One says “We’re not garbage to be tossed in body bags” the other says “we’re better than the rest”.
I don’t see much connection outside of each acknowledging that the designation of race seems to make a difference.
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Rioting seems to work. It gets the attention of the media. Attention of the media gets noticed by the public. Attention of the media gets noticed by government.
People begin talking and discussing what should change.
Eventually, diplomacy takes place.
Seems rioting is effective.
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So they have. They’re not having a bake sale there
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That’ why they keep fighting it. It *has* made changes in some departments. Bad police who originally were given administrative leave ended up getting fired. Bad cops are slowly being removed from police departments nationwide.
Once you remove the bad cops, surprise, things get a little better in neighborhoods.
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WHY would anybody want to KEEP bad cops in police departments? It’s silly.
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Whatever way they want to. It’s their American as well as mine.
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Black communities are getting more united. They’ve been petitioning for self-policing efforts via community patrol from within their own community and giving progress reports to the area law enforcement.
Here’s why law enforcement targets black/latino neighborhoods (it was common in NJ growing up and apparently still is):
Money. They get frequently stopped for minor traffic infractions and shuffled into a never-ending cycle of court appearances. These are cash cows for city governments.
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Another option, which I like, addresses another big part of these problem:
The cops that are going into these neighborhoods are from other neighborhoods. In short, they don’t care about them. It’s not their neighbors and friends.
This is an alternative solution that can work.
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Sure it works. Do you know what started all this bad policing? It wasn’t the drug war although that escalated excuses. It’s “Broken Windows theory” – an academic theory (I once believed it in the early 90s when it was popular but learned better years ago) that if you stop small crimes, you’ll prevent bigger ones.
Well, it doesn’t work.
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Example of self-policing:
a) fund youth centers run by ex-gang leaders
b) set up basketball games, video game contests, learning programs
c) support with $$$ volunteer efforts to fix problems before they start instead of spending them on military equipment that local police don’t know how to use.
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The closest thing I can relate is: 23 years old. I had long hair and wore a leather jacket and drove an extra long blue van that was rusty.
I was applying for a job in a not-so-great town in NJ, four towns away from me.
I drove there, it was a shit job. So, I started to drive back.
I got followed by two police cars. They left when I entered the next town, when I was followed by three cars from that town, who left when I entered the next town where four of THEIR cars followed me until finally I got to my home town.
Two cars followed me. One pulled up by me, looked in the driver’s side window, recognized me and they pulled away.
If the police didn’t live in my neighborhood, as they don’t in many black communities, I’d have been followed all the way home and then asked what I’m doing there with their guns drawn.
If I was black.
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Because not everybody is motivated by guns, money and women. Are you?
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Give ppl an alternative and many people will take it. Every person that takes the better alternative automatically makes that place a safer place to live.
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People don’t go for the easy option. Some people do, sure. But I don’t think most people do, unless they’re lazy or don’t have self-motivation for improvement.
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Because they’re FORMER gang leaders. They have organizational skills. They’ve grown up and are tired of playing games. They want to see improvement in their communities.
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If one of them doesn’t, then they get removed from the program. Of course they’re oversight to these programs.
Self-policing communities doesn’t mean “eyes closed”.
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He did crush her. But I will say, she’s more intelligent than I thought she was. I’d only seen her rant before, so that part was good.
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I don’t believe she’s racist. But she has a singular narrative bubble that hasn’t stopped to see other perspectives. But within her singular narrative, she’s intelligent.
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Her narrative is the white privilege narrative, which is racist from a broader viewpoint but from within its own borders isn’t racist. When she said “I don’t see color”, I believe that she believes that completely.
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Oh she’ll be back. She was a great guest, got a lot of views for his show, and the narrative that “he crushed her” is the dominating one. So, she’ll be back.
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It’s not a desperate question by a desperate man: It’s the *killer* question to use in these situations.
I’ve used it in discussions. I’ve seen others use it in discussions through the years.
“You’ve named all the wrong ways to protest. So if those are all the wrong ways, what’s the right way to protest?”
Most can’t answer. You gave a decent one: Peacefully protest.
Ok, what if peaceful protests aren’t working? How do you escalate properly?
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I’ve defended flag burning protests through the years with similar logic, although that has another set of connected issues to contend with, but usually when people are against one kind of protest, they’re against other kinds of protest too.
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“Why can’t we all just get along and pass the mayo for my wonder bread while you’re there”. The hardest ppl to convince about this stuff are my new age hippy friends
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“Why can’t we all just get along and pass the mayo for my wonder bread while you’re there”. The hardest ppl to convince about this stuff are my new age hippy friends tbh. They *think* they’re liberal but they’re not.
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I’ve never burned a flag. I’m not much for symbolism. I’d consider it a fire hazard. But if people wanna do it in the USA, we got the laws to cover it, so go for it.
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The republicans always want to make it illegal, ever since it was confirmed legal in 1989.
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Veterans are a powerful force. They assisted in the standing rock situation today too.
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King was a pessimist though, despite his dream speech:
““the fact is that there has never been any single solid determine commitment on the part of the vast majority of white America…to genuine equality for Negroes…most Americans are unconscious racist.”
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That’s like saying Christianity bombs abortion clinics. Just because people use the name of something doesn’t mean they’re representative of it.
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The ‘whites protecting their own’ is done mostly in the courts, business environments, neighborhoods and such. It’s mostly invisible to you and me ’cause we’re not negatively affected by it in any way. It’s just normal to us.
But yes, the Nation of Islam is a racist, black separatist group. The Southern Poverty Law Center, a group who makes it their mission to track such things talks about them sometimes.
I’m not a big follower of the SPLC but if anybody knows anything about this kind of thing, they do.
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Interestingly, Scientology seems to be strong fans of the Nation of Islam.
I’ve dealt with a few members growing up. It wasn’t common but I’d occasionally come in contact with a member. They were decent people, strong civic leaders, driven to help their communities succeed. They do a lot of good for their communities and for that stuff, I don’t have a problem with them generally speaking.
But i don’t have a problem with the KKK when they’re doing Rotary clulb functions, or Freemason do-gooding activities or whatever. Organized efforts for positive change is organized efforts for positive change.
They’re only problems when they get to the fringes.
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