George Floyd and racial justice

[Mike Cl]

Hey Mike, I didn't know flowers like seafood!

Flowers love seafood!!  bury a salmon and put some flowers on them--the flowers simply love salmon.

[trdsf]

I want to kind of put this out here.  I will state up front that I am perfectly aware that it is a statement that can easily be interpreted as privilege, or as naïveté.

The practical upshot is, the idea of judging someone on the basis of the color of their skin is genuinely completely alien to me.  I mean, genuinely inconceivable.  In my home town, the schools have always been integrated, the "races" (a bullshit term, we're all homo sapiens) always went to school together and hung out together.  One of my favorite pictures of my grandfather is of his high school basketball team in the 1930s -- and it was fully integrated.  I know of no reports of other teams in the league refusing to play us because our team reflected the local population.

Yes, in my home town, Poles lived near Poles.  Slovaks lived near Slovaks.  Ukrainians lived near Ukrainians.  And everyone else lived near everyone else.  Because of language, though, not because of racism.  And even that wasn't really a hard and fast rule.  We're Polish, but we lived in the Slovak part of town, and went to the Slovak Catholic church (SS Cyril & Methodius), due to conflicts with the Polish Catholic Church (S Mary Magdalene) that my parents have never, even nearly 60 years later, explained.

But fundamentally, there was never a time in my life we didn't have non-white people over to my parents' house, or visiting friends in the (so called) 'Black' part of town.

It is genuinely inconceivable to me to think of someone as lesser for as stupid a reason as the color of their skin.

Eight of the thirteen people in my department are African-American, and one is Indian-American (as in India, not as in Native American).  My boss and my grandboss are white women, and my great-grandboss is a black woman.  Of those 16 people, I am the only male.

I genuinely give zero fucks about that.  My boss, and my boss' boss, and my boss' boss' boss are excellent people.  My co-workers are without exception excellent people.  One of them refers to me as her 'office husband' despite the facts that she's black and I'm white, that she's married to a preacher, and that I'm gay (which she knows).

It's a glorious agglomeration of people just being people, and isn't that really what equality means on all fronts?

[Jason Harvestdancer]

Sadly, the George Floyd protests have already gone off script.

[Shiranu]

Sadly, the George Floyd protests have already gone off script.

?

[Shiranu]

In photo: The face of one of the right-wing terrorist groups, the New Mexico Civil Guard, who just shoot a protester in Albuquerque.



Notice a surprising lack of knees to the throat and bullets in him. But a guy who just shot someone isn't really as threatening as a guy handcuffed and thrown on the ground, so it makes sense.

[Hydra009]

The practical upshot is, the idea of judging someone on the basis of the color of their skin is genuinely completely alien to me.  I mean, genuinely inconceivable.  In my home town, the schools have always been integrated, the "races" (a bullshit term, we're all homo sapiens) always went to school together and hung out together.

Sadly, that has not been my experience.

My area has been integrated, sort of.  But people tend to clump together by race from kids to adults - in schools there's a lot of racial clustering and there's an affluent "white" side of town and a poorer "black" side of town.  Things are better than they used to be - my dad recalls race riots during his youth and the community had "maid toilets" from long, long ago - I've personally used one of them as a kid - no one could dissuade me without revealing the actual intent.  And I've rather disliked a few people in my extended family because they were very much "heritage not hate" types who revealed their true colors with their particular brand of off-color humor.

There were a few misconceptions that I had to unlearn early in my teens.  Star Trek was extremely influential for me and helped to erase tribal tendencies.  As an adult, I've been fortunate to work alongside lots of different people and I've seen both highs and lows - people who were very anti-racist and people who were very racist.  It's funny, the most racist guy I ever worked with was an asian Indian redneck who hated "#%aboos" (I'd rather not say the whole word, it should be forgotten) and told me that that was just another word for a jerk and very nearly convinced me to join him (I had never heard that word before).  The irony of his situation was that white racists would no doubt give him the same treatment.  Where does it end?  That highlighted to me the great evil of racism, racism is a snake eating its own tail - a cycle of hatred that harms all in turn.  And one of the least racist people I worked with was a very kind and amiable lady.  Turns out she was adopted and lived in a mixed-race household.  Truly, an amazing person.

I've seen people being racist and I've also seen the inverse, false accusations of racism to try to hurt someone else.  One workforce formed cliques and had a really nasty power struggle and two particularly rotten people in their own clique tried to blame everything on racism.  If customers complained about them, it was because they were racist.  If coworkers complained about them, it was because they were racist.  Everything was racism and everyone else was racist.  It was pretty reprehensible, since calling wolf like that just makes actual racism more difficult to address.  Suffice it to say that they eventually were found out, though not before causing a lot of damage on the way out.

I also overheard someone complain that their friend's friend is "acting white" or "an oreo" which my dumb ass didn't even register as a racial put-down until someone said that it wasn't meant to offend me.  After literally a couple minutes of wondering why would I be offended, I finally figured it out.  That stuff is super toxic, imo.

I much prefer the internet to the real word, where people don't necessarily know what race you are and therefore can't prejudge you in that way.

It's funny, one of my favorite fictional series basically has Space Nazis fighting blue alien commies and that whole series is stuffed to bursting with xenophobia, authoritarianism, and religious zealotry but the idea of racism between humans is utterly inconceivable to them.  Maybe humanity just needs a nice big interstellar war to get this infantile racism stuff out of our system.

[GSOgymrat]

The practical upshot is, the idea of judging someone on the basis of the color of their skin is genuinely completely alien to me.  I mean, genuinely inconceivable.  In my home town, the schools have always been integrated, the "races" (a bullshit term, we're all homo sapiens) always went to school together and hung out together.  One of my favorite pictures of my grandfather is of his high school basketball team in the 1930s -- and it was fully integrated.  I know of no reports of other teams in the league refusing to play us because our team reflected the local population.

Yes, in my home town, Poles lived near Poles.  Slovaks lived near Slovaks.  Ukrainians lived near Ukrainians.  And everyone else lived near everyone else.  Because of language, though, not because of racism.  And even that wasn't really a hard and fast rule.  We're Polish, but we lived in the Slovak part of town, and went to the Slovak Catholic church (SS Cyril & Methodius), due to conflicts with the Polish Catholic Church (S Mary Magdalene) that my parents have never, even nearly 60 years later, explained.

But fundamentally, there was never a time in my life we didn't have non-white people over to my parents' house, or visiting friends in the (so called) 'Black' part of town.

It is genuinely inconceivable to me to think of someone as lesser for as stupid a reason as the color of their skin.

I grew up in a very different environment. I went to public school in the mountains of NC and kindergarten through high school we had zero racial minorities in my classes, except for the white kids who swore they were some fraction of Cherokee. My mother was overtly racist and moved through the world guided by stereotypes. My father, like us kids, was embarrassed by her attitude. I never had to seriously think about racism growing up because everyone I interacted with was white. My attitude towards black people was informed by '70s television. I was extremely naive. I was the "color-blind" white person and I'm trying to become better educated. I'm currently reading "How to Be an Antiracist" by Ibram X Kendi and I admit parts of it are challenging. Half of my coworkers are black, my boss is a black man, and we all get along but I know they experience the world in a way I don't.

[Shiranu]

Texts show police in Oregon were in contact with far-right protesters. It was in Salem where Proud Boys recently beat two gay men and then were coddled by the police departments and told to move out of the way so they could start firing on peaceful protesters.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/oregon-official-texts-show-collusion-between-police-far-right-extremists-n971926

PORTLAND, Ore. â€" A member of Portland's city council said Thursday a newspaper's report that the commander for the police rapid response team exchanged friendly text messages with a leader of far-right protests that have rocked the city confirms collusion exists between some police and right-wing extremists.

"I am not shocked, and I am not surprised at today's reporting of Lt. Jeff Niiya's collaboration with Patriot Prayer leader Joey Gibson over text to provide aid and support for their hate marches," Councilwoman Jo Ann Hardesty said in a statement.

Willamette Week obtained text messages through a public records request between Niiya and Gibson. The texts purportedly show Niiya had a friendly rapport with Gibson, frequently discussing Gibson's plans to demonstrate.

In one text reported by the newspaper, Niiya tells Gibson that he doesn't see a need to arrest his assistant, Tusitala Toese, who often brawls with antifascist protesters, even if he has a warrant, unless Toese commits a new crime.

"Just make sure he doesn't do anything which may draw our attention," Niiya texted Gibson on Dec. 9, 2017, Willamette Week reported. "If he still has the warrant in the system (I don't run you guys so I don't personally know) the officers could arrest him. I don't see a need to arrest on the warrant unless there is a reason."

This is a pretty common occurance, apparently.

California police worked with neo-Nazis to pursue 'anti-racist' activists (two years ago)
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/feb/09/california-police-white-supremacists-counter-protest

Detroit police chief faces backlash over neo-Nazi protest at Pride event (last year)
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jun/14/detroit-pride-festival-neo-nazi-police-protection-backlash

The NYPD didn’t arrest members of a right-wing gang who beat a man in Manhattan
https://qz.com/1423570/proud-boys-members-werent-arrested-after-violently-assaulting-a-man-in-new-york/

Militarized cops at Georgia Neo-Nazi rally arrest Counter-protesters for wearing masks (1 year ago)
https://www.theatlantavoice.com/articles/militarized-cops-at-georgia-neo-nazi-rally-arrest-counter-protesters-for-wearing-masks/

Right-Wing Extremist Group Had Booth at Urban Shield (Police meet-and-greet, basically) ‘To Explain Who They Are’
https://www.eastbayexpress.com/SevenDays/archives/2017/09/15/right-wing-extremist-group-had-booth-at-urban-shield-to-explain-who-they-are



Again, it's the far-leftists (like those bus loads being shipped into cities that don't actually exist) you have to look out for. Feelings don't care about your facts.

[Hydra009]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74Y0lvp6G_4

Also, they're using aircraft in domestic spying operations, gathering cell phone data without any sort of probable cause or oversight.

[Hydra009]

Officials are looking further into two hanging deaths

Imo, the Fuller case was extremely premature:  "The signs seemed to point in the direction of suicide, but the cause and manner of death were never officially determined as officials await further investigation and toxicology reports."

I have to ask, why was it officially labelled a suicide when the cause and manner of the death were never officially determined?

[drunkenshoe]

STOP. I've been in this forum for a decade. Amnesia? Really?

Those scumbags are the American people which includes most of you who repeatedly expressed their thoughts over the years here in overwhelming majority, they are you.

-dem blacks going too far away,

-lgbt+ people are narcissists,

-dem women are going too far away,

The majority's reaction to any portests to black people killed by the cops was the same as the 'oh property damage' people just a few years ago. We have been there! People of this forum kept digging up statistics of black crime! Please dig down...oh the black crime!

You have been through this. And what was said by the majority then is the thing condemned now. Just a few years ago guys.

The reason? Trump.

Why? Because he is a threat to all of you. And you guys are writing love letters on how you grew up in diversity. I am sure a few of you did.

PERSPECTIVE. This struggle is not some opportunity for the privileged to feel 'acquitted'. Because if you are at that age and have lived a place like that you are fucking privileged and so the black and gay people in your community. There is no such thing. 

[Blackleaf]

Kinda relevant. The hoops Conservatives will jump through, just to dismiss any discussion of race, sexuality, etc.

"Gay people. Also, too many black people, too many female leads, religious minorities, etc. If they exist in a movie or game or whatever, it's called 'politics.'"

"But don't those people exist in real life?"

"Umm, if it's real life, it's not politics. But if they're in media, it IS politics."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mz4Sj_10rC4

[Shiranu]

Steven Carrillo, one of two "Boogaloo" extremists who traveled to Oakland to murder police and blame it on BLM. They murdered an African American federal officer, Dave Underwood, who conservatives immediately jumped on to say that the protests had no credibility and was an excuse to discredit the entire BLM movement. 




Another right-wing terrorist murderer, just adding to the statistic that the overwhelmingly majority of terrorist attacks in the United States are carried out by right-wing terrorists, in a country run by right-wing extremists (by Western standards, anyways).

[trdsf]

Steven Carrillo, one of two "Boogaloo" extremists who traveled to Oakland to murder police and blame it on BLM. They murdered an African American federal officer, Dave Underwood, who conservatives immediately jumped on to say that the protests had no credibility and was an excuse to discredit the entire BLM movement. 

Another right-wing terrorist murderer, just adding to the statistic that the overwhelmingly majority of terrorist attacks in the United States are carried out by right-wing terrorists, in a country run by right-wing extremists (by Western standards, anyways).

Yaknow, at this point I'm inclined to have ACAB stand for 'All Conservatives Are Bastards'...

[Blackleaf]

Yaknow, at this point I'm inclined to have ACAB stand for 'All Conservatives Are Bastards'...

You know I used to think that Conservatives, like Democrats, honestly wanted what they believed was good for the country, and that their perspectives were worth considering in debates. But ever since Trump took office, the GOP has fucking lost it. They have no standards. There's nothing their orange dictator could do that they wouldn't try to justify or dismiss as "fake news." They'll even go so far as to contradict their own values when Trump says so. Trump says something against a veteran? Well, we love veterans, but Trump says he's stupid, so he must be stupid.

Republicans don't deserve a place at the table any more. Kick them out. Give Libertarians their spot.