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NYCTwister Loyal user 267 Posts |
If you need fear to enforce your beliefs, then your beliefs are worthless.
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tommy Eternal Order Devil's Island 16544 Posts |
So now it's news when the cops don't shoot someone.
If there is a single truth about Magic, it is that nothing on earth so efficiently evades it.
Tommy |
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stoneunhinged Inner circle 3067 Posts |
Quote:
On Apr 21, 2015, tommy wrote: Right. The suspect wasn't black, so the cop gave him a bit of slack. (And here's what tires me about the Café: we all know that what I just said is true. Left and right, liberal and conservative, Republican and Democrat, rich and poor. Racism ain't over, folks, and we all know it. But it embarrasses us, so we...uh...dare I say it?...misdirect.) |
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NYCTwister Loyal user 267 Posts |
Quote:
On Apr 21, 2015, stoneunhinged wrote: Racism isn't over of course, and that's both a shame and a disgrace, but that doesn't mean that all cops are looking to shoot people, white, black, green or purple. It also doesn't mean that just because a cop doesn't shoot a white person he's also racist. Are there, too many I'm afraid, racist police officers? Yes. Just as there are too many racists of all occupations. I just thought it was worth sharing a story of an officer showing respect for life, considering recent events. I watched the video carefully and I felt that this was a man, tasked with a difficult job, who simply didn't want to possibly kill ANYONE if he didn't have to. He risked his own safety to exercise that restraint, and for that I applaud him. Anyone who says that he didn't shoot because the suspect was white, or because he was wearing a body cam, is assuming facts not in evidence, and, to me, is guilty of a different kind of bias.
If you need fear to enforce your beliefs, then your beliefs are worthless.
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CThomas Loyal user 272 Posts |
It's obviously silly to highlight positive anecdotes as if that undermines a problem out there with policing. But this highlights the hopefully obvious fact that there's a huge selection effect going on in the other direction. I'm not saying there's no racism out there. Far from it. But engage in a thought experiment. Pretend that there was a country exactly identical to the U.S. except that it had zero racism. It's still a big country with millions of interactions between police and citizens occurring every day. And police still occasionally shoot people when they shouldn't. Just by the numbers alone you would find that in this imaginary conpletely unracist country there would be a steady stream of white police officers shooting African-Americans. If each of these incidents was highly publicized for weeks on end (and corresponding incidents involving different racial pairs of officer and victim were not similarly highlighted) it would look superficially like there was a major problem of racism going on. After all, why else do we keep seeing these incidents with white officers shooting African-Americans? But of course in the hypothetical there would be no racism at all -- it would merely be an illusion based on the law of large numbers coupled with a selection effect. Now return to the real world. Again, I'm not saying that there's no racism with any of these things. But I do think that it's a serious, serious error to draw any inferences at all from the apparent pattern of incidents that have been getting publicity. The extent of racism in policing needs to be evaluated using different sorts of evidence, and I don't have a firm opinion of how prevalent it is. But I see all the time people, not necessarily on this site, committing the fallacy of pointing to this string of incidents as proof of a systematic problem based on race. Jon Stewart had a horrificly dumb segment mocking the idea that the problem of racism isn't serious solely by listing examples of these sorts of events, without the slightest hint of awareness that such a list would certainly be available even in a nation with no racism at all.
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tommy Eternal Order Devil's Island 16544 Posts |
Let us engage in a thought experiment. Imagine the enforces in the America where there is no racism, work for the rich and only shoot the poor. Then what do you call the pigs?
If there is a single truth about Magic, it is that nothing on earth so efficiently evades it.
Tommy |
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CThomas Loyal user 272 Posts |
Quote:
On Apr 21, 2015, tommy wrote: Great argument. It's obviously impossible to debate an argument so well thought out and intelligent. |
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tommy Eternal Order Devil's Island 16544 Posts |
If there is a single truth about Magic, it is that nothing on earth so efficiently evades it.
Tommy |
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balducci Loyal user Canada 227 Posts |
Quote:
On Apr 21, 2015, stoneunhinged wrote: And it is easier to discern a suspect's intentions when he is running towards you with his face visible than when his back and face are turned to you and moving away. (sarcasm) FWIW, kudos to the cop for acting professionally. (When I say professionally, that is a civilian's opinion. No idea whether everything he did was in accordance with official police policy or not.)
Make America Great Again! - Trump in 2020 ... "We're a capitalistic society. I go into business, I don't make it, I go bankrupt. They're not going to bail me out. I've been on welfare and food stamps. Did anyone help me? No." - Craig T. Nelson, actor.
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motown Inner circle Atlanta by way of Detroit 6127 Posts |
Quote: It ain't over anywhere.On Apr 21, 2015, stoneunhinged wrote:
"If you ever write anything about me after I'm gone, I will come back and haunt you."
– Karl Germain |
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tommy Eternal Order Devil's Island 16544 Posts |
Yep. Zulu King Goodwill Zwelithini said that foreigners should “pack their bags”.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/ap......outbreak
If there is a single truth about Magic, it is that nothing on earth so efficiently evades it.
Tommy |
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stoneunhinged Inner circle 3067 Posts |
Quote:
On Apr 21, 2015, NYCTwister wrote: You are absolutely correct. We cannot possibly know why the cop didn't shoot in this particular case; but we all know that in other cases the cop DID shoot, and that in some of those cases white cops shot black perpetrators. What we all know--we Americans (even those of us who haven't lived there for a while)--in our bones, without logic or argument, is that white cops might be more ready to shoot black guys than white guys, because black guys are scary. How America got to this point is one of the most important issues in America today, and fearing to face it demeans and diminishes us all. Is white fear justified? Are black guys scarier because they are black, or because they are more violent? If they are more violent, is it because they are black, or because of their sub-culture, or because of the coincidence of economic disadvantages due to historical circumstance? Race in America may be the single-most unapproachable important topic today. Because even asking the questions opens one up to a charge of racism. And how can we understand things that we cannot question? I submit that when a cop--whether black or white--pulls out his gun and points it at a threatening person, he is more likely to pull the trigger if that person is black. Again, I think that all of us think this is true, even if it is not true. But the mere fear that it is true beckons us to pull out statistics and alternative narratives and grasp for evidence that confirms or denies the suspicion according to our political inclinations. "Liberals" want it to be true to confirm their narrative. "Conservatives" want it to be false to confirm their narrative. What I suspect is that we all know it's true, and that we are ashamed, and that we build our narratives to hide our shame. So yes: unfairly, with prejudice, embarrassingly, what I saw in the video was a cop NOT shooting a white guy. I saw race. I admit it. And maybe that makes me a bad person. But I didn't get this way in a vacuum. My badness isn't innate. Or maybe it is. I admit to being different. |
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Dannydoyle Eternal Order 21219 Posts |
Jeff I am sorry that is idiotic. More ready To shoot blacks?
Let me explain this to you. Once threats exist to your life there is no time for prejudice. When people make sweeping statements like that it tells us more about you than cops. YOU would be more likely to shoot blacks. You do not know what is in the mind of others. You have to ascribe that.
Danny Doyle
<BR>Semper Occultus <BR>In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act....George Orwell |
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LobowolfXXX Inner circle La Famiglia 1196 Posts |
I strongly agree with Stone that "white cops might be more ready to shoot black guys than white guys." Or they might not be.
"Torture doesn't work" lol
Guess they forgot to tell Bill Buckley. "...as we reason and love, we are able to hope. And hope enables us to resist those things that would enslave us." |
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0pus Inner circle New Jersey 1739 Posts |
I thought that, once one became a cop, one ceased to be black or white and became blue.
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stoneunhinged Inner circle 3067 Posts |
Quote:
On Apr 22, 2015, Dannydoyle wrote: Perhaps I was being a bit too subtle for my own good. I also said, Quote:
Again, I think that all of us think this is true, even if it is not true. My point was not to make a sweeping statement regarding this incident, but to comment on how we non-cops tend to generalize about the situation of race in America. I'm trying to make a distinction between perception and reality. |
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tommy Eternal Order Devil's Island 16544 Posts |
And why Blue? Why they are there to protect the Blue Bloods of course. Introduced to protect the property of the wealthy classes that emerged during the first half of the 18th century.
If there is a single truth about Magic, it is that nothing on earth so efficiently evades it.
Tommy |
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stoneunhinged Inner circle 3067 Posts |
I can't leave this alone, because I think it's too important, and I think I communicated badly. (As usual.) Pardon me for quoting myself again (because I'm only doing it to clear this up):
Quote:
What we all know--we Americans (even those of us who haven't lived there for a while)--in our bones, without logic or argument, is that white cops might be more ready to shoot black guys than white guys, because black guys are scary. Again, I said "without logic or argument". I'm trying to say that we think that this is true even if it isn't actually true. Then I said, Quote:
How America got to this point is one of the most important issues in America today, and fearing to face it demeans and diminishes us all. That anyone, anywhere in the world, would watch a video of a cop confronting a suspect and notice the race of the suspect is...uh...ah...strange. And yet I noticed it. And yet others noticed it. And yet most Americans would notice it. If we don't address the how and why of such noticing, then we are not addressing an extremely serious issue in America. I, for one, am not afraid of being called a racist. I'd rather talk about race in America--and how we might improve or not improve how we deal with race in America--than be politically correct about race. Let's put it on the table and deal with it. In the open. With a bit of courage. Danny, you can do that. So I'm not really addressing you. |
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tommy Eternal Order Devil's Island 16544 Posts |
Be careful never to be seen by the police being in the company of Gypsies for more than one month.
If there is a single truth about Magic, it is that nothing on earth so efficiently evades it.
Tommy |
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silvercup Loyal user 223 Posts |
I think part of the reason we see events in terms of race is because Government and media enforce the idea that it matters.
Racial bias is something that's taught isn't it? After one reference it might not sink in but repeated it goes deep. |
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