Running racism in America thread

I don’t think it’s Bernie bros. I feel like the Proud Boys/alt-right/Luau Boogaloo/Patriot Front crowd is trying to create its self-perceived “big opportunity” here.

 

No, I was thinking something more domestic.

 

Point taken, but in these times the potential for mayhem and death have grown exponentially through the birth of social media and advancements in means of death and destruction.

The Twin Cities are on fire. It is going to take years to rebuild what has been lost. More will be lost in the coming nights.

I don't care where the people doing the destruction fall on the political spectrum. Find them and stop them now.

The mpls pd is going to be under review. There is a new chief, there is the will to make things better. At least that's my hope.

Trump not leaving office peacefully after he loses the election in my worry.

 

Maybe I'm reading too much into what the gov said, but do they have intel they can't share

 

Yes. He was probably going Jake the Snake on her but hung around because of economics. Now that it looks like his pension is gone, she’s bailing. This happened in the town I grew up in a few months ago. Cop slapped the shit out of his wife and she left and filed a PFA. He was suspended from the force and, three days later, She’s at the district justice’s office trying to get the PFA withdrawn. She mentioned to the staff she was worried about him losing his job and retirement benefits.

 

Pulitzer nominee photo right here.

 

I see the sociopath in the White House is tweeting about Minneapolis.

Anybody want to fill him in on General Doug Mac’s career? Think he’s missing some of the finer points.

Perhaps not, tho.

 

No. But you know and understand that, and my point. Tell me the looters, thieves and fire-starters are giving one thought to George Floyd, or race, or anything that is supposed to be the point of any actual protests.

I won't believe you.

And every act committed like that only takes away from said protests -- and furthers race-relations problems.

 

and again

King's challenge to the nation's social scientists

Urban riots must now be recognized as durable social phenomena. They may be deplored, but they are there and should be understood. Urban riots are a special form of violence. They are not insurrections. The rioters are not seeking to seize territory or to attain control of institutions. They are mainly intended to shock the white community. They are a distorted form of social protest. The looting which is their principal feature serves many functions. It enables the most enraged and deprived Negro to take hold of consumer goods with the ease the white man does by using his purse. Often the Negro does not even want what he takes; he wants the experience of taking. But most of all, alienated from society and knowing that this society cherishes property above people, he is shocking it by abusing property rights. There are thus elements of emotional catharsis in the violent act. This may explain why most cities in which riots have occurred have not had a repetition, even though the causative conditions remain. It is also noteworthy that the amount of physical harm done to white people other than police is infinitesimal and in Detroit whites and Negroes looted in unity.

A profound judgment of today’s riots was expressed by Victor Hugo a century ago. He said, ‘If a soul is left in the darkness, sins will be committed. The guilty one is not he who commits the sin, but he who causes the darkness.’

The policymakers of the white society have caused the darkness; they create discrimination; they structured slums; and they perpetuate unemployment, ignorance and poverty. It is incontestable and deplorable that Negroes have committed crimes; but they are derivative crimes. They are born of the greater crimes of the white society. When we ask Negroes to abide by the law, let us also demand that the white man abide by law in the ghettos. Day-in and day-out he violates welfare laws to deprive the poor of their meager allotments; he flagrantly violates building codes and regulations; his police make a mockery of law; and he violates laws on equal employment and education and the provisions for civic services. The slums are the handiwork of a vicious system of the white society; Negroes live in them but do not make them any more than a prisoner makes a prison. Let us say boldly that if the violations of law by the white man in the slums over the years were calculated and compared with the law-breaking of a few days of riots, the hardened criminal would be the white man. These are often difficult things to say but I have come to see more and more that it is necessary to utter the truth in order to deal with the great problems that we face in our society.

 

Oh, that might be tough at this point. The police let the city burn for several days, a lot of folks who are down for the burning saw all that, and now they're in town.

I suspect a lot of the worst ones are anarchists, down for mayhem, anti-establishment Tyler Durden types who are capable of even worse things.

 

This is a good post. I'd just been thinking how much social media has been as much a part of this discussion as race relations (the actual topic), and how, perhaps that means something in all this, and that, perhaps, something should be done about it, given the circumstances.

Not that the original points of the protests don't matter. But this garbage just has to stop. It isn't about the protests anymore, it's coverage of wanton destruction and behavior that, generally speaking, should not be encouraged or lauded.

And, as for Trump, he may not leave before throwing a few more tantrums and tweeting a few more Twitter rants, but I actually think he'll be happy to leave all this behind and will run off the scene as soon as it's feasible for him to do so without him feeling too obviously like he's losing face. He probably wishes he could do it now. None of this has anything to do with him anymore, either. He's powerless, inconsequential, and has to be feeling that way right now -- whether he would admit it, or not.

 

Disagree. Staying in office is the only way he avoids multiple prosecutions thanks to the DoJ’s silly rule that a sitting president cannot be prosecuted.