Ferguson (St. Louis) Missouri Riots

[Virge]

I mean this from the bottom of my heart, East.

Please show me where I have bashed anyone on the left. All I have done is give facts and state the obvious. I looked back to be sure. If the facts and the obvious make someone look bashed I guess someone needs to invent some new facts... NO WAIT! ... that's what both parties do all the time when they feel bashed, isn't it?

This is one issue where liberals are 100% in the wrong on MANY levels.
Conservatives aren't guiltless. They're about 50% wrong.

Don't worry. I have a bag of poop to throw at conservatives next.

[ShiftyNJ]

Don't worry. I have a bag of poop to throw at conservatives next.

I hope it includes these things I've read about since this started:

• Redistricting (my area, which includes Newark, is in now the grip of a rich white career politician 40 miles away)
  
• The largely made-up "voter fraud" crisis which disproportionately affects people of color SOURCE: Washington Post
  
• The fact that black folks get arrested for pot possession (which is a stupid non-crime in a country where you can drink yourself silly anyway) four times as frequently as whites (I don't believe for a minute that reflects usage rates) SOURCE: New York Times
  
• The fact that black folks spend, on average, 20% longer behind bars than whites for the same crime SOURCE: Wall Street Journal
  
• The recession, caused by rich white men who went completely unpunished, which ate half the collective wealth of black families SOURCE: Brandeis University
  

These people did not get this poor, this angry, this uneducated, this misanthropic in a vacuum. it doesn't excuse what individuals have done, but the blame for how we got where we are rests squarely on our entire society. If you didn't actively contribute to it, you benefit from it, and so do I.

[Aike]

Here's the reality of the situation.
Anytime in the US that a white cop shoots a black man or teen it makes world news creating an illusion that this is a major cause of deaths of black men and teens. BULLSHIT.

[SIZE="5"]over 90% of black males who are murdered
are the victims of black men.
[/SIZE]
Black men comprise less than 7% of the population
in the USA yet they are responsible for over [SIZE="7"]
80% of all murders in the USA.[/SIZE]

• But they want to get in the streets and be all over television whining about a judicial system that's unfair to them? They want to march, loot and burn when ONE DAMNED COP was not run up on false charges for shooting one DAMNED THUG ROBBER who assaulted him and tried to take his gun?
  
• Think for a second >>> Judicial system failing who by doing what?
  
• Why the hell aren't they even concerned about the other nine black men kill by black men for every one killed by someone who isn't black?
  
• Leftist politicians are use totally misrepresented issues like the justified shooting of Michael Brown to build up support from blacks.
  
• Call me when you see the same low life race exploiters who were in Ferguson marching anywhere and organizing anything towards doing anything about the REAL largest problems facing black people.
  

I've made that point many times in the past, but somehow the Left invariably sees it as the inevitable doings of the majority (white) population and the pressures of poverty. Nevermind that such statistics never were nor are true of the Latinos, Chinese, Irish, Italians, and every other minority that was subjugated by poverty in America and discriminated against.

A bunch of quantitative data is not concrete evidence without a conceptual framework to explain it. What this kind of a presentation of statistics leaves out is the social history behind the numbers. And it's precisely for this reason that racists and xenophobics love race related violence and crime statistics: if the social context is missing, the reason for such statistical differences must lie in race and ethnicity themselves. Forget the history of slavery, economic exploitation, racial segregation or institutionalized white privilege - black people commit more crimes because it's in their race and/or ethnic culture!

Yes, it's easy to accuse leftists for downplaying statistics but may I ask what else than the above mentioned reasons could possibly explain the higher rates of crime/poverty/etc. among black people? (and no, vague comparisons to other discriminated against ethnic minorities doesn't quite cut it because one cannot construct a single homogeneous social category comprising them all). And how are we going to solve the problem of black crime? By telling them to suck it up, stop blaming everything on racism and start taking individual responsibility? Give me a break. I would give up fighting racism if all we could resort to was this kind of cheap moralism.

As for the riots, I'm also tired of this patronizing attitude towards rioters, which condemns them for breaking the rules of politeness and peaceful protest. Social change doesn't happen by sucking up to the oppressor and playing by the rules of the game. The whole point of protesting is to challenge the status quo - an act, which is already conceptually and in itself antagonistic. The point is not to persuade the public but to antagonize it, to force people to choose their sides, and keep on going until you get what you want.[*] Moreover, this kind of a patronizing attitude mystifies the real problems at stake. As Fredrick Harris puts it in his piece on "respectability politics":

What started as a philosophy promulgated by black elites to “uplift the race” by correcting the “bad” traits of the black poor has now evolved into one of the hallmarks of black politics in the age of Obama, a governing philosophy that centers on managing the behavior of black people left behind in a society touted as being full of opportunity. In an era marked by rising inequality and declining economic mobility for most Americans—but particularly for black Americans—the twenty-first-century version of the politics of respectability works to accommodate neoliberalism. The virtues of self-care and self-correction are framed as strategies to lift the black poor out of their condition by preparing them for the market economy [...] [T]he politics of respectability has been portrayed as an emancipatory strategy to the neglect of discussions about structural forces that hinder the mobility of the black poor and working class.

[*]Incidentally, the fact that all that gay people nowadays seem to want to do is to join the game of Heterosexual Nuclear Family (gay marriage, adoption, "We're no different than you!", etc.) is quite paradoxical considering that the early days of the gay rights movement were much more antagonistic. What was on the table then was not to assimilate to the hegemonic social order but to challenge the system. This is why Jack Halberstam among others considers the singular obsession with marriage among contemporary gay movements a betrayal of what the movement was and should be about.

[ShiftyNJ]

Incidentally, the fact that all that gay people nowadays seem to want to do is to join the game of Heterosexual Nuclear Family (gay marriage, adoption, "We're no different than you!", etc.) is quite paradoxical considering that the early days of the gay rights movement were much more antagonistic. What was on the table then was not to assimilate to the hegemonic social order but to challenge the system. This is why Jack Halberstam among others considers the singular obsession with marriage among contemporary gay movements a betrayal of what the movement was and should be about.

Have absolutely seen and heard this. The LGBT Task Force merged with a faith-based group that we work with, and I am waiting with popcorn to see what happens when polyamory moves beyond a fringe thing and they want us to go ask our churches to campaign for it. We got where we are based in large part on "We're just like you" when the fact is, we ain't.

[Butterfingers]

I once entered a party store, the owner forgot to lock the door when he closed, he came out of the back room with a gun and ordered me out, his wife was outside with a shotgun, she screamed and yelled, I hastened my pace.

I was on foot, about a half of a block away 3 cop cars pulled up, I found my self up against a wall or fence, the owner of thee store showed up, apologized and I was released.

This was on 8 mile rd. in Detroit, back in the 70's.

I am white, I have had to ask myself if I would be here today if I wasn't
Most of us have no clue as to what life is like for a young black man.

[Virge]

What? no facts yet? Why does that not surprise me?
2007 New York City Stats
Blacks = 24% of NYC 's population & are responsible for
83% of all gun crimes
49% of muggings
99% of all taxi driver murders
433,934 black on white crimes against 55,685 white on black = 8:1 (32:1 adjusted for 24% of population)
ratio of assaults black vs white 40:1
__________________________________________

From Aike

"The whole point of protesting is to challenge the status quo - an act, which is already conceptually and in itself antagonistic. The point is not to persuade the public but to antagonize it, to force people to choose their sides, and keep on going until you get what you want."

.... or what you deserve.

"force the people to choose their sides".... intimidate and harass them into becoming partisans in a struggle that they have already expressed reluctance for? Hearing that, we'd not be surprised if you're organizing a chapter if ISIS in Helsinki.

[East]

Ummm...the other day it was Muslims and I was about to listen to you...but now it's blacks? This is not a good trend....

Most all serial killers are white..so are the kids that go into school and blow away other children...they are all white....

[MikeW]

This thread.

[Virge]

Ummm...the other day it was Muslims and I was about to listen to you...but now it's blacks? This is not a good trend....

Most all serial killers are white..so are the kids that go into school and blow away other children...they are all white....

Go back and read what I wrote about Muslims and Islam. Everything I said was pro-Muslims as victims of an ideology that cannot ever move out of the 7th century because of the way that is is constructed around 164 commands from Allah's prophet that anyone changing one word or not observing every word should be put to death. Muslims are the world's greatest victims of ideological terrorism and have for 1300 years.

Have nothing at all against blacks -- but saying or inferring that does make it easier to marginalize me and the politically inconvenient and embarrassing facts and figures I've put up. But guess what? No matter what you call me or what you infer about me the facts and figures aren't going to change or go away.

I'm all open to looking for ways to solve the OBVIOUS problems facing blacks once we can all admit that the total end result of all efforts tried so far by our *wonderful * all * loving * Federal * government* have not only been disaster but hurt more than no help from them at all.

[ChadCoxRox]

...When community chooses a moment to come together and take a stand against police brutality, it needs to pick a better moment than the occasion of an obvious bully and petty criminal who was actually fleeing the scene of his crime when his unbalanced encounter with the police occurred...

Well said.