As someone actually in MN, where the fuck is black lives matter now?
They say they want to stand with people against the police, but there has not been a single protest. There has not been a single road blocked in this lady's name. Confirms what I've always thought, that BLM is nothing more than a racist hate group. I've heard people call me ignorant on it, but it's true. Here's what appears to be an innocent white woman killed by a black cop, someone with no criminal record AT ALL. And they are silent. There have been a few passes of support, but not the outrage cause by Castile or Clark, who were both CRIMINALS with long records with police, including Clark for assaulting police, fleeing in a motor vehicle, and ending the chase by DRIVING into someone's yard.
First and foremost, you are naturally going to confirm your own prejudices if that is the first thing you look for. One's confirmation bias will of course prove to oneself that they are correct, otherwise they may have to consider another point of view. I highly doubt the latter part of that sentence will happen.
Secondly, Black Lives Matter exists for three main purposes.
A) Making the extremely disproportionate level of violence directed at black people from police a national issue, directly borrowing many historical methods from those in the Civil Rights Movement.
B) Advocating for police and judicial reform as a whole due to how police brutality and the failure of the system to protect those impacted can and will affect anyone. They are not specifically restricted to black people.
C) Providing support to affected communities through self-empowerment and borrowing many techniques and ideas from the Black Panthers in terms of how they facilitated community outreach and internal support. It most commonly happens in historically black communities because, surprise, that is where a significant portion of these shootings happen.
If you're going to throw stones, be clear on their ideals before you continue. The stones may be hitting someone who has directly fought for you.
In regards to the perceived lack of action on BLM's part, there is simply a lack of information at this point in time -
we have the gist of the situation, including brief aspects of Damond and Noor's background; we have minimal audio and
we know that body cameras were not turned on for the shooting. We know a brief summary of the shooting and not much more - an organised rally at this point in time simply wouldn't be an efficient course of action yet. The family don't even know much. BLM realise that the public is going to demonise them one way or another, so launching a response on the same level of Castile with the little info we have to go on would just hurt their cause. Unlike in the cases of Clark and Castile, there was a far more immediate information to go on, their respective situations were a lot more transparent. Particularly in the case of Castile where we literally have him dying on video. Thank god some people have restraint before opening their mouths.
But for the record, there has been at least one media mention of Black Lives Matters activists being involved. It is a simple act of supporting a grieving community during a trying time, not meant to immediately policitise a situation to fit one's narrative. Only trying to provide warmth during an extremely trying time.
You will find a lot of the same attitude on social media - it may require looking outside of your typical social circle or one's news circle, but there is a sizable amount of support being directed through those channels.
Continuing on, however - this Hannity-esque rant, for lack of a better turn of phrase, could be applied to the All Lives Matter crowd: Where is their presence? Have they done something to highlight the unconscionable nature of this killing? What exactly have they done to help the community affected by Ms. Damond's death? Or have they been silent because All Lives Matter only exists as an ideal to shut down discussions of police brutality against black people? But see, doesn't it seem ridiculous to immediately jump to conclusions about a group based on the lack of information present?
~criminal record~
That's just the public access courts. I'm sorry, but I'm tired of the people that are convicted felons being seen as heroes.
Being a convicted felon does not change anything - it does not deny them their right to not be subjected to unconscionable actions by police. What you see as idolisation is people not taking irrelevant factors into account. What you see as heroism is people not letting a person's past dictate whether their unlawful death was justified. Your argument essentially boils down to the idea that someone making bad choices, or even being a bad person, means officers of the law should be forgiven for removing them from this earth. Justine Damond, by seemingly all accounts, was a picture of kindness and respect towards all people. But she is not any more deserving of justice for her death than a convicted felon; in the end, both people died because of a failure on behalf of the law. Both deserve the full extent of justice. We will see if she gets the justice Clark did not, however.
I support police. I work with them every day. I trained to be a cop since I was a kid. I can't be a cop anymore because of my eyes, but this outrages me. In the other cases, there was a gray area. With Castile, I know Yanez personally, and I know for a fact he panicked, that it was a bad, bad accident. With Clark, I have no doubt that it was justified. But this one? Woman called 911, shot while talking to a police officer? Someone with no criminal history or suspicion against her? I looked at this cop, numerous, numerous complaints against him, all justified, and pushed aside so they could have their token muslim cop. Fuck that.
You were almost close to a good point! And then you had to give into base urges with the last few words. So close. But try as you might to undermine yourself, you actually do have something important to note here: lack of oversight and police holding themselves to accountability. These complaints against him are very relevant to the situation as it shows that he has a history of overstepping boundaries, to say the least. It also shows how little the system works to protect citizens from those who are supposed to be protecting them. If Noor was held to task for his previous actions, this tragedy likely would have never unfolded. An awful smear on behalf of those who let him handle a gun after these previous incidents.
