See, the problem is you don't want to talk about race. You want to talk about social justice. You don't want to talk about Michael Brown, drug user, thug and criminal. You want to talk about arresting a police officer for a crime that there is no evidence for...
Your idea of talk is shouting the other side down.
marym625 (2,090 posts) http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025713520
We HAVE to TALK about racism and police brutality
I am desperately trying to have an honest and open discussion about racism. We have some very hard, horrible problems going on in this country and we HAVE to discuss it.
We are at a precipice. We are watching what may be the most important, most life changing and law changing movement of our time. And yet, most every post on the subject either drops like a lead balloon or has some very heated exchanges. Exchanges that become heated because of what seems to be veiled and/or blind racism.
I have seen, even here on DU, denial of white privilege, denial or excuse for racial profiling and other such things. We can't solve the problem without first admitting it exists.
Please, give your thoughts on the post and the items in the post.
Let's get this out in the open.
The current protests in Ferguson and St Louis started because of the shooting death of Michael Brown. But it has lasted for 75 days because of decades of abuses by the entire legal system. The people of St Louis County literally fear for their lives just walking down the street because of the color of their skin..And now, police and their friends, families and supporters are targeting streamers who truly do nothing but stream. They harass and give death threats all day long on twitter and other social media
I posted the first two videos yesterday in two different forums. The lack of views, I believe, shows how most people still prefer to ignore the problem of racism rather than even acknowledge it exists.
I am hoping it will be seen and discussed in this forum.
The poor helpless protesters who have burned lotted and rioted for 75 days... and no doubt it WILL get worse once the grand jury brings back a message you don't like. Seems to me all the racism is on the supporters of Mike Brown.
Mercy_Queen (38 posts)
1. The answer is quite simple.
Put cameras on every cop. Let the chips fall where they may. I suspect that we will see far more justification of force via those cameras than we will see excessive, illegal force. But transparency is crucial. There are instances of police misconduct from time to time, and when those instances aren't properly addressed, then all police use of force becomes questionable and public support erodes away.
Transparency is the answer.
And the left will not listen to the facts, or watch the videos or do anything more than push racial conflicts.
kelliekat44 (5,238 posts)
67. I don't think it will matter much. Two words: Rodney King. The justice system is
essentially stacked against blacks in general and black males in particular.
It is sad. And it's not just here...its all over the world. Therefore there will never be real peace for anyone. No justice, no peace. Unless you are the mother of a black child and especially a black male child you cannot begin to imagine the terror and fear about your child even being outside the home. It is a daily stress. If you are the white mother of a black male it is even worse because you yourself are a target.
Bullshit.
KingCharlemagne (484 posts)
44. Where do we start? Why, with a solid definition of terms. Here's how I define
racism: the classification of people based on a non-essential characteristic, i.e., skin color or national origin.
No less a figure than Aristotle said we have to classify things in order to discuss them rationally. But racism classifies according to a non-essential characteristic and thus Aristotle and his progeny would reject racism as not logically valid. Marxists believe in classifying people according to what they consider the essential characteristic, i.e., their relationship to the means of production.
So is someone a worker (proletarian or peasant) or is that person an owner (bourgeois or petit bourgeois)? See how that question exists independently of the non-essentical characteristic of race? Ain't it funny how the bourgeoisie have used racism (non-essential) to divide workers (essential) and distract them from recognizing and fighting for their common interests?
Same analysis applies to sexism, LGBT-phobia and anti-semitism also. It's all ground clutter, designed to deflect people's eyes from where their true essence and true interests lie.
a cut and paste from one of the biggest race baiters on DU.
KingCharlemagne (484 posts)
56. Well, we now know from the fabricated quotes and mis-quotes the St. Louis Post-Dispatch
did on the comments of Dr. Judy Melinek that the print media there lie.
We need to ask why the media so consistently lie or present an utterly skewed portrait of what is going on. In order to answer that question, one needs to look at the ownership of the various media organs and ask whether reporters and editors could ever propagate a storyline that directely went against the interests of those owners.
Marxists believe in a dialectical relationship between the substructure (the underlying system of economic relations) and the superstructure (the cultural and instituional forms created to justify and perpetuate the substructure). In this case, the media may not think they 'lie' when they are doing exactly what Marxist analysis says they will do, i.e., reflect and perpetuate the interests of the bourgeoisie. It's a feature of capitalism, not a bug, as the kids these days say.
Yeah... a racist Marxist.
XemaSab (58,877 posts)
60. This morning I said to my (white) mom
that I was worried we were going to see race riots.
Her response?
"That's racist."
If white people can't talk about race without the threat of the accusation of racism hanging over our heads, then what?
If I say something that's racist or ignorant, EDUCATE ME, don't just call me a racist.
What?
YarnAddict (1,300 posts)
7. When you say we need to talk,
do you mean an actual dialogue, or just cataloging all the wrongs white people have committed?
White privilege exists, and only the willfully blind don't acknowledge it. Some white people are more, sometimes much more, privileged than others, but all have an advantage.
But, white people have some valid complaints, too. For instance, when a white or Asian senior citizen is walking down the street minding his own business, and is knocked to the street and possibly killed because someone is playing the knockout game, there is a legitimate racial complaint. Or, the guy in Detroit who was nearly killed and whose life was changed forever also has a valid complaint.
Unless BOTH sides are willing to talk about the clear issues, there will never be any solution to the obvious problems.
This, people, is how you mole.
La Lioness Priyanka (48,134 posts)
11. no, both sides dont have legitimate racial arguments, there is no systematic oppression
of whites by blacks, whereas blacks are systematically oppressed by whites.
your post makes me sick. the false equivalence between a few blacks who were violent towards whites pitted against a whole system that creates a school to prison pipeline for blacks is not morally equivalent.
anyone who implies it is either does not know the history of racism or is being deliberately racist.
And this is why you cannot argue with the leftist.
La Lioness Priyanka (48,134 posts)
26. What institutionalized racism is there against whites?
Almost anything by the US Government in the last six years...
marym625 (2,090 posts) <------ rich white leftist...
27. I actually had a discussion about this with one of the Leaders in St Louis today
I asked why they keep saying "not your daddy's civil rights movement" and I received a very well thought out response.
However, I think the problem is not the generation that did the fighting for civil rights in the 50s, 60s and 70s. It's our generation. Around mid 40s to mid 50s. The older generation made changes. They got laws passed and implemented those laws. However, we dropped the ball. We allowed things to go back to how they were and in some cases, worse.
Good example is Roe v Wade. Those women got that done. They made sure women could dictate what happens to their own bodies. Then little by little, it was taken away. We screwed up. We became to complacent. We let money talk over humanity.
So now, we are again having pay gaps that are astronomical for women v men and PoC v white people. The "subtle racism" still exists but the blatant racism is back.
When a city depends on more than half its revenue on tickets and fines, and those tickets and fines are given in a much greater percentage ot the minority of the citizens, there's something radically wrong with that.
Did you watch the F*CKH8 video? That addresses a great deal of the problem, though obviously not in depth.
rich white leftist know the problems, man. KNOWS!
La Lioness Priyanka (48,134 posts)
38. the reason this leads to the end of discussion, is because some whites will
discuss everything possible but admit that they have a major roll to play in what happens to the lives of black people. whereas blacks have little to no effect on them.
it's about avoiding responsibility for continuing oppression by pretending that being scared of black people is the fault of blacks.
How about a hand up and not a hand out?
XemaSab (58,877 posts)
70. Why do you think there is a PERCEPTION among white people that poor black neighborhoods are unsafe?
its not a perception if it is true...
Name removed Message auto-removed
oops.
KingCharlemagne (484 posts)
61. Just out of curiosity, how does 'reverse discrimination in the form of affirmative action' create a 'revolving problem'?
You are never going to be able to explain it. Don't bother.
DirkGently (10,190 posts)
86. It's not just race. It's fear of all "others." And the religion of guns.
As for the seeming worsening of not just racism, bias, and unequal treatment, but tribalistic fear, brutality and killing in general, things have taken a turn for the worse.
What's gotten worse is that the middle and working class -- white, black, and otherwise -- is being squeezed out of existence. Everyone is more afraid that they don't have enough, and might lose what they have. Poor and middle class white people are again tempted (and encouraged) to worry more about poor people of color than about the wealthy and powerful who are actually threatening their well being.
The police are a mechanism haves rely on to enforce the status quo, less the have nots get wound up and start thinking about taking things for themselves. I think there is a growing paranoia amongst the more powerful and privileged that the lack of balance is a direct threat to their well-being. Law enforcement receives this thinking, and becomes ever more wary of the "others" getting out of hand. That feeds on itself. Poor communities receive heavy-handed treatment and abuse, and become wary and defensive themselves. Every interaction is more fraught.
Those with the guns and the authority become more determined to assert absolute authority, lest civic unrest build momentum. They become increasingly brutal out of fear they will be overrun. We are America, and our culture runs immediately to black vs. white, because that is history. But racist behavior by law enforcement is a canary in a larger coal mine. Anyone without power is subject to increasing abuse and increasing levels of violence justified by authority. No-knock warrants. Flash-bangs thrown at babies to stop imaginary pot dealers. Grandmothers tased. Homeless beaten to death. Tanks and tear gas vs. signs and marches.
Hyper-violent law enforcement is becoming the norm for everyone not sufficiently plugged in to call a lawyer ahead of time.
And then we have our new religion about guns. Specifically, the growing ideology that self defense via lethal violence is not only an option, not only a "right," but some kind of sacred civic duty.
We no longer talk about lethal force being a last resort. It's now the first resort. We are being pushed to acknowledge a right to carry weapons absolutely everywhere, so that some can be prepared to kill whenever they feel "fear." New laws insist that killing someone else is not only possibly justified, but in some cases PRESUMPTIVELY justified. Underlying all of this is the implicit suggestion that we must make sure the "right" people are armed, less the "others" run amok.
We need a paradigm shift where we move our suspicions away from those who look one way or the other and those with slightly more or slightly less economic or social status, and focus on the top, from which the real pain the real threat is emanating.
a lot of words from someone with no clue.
