They don't, and you know it. Racism has been around as long as humans. So has mistreatment of others because they're different in some way. That's true across the planet, not just in the USA.

The protests aren't about one guy. His death is the catalyst. The protests are about privileged white police in positions of power who have abused or even killed unarmed black people - or to be fairer - unarmed suspects, mostly minorities.

Yes, black-on-black crime is a problem. But most black-on-black crime is not people in positions of power abusing that power. There is a difference.

Regardless of the color of the suspects, it seems U.S. police arrest, mistreat, and kill more civilians in custody than any other developed nation. That's not even counting people who weren't in custody, such as the young lady who was shot and killed when cops raided the wrong apartment.

The country needs police reform, starting with a serious look at how such minimally-trained people can use deadly force whenever they feel like it, and not face any consequences.

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/06/08/u...ntl/index.html

Black lives matters means that black lives matter as much as white lives. As do yellow and red and brown and every other colour under the rainbow.

This isn’t just about George Floyd this is about the militarisation of police forces, of a us vs them mindset, of a system where punishment is more important than rehabilitation.

No we shouldn’t because that’s an idiotic argument.
1. I really hope that more murders are committed by criminals than by cops.
2. The protest isn’t about who kills how many of what but racial discrimination and brutality by police.
3. It extends to the wider systemic racism in the US.

If people of color feel that they are deprived of a fair chance to make it and on top of that need to be scared when they see a police cruiser in the rear mirror is that something that has little to do with the crime rate.

But since you are so obsessed about it: I bet violent crimes correlate far more with income level or education than race. But since both are significantly off in the minorities of the US will they indeed be on average more criminal. I don’t think you can fix it by more or harder policing but by fixing the way schools are funded in the US. That’s even more screwed up than their health sector. Poor people get bad schools and rich kids get great ones... most European countries at least try to help the disadvantaged. Not successfully, but at least they acknowledge the problem and address it.

The law treats people differently. Cops, firefighters and others enjoy laws that protect them from liability while doing their jobs https://dlj.law.duke.edu/2017/06/the...lice-officers/

For example: if a cop punches you in the face during arrest, nothing will happen...just an incident. If you punch the cop in the face during arrest, at least aggravated assault charges with all the consequences. Where's the equality? Of course the link above is full of things most of us don't understand but even the most illiterate ones understand that punching a cop is much worse than being punched by a cop.

Of course, cops need some protection otherwise every arrest would result in charges against them, and 2 weeks later the whole police department would be waiting for trial. Equality in the eyes of law is simply not practical. Therefore, cops need and enjoy special treatment from the law in order to do their jobs in our messy real world. The expectation is that cops use their privileges for the greater good and don't abuse them to escape liability when they behave like criminals. People get mad when cops kill because in the remote case they're prosecuted, they'll get only a fraction of the sentence a non-cop person would get.

"The police needs reform" is such an abstract notion that can not and will not solve this issue. In the same way that saying "black people should commit less crime" doesn't solve anything. Police are conditioned by their environment just like anyone else. They see a disproportionate amount of black crime and adjust their behaviour accordingly, no amount of "reform" will ever change this problem.

For sure it's about income and education. But is it about race?

From what I gather Floyd was a criminal and high on drugs and trying to pay with counterfeit money when he was arrested. If he had been sober, wearing a suit, carrying a briefcase off to his office job, he would probably never had an issue with the police.

So education of various types whilst young needs to be improved. That said there are plenty of poor, un-educated white males who become criminals..... who do they blame? They could maybe blame the Chinese, because according to UK statistics, Chinese do far better in school than white and black pupils.

Maybe I don't see something, but it seems to me if a white and a black person has the same shitty start in life, the black person will blame it on racism... the white person???

Why do you think (or assume) that black people don't care about blacks killing other blacks? Just because they're not out protesting against it doesn't mean that they don't care about it, and it certainly doesn't mean that they condone it. Also, from what I've seen in the news, there are a LOT of white people at those protests. People are tired of seeing stories like this in the news -- where a white cop kills a black guy who doesn't have a weapon and wasn't resisting arrest.

Sadly, racism is still very much alive in the US, and it isn't a problem that's just going to go away on its own, and it isn't a problem that white people should just sweep under the rug because it makes them uncomfortable.

But if you're not able to understand the slogan "Black Lives Matter," perhaps it's because having to endure racism and being treated like an inferior human being by the majority simply because your skin color is different from theirs isn't part of your daily life.

The other thing I don't get, is how are diversity quotas for company hiring not racist?

For example, you might have 2 candidates;

White, working class, poor parents, worked hard to get great qualifications and experience.

BAME, middle class (parents Drs), had more opportunities than other candidate, has great qualifications and experience, but not quite as good.

The BAME candidate gets the job to fill the diversity quota. To me that is racist is it not? Seems racism in one direction is unacceptable, but in the other direction it is ok.

Objection.

Most black on black homicide is gang related.

Gangs are all about power and people getting thirsty with power and then losing all sense of proportionality.

Almost all violence has to do with power and abue of power. It's almost in the definition.

Not only that but looking at the actual figures, it's absolutely disproportionate to the population size. 13% of the population make up for 50% of the violent crimes and murders. Well, technically speaking, it's more like 6%, since the majority of shootings and stabbings are done by young black men.

Precisely, there is a perverse double standard taking place. There is for instance, BET (Black Entertainment Television). Can you imagine the outrage is there were for a WET?
Or take for instance the neighborhood ambulance chasers also known as NAACP. If you were to be politically correct, you couldn't even pronounce the name of the organization, since the word "colored" is deemed as offensive.


There are not only quotas on hiring but also quotas for college admission and scholarships granted. . .all done in the name to help out the underpriviledged.

Being poor gives higher chance of going into crime and young males are most likely to follow that path, add that white Americans have an average household income which is 70% higher than the average household income for African Americans. (Asians have more than double and Latino's/Hispanic about 25% more)

It be amazing if African Americans would not have a large part of American crime, it is the result of a large cultural/economical difference which is not simply going to be different any day soon if racism would stop to exist today, decades at minimum. And the growing amount of leftish white people telling them how they should feel like victims is going to delay all of this or even prevent it from ever happening.

Ttok me two seconds to come up with this

The only large protests over a black person dying in recent years have taken place after a life was taken by a white person. I believe black lives lost to other black people is largely overlooked as violence is so much more prevalent in black culture, the language used, rap music and drill music glorify violence and gang culture etc. I think we see so many white people at these marches because many of a certain political persuasion which to exploit the movement to push a divisive political agenda. Then there are the white guilters who are the useful idiots to the Black Lives Matter movement.

A child needs two things to succeed, a good family and a good school.

When I was a kid, 12 or so, a black family moved in next door.

One day, I asked the mother, Mrs. R, "With all the different terms being thrown around (Afro-American being the latest), which do YOU prefer that people use?"

And she told me "I prefer colored."

Tom

Will "reform" alone solve the problem: no
Is reform a necessary step to solving the problem: yes

That USA police forces are in general more racist in their actions if not also in mentality than their european (each country differs as much as each State differs in the USA) counterparts can be blamed on the financing, training and differences in training ethos. This can be reformed, also by redefining what their actual role is.

Am I at risk for being a drunk fashion slob on the night bus? Not wearing a suit? Check. Not carrying a briefcase? Check. Sober? Not at all. On the way to office job? Hell no, 2 AM and wasted. Counterfeit money? Once I made a deposit, 2 fake bills were detected, cashier said counterfeit, thus the total minus the value of the fake bill equals X. No sir, I cannot return them to you. Have a nice day. End of story.

It feels weird that things I've made in the past justify being choked to death by the police in the US.

Nobody is saying he deserved to die. Nobody is defending what those police officers did. It was terrible and inexcusable abuse of power and authority. Period.

Some of us are questioning the political instrumentalization of the tragedy. Some of us are questioning the big-picture narrative that is emerging here. the way some people are seeking to cynically use a tragedy to forward their own agenda.

This is a totally different matter.

Search ‘Systemic Racism’

At the end of the day, the US is a poor, non-caring and outright brutal society with a huge amount of poor people who have nothing to lose, a dwindling middle-class that has everything to lose and a small upperclass that never loses.



Cops see a lot of violence, get a lot of violence. There's guns all around.


There's only so many times that a cop suddenly almost gets knifed by a psycho or a seemingly harmless guy draws a gun before he says to himself: "F-it, let's play it safe and sound and throw this m-f'er to the ground before anyone gets hurt"


IMO, you can't have non-violent cops in a violent, armed-up, almost militarized society like the US.