George Floyd

[Hueco]

There are 320 million+ people in this country, hundreds of thousands of police, spending millions and millions of man hours policing. Things are going to go wrong, bad stuff is going to happen. I get tired of all the America bashing and police bashing when these things are rare enough to be big news.

If the grass is so much greener, have at it I guess.

I think it's more a question of, "how is this a thing?" There is no legitimate reason to have your knee on someone's neck for that length of time. Don't we expect more from "trained professionals?"

I guess we'll see, but I would think that this officer, at minimum, loses his job and is convicted of manslaughter. Will the blue wall shelter their own on this? That, too, has historically been a part of the problem.

The real injustice for blacks is the 1000s who have died in gang shootings partly because police constantly have their hands tied and when the police do knab some thugs they get right back out. Where are the protesters raising awareness of last weekends black on black murders. At least 9 died in Chicago alone.

A'int that the truth. Whatever we're doing, it isn't working. I've long wanted to see a social experiment to combat recidivism: release prisoners to halfway houses built on farms in the midwest. The idea here is that most recidivism is because the person is released into the same hellhole from whence they came. They're now a fugitive, struggle to gain real work, struggle to gain real work that meets their parole demands, and eventually slip into old habits. Why not try taking them out of the hole to see how they do getting back into society? Anyway, just a thought.

 

[trevi]

The real injustice for blacks is the 1000s who have died in gang shootings partly because police constantly have their hands tied and when the police do knab some thugs they get right back out. Where are the protesters raising awareness of last weekends black on black murders. At least 9 died in Chicago alone.

Chicago’s deadliest Memorial Day weekend since 2015: 10 shot dead, 39 wounded

The weekend’s victims include a 16-year-old boy killed Saturday in Washington Park and a man fatally shot in a Lawndale attack that injured three others.

www.google.com

Not sure it is wise to refer to blacks and thugs in the same sentence..... Many offenders who are nabbed and face a short jail or penitentiary sentence get out and be stupid again. Regardless their skin colour.

I cannot speak for same race-on-race crime that plagues all countries but I look at it as let the stupids eradicate themselves. Gang life is not much of a life, and by gang that applies to all its similar names, ie: mafia, cartel, posse, and more.

We obviously see this and similar situations very differently. I am old enought to recall the news coverage all the way to my school in the UK and home in Brasil in the wake of Rodney King, I also recall Mr. Bean doing a performace the same week Princess Diana died. Tragedy befalls everywhere, some more searious and ludracris than others.

 

[CLT65]

This is a question I am asked quite frequently in my travels. Speculation is not an answer, so, no clue.

So my next question is, if you truly do believe that the U.S. is actually the most violent and racist country in the world, Why are you here?

 

[CLT65]

Not sure it is wise to refer to blacks and thugs in the same sentence.....

Do you realize that most normal Americans haven't even heard that "thug is the new N-word"? I understand that it's a trigger word for SJWs now, but if you go out and find 20 average folks, especially in rural America, and asked them what "race" was implied in the word "thug", most of them would have no idea what you were even talking about. I avoid using the word now, because I only recently came to realize that in some circles it's considered racist, somehow, when it never was before. Had you asked me previously, before I was clued in, I would have said maybe Italian, because of the mob and organized crime?

All I'm saying is that it's absurd to assume someone is racist just because they used the word "thug". They may not realize that it's a bad word that's taboo now.

 

[trevi]

So my next question is, if you truly do believe that the U.S. is actually the most violent and racist country in the world, Why are you here?

Because I can.

And, I never said it is "the most violent and racist country in the world." Nor was it implied.

 

[CLT65]

Because I can.

And, I never said it is "the most violent and racist country in the world." Nor was it implied.

I asked, "So, any ideas as to why the U.S. is so much more violent and racist than all other countries of the world?"

You replied, "This is a question I am asked quite frequently in my travels. Speculation is not an answer, so, no clue."

Your response sure seemed to imply it. If one is asked "Why is this true?", and the reply is "I don't know", the implication is that the respondant believes it to be true.

 

[trevi]

Do you realize that most normal Americans haven't even heard that "thug is the new N-word"? I understand that it's a trigger word for SJWs now, but if you go out and find 20 average folks, especially in rural America, and asked them what "race" was implied in the word "thug", most of them would have no idea what you were even talking about. I avoid using the word now, because I only recently came to realize that in some circles it's considered racist, somehow, when it never was before. Had you asked me previously, before I was clued in, I would have said maybe Italian, because of the mob and organized crime?

All I'm saying is that it's absurd to assume someone is racist just because they used the word "thug". They may not realize that it's a bad word that's taboo now.

Mate, I have not called or implied anyone racist. I said it may be wise not to use said words in the same sentence. Twice you have misquoted me, if that was your intention.

I do not know what SJWs are? I have never heard that thug is the the new N-word. The word 'thug' has likely evolved as they way many other words have. Al Capone was called a thug many times in the newspaper, as was John Dillinger.

I respond to post directed at me because i believe in communication and respecting opinions and perusing ideas, but i also choose my words correctly.

 

[CLT65]

My last sentence was a general statement that wasn't necessarily directed at you, but now I'm curious as to why you would caution against using said words in the same sentence, if you don't consider it racist?

 

[trevi]

I asked, "So, any ideas as to why the U.S. is so much more violent and racist than all other countries of the world?"

You replied, "This is a question I am asked quite frequently in my travels. Speculation is not an answer, so, no clue."

Your response sure seemed to imply it. If one is asked "Why is this true?", and the reply is "I don't know", the implication is that the respondant believes it to be true.

Thank you for bringing that to my attention. That was why I stated speculation is not an answer. I cannot change others perception of another world that I do not know how to interpret. When people ask me why I hunt, I can explain that from MY perspective.

 

[CLT65]

You can understand how some Americans might take offense to one degree or another when you post repeatedly about how the U.S. is the worst in some way or another? It's a big country, with plenty of good and bad.

We have a well-known member here from the U.K. who gets (understandably) upset when his country is bashed repeatedly. General international opinion towards any country probably won't be terribly welcome in that country, nor is it likely to ever be completely accurate. It's sad to me that everyone you meet in all your international travels thinks the U.S. is a terrible place.

 

[trevi]

My last sentence was a general statement that wasn't necessarily directed at you, but now I'm curious as to why you would caution against using said words in the same sentence, if you don't consider it racist?

I am a literal person as well as open minded. I have awareness of my surroundings and try to apply the same to the words i say or type. I made that caution so that maybe others might consider the same kind of consideration for their choice of words. Many other words a person can use in absence of a denigrating word.

I once heard a man say to a teenager, "Why are you dressed like a thug?" - the kid was just dressing like a rapper because he thought it looked cool. So, my logical brain starts to work its algorthm, certain people associate certain words to certain visual cues. Proven fact.

 

[trevi]

You can understand how some Americans might take offense to one degree or another when you post repeatedly about how the U.S. is the worst in some way or another? It's a big country, with plenty of good and bad.

We have a well-known member here from the U.K. who gets (understandably) upset when his country is bashed repeatedly. General international opinion towards any country probably won't be terribly welcome in that country, nor is it likely to ever be completely accurate. It's sad to me that everyone you meet in all your international travels thinks the U.S. is a terrible place.

It saddens me, too, their perceptions. I am not their ear-worm. I understand your point, I really do. I am torn between UK and Brasil, my other home-bases. I have military veterans and civil servants in all three countries and we make jokes about which is 'better,' while in reality, it is no laughing matter.

"You can understand how some Americans might take offense to one degree or another when you post repeatedly about how the U.S. is the worst in some way or another?" To remark about this comment, is asking for more trouble, I like being the grey guy. Though I did not say it was the worst, and neither implied.

 

[Siglvr]

So, any ideas as to why the U.S. is so much more violent and racist than all other countries of the world?

It's not. You are looking at one thing, through a narrow lens.

Getting out of the house more will correct that thought. Search "Persecution of Falun Gong". That's in a massive country with extreme censorship, you don't hear of the bad things there as they are suppressed. People killed and organs harvested because of "thought crime" etc etc. It's horrific.

There's things worse all over the world. Why do you think so many white South Afrikanners are moving to the US? It's much much worse in many many other countries.

 

[CLT65]

A year or so ago there was a fairly new member here who was combative and angry, called people racist for using the word "thug". I searched the internet and found that it's a controversy, with hard-left social justice warriors (SJW) calling it "the new N-word". Apparently that's common knowledge among the intelligentsia, but it definitely is not among the average American. To the average person, it has no racial connotations whatsoever. A thug is simply a brutish person who uses violence and force to get what they want, regardless of whatever shade their skin happens to be.

Since then I have avoided using the word myself, as I don't want to be painted as a racist. Personally I abhor racism. As much as I hate racism, I do believe that there are people who use the cry of racism to get what they want politically, when there are other factors at play besides racism.

I read about a study a while back (as I recall a valid, scholarly study by a university professor who was expecting to find the opposite of what he did) that looked into how much more often white cops shoot minorities. I'd have to look to find it, but his results were surprising, if you believe the narrative preached daily in the news. He found that, statistically, white cops do not shoot minorities more often than minority cops, in fact statistically less. So whatever the problem is, it's not that "all cops are racist". There are certain things about modern American policing that make me very uncomfortable, but then again I personally have several friends in law enforcement who are some of the best people you would ever like to meet.

As another poster said a couple pages ago, the problems here are cultural in nature. This country is huge, with many different cultures that often clash. I'm not one to blanket say that one culture is superior to another. There are aspects of several different cultures that I've come to really appreciate, and there are certain aspects of "typical white, American culture" that I do not like. There are regions where you'll see plenty of violence and/or racism, and regions where there is almost none. I think that many people who don't live here have a terribly skewed perspective of who we are, based on the skewed information they receive.

 

[Siglvr]

Agreed. Media focus is another issue. There were likely thousands of citizen to police contacts that day. We only hear of one, and that one in these times, comes full multimedia.

 

[CLT65]

All places are racist - it's a part of the human groupthink/in-group | out-group thing.

There are few places on earth that have different groups rubbing shoulders as much as in the USA, especially in regard to status. Some places definitely have a majority of one group and underclass of another...in the USA, the groups intermingle in class status quite a bit more.

It takes a lot to fight tribalistic instincts. Too much, maybe.

I agree. I've always been fascinated by various cultures, and consider myself an amateur student of human nature. Why do we do the things we do, and believe the things we believe? It really changes your perspective when you study and ponder such things, though it's almost impossible to truly put aside your own cultural biases and perspective.

 

[titsonritz]

Events just prior to Floyd's death

 

[trevi]

Or buying a soda.

Death of Otto Zehm - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

I read the link and it saddens me, that is all I can say.

 

[BrandonQuixote]

I cannot help what people ask me in my travels. They have access to the same news outlets as any of us, so those fabrics of facts remain facts to many of us.

As for largely populated and diverse, why do we still have injustice related largely to race, seperate from clashes with the law?

Because In a heterogeneous, mixed society the idea of racism can be acted upon. If we were as homogeneous as say, Sweden, you'd find a lot less race-driven crime because there's not as many people from another race to hate/act upon. Racist aasholes will exist until the end of time, trying to erase them all is futile. In my opinion, these aren't racially motivated. They're opportunistic, like most predation. A minority is easier to smash under your thumb. There's many, many ways to slice this cake to find the answer your after through confirmation bias. When you have a group of people that tend to sit below the income line-for many reasons- below others it pushes them to crime via desperation. Compounded by laws that are draconian and idiotic, you're able to imprison and prevent these people from assimilating back into society through branding them felons and denying them rights.
it's not about race so much as it is opportunity and power.
Let me spam you;

 

[MrRob96]

This is a terrible situation but is it firearm related news? I don't recall a firearm in this story at all.