Running racism in America thread

I hope that nobody is shot.

 

Dear God, no. It's one of the worst places for fried chicken in the known universe. It's bad by KFC standards. In fact, the Colonel went there once and was appalled. If you're close to that KFC, you're not too far from Berea. There is great food to be had there.

Not all Kentuckians...

I agree with the hairy one.

Somebody is saying the quiet parts out loud. @WriteThinking, "These people?" Really? Am I getting that you're mentally loading everyone up in the same paddy wagon?

This bears repeating.

 

If looters break into my home or business while I'm there, I'm going to open fire. If they die, they die. And I'm not particularly going to be thinking about Biden's advice about winging them, either.

 

Somewhere @ThreeBagsFull is weeping.

 

Don't think this came out of the White House comms shop

 

I feel like it's not cool right now to say "not all cops are bad." Screaming Fuck 12 and ACAB and white people blaring "Fuck tha Police" from their nice SUVs while driving down the street solves nothing. It antagonizes. One of my good friends' husband is a state trooper and one of the really good dudes I know. Do you blame police right now for taking a circle the wagons approach?

None of this is said to absolve the actions that we've seen on video the last few days, the shooting at the media, the tear gassing of peaceful protests. That's terrible and the perpetrators should be punished. But if I'm a good cop, and everyone is running down the street screaming and throwing shit at me, am I supposed to just take it? I keep seeing people saying that we only show the bad things that cops do. Of course, that's what's newsworthy. It's not newsworthy when a good cop goes about his or her job as a good cop because that's what he or she is supposed to be doing.

And yes, I get it and get it massively that my experience with police as a middle-aged white person is completely different than that of a person of color. I'm not at all dismissing that. I agree completely with the protests and what they're trying to accomplish.

Hanging doughnuts on fishing poles and taunting cops with them just make the protesters look like antagonistic assholes. Thankfully most people aren't doing that, at least not in my town.

 

During the Freddie Grey disturbances in Baltimore, one notable group of looters was the Baltimore Police Department's firearms task force unit, which robbed pharmacies and then sold the drugs they stole to dealers.

 

Ideally, in a case of nationwide violence and unrest you'd rely on . . . the president to call for calm. You want to talk folks down, not rile them up.*

I understand that @Liut and @WriteThinking don't necessarily want to hear more about Trump, but right now he is perhaps the biggest obstacle to calming things down.

More violence from the cops or the National Guard begets more violence from the agitators.**


* and to be clear, it doesn't always work. Certainly didn't work for LBJ.

**not to be confused with the protesters.

 

The most avid "outside agitator" of the Civil Rights / Antiwar era?

The FBI.

 

Agree 100 percent with that. His people claim that he wasn't elected to be "consoler in chief." Bullshit. It's part of the job. He's actively stoking the fire rather than trying to put it out.

 

Maybe the police should focus on the looters and not the people peacefully protesting. I have repeatedly seen these lines of officers pushing the bulk of the protesters around, but the looting is on the edges. And frankly that's all on law enforcement to figure out. If you're going to forcibly move peaceful protesters around, you don't have enough personnel then to get the people actually committing the crimes. And I think after yesterday, can all agree that there are thousands and thousands and thousands of Americans peacefully protesting.

 

What landmarks have been destroyed? I have seen some graffiti in Washington and it's cleaned up virtually as soon as daylight comes and people can get to it to clean up. If you're talking about the removal and/or destruction of Confederate statues, who gives a flying fuck? There should not be statues dedicated to men who try to destroy the United States anywhere on American soil.