I would consider that systemic or institutional racism, yes.



Yes, I do not know the answer to that question. Care to fill me in?

I'm not exactly sure how you've spent so much time arguing in this thread and others without being able to answer that question. It never stopped is the answer.

1950s and 1960s shouldn't need much explanation, the black civil rights movement is in full effect.
https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/civil-rights-movement#section_1

Now, my understanding about systemic racism and law enforcement from the 1980s on has to be understood through the lens of the "tough on crime" mantra and the war on drugs that we see being pushed by Nixon, Reagan, Bush senior and Clinton.

The situation is that the black civil rights movement has won, the language of the law no longer discriminates against skin colour. It is no longer politically tenable for a candidate to talk about instituting explicitly racist policies. However, if there's a need for a civil rights movement in 1959-1968, do you think 1980s US is racism free?

Anecdotally, there has never been a time period in the US since then where there hasn't been a substantial backlash against police brutality against black Americans. Cities across America have a rich history of protests against this, it is verging on conspiracy theory to argue that all of these experiences don't add up to a larger picture.

There are many high profile cases surrounding law and race and the reason that they blow up is because there's a great deal of frustration surrounding this topic that is felt around the country. When you consider that only some decades prior you have the black civil rights movement, fighting against literal segregation, it becomes even more implausible that there wouldn't be issues between law enforcement and black Americans.

Statistics show that the war on crime has taken prison populations from around 200k in 1970 to 2.3 million now. It's important to understand exactly how the process around getting a conviction works. Firstly, let's deal with the idea of the "fair trial", cases generally don't go to trial.

https://tinyurl.com/ycmwzas6

That is important to remember when hearing about the statistics of the results of the war on drugs. Which is that there is extreme racial disproportionately in incarceration rates with black Americans constituting over 35% of the prison population while only being 12% of the population. There's a supposedly a 1/3 chance for a black male to have served time in prison but 1/5 have already served time. That's happening without trials for the most part.

When you get out of prison, you are something like a second class citizen. Not only did you lose years of your life but it's going to be harder to get residency, a job, social benefits, you may not be able to vote and so on.

Police brutality is a phenomenon that goes beyond racism but the US approach to crime exacerbates the issue. Again, I don't want to give narratives, anyone can give narratives but the war on drugs and petty crime ends up manifesting as a war on poverty. From the way police treat you that leads to the arrest and the way the state attorneys treat you in what kind of deal they offer or whether they are willing to drop charges or you can afford to go to trial or not.

That's just dealing with the statistics where we got to that stage, if 1/5 black males have been to prison, then how many black males are having unfavourable experiences with police? What is the impact on the affected communities?

When you combine the prevailing attitudes in the states with the statistics and the history, it paints the picture of systemic racism.

Now as for whether you can argue that this is just a huge mistake and that the US government never intended to treat the races differently, it is pretty much ridiculous perspective. Honestly, the results speak for themselves but there's a lot of evidence to support the racist undertones of the war on drugs and its origins. The way that the various drug epidemics were handled i.e compare oxycontin with heroin or cocaine vs crack demonstrate inconsistencies. When you look at the statistics, it paints a picture as well.

On top of that, you have infamous admissions those involved in campaigns for Nixon and Reagan being explicit in the intentions but there is some controversy surrounding that. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ehrlichman and I forget the name of the other guy but you can do your own research into this.

I think that one can reasonably prove that the US government has purposefully constructed the relevant laws in ways that they knew would disproportionately affect the races. You need to look at how the US governments handle politics, the major goal is getting the party re-elected and everything done takes this into account. The policies appeal to the racial undertones that have been present in the US and still are. Nonetheless, the result can't be argued to be racially neutral.

There's a lot of room for interpretation here but there's a level of inexcusable simplicity in thinking that because the government doesn't use language that targets race, they can't be racist. That laws that don't mention race can't be part of systemic racism. I encourage you to further your education on this vast topic, if you're going to be as involved as you have been in this discussion.

I appreciate the effort but I fear it was a waste. The nonsensical aspect of your interpretation of the statistics, in my opinion, is that these disparities are necessarily the result of racism and no other factor. Yes, the disparities can be frightening, but you nor anyone else have proven that racism compels and influences police brutality, or any other disparity. Your picture of systemic racism is missing the racism.

If you think one can reasonably prove that the US government has purposefully constructed the relevant laws in ways that they knew would disproportionately affect the races, then why don’t you do that? “The results speak for themselves” isn’t a good enough answer.

Certainly many laws and policies have been a failure—war on poverty, welfare, war on drugs—and if one wants to continue to view the world through the lense of race, some races are more affected than others. But to assume some concerted and pervasive racist motive in both the creation and application of these laws is a step too far, and worse, it leaves other potential factors (fatherless homes, education, criminality, culture, media) out of the equation.

See, I would actually agree that that interpretation is nonsensical and the reason I can do that is because I didn't say "the disparities are necessarily the result of racism and no other factor". What's nonsensical is your response. The statistics are just one part of the picture. They just validate the sentiments that have been at the forefront of the American consciousness for decades.

You can admit that the statistics demonstrate disproportionality, you can admit the widespread and sustained sentiment held in predominantly black communities of distrust and fear of the police, you can admit that different drugs are penalised differently and that the most harshly penalised drugs affected predominantly coloured people. I can give you examples of government officials who admitted that their policies were racist, we can talk about individual cities who have in modern times admitted that their police forces had issues with racism.

You should have a think about what "proof" means in this context. The real world isn't a controlled experiment where you can carefully test the variables and demonstrate things with 100% certainty. What it seems you are asking for, is for someone like a president to commit political suicide by admitting their racist intentions. I can give you mayors, I can give you senators but as far as I know, no president has done that.

In the real world, we have to make decisions based on statistics and evidence like this, you can't always just sit on the fence because nobody can give you concrete assurances. It doesn't work that way in medicine, law, business, politics, philosophy, psychology and many other things. If I've got you wrong and you can make a strong argument against the statistics, the history, the decisions that have been made. Offer an alternative explanation to everything, then go ahead. But otherwise, why don't you tell me what kind of proof you'd need. Btw, guessing you're going to take the second option and I look forward to an entertaining response.

"We revolt simply because, for many reasons, we can no longer breathe." ~Frantz Fanon

Jacob Blake was shot multiple times in the back, in front of his family because cops "tHoUgHt hE mIgHt HaVe a gUn" while Kyle Rittenhouse shot three protesters last night, killing two of them, attempted to surrender with gun in hand yelling that he was the shooter was ignored by cops (who had previously thanked him for intimidating protesters and had given him water) clearly shows that systemic racism does not exist.

That's not a chip on my shoulder. That's your foot on my neck. — Malcolm X

Domestic terrorism.

As old as the Slave Codes (1667). As old as white settlers and military genocides of Indigeous Peoples. As old as the NYC Draft riots (1863). As old as the Klu Klux Klan (1865). As old as the Tulsa Race Massacre (1921) ... As old as lynchings during Jim Crow (1877-1968). As old as the Oklahoma City bombing (1995). As old as the slaughter at the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, SC (2015). As old as the state sanctioned murders of

Amadou Diallo ...
Trayvon Martin
Sean Bell
Eric Garner
Michael Brown
Laquan McDonald
Alton Sterling
Tamir Rice
Freddie Gray
Walter Scott
Philando Castile
Breanna Taylor
Ahmaud Arbery
George Floyd
Rayshard Brooks
Trayford Pellerin
Jacob Blake ...

People of color in the United States can't breathe and they grow-up suffering PTSD from American Apartheid aka systemic white terrorism.

We are scared as black people in America. Black men, black women, black kids — we are terrified. — Lebron James

All you hear is Donald Trump and all of them talking about fear. We're the ones getting killed. We're the ones getting shot ... It's amazing why we keep loving this country and this country does not love us back. — Doc Rivers

How can they continue 'playing games' while the state still sanctions murdering their black, brown & poor brothers and sisters?

The comparison made in this video concludes that systemic racism still exists in the US:



So to in China:

And in Russia (goes without saying).

No different in the EU, I'm afraid. Although it's a matter of degree, particularly Eastern Europe has more issues with minorities. And we're definitely more tolerant towards black Americans, or other "westernised" black people, than Africans. And overall I think the Nordic countries have good institutions to protect minorities. Still, minorities are socio-economically almost always segregated and not necessarily included in society or positions of power - that still requires much more effort than it does for a white, married, educated, not-openly religious man.

The main reason I'd still invite every black American to move to the Netherlands is 1) if you get a job here the welfare system is yours; no at will employment, affordable healthcare with no racial disparaties in outcomes, 2) everybody speaks English and 3) nobody shoots you because of your skin colour.

And 4) fuck those racists that wouldn't want them to come.

:up: Thanks for the invite, I actually considered emigrating to one Nordic country or another more than a few times in the 90s & the aughts. Staying put (for now) just to piss-off "like it or leave it" "back to where you came from" racists and in solidarity with the multi-colored, multi-ethnic resistance.

Today dumper-Trumper suggested that the NBA is a political organization. OMG, how absurd is that coming from the president of the United States?

He has no clue what it's like to grow up as an African American. What he is not, he apparently cannot perceive to understand; it obviously cannot communicate itself to him.

A good president is supposed to go beyond his/her political and so-called implicit biases towards race relationships. Claiming that the NBA is political just proves his bias.

As a WASP myself, this is simply common sense. What happened to the old GOP of President Lincoln!?

I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever. — Thomas Jefferson

:fire: (this time?)

Sticking with the sports theme (and not to stray off topic), Dallas Cowboy owner Jerry Jones should be applauded for his ability to go beyond his wasp upbringing. He didn't dichotomize: he knelt with the team and stood with the team. He did both. And the message was, 'gee there's something wrong here that I have to protest during a sports event... But in this case common sense overruled: he must have thought, most of my players are African-American and they're suffering emotionally and physically... ?

But back to systemic racism. Perhaps too idealistic but I don't understand why the EEOC and human resources don't develop policies that screen cop's as appropriate to determine their psychological health. Most cops are considered good cops, but it seems that the few who 'ruin it for everybody' are either in the closet wife beaters, or have axes to grind and are just angry...

Rittenhouse movements

Another thing I don't get. Rittenhouse would not be arrested if it wasn't for the available video. He walks up to police in the end and someone is shouting he shot people. The police even asks if there are injured people further up the road, so they apparently heard but they don't arrest Rittenhouse. Wtf? If ever there was probable cause when a guy with a gun runs up to you with his hands up, typically a sign to surrender, and someone shouts he shot people.

Another thing I don't get ... — Benkei

From my post history, it's clear I'm neither shocked nor surprised by police complicity with white vigilante-terrorists. It's the American Way. Permissive "gun laws" in this country are primarily for whites (e.g. Philando Castile), in effect, deputizing all of them in order police all nonwhites - men, women & children - as criminals to be "kept in their place" by ubiquitous threats and use of arbitrary brutality and murder. Remember: the Nuremburg Laws were inspired by, or based on, Jim Crow statutes (i.e. "anti-miscegenation" apatheid) of the American South. "The American Dream", Benkei, has always been a ("Manifest Destiny") race war waged by many whites against all indigenous, enslaved & immigrant nonwhites that is as old as the American Republic.

That kid's MOTHER drove him to Kenosha, Wisconsin simply to help local police kill 'anti-police brutality BLM protestors' and that's exactly what he did and they welcomed it and will continue to do so ... Like countless other white males before him, he's a 17 year old martyr to the white supremacist "cause" for whom murder is a rite of passage; now a social media "hero" to skinheads & right wingnuts in North America and (mostly?) Central-Eastern Europe, images of him in all his AR-15 brandishing glory radicalizing more 'anglo-christian jihadis'. Do you get it now, my friend? :vomit:

Well, I guess I should be lucky it surprises me as it says something about the state of things in the Netherlands (which has a long way to go as well). I guess what I mostly don't get is the lack of any professionalism with the police. Even given the racist history, the existing inequality and everything else you describe, government institutions ought to operate on the basis of the rule of law and that one is clear on the status of US citizens regardless of their skin colour. That situation warranted an arrest by anyone who claims to be a police officer. As far as I'm concerned that whole battalion should be fired for dereliction of duty.

This was cool : https://www.instagram.com/p/CEeHxqgF7gU/?igshid=1m4bdyxueuzhe

Read the thread.

I'm assuming that your specificly referring to George Floyd's case BS that's been hilighted beyond belief?

Read the title and don't ask stupid questions, please.

i did and don't snap at me if your in a bad mood im guessing you have probably had your ads handed to you seeing as there are 24 pages of replies

Daniel Prude, a black man, 41, murdered by Rochester, NY police:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-54007884

Dijon Kizee, a black man, 29, profiled & murdered by Los Angeles, CA police:

https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/01/us/los-angeles-police-shooting/index.html

I'm having trouble placing the kizzee shooting as an example. If it went down as described it doesn't seem totally unreasonable or am I missing something? The Guardado shooting in the same article is much more clearly bad policing/murder.

Thought this panel was interesting.

Police stopped Kizee for "riding a bicycle in violation of vehicular codes". Riding a bicycle. I don't know any White person who recalls ever being stopped - harrassed - by police for this. So like far too many police killings, this one begins wth racial profiling. Only a black or brown person gets stopped in America by police FOR RIDING A BICYCLE.

Then when Kizee runs - not surprising (though clearly ill-advised) as tensions in South LA have only gotten worse between residents & police since "Watts" in 1965-66, Compton in the 80s-90s, "Rodney King" in the mid-90s, etc - POLICE CHASE HIM for what amounts to less than a misdemeanor like "jay walking" or "littering". Again, racial profiling. "Probable cause"? Oh sure, because in almost all juridictions in the United States (since the late 1600's Slave Codes) the presumption that Blacks, Browns, Reds & the poor are GUILTY UNTIL PROVEN INNOCENT prevails.

When police catch him, a weapon falls out of the bundle Kizee was carrying; had the officers been threatened or fired upon with the weapon - they weren't, they would have said so in the police report, but, of course, they didn't need to justify summarily executing a Black man in a hale of bullets. Not in South LA. Not in Trumpistan. Use of deadly force by police is the FIRST RESORT when dealing with Black & Brown "thugs". Don't bother even attempting to deescalate, just shoot first, reload if you have to, and keep shooting. Apparently, that's standard police training in America (the consequent behavior of which is given tacit approval by local prosecutors who, more than 99 out of 100 civilian killings by police, refuse to INDICT, or even seriously INVESTIGATE, the officers in question), thus the heavy reliance on civil settlements to victims' families at local taxpayers' expense even as killer police retain their jobs & pensions.

Consult the ACLU, NAACP, Human Rights Watch, US NIH & CDC, Innocence Project, and police forensics / criminology researchers at major American universities - the +half-century old data is voluminous and very strongly correlated. Dijon Kizee, my Dutch friend, is just another "George Floyd" data point, victim of Apartheid-like, state-sanctioned, domestic terrorism against PoC & the poor in America.

This is only an observed correlation (from my limited perspective), but I have noticed an interesting thing regarding the apologists of those who support the course of action employed by police forces in such situations.

In short... the apologetic line of defense in support of police employing such heavy handed force runs as follows:

"If you'd only do and be as we allow you to do and be, we wouldn't have to hurt you."

From my experience this is the same apologetic line of defense as employed by domestic abusers to justify the abuse of their victims.

Just an observation, but one that might indeed need to be taken into consideration.

Meow!

G

Yep, its textbook victim-blaming. Also, there's the whole thing about it being patently untrue; obeying the law is no guarantee that you won't be assaulted or even killed by police. Credentialed journalists, pedestrians, peaceful protesters, even young children and the elderly have been assaulted by cops- on video no less- and that's just since the latest round of protests broke out in the wake of the murder of George Floyd. Look at Breonna Taylor ffs: murdered by police, in her own home, while she was sleeping.

And of course its pretty routine at this point for cops to execute people who are accused/suspected of having committed minor/non-violent offenses like selling loose cigarettes (as Eric Garner was accused of doing, before being murdered by police) or using a bad $20 bill (as George Floyd was accused of doing, before being murdered by police). So not only harming people who are obeying the law, but taking upon themselves the duties of judge, jury and executioner, in addition to their legitimate law enforcement functions. And no one seems all that interested in stopping any of this, outside of the BLM protesters out in the streets.

In short... the apologetic line of defense in support of police employing such heavy handed force runs as follows:

"If you'd only do and be as we allow you to do and be, we wouldn't have to hurt you."

From my experience this is the same apologetic line of defense as employed by domestic abusers to justify the abuse of their victims. — Mayor of Simpleton

:clap: :100:

I actually considered emigrating to one Nordic country or another more than a few times in the 90s & the aughts. — 180 Proof

What Benkei said about different treatment of African Americans and Africans does hold. Once you talk English, everybody will know that you come from the US and nobody has problems with Americans. That changes if the people think you are a migrant worker or a refugee from Africa. Then you can get a lot of hostility, which just shows how people categorize foreigners and nationalities. I think it's a problem in all the Nordic countries.

So I have heard.