A few observations:
1. About store lootings. Y'all seem to forget that this is happening amidst the coronavirus crisis, where 40+ million people have lost their jobs already. Now, I don't know how the system works in the US when you file for unemployment, but in the UK the process can get as long as six months for the first installment to be cleared. If similar, 40+ million people are staring at very grim survival prospects right about now. And then you see these people looting Target and other stores, carrying off what they can. And we have this knee-jerk reaction to it, so we don't think what it means. They didn't loot Target to get them some free AirPods, they looted Target in order to pawn it off and EAT. Don't forget that a good chunk of the population was already living paycheck to paycheck, not to mention those trapped in payday loan situations - and they just lost their lifeline. If anything, you should all be condemning the incompetence of the government for letting the economy fail so massively during a pandemic. Don't look at the symptom, look at the cause.
2. I am bewildered by the protests and the riots, to be honest. One hundred thousand people have died already from the pandemic, in a country with such vast production capabilities and so advanced medicine that should have made corona-virus an entirely preventable situation for everybody but the most susceptible (pre-existing conditions etc). In fact, thousands die every year from preventable diseases and conditions easily treatable in most advanced countries. Hell, even bankrupt Greece, dealing with a refugee crisis on the side, managed to keep the toll to less than two hundred people. So, it's confusing to me that police brutality is where people decided to draw the line, instead - I don't know - where they are supposed to be left to die because they are poor and can't afford the basic right to life?! It's one of those oxymoron where you guys go, "It's okay to let me die, but DON'T TREAD ON ME." The only people protesting against the handling of the virus were, funnily, the AstroTurf(google it) movement of quarantine=communism lot.
3. There seems to be confusion about what systemic racism is, and I think this term is tossed around very casually and to little effect. Systemic racism is the collection of beliefs, actions, and prejudices that disproportionately target minorities. When Amy Cooper threatened the man videotaping her to call the cops on him and lie that she was being 'assaulted by a black person', she knew exactly what Systemic Racism was and how to weaponize it. When Ahmed Arbery was gunned down, the perpetrators placed a call with the local PD to inform them that "a black man was running down the street". In their minds, running while black = criminal. The Mapping Police Violence site shows that in 2019 there were just 27 days the police didn't kill someone in the US. From those, about a quarter were black people, and another quarter were other minorities. By itself, this data says nothing - you could argue that black crime is the reason for these deaths. But the report continues. It's six times more likely to be shot while black in Oklahoma than in Georgia. In fact crime seems to have nothing to do with it. In Buffalo, NY with a population of 260K, 50% percentage of people of color and a violent crime rate of 12 to 1000, there were no police shootings. In Orlando, FL with a population of 260K, 42% percentage of people of color and a violent crime rate of 9 to 1000, 13 people were killed in three years (span of data in both cases, 2013-2016). That's Systemic Racism. So now you know.
4. Police brutality is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to police misdemeanors. Unfortunately, the news don't pick up on the vast array of transgressions done by police because it's not "edgy" enough to keep you watching the news. The ProPublica published the "Walking while Black" which was televised, so go watch that. They give the example of Jacksonville where 55% of the walking tickets go to the 29% of the black population of the city. According to them, "Tickets for some of the less familiar statutes were issued even more disproportionately to blacks. Seventy-eight percent of all tickets written for “walking in the roadway where sidewalks are provided” were issued to blacks. As well, blacks accounted for 68 percent of all recipients of tickets issued for “failing to cross the road at a right angle or shortest route.” Seton Hall Law School Center for Policy & Research has found that in the majority-white municipality of Bloomfield, New Jersey, nearly 80 percent of traffic tickets are issued to African American and Latino drivers. These two cases are indicative of a permeating problem policing minorities in the US. So, either minorities in America do not know how to walk in a city and drive a car, or these situations show SYSTEMIC RACISM.
5. I don't see any mention of what happened in Lafayette Square. Peaceful protesters assembled there were beaten by police before the curfew had started, because the president wanted... to walk across the street and hold a bible in front of St. John's church? So, in effect, police brutality was used for no better reason than Trump wanting to take photos in front of a building. It's a very disturbing silence, I think, considering what happened. So, instead of talking how long it takes for a person to suffocate, maybe you should focus on your rights infringed during the crisis.
Originally Posted by
Aexodus
Why are the blacks mobilizing as a group? Why not have a more inclusive mass movement?
They are making fun of you, but you have a point. Maybe instead of a more inclusive mass movement, you should have said "working class movement". In fact, even though being white while poor still provides you some slight advantage in the US, having no money basically renders you a second-class citizen. Yes, there's differences and stages within second class citizens, but their lot in life even for the best equipped of them isn't admirable. The coronavirus must have proved to everyone how the poor were simply left to their fate. I'll leave you with a meme to lighten the conversation: