Black Lives Matter

  On 6/12/2020 at 2:11 AM, Candiru said:

I think the lefty censorship is going to get really out of control. People are probably already thinking about canceling Pulp Fiction or something. I say fuck censorship, no matter what. 

Nah it’s not about censorship. But when the shows are about cops being the good guys, and breaking the law to do their job with no punishment....and you have a generation of kids who grew up watching that shit week in week out...

edit: I’m not saying that the shows are the sole thing responsible,  but the normalization of that behaviour does have an influence. This is not the stupid “video games make mass murderers” argument, because mass murderer is not a job. But you can become a policeman, and like it or not, people are influenced by the cultural artifacts they consume. 

https://citationsneeded.libsyn.com/news-brief-the-growing-pushback-to-copaganda

You know the movie Heat with Al Pacino and Robert De Niro? 
 

Should we ban it? Training Day?

  On 6/12/2020 at 3:40 AM, Candiru said:

You know the movie Heat with Al Pacino and Robert De Niro? 
 

Should we ban it? Training Day?

lefties haven't banned anything, it's the companies pulling things based on profit motives

  On 6/12/2020 at 3:40 AM, Candiru said:

You know the movie Heat with Al Pacino and Robert De Niro? 
 

Should we ban it? Training Day?

Does Heat really portray Al Pacino as a morally infallible cop? Training Day is literally about a corrupt cop. Lol. 
Also I think there’s a considerable difference between a show that airs every week vs a movie. 

@Candiru You have to consider the people that don't see it as just a movie.

  On 6/12/2020 at 2:11 AM, Candiru said:

I think the lefty censorship is going to get really out of control. People are probably already thinking about canceling Pulp Fiction or something. I say fuck censorship, no matter what. 

It’s not censorship.
 

First of all, as others have pointed out, media companies are doing it themselves.
 

Second of all, the correct term for refraining to say offensive or hurtful things is politeness. You don’t call someone a n****r f*****t to their face and this is not because your right to free speech is impeded but because it’s rude to do so.

VS Naipaul once illustrated it like this: he liked to go to a bar which, he knew, was frequented by a group of white people who liked to sing racist songs after a few beers. However, as soon as he, a dark man, entered the bar, they would stop. This, he said, was politeness.

  On 6/12/2020 at 8:00 AM, Braintree said:

@Candiru You have to consider the people that don't see it as just a movie.

Media companies wouldn’t do it unless they thought it would be good PR, and intersectionality/critical theory are their tools for appearing compassionate to the normies, similar to how the GOP uses Christianity. 
 

In the moral panic during the 80’s, Republicans were worried people wouldn’t see Slayer as just music. 

Yeah, maybe someone will watch Training Day before deciding being a corrupt cop is cool, but I don’t think so. Same with Cops, lol. 

  On 6/12/2020 at 8:35 AM, Candiru said:

Yeah, maybe someone will watch Training Day before deciding being a corrupt cop is cool, but I don’t think so. Same with Cops, lol

Which one do you think people have a better chance of seeing on a regular basis?

  On 6/12/2020 at 9:04 AM, chenGOD said:

Which one do you think people have a better chance of seeing on a regular basis?

Cops. I still grew up hating cops because I was a skateboarder. 
 

I think a lot of people become cops for the same reason others join the military. It’s the only chance of having a decent job in a shitty, low opportunity area. 

  On 6/12/2020 at 9:20 AM, Candiru said:

I think a lot of people become cops for the same reason others join the military. It’s the only chance of having a decent job in a shitty, low opportunity area. 

Is Minneapolis a shitty, low opportunity area? Mesa (ok bad example lol)? NYC? 
see while I agree with you on the military (lots of the military I met were only in it for the college education), cops are everywhere, and not having done any research but going off media stories seems like most of these examples of cops committing extrajudicial murder are in big cities, where there are lots of opportunities....

  On 6/12/2020 at 9:50 AM, chenGOD said:

Is Minneapolis a shitty, low opportunity area? Mesa (ok bad example lol)? NYC? 
see while I agree with you on the military (lots of the military I met were only in it for the college education), cops are everywhere, and not having done any research but going off media stories seems like most of these examples of cops committing extrajudicial murder are in big cities, where there are lots of opportunities....

Cops are killing more people in rural areas. A few videos from people’s phones are not accurate crime stats.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/police-are-killing-fewer-people-in-big-cities-but-more-in-suburban-and-rural-america/amp/

They also kill more unarmed white people than unarmed black people despite white people committing much less violent crime, meaning much less violent encounters with the police. The facts are a bit of a head scratcher here and make this whole thing appear horribly misguided. 
 

That’s why I think the war on drugs is a much better topic to focus on here than cops killing black people for sport, which outside of a few videos, doesn’t actually happen as much as we are led to believe. They’re just total assholes to black people more often. 

  On 6/12/2020 at 10:11 AM, Candiru said:

They also kill more unarmed white people than unarmed black people

Considering white people still make up like 70% of the population in the US, that’s not really a startling fact. 
 

but interesting on the decline of fatal shootings by police in big cities. Good for them. 

  On 6/12/2020 at 2:11 AM, Candiru said:

I think the lefty censorship is going to get really out of control. People are probably already thinking about canceling Pulp Fiction or something. I say fuck censorship, no matter what. 

Jesus christ shut the fuck up lol radical liberals aren't left wing chill out im literally a communist and couldnt give two shits

People talking about disbanding the police and questioning whether we need prisons.  lol. Of course we do.  What do you want to do with all the rapists and murderers once they realise there are no cops on the streets to go after them? We can't exactly ship them off to Australia anymore....

A lot of people made a shit ton of money out of the likes of Grand Theft Auto.  Entertainment culture needs to take a look in the mirror if you want kids to stop shooting each other. 

Education needs improving across the board.  We want integration of the vast number of different minority groups living in the UK? Sure - but don't bury the past and the reasons why many people either settled here or were historically brought here - learn from it. Teach it in schools.  Don't glorify it.  Sure, if removing the statues helps, do it.  But put something else up in their place that commemorates the people and not the person.

Edit

I'm pretty fired up about this today.  Will probably delete / alter later.  Don't hate me.

PS I still think Papa Lazarou on league of gentlemen is funny.  Yeah its blackface but its a character in a satirical fictional world where EVERY character in the show is a send-off of someone. You're a job seeker? You're a vet? You're a teacher? You're a taxi driver looking to switch genders? LOG got your back.

PPS Sorry I know.  I'm a heterosexual white male, educated, have a job, a mortgage, am able bodied, am married to a woman and we have 2 natural children.  Privileged as fuck. You hate my opinion.  Sometimes my depression kicks in because I hate the inequality of the world so much.

media darts toward lowest common denominator content, even if they are well-aware it is absurd and unworthy of discussion. hence actual coverage of people pondering "do we even need police?" media literally has to compete with the internet for eyeballs because they are in the business of eyeballs.

"defund police" is more nuanced. look at minneapolis. they're scrapping the police department and starting a new one from scratch. in other places, reducing funding is discussed, and shifting it to other social services that could supplement work that cops do.

but that doesn't stop rep matt gaetz of florida from capitalizing on the media perception and getting through his time at the house hearing with a strawman ploy about how getting rid of all police is ridiculous. good job matt gaetz. drunk drive your way home, now.

Reallocation of funds is definitely a more worthwhile exercise.

Side rant:

Last month in the UK a 100 year old war veteran raised £32,000,000 for the NHS by walking 100 laps around his garden.  Of course the media picked up on it and it went viral, hence why so many people chipped in.  Yes, his actions should be applauded.  But basically we should question why that £32mil was needed so desperately by the NHS in the first place.

AND then BoJo went and gave him a knighthood.  Not for putting his life on the line for fighting in World War 2 or Burma, but for propping up the funding of the NHS that is so desperately lacking from BoJo's own party, a pat on the back for a stealth tax.

Again, from a position of privilege, I would actually be OK with paying a little more in tax if I knew the money was going to the NHS, rather than having to watch a near crippled war veterans raise it through a charitable act.  There probably is enough capital in the tax slush though to properly fund the NHS if other sectors took a cut. I dunno.

Perhaps a large number of police responses in social situations would be better responded to by an NHS department or a new social relations group.  Just a thought.

^ The subject of this rant really grinds me gears and is rampant here in the US.  It's basically some bullshit siphon-up-economics legislated theft: get power, pass sweeping tax cuts for the wealthy people (including corporations, who are people), then wait for the next budget cycle to roll around and "oh, noes! we don't have enough money for <insert basic social service here>, looks like we'll have to make some cuts."

1 - this is gross dereliction of duty of elected officials to act in the interests of their constituents, you know the 50-99% who are getting screwed through such cuts, but hey those hidden reelection coffers aint gonna fill themselves (don't use the term "kickback," that's impolite)

2 - it's almost as if rich people don't want to pay for stuff unless it directly benefits them

3 - it's disheartening that the average american/brit/other can't see through this simple two (2) step process

  On 6/12/2020 at 5:26 PM, BobDobalina said:

^ The subject of this rant really grinds me gears and is rampant here in the US.  It's basically some bullshit siphon-up-economics legislated theft: get power, pass sweeping tax cuts for the wealthy people (including corporations, who are people), then wait for the next budget cycle to roll around and "oh, noes! we don't have enough money for <insert basic social service here>, looks like we'll have to make some cuts."

1 - this is gross dereliction of duty of elected officials to act in the interests of their constituents, you know the 50-99% who are getting screwed through such cuts, but hey those hidden reelection coffers aint gonna fill themselves (don't use the term "kickback," that's impolite)

2 - it's almost as if rich people don't want to pay for stuff unless it directly benefits them

3 - it's disheartening that the average american/brit/other can't see through this simple two (2) step process

Expand  

yep. been watching this occur in broad daylight for years. they capitalize on the inattention of voters and deliberately carry out this exact strategy, year after year.

actual footage of the GOP:

Whities is no longer Whities

*scratches head*

  On 6/12/2020 at 9:50 AM, chenGOD said:

Is Minneapolis a shitty, low opportunity area? Mesa (ok bad example lol)? NYC? 
see while I agree with you on the military (lots of the military I met were only in it for the college education), cops are everywhere, and not having done any research but going off media stories seems like most of these examples of cops committing extrajudicial murder are in big cities, where there are lots of opportunities....

Yeah. College Education was the selling point for me when I joined the Navy back in the day. My parents were willing to send me to college but I didn't want to burden them with payments and such. Law enforcement was one of the paths I thought I was going to take when i got out. But, seeing how most people were dicks and couldn't wait to get out on the streets and shoot someone kinda made me change my mind... and my major. Was working security and was like "If I can't handle this shit! Imagine me being a cop! Fuck that!"

There was once a situation at the mall I worked at where there was a shop lifting call and we detained the suspects. The cop that was working that day was doing his thing and was a pretty calm dude. One of the girls that posed no threat was sitting on the curb. She was pretty mouthy but nothing a bit of patience can't handle. But this cop went from calm to full on prick and snatched her up and threw her down on the curb where she hit her face and started bleeding from the mouth... My first reaction was yelling out 'WHAT THE FUCK DUDE?' the other guards gave me that slow your roll look and I was like 'FUCK THAT MAN! HE DIDN'T HAVE TO DO THAT!' The cop yelled at the guards 'GET HIM THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!' I quit a few days later.

dayum- BLM out here cutting people off. this is getting outta hand

  On 6/12/2020 at 10:45 AM, chenGOD said:

Considering white people still make up like 70% of the population in the US, that’s not really a startling fact. 
 

but interesting on the decline of fatal shootings by police in big cities. Good for them. 

You missed the part about them committing less violent crime, despite being 70% of the population. This makes the ratio of unarmed white/black killings even more contrary than what everyone is riled up about now. Some people, like Dylan Roof take a white supremacy pov there, I say it’s the war on drugs. 

  On 6/13/2020 at 4:42 AM, Candiru said:

You missed the part about them committing less violent crime, despite being 70% of the population.

But that's inaccurate.

The FBI UCR (Uniform Crime Reporting) Program collects data from all city, university/college, county, state, tribal, and federal law enforcement agencies to present a nationwide view of crime. In that program, violent crime comprises four offenses: murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault.

In 2016, the percentage of violent crime arrests (total)¹ was as follows: white - 59%, black 37.5% (source)

In 2017, the percentage of violent crime arrests (total) was as follows: white - 58.5%, black 38.5% (source)

In 2018, the percentage of violent crime arrests (total) was as follows: white - 58.7%, black 37.4% (source)

(remainders in all years are comprised of Native Americans, Asian, and Native Pacific Islanders).

1: When you break it down for arrests by age, for people 18 and over, the percentage for white people goes up by ~1.5% while the percentage for black people goes down by ~1%.

Now the UCR has its issues, as does any data collection program on such a massive scale. What you can say is that black people are arrested for violent crime at a higher proportionate rate than their population. Unfortunately, the UCR doesn't break down clearances by race and ethnicity, so we can't see easily the percentages of each group that are either cleared by arrest, or cleared by exceptional measures (usually can't complete the charge because the suspected offender is dead, or the victim refuses to cooperate with prosecution). I'm too tired to go into detailed research on prosecutions, but you can see from reading through this site (https://www.prisonpolicy.org/research/race_and_ethnicity/) that black people are disproportionately incarcerated in the US criminal justice system.

We also know that black people are killed at a disproportionate rate by police: https://mappingpoliceviolence.org/

Now, none of this data shows that the police who did those killings are racist. What it does show is that white people commit more of the violent crime (as you would expect) but are shot/killed at disproportionately lower rate than black people. Further, they are incarcerated at a disproportionately lower rate. So there are systemic issues clearly demonstrated.

I've gone over what police and judicial reform could look like (and others on here have as well, better than my efforts), and some of them are easy fixes (instituting use of force policies, ensuring that officers receive training for them, stop making police into social workers etc.) while others are pie in the sky dreams (reduce the gun fetishization in the US). Defund the police doesn't mean "get rid of the police departments", it means don't spend so much on them, and reallocate those resources to places where they could do much more to reduce crime (education for example).