Kneeling During National Anthem Is Unpatriotic

There are plenty of times when I think the use of police force could have been less. Sometimes that's not the fault of the officer, but rather their training and the laws they are allowed to work with. Also, it is not a black issue. I fully understand that some racial prejudice does exist. However, racial injustice towards blacks is most definitely overstated. Playing the race card is like a fashion statement these days. Every little slight seems to be because of race, and that just isn't the case. I dealt with the police very often during my shady past. If I were black, I may have walked away many times thinking it was because I was black. Nobody can tell me that isn't happening a lot. I do not think it is right to even point out different races when it comes to police brutality. It can happen to anybody of any color and it does. As I pointed out earlier, Michael Bennett claimed he was a victim of racial bias. He is one of the leading figures in the NFL movement. He was not a victim of racial bias, and his attorney said so the very next day. It keeps happening and it is also a problem.

It was meant as a simple, non-pejorative statement of fact.

Not really sure what this means.

Yeah, this is all news to me. I don't think I've ever heard you say anything like this, particularly the bit about human nature (though I can't tell if you think that makes Communism inviable, or just Socialism).

I could swear you've said many, many things that are nearly impossible not to read as supportive of Marxism (or at least so condemning of capitalism that there is no alternative conclusion). Was this a misreading, or things you didn't mean, or something else?

If I meant it as a drive-by insult, yeah, I'd like to think that'd be out of character. But I just meant it as "I think this person is literally saying they're a Communist."

I always check back when I see Yoda's name to see if a thread has been closed.

wanting justice for these black men is not 'playing the race card'

either you think these cops should be held accountable or you don't. most of your post is basically just a big 'yeah ok, but let me tell you why it's like that' instead of 'yeah, ok, let's do something about this.'

this is why they kneel.

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letterboxd

I think he's saying it's playing the race card to invoke their race as the reason they didn't get justice.

I don't mind BLM protesting but what I don't like about them is that they destroy property and hurt people. In that respect they become the same as the people they are protesting.
I am against any hate group.
Any one that supports a hate group also affirms that the color of one's skin does matter.
To me, personally, it really does not. I always look at the character of the individual, no matter the race of color, and I will always treat him the way I want to be treated.
What bothers me the most as an American, is the divisiveness that this country is going through. We are destroying ourselves from within and there is no imaginary enemy at the gates. The enemy is real and getting more ready every day to end our civilization.
That's why it's imperative to stop the divisiveness and form a united front to really be ready for what's coming. And it's coming!

Talk about justice for everybody and I'm all aboard.

I think anybody should be held accountable for murder. Is that what we are seeing though? I think in many cases it's extremely debatable. It should go for black and white victims, right?

Including the player who made up a story about racial prejudice against him. Is that the kind of guy whose side you want to be on?

it's black lives matter because black lives are being killed at an alarming rate in comparison to white lives.

https://mappingpoliceviolence.org/

http://www.fatalencounters.org/our-visualizations/

huh? i'm not on any 'guy's' side.

So, earlier you said the "black men are committing crimes at a disproportionate rate" argument was pointless, and in the context of what you were responding to at the time, it probably was. But in the context of this argument, it seems like a pretty important point.

That first link emphasizes, on its home page, that "Black people were 25% (242) of those killed despite being only 13% of the population." That's the kind of number that really needs to be couched in relative terms to have any import on this part of the discussion.

It's entirely possible that the data don't fully encompass the issue here, and that the more important question is why we have such a dramatic difference in the rate of crime across demographic groups to begin with. But if a data-based argument can be made here for systemic and disproportionate police brutality based on race, it would pretty much have to control for that general rate of crime to be legitimately cited as evidence. Does such a number/study exist?

i think it matters in this context because of the 'but what about all the other lives' mention. i mean, i care about non-black lives too, pretty much everyone i know and love is white, but we aren't being gunned down @ the same rate.

so, we care because it's happening at an alarming rate, as established. and responding with 'but it's not really as common as people think' is besides the point.

i dunno. makes sense to me.


i agree. i did a bit of research and it's hard to find a lot of nuanced results without really spending a lot of time on it (which i don't have atm. i should be working actually! i'm probably gonna go do that after this post lol )

yeah, i'm honestly not sure. i'd love it if others would like to contribute to these stats with different cited sources of their own if they have any.

What about black lives being taken by other blacks? Surely that's a much greater problem.

I'm talking about one of the leaders of that movement. It's about racial injustice in regards to police officers against blacks. Yet, this guy made up a story about racial injustice towards himself from police. That tells me a lot.

There have definitely been studies like that done by the FBI in preparation for their annual reports but I don't have access to them. You might be better equipped to locate them.

And if you want to compare blacks versus whites being shot by police. If you go by who commits the most violent crime, theoretically there would be more blacks being shot and killed then there is now.

Why would the presence of a "greater problem" preclude people from talking about this one? I've never understood these kinds of deflections. If we see this to its logical conclusion, we'd all be knitting malaria nets or something and never fixing anything else wrong with the world.

Sorry; what I meant was there is a relation between blacks who murder and blacks who get killed by police. If you're in a group that commits more violent crime, I think it would only make sense that you're in the group most likely to be killed by police.

what does this have to do with police brutality? does black people killing other black people affect those killings?

i gotta say, i'm disappointed in this response. i dunno man, it feels like you're trying to derail it and make it about something else. it's like we're not allowed to talk about police brutality against black people until we go through all these other hoops of discussion first. where does the need to do that come from?

ok. haven't heard about that. this is why i don't really follow individual people as much as what the movement stands for.

See my response to Yoda. I'm just saying that there is a correlation between violence from and violence toward.

if you want to talk about black-on-black crime, then i hope you're also willing to discuss:

- statistics showing how crime is always more prevalent in poorer neighborhoods (which is why crime is just as bad in poor, white, urban areas)
- black people typically receiving harsher incarceration periods than white people for the same crime
- how schools with large percentages of blacks are underfunded even though they have the same tax base and incomes, and how this would affect the community as a whole

and how all of this affects crime rates.

Again, see my response to Yoda.

Obviously we have a lot of racial issues that we need to work on. Anybody can see that.

However, people act like police are just randomly pulling over innocent black people and beating or shooting them, and that's just not happening. A lot of the problems come from within.

I follow a lawyer on Twitter whose Pinned Tweet is: