well the Native Americans that were here too. You still have not answered that, because you can't. You're left with impotent appeals to emotions, and nothing substantive about determining:
1) Who is going to pay
2) Who is going to be paid
What, Where, Why, When, & How for both #1 & #2. I'm waiting..............
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 16 2016, @02:23PM
> it's ludicrous to compare "starting lines" across racial demographics when those lines are just as prominently found everywhere else in society as well.
Are you an ostrich? Because you are sticking your head in the sand with that argument.
Of course there are plenty of white people who are poor. But being white is not correlated with being poor.
Being black is immensely correlated with being poor. To the point of median white household wealth being 13x greater than median black household wealth. So you are left with two choices - either black people deserve to be poor because they are inferior or they do not deserve it and are poor because of racism. Either you are a racist or society is racist.
Since you claim not to have "performed racism" then you have a choice. Own up to performing racism, or stop covering for other racists. Which is it going to be Ed?
(Score: 2) by edIII on Wednesday August 17 2016, @11:49PM
False dichotomy. I could also ask why everyone working a slavery service job deserves to be paid less than a living wage? Do they deserve it? Why? So people who don't support living wages are either bigoted against the working class, or society is bigoted against the working classes.
It's not a claim, and you can go fuck yourself. I'm not racist, and I'm not becoming racist by pointing out the racism in others. It's racist to take money, via taxes, from one person to give to another person, based on race. Evil cannot fix past evils.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 15 2016, @07:25PM
Stop buying into racist revisionism. You could not be more wrong.
Racist revisionism is right. Buzzzard could not be further off the ranch.
That's what happens when you are profoundly ignorant but supremely confident.
"A society that has done something special against the Negro for hundreds of years must now do something special for the Negro."
"A section of the white population, perceiving Negro pressure for change, misconstrues it as a demand for privileges rather than as a desperate quest for existence. The ensuing white backlash intimidates government officials who are already too timorous."
"Despite new laws, little has changed in the ghettos. The Negro is still the poorest American, walled in by color and poverty. The law pronounces him equal--abstractly--but his conditions of life are still far from equal to those of other Americans. . . . "
— Anthologized speeches published in A Testament of Hope
Something positive must be done... In 1863 the Negro was told that he was free as a result of the Emancipation Proclamation being signed by Abraham Lincoln. But he was not given any land to make that freedom meaningful. It was something like keeping a person in prison for a number of years and suddenly discovering that that person is not guilty of the crime for which he was convicted. And you just go up to him and say, "Now you are free," but you don't give him any bus fare to get to town. . . .
It's all right to tell a man to lift himself by his own bootstraps, but it is a cruel jest to say to a bootless man that he ought to lift himself by his own bootstraps.
— Sunday morning sermon at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C.
"We must come to see that the roots of racism are very deep in our country, and there must be something positive and massive in order to get rid of all the effects of racism and the tragedies of racial injustice."
— "Remaining Awake," 1968 (271).
"Integration...is the welcome participation of Negroes into the total range of human activities...Desegregation is not enough; integration alone is consonant with our national purpose."
— "Ethical Demands for Integration" ,1963, (p.118).
“I contend that the cry of "Black Power" is, at bottom, a reaction to the reluctance of white power to make the kind of changes necessary to make justice a reality for the Negro. I think that we've got to see that a riot is the language of the unheard. And, what is it that America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the economic plight of the Negro poor has worsened over the last few years."
— 60 Minutes Interview, 1966
“Why is equality so assiduously avoided? Why does white America delude itself, and how does it rationalize the evil it retains?
The majority of white Americans consider themselves sincerely committed to justice for the Negro. They believe that American society is essentially hospitable to fair play and to steady growth toward a middle-class Utopia embodying racial harmony. But unfortunately this is a fantasy of self-deception and comfortable vanity.”
— Where Do We Go From Here, 1967
And for those who believe that Buzzard's full-throated embrace of the ideals of Barry Goldwater are in harmony with King's vision:
While not himself a racist, Mr. Goldwater articulated a philosophy which gave aid and comfort to the racist. His candidacy and philosophy would serve as an umbrella under which extremists of all stripes would stand. In the light of these facts and because of my love for America, I had no alternative but to urge every Negro and white person of goodwill to vote against Mr. Goldwater and to withdraw support from any Republican candidate that did not publicly disassociate himself from Senator Goldwater and his philosophy.
— [King, Jr., Martin Luther; Carson, Clayborne (1998).] The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday August 15 2016, @09:32PM
Crap, ran out of mod points or I'd give this one a solid +1. You've quoted what a lot of people need to hear, as well as called Uzzard out on precisely what's wrong with him, and managed to do it more constructively and less emotionally than I do. Bravo, sir! Or possibly brava, madam :)
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 15 2016, @04:07PM
"which the lives of black people have been marginalized"
and black "people" think their freedom and equality is someone else's responsibility.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 15 2016, @04:12PM
> black "people" think their freedom and equality is someone else's responsibility.
On the contrary, it is white people's responsibility to stop giving white assholes a free pass.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 15 2016, @04:56PM
i didn't mean that as an excuse for injustice. I agree completely with your statement except your misunderstanding of mine. Both statements can exist just fine together. cops shouldn't be allowed to shoot people whenever the hell they feel like it and useless sacks of shit can take some responsibility for their own lives, equal treatment and freedom. Also, a disturbing percentage of blacks in poorer neighborhoods openly accept preying on their own through drugs(not supporting the drug war, just don't think it's right to prey on people's weakness), robbing old white people, smacking hoes, raping white women, etc. This degenerate, beastly behavior is why some will give the cops a pass under some circumstances. I think most of the race part of the equation is just a smoke screen for the real cause of the animosity. It is really due to the purposeful violation of constitutionally protected rights. these encounters between cops and half way normal black people(not necessarily this case) wouldn't be happening if it weren't for the drug war and other treason. A cop's prejudices wouldn't matter quite as much if he/she were only dealing with actual criminals instead of generally peaceful people minding their own business. also there would be less crime for the cops to have to deal with in the first place which should help. the tv/press wants to start a race war b/c they work for the government and the government wants more control by "whatever means necessary".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 15 2016, @05:09PM
Also, a disturbing percentage of blacks in poorer neighborhoods openly accept preying on their own through drugs(not supporting the drug war, just don't think it's right to prey on people's weakness), robbing old white people, smacking hoes, raping white women, etc.
Oh yeah? What is that percentage, exactly? And don't give me the percentage of people who are arrested and black, I want to know percentage of the black population that meet your description. Because I'm pretty sure you are applying the base rate fallacy to communities that are overwhelming not OK with any of that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 15 2016, @09:50PM
Let's look at the reported crime numbers then, not the arrest numbers, just the reported crimes.
Or is looking at numbers that don't support your narrative too racists for you now?
Hell, my vote is to stop policing black neighborhoods altogether, and just let nature run it's course. Then we'd see how much black lives matter, wouldn't you agree?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 15 2016, @10:53PM
> Let's look at the reported crime numbers then, not the arrest numbers, just the reported crimes.
Er, what does that have to do with what the average black person thinks about such crimes?
It isn't about the number of people who commit those crimes, it is about the number of people who do NOT commit those crimes.
If 999 out of 1000 white people don't commit this crimes and 998 out of black don't commit those crimes, the difference between the two groups is negligible.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 15 2016, @10:02PM
Because I'm pretty sure you are applying the base rate fallacy to communities that are overwhelming not OK with any of that.
Ha ha. What a moron comes my way. Riddle me this, dumbass. What percentage of German were actually okay with gassing jews? How did that turn out?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 15 2016, @01:15PM
While I am not in any way advocating violence, those two sniper attacks on cops would have been far more effective at curbing unjustified shootings if they had tracked down and shot the particular cops that actually carried out unjustified killings like Crawford, Rice, and Walter Scott.
Random killings of what are probably decent cops just makes things worse.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday August 15 2016, @05:16PM
That IS insightful. Both of the shooters acted out of frustration, ignorance, and probably the lack of means to track down the perpetrators of the murderers. That probably explains why they chose random targets. But, you're right - if they had tracked down THOSE COPS personally, it would have sent a message to the cops that they couldn't fail to understand. "Shoot us without reason, we shoot back!" And, the more or less honest cops would be more reluctant to help cover up a murder.
If you have a news letter, you should send it to BLM, NAACP, Black Panthers, and all the other interested groups.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 16 2016, @03:18AM
All the following is hypothetical of course. I would never advocate breaking the law:
Taking the point further, Slager is currently charged with Scott's murder. They should let the system deal with him until it blatantly and unjustly releases him, (as it probably will).
Then take him out, and maybe break Habersham's legs as an accessory. Establish an alternative "justice system" that only takes over if the real one fails.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by curunir_wolf on Monday August 15 2016, @03:08PM
Or, as summarized elsewhere:
"Black cop protecting a black neighborhood shoots a black gang member with a stolen gun and black people burn down their own neighborhood shouting "black power" in response. Makes sense."
I am a crackpot
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 15 2016, @04:34PM
"Black cop protecting a black neighborhood shoots a black gang member with a stolen gun and black people burn down their own neighborhood shouting "black power" in response. Makes sense."
Black cops in racist departments face extreme psychological pressure to conform to the organization's norms. Having more minorities on the police force does not reduce police shootings of minorities. [wiley.com]
They riot in their own neighborhoods because that is where they are. As MLK jr said, "Riot is the language of the unheard." Expecting rioters to get in their cars or take a bus to some other neighborhood is beyond ridiculous. Riots are not planned. A riot is a fire lit ablaze by a nearly random spark in a drought-ridden forest. The spark is not the cause, the drought is.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 15 2016, @10:29PM
Opening fire on a suspect who won't drop a firearm when ordered to is the norm for pretty much any armed police force anywhere, race nonwithstanding.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 15 2016, @10:31PM
How many years of training did it take to be able to miss the point so thoroughly?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 16 2016, @12:35AM
The fact that they won't drop a firearm when ordered to does not mean anyone is in imminent danger. Unless they are pointing it at someone and are about to fire, killing them is not justified. "Comply or die" should never be the standard for police officers; that's a standard more appropriate for thug officers. If "comply or die" is popular, then we have failed miserably as a species.
(Score: 2) by Username on Tuesday August 16 2016, @09:05AM
"Black cop protecting a black neighborhood shoots a black gang member with a stolen gun and black people burn down their own neighborhood shouting "black power" in response. Makes sense."
In a state that’s been anti-slavery since it’s conception. You know, the birthplace of the republican party. Kinda known for busting slaves out of jail. Only state court in the union to find fugitive slave laws unconstitutional. A destination of the underground railroad.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 16 2016, @11:54AM
In the most segregated city in the nation [npr.org] with the worst economic and social conditions for blacks in the nation.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by VLM on Monday August 15 2016, @03:30PM
What kills me about BLM is, they don't make enough noise for the truly innocent.
SWPLs think they're all about justice and stuff. Mostly they're just anti-white preaching to the choir.
Its very instructive to note that their reaction to an armed criminal being gunned down as they should be, is to burn down a bunch of white owned businesses.
From the anti-white point of view it makes perfect sense. The SWPLs are getting all confused about it.
Its a pity because even from my somewhat right leaning position, its obvious the black folk are getting screwed over unjustly and have no leadership ability to get anything useful done beyond "burn whiteys buildings down" or "lets have a prayer circle" as if that'll accomplish anything, as if thats ever accomplished anything. If I was a black leader concerned about black men getting gunned down I'd suggest:
1) Telling black men not to be crooks as that seems to encourage random (sometimes innocent) young black men getting gunned down. For PR purposes we need every young black man murdered by the police to have a clean criminal record and be wearing a suit and tie and have a job and always respect themselves and their community by only participating in legal activities in a polite manner. Of course you wonder if cops would gun down young black men by the dozens if they were, well, civilized. Or you could almost say "acting white". Which is why they don't like that kind of behavior and start complaining about uncle toms, and as an indirect result get gunned down. Choose the thug life choose the thug death, I guess, the only pity I have is for the innocents who try to be civilized but get gunned down anyway. If the result of your culture is bodies stacked like cordwood, and you claim not to like that, try a culture that doesn't suck. Seems to work for everyone else who comes here with nothing and a generation later are all doctors and lawyers.
2) Raise some money ( as opposed to burn some buildings ) for legal work, see below. Every SWPL in town will ride their hipster bicycle over to a bake sale to buy $20 cookies so they can signal their progressiveness on social media by posting idiotic tweets and pixs. They aren't gonna put on their hipster jeans and ride their hipster bikes over to the buildings BLM just burned down.
3) Using point #2's money, get a legal injunction against the police dept to fix / upgrade policies and training to something a little more sane, a little less "jim crow" era pre-civil rights deep south. I mean this isn't rocket surgery and if you don't like police policies and training and doctrine there are ways to fix it that are more effective than prayer circles and torching white people owned property, like using the (expensive) legal system for example.
4) Boycotts and stuff actually worked decades ago. If no black people went to the fests, fairs, and ball games until the cops stop shooting people, there would be billionaires on their side pissed off about the cops killing their businesses... They're brave enough to riot but not brave enough to stop going to pro basketball games or the fair. What a bunch of cowards. If they were brave they'd have had 500 people in suits and ties carrying signs at the state fair entrance encouraging people to boycott until the cops stop killing. But no, the cowards just torched some buildings instead.
For cultural reasons I'm not sure it can be fixed. Probably the media will get tired of it eventually.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday August 15 2016, @05:21PM
Good God - you lay out the best plan in this conversation, and someone mods you "flamebait". Everyone has the right to be stupid, but some of our fellow mods abuse that right.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday August 15 2016, @09:23PM
Modded up for making total sense, though I would caution you about how much you're assuming is in their control and is a cultural factor.
I'd start with the entertainment media: music glorifying crime, drugs, human trafficking, and gang violence is probably both the most amenable to voluntary cultural change and one of the biggest factors in shaping the kids' and teenagers' perspective and future behavior.
This does NOT mean "ban rap and hip-hop," but get them listening to people like Immortal Technique instead of whatever useless, degrading trash is popular now. Good grief, even standard bubblegum pop would be preferable to that crap. There was a time when rap and hip-hop had a serious message; they were less pure music than they were a kind of cultural unity message...well, THAT got the hell hijacked out of it right quick now didn't it?
Next thing to focus on would be to remove that pernicious "acting white" meme from the meme pool. No, doing successful things is not "acting white," it's acting successful. Let them know 1) success SHOULD be colorblind and 2) they DESERVE to succeed, because they are PEOPLE.
The rest really is largely inflicted on them from the outside, VLM. Remember, I come from the Bronx. I lived in Harlem, however briefly. You cannot live in these places with your eyes open and not see this. The school system has failed them, the police are explicitly stopping-and-frisking them and Hispanics because they are black or Hispanic, poverty is endemic, and the pervasive sense of despair leaves many of them with nothing except resentment. Leave aside how much of that is their own fault or not; this is the situation on the ground.
What say ye?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Tuesday August 16 2016, @03:51PM
Its a pity because even from my somewhat right leaning position, its obvious the black folk are getting screwed over unjustly and have no leadership ability to get anything useful done beyond "burn whiteys buildings down" or "lets have a prayer circle" as if that'll accomplish anything, as if thats ever accomplished anything
It's not like they have the legal right to establish their own parallel institutions that look out for their interests. They get one state, one police force, and it's biased against them, and there are no legal alternatives. This is how monopoly service works.
If the result of your culture is bodies stacked like cordwood, and you claim not to like that, try a culture that doesn't suck
Again, there aren't any legal alternatives. They are taxed to support institutions that are biased against them. They don't have the legal right to pull out and stop supporting those institutions and build their own. There's no competition, and those institutions wield lethal force. Their culture will forever be influenced like this until enough people come to believe in self-determination.
And as for the thug life and thug death - clearly that goes for the U.S. federal government, so I guess it goes for everybody living under it, right? Except maybe us innocents who try to be civilized? If you believe everybody should be forced to support institutions like the police force against their will, then you are one of the thugs, and you are part of the problem.
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 15 2016, @08:34PM
I didn't realize that BLM [wikipedia.org] was active in Milwaukee. Not sure what their angle is there, given the situation. Wild horses, perhaps?
(Score: 2) by juggs on Monday August 15 2016, @11:41PM
I think this point is made down below in the comments but it bears repeating. As far as I have read BLM are trying to concentrate on the slam-dunk innocent killings to promote their cause.
What is interesting is ~which~ supposedly BLM related demonstrations / gatherings are making mainstream media headlines. All I see reported are the ones which get out of hand - so to Jo(anna) Six-pack Public BLM are portrayed as some cohesive organisation that go about the place rioting, setting cars alight etc. whenever a black person is shot whilst gratuitously waving a gun around. That's completely detached from reality of course, but the media (rightly or wrongly) form opinion - so it should be a very real concern.
I'd have to question whether there are 3rd party agitators involved riling up the tensions when these gatherings occur for a start.
As with anything reported in the media, we never see the whole picture or indeed the real context.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 16 2016, @05:29AM
You know, this isn't the first time blacks rioted over police misconduct.
Except in LA they were targeting Korean businesses to burn to the ground.
Kinda hard to make the claim of institutionalized racism from a bunch of war immigrants, but heaven forbid another minority group improve themselves with even less resources.
The particulars of BLM matter less than the old ghost that seem to linger. At some point you have to take responsibility, and even with some twenty years gone, that still hasn't happened.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 16 2016, @04:45PM
You must have missed the memo.
All light skinned Hispanics are now white, and all Asian Americans have been brainwashed by the white American supremacist movement, i.e. everyone that isn't black.
(Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Tuesday August 16 2016, @04:24AM
You seem to have good intent, which is blinding you to the truth. BLM is a marketing strategy for HC. A truly innocent person will not be reason for conflict and won't generate racial conflicts to capitalize upon.
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Tuesday August 16 2016, @03:38PM
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings