Running racism in America thread

Teddy isn't the problem per se with the statue.

It's the two minorities flanking his horse in subservience.

If it were TR alone on horseback, no one much would be complaining.

 

The DFL certainly rules the City Council.

To their credit they've been trying police "reform" the last few years without success. Which is why they're considering a de-fund / dissolve or decertify the union / remake-the-department strategy, along the lines of what was done in Camden, NJ.

Minneapolis City Council advances controversial police oversight proposal

Killing of George Floyd shows that years of police reform fall far short

 

If you don't see white supremacy in this image, I don't know what to say to you.

 

I’ve seen that statue a thousand times. At worst I would say it’s patronizing that blacks and indigenous peoples need TR to guide them. Is that white supremacy? I didn’t think so. Its white liberal patriarchy.

TR is not portrayed subjugating them or oppressing them and he doesn’t have that historical reputation in myth or fact.

 

The Camden initiative cost a lot of money, required more cops, and, for the first three years, led to more complaints about excessive force.

Those years are when they were shutting down the open-air drug markets.

In other words, Camden rebranded, went heavy, shut down the things causing the murders, then backed off.

There is no going heavy now.

 

the philippines

but the statue is the statue and if it's not obvious to you why it offends, then no amount of explanation will suffice

 

There are differences, sure.

But the defund / decertify / remake approach is what's being considered in Mpls.

 

Branson!



The store where the protesters gathered is owned by the son of Tom Robb, the head of one of the biggest KKK organizations. But the owners aren’t racist, heritage not hate and all that.

 

Yeah, that's fine. Might work. Might not. Will cost a lot of money either way.

I'm real familiar with the way social workers and cops interact. Social workers don't love cops in a lot of situations. They don't. Cops are impatient, irritable and often unhelpful with their "how can you be this stupid" and "why don't you just change?" attitude. So if you shift some of what cops do over to social workers, it may lead to more de-escalated situations.

But social workers are young and overworked, too. The social welfare system is already stretched to the max in a lot of areas. Both governmental and non-profit orgs are perpetually scrambling. Legalize weed? Sure. Do that. See what kind of parents you get when they smoke weed all day. Kids go right in the system. On the one hand, most states and most people are deeply moralistic when it comes to child welfare - if I presented ten cases on here, I'm guessing all ten would be voted as a foster care situation- while, simultaneously, wanting to be deeply pietistic (in a secular humanist way) when it comes allowing adults to be less-than-their-best-selves because they can't kick substance addiction.

Somehow, someway, American governments have to be able to generate enough confidence and authority that they can go back to poor folks - of all races - and know when and how to say "enough, now you need to be personally responsible." I think it starts with getting guns out of the equation, and violent interactions, too.

 

Well doesn’t almost all American history offend. Why is a statue of TR more offensive than the thousands of George Washington statues and paintings and cities? He was a slave holder. Thomas Jefferson, Madison are they too not more offensive? Everyone who voted to ratify the Constitution was overtly or tacitly accepting of slavery. The pioneers were racist and oppressors, the railroads built on cheap and indentured Chinese and Irish labor on Native lands. The Mexican American War was trumped up to conquer Mexican land.
Even John Adams, while opposed to slavery, allowed for it as a compromise to make the country.
What part of American history is worth celebrating? Lincoln would have accepted slavery to keep the Union in 1861.

 

OK.

Let's take a billion from the cops and give it to the social workers. And the food bank. And the affordable housing initiative. And child services. And community psych centers. And day care. And a jobs center. And a gang intervention program.

You want to rein in guns? Me too. You want to improve "personal responsibility?" Me too. You want to remake the foster care system? Me too.