Black History Month - Racism In General

[Lizardo]

Again, you're missing the point. There will always be exceptions to the rule, and while they do try to hit the biggest audience, there is the plain fact that people pander towards the market demographic more than the people as a whole. Just because it is a movie makes it no different. Those exceptions would be due to the right promotion, as said. Besides, there is another fact that people may be picked for acting ability. If three people try to pick one role, it is more likely the best would be able to be it. That means if the best person for the role is black, he/she would get and and vice versa.

And that's a problem. Because yet again, there is no reason, outside of racism, to only pander to only one (white) demographic.

And it's not just black people I'm talking about, either.

Also, you seem to forget something. In Medieval Europe, they were a huge minority. For example, a majority of slaves weren't African or of African descent; they were more likely to be Slavic. Then, there is the fact that immigration between Africa and Europe was likely to be scarce (unless it was North Africa, but there's also a fact that a lot of North African ethnic groups do kinda look similar to the Arabs (such as the Berbers). Therefore, it would make sense for there to not to be a black cast member in a Medieval-based film. Now, for Egypt, you've got me beat. Mainly because there were the Nubians. Although Egypt was most likely similar to the other North African groups, they still had a Nubian populous and even Nubian Pharaohs.

Actually, black people weren't that rare at the time. But it's beside the point. Hollywood has no problem filling movies about ancient Egypt with white people, and strictly white people, regardless of historical accuracy.

Now, you seem to think that the other contributing factors that came from slavery are ultimately not also potential reasons. I don't see why. After all, each reason helped to increase tension which caused secession and later the war. If they are still issues revolving around a major issue, they are still issues that help started the war. You're also assuming I'm trying to downplay black history by mentioning the fact that these were other reasons for the war to start; yet, I neither said that slavery was a side issue nor these were the main reasons. I said the slavery was the main reason with these side reasons.

You cannot separate the "side reasons" from slavery, because they are all related to it. That's the point. The only reason the North and South developed along different lines was because of emerging capitalism in the North (which was anti-slavery in nature) and the South's plantation economy (which was fueled by slavery). The only "state's right" the South was interested in defending was slavery. The Confederacy was only concerned with slavery – as you can see in the very things the Confederate leaders wrote. They make it as clear as day.

There really isn't an argument here.

Now, you seem to still defend the BPG, and this time by saying they haven't killed as much as the KKK and other groups. They are still violent, so I ask you this; what makes them any different from the KKK other than what they are fighting for? It doesn't matter if once killed 150 blacks in one attack, and the BPG killed 100 whites in one attack. They are still a violent mob that should be jailed. Such line of thought is irrational.

If me pointing out basic facts about what the Black Panther Party was and why it was formed constitutes as defending them, then sure, I'll admit to that. The Panthers were not about black supremacy. They were about self-defense.

If everyone in the Black Panther Party deserves to be jailed, then what does that say for the cops – who are more of a threat to black people than the Panthers were to whites? At the end of the day, the Black Panthers would not have existed if not for white supremacy.

And now, you've got to try and call me ignorant over the fact that a cop shot a 12 year old who pointed a gun at them. The murderer had pointed a weapon at all. While Tamir didn't get the chance to cooperate, there is the fact that he pointed a gun when the cop was coming up and there is a such thing as a "flight-or-fight" response. It is not a double standard.

I didn't call you ignorant, I called you desperate. Which you are. You so badly want to justify police brutality and ignore racism that you'll dismiss the life of a 12-year old unarmed black boy and call him an idiot. You'll ignore clear double standards in how white people and black people are treated – and have been treated – by police (and by white people in general) that you'll move goalposts and jump through every logical hoop for it. A boy plays in the park with a toy gun? "Well it's understandable that the cops would shoot him, it looked real. He deserved to die, even though he didn't even know there was a problem and didn't get a chance to stand down."

The cop is the one who rushed Tamir. The cop is the one who escalated the situation to the point where he felt he had to use a gun. Tamir, a twelve-year old, had approximately two seconds before he was gunned down. Tamir wasn't even allowed any medical attention after this happened. But somehow this is Tamir Rice's fault.

You also don't see that peaceful protests are just essentially non-violent protests.

Because protests aren't meant to be peaceful. If you're trying to go about social progress peacefully, then you're doing it wrong. Protests are designed to get attention to a specific issue by breaking the peace. If you understand nothing else about Martin Luther King Jr., understand this: he was contemptuous of peace as a tool for social justice. Again, non-violence does not equal peace.

King and other Civil Rights leaders and organizations of their day broke the peace constantly. They boycotted, rallied, protested, and they broke laws in order to make their voices heard. Just like Black Lives Matter does today. And it's because of this that white people hated them back in the day, just like white people hate Black Lives Matter.

White people are only interested in peace because peace upholds the status quo.

So, I ask you this; what is the point of saying that one is different from the other, and try to support that claim when they are the same thing? Then, you contradict yourself by saying King would sympathize with radicals; if he was pro-non-violence, he would only sympathize with what their fighting for and not what they are doing to achieve that.

What you don't seem to understand about non-violence and how Civil Rights leaders used it was that it was a strategy, not a personal philosophy. King and others employed it because he thought it was the most effective way to demonstrate via the media who the enemies really were – the non-violent (but not peaceful) blacks or the brutal police?

Of course King sympathized with other methods, even if he never employed them – he even said so. Because King was, above all else, more concerned with social justice than he was with how it was achieved. And why wouldn't he sympathize with radicals? He was one.

Martin Luther King Jr. believed in in a world where everyone was equal through peaceful or non-violent tactics, unlike the BLM who spout hate speech towards police officers, have killed police officers and don't even care about black lives if they are cops themselves.

Again, read about the things Martin Luther King – as well as other Civil Rights leaders – actually said and did. Read about how much of a bloody street fight the Civil Rights Movement actually was. And then read about the things Black Lives Matter is doing. Read about the reactions to both. You'll find there are far more similarities than differences.

MLK wasn't out there to protect white people's feelings, and neither is BLM.

And logically, if I said the main reason for the Civil War was slavery with other side reasons causing tension, wouldn't that mean I'd have a good idea about how the war started?

As long as you keep trying to separate the "other side reasons" from slavery as a cause of the war, then you clearly don't understand how it happened. No slavery, no U.S. Civil War as we know it.

These were isolated incidents.

More black people were killed by police in 2015 than during some of worst years of the Jim Crow era (https://www.huffingtonpost.com/jero...s-lynchings-capital-punishment_b_8462778.html), and you really want to call these isolated incidents? FOH.

I'm not going to sit here and debate the merits of every single police killing with you, because it never matters. We have had a variety of confrontations with police where unarmed black people have responded (provided they even had the chance to) in a variety of different ways, but they all end the same – with some instance of police brutality. This has happened disproportionately to black people, no matter what they're doing. These are not isolated incidents. These have been happening to black people for generations now.

But you know what is an isolated incident? The rare cop who gets killed in the line of duty. 2015 was, overall, a pretty safe year to be a police officer. And yet it's Black Lives Matter who are the problem?

Holding cops accountable for murder is definitely something that we should do from day one, no doubt about that. But we have to respect the fact that some people are going to die, even if the police do everything right. And we have to respect that killing by a cop is not always murder.

As for the bold, how exactly do you expect that to happen? How can we, as a society, deliver on that? It's not something that we simply demand, and then shall it occur. Black people will be treated the same way by others only when their social-economic condition has improved to the point where it is no longer associated with poverty and crime.

I don't really believe that, because even black people who are wealthy and well-off can face racism or end up on the wrong side of the wrong police officer. It may not happen as often as it does in poorer black communities, but it'll still occur. Not to mention, a large, central reason black communities are associated with crime and poverty in the first place is due to racism. That's symptom of the problem, not the cause.

As far as how we can get that to happen, it takes an honest look at racism from the majority of the nation and the self-awareness to realize just how deep it runs in society. And that's something that can only happen via constant education and agitation, constantly calling out racial issues, no matter how big (police brutality) or small (Academy Awards), fighting for political reform, etc.

I'm going to post a link that I am not endorsing: it just seems to contradict some commonly-held beliefs (that I, included, have) and was wondering what you think of it (since you're probably more informed about these issues than I am): https://www.washingtontimes.com/new...e-whites-than-blacks-but-minority-d/?page=all.

I might be able to get behind the idea that, in general, police probably kill a disproportionate number of people regardless of race than actually need to be killed. In terms of sheer numbers, more white people are killed because there are more white people in America than there are black people. But I disagree with the idea that white people and white communities are more targeted than black people and black communities.

Here's one quote from the article I found pretty interesting that (unfortunately) isn't expounded on much:

Adjusted to take into account the racial breakdown of the U.S. population, he said black men are 3.5 times more likely to be killed by police than white men.

FWIW, The Guardian conducted a study in 2015 about police killings in America and it found that the number of black people killed by police so far (June, 2015) was "disproportionately high":

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/10/the-counted-500-people-killed-by-police-2015

From USAToday, about police arresting black people:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/11/18/ferguson-black-arrest-rates/19043207/

Whatever the reasons, the results are the same: Blacks are far more likely to be arrested than any other racial group in the USA. In some places, dramatically so.

And finally: https://mic.com/articles/96452/one-...rica-s-police-brutality-problem-is#.FFB8wNkJM

 

[Thepowaofhax]

And that's a problem. Because yet again, there is no reason, outside of racism, to only pander to only one (white) demographic.

And it's not just black people I'm talking about, either.


Actually, black people weren't that rare at the time. But it's beside the point. Hollywood has no problem filling movies about ancient Egypt with white people, and strictly white people, regardless of historical accuracy.


You cannot separate the "side reasons" from slavery, because they are all related to it. That's the point. The only reason the North and South developed along different lines was because of emerging capitalism in the North (which was anti-slavery in nature) and the South's plantation economy (which was fueled by slavery). The only "state's right" the South was interested in defending was slavery. The Confederacy was only concerned with slavery – as you can see in the very things the Confederate leaders wrote. They make it as clear as day.

There really isn't an argument here.


If me pointing out basic facts about what the Black Panther Party was and why it was formed constitutes as defending them, then sure, I'll admit to that. The Panthers were not about black supremacy. They were about self-defense.

If everyone in the Black Panther Party deserves to be jailed, then what does that say for the cops – who are more of a threat to black people than the Panthers were to whites? At the end of the day, the Black Panthers would not have existed if not for white supremacy.


I didn't call you ignorant, I called you desperate. Which you are. You so badly want to justify police brutality and ignore racism that you'll dismiss the life of a 12-year old unarmed black boy and call him an idiot. You'll ignore clear double standards in how white people and black people are treated – and have been treated – by police (and by white people in general) that you'll move goalposts and jump through every logical hoop for it. A boy plays in the park with a toy gun? "Well it's understandable that the cops would shoot him, it looked real. He deserved to die, even though he didn't even know there was a problem and didn't get a chance to stand down."

The cop is the one who rushed Tamir. The cop is the one who escalated the situation to the point where he felt he had to use a gun. Tamir, a twelve-year old, had approximately two seconds before he was gunned down. Tamir wasn't even allowed any medical attention after this happened. But somehow this is Tamir Rice's fault.


Because protests aren't meant to be peaceful. If you're trying to go about social progress peacefully, then you're doing it wrong. Protests are designed to get attention to a specific issue by breaking the peace. If you understand nothing else about Martin Luther King Jr., understand this: he was contemptuous of peace as a tool for social justice. Again, non-violence does not equal peace.

King and other Civil Rights leaders and organizations of their day broke the peace constantly. They boycotted, rallied, protested, and they broke laws in order to make their voices heard. Just like Black Lives Matter does today. And it's because of this that white people hated them back in the day, just like white people hate Black Lives Matter.

White people are only interested in peace because peace upholds the status quo.


What you don't seem to understand about non-violence and how Civil Rights leaders used it was that it was a strategy, not a personal philosophy. King and others employed it because he thought it was the most effective way to demonstrate via the media who the enemies really were – the non-violent (but not peaceful) blacks or the brutal police?

Of course King sympathized with other methods, even if he never employed them – he even said so. Because King was, above all else, more concerned with social justice than he was with how it was achieved. And why wouldn't he sympathize with radicals? He was one.


Again, read about the things Martin Luther King – as well as other Civil Rights leaders – actually said and did. Read about how much of a bloody street fight the Civil Rights Movement actually was. And then read about the things Black Lives Matter is doing. Read about the reactions to both. You'll find there are far more similarities than differences.

MLK wasn't out there to protect white people's feelings, and neither is BLM.


As long as you keep trying to separate the "other side reasons" from slavery as a cause of the war, then you clearly don't understand how it happened. No slavery, no U.S. Civil War as we know it.


More black people were killed by police in 2015 than during some of worst years of the Jim Crow era (https://www.huffingtonpost.com/jero...s-lynchings-capital-punishment_b_8462778.html), and you really want to call these isolated incidents? FOH.

I'm not going to sit here and debate the merits of every single police killing with you, because it never matters. We have had a variety of confrontations with police where unarmed black people have responded (provided they even had the chance to) in a variety of different ways, but they all end the same – with some instance of police brutality. This has happened disproportionately to black people, no matter what they're doing. These are not isolated incidents. These have been happening to black people for generations now.

But you know what is an isolated incident? The rare cop who gets killed in the line of duty. 2015 was, overall, a pretty safe year to be a police officer. And yet it's Black Lives Matter who are the problem?

Ok, so what makes films different than other products being marketing for the majority who buy said product? By that line of logic, that would make just about every product racist, sexist, et cetera in one way or another. For example, the majority of ATVs in the US are sold in the Southeast, thus we might as well call that racist because clearly they're only pandering to a certain demographic! Think of the poor people who are oppressed over a vehicle over market demographics, even though capitalism dictates that it would make sense. How about those hijabs? The majority of them are sold to Muslim women. Clearly, this is a transgression on our freedoms! How dare they sell it to the majority that they sell to? Clearly that's going be offensive!

And again, I already know about the problems of Egypt. However, some roles being white are actually justified (such as Cleopatra; if I remember correctly, her line was one of the last Macedonian Greek dynasties in Egypt). And no, Europe in the Medieval Times did not have a prominent black population.

You also don't seem to understand capitalism. The basis of slavery is in a very despotic form of Capitalism where you don't need to pay the worker. No pay for the worker would mean you make more money off of their suffering and toil on the fields, which makes you richer. Now, I ask you this; if the definition of Capitalism is:

• an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state.

, how is it that the slave owners are excluded? After all, they own the plantations and the slaves and make the money from and traded it to Europe and became rich. The difference between the North and the South is that the North was a more liberal place compared to the South.



You also seem to forget about what time the side tensions where created. Slavery was a big part of the south, making is an agrarian society even before the war (way before the war). Throughout the years, tensions between the North grew due to slavery and the reasons spawned from slavery. Throw in a bunch of compromises (such as the Missouri compromise) before the Civil War that brought some tension (but definitely not enough to cause a war) and problems arose. Some of these reasons had manifested in events that led to more tension (such as the Dredd Scott case) and further added to the tension before the war. What I'm saying is that Slavery and the side reason (through tension) had brought about the war. Slavery is still the main reason because Slavery, through the decades, brought about the cultural divide, etc.


Also, there is probably a misunderstanding in the works. Maybe it's these guys that I'm misunderstanding for the BPG, which apparently are violent. Correct me if I'm wrong.



You also seem to think that the kid had never pointed the gun at the cop. Even the court hearing had states that and it most likely had triggered the fight-or-flight response. You're the one who thinks that because the cop shot him because he had a toy gun, the cop is ultimately racist and had also pointed out in the isolated incidents, that they apparently attacked a suicide victim. Because, you know, killing yourself is totally being killed by another person. It wasn't even an assisted suicide. The point is the kid was still playing with a toy gun that looked like this. Note the disturbing lack of an orange tip which is supposed to tell officers it is a fake. They shot him because he tried pulling it out and when he did, tried pointing it at an officer.


And again, there are two types of protests. Peaceful (non-violent) and violent. You, sir, are advocating for violent protests. That means, because of your logic, that protests shouldn't be peaceful, I could go shoot up a politician's house and call it protesting because your logic would support it. A peaceful protest can still be seen and bring a message, while a violent one only makes your group look like a trifling bunch of idiots.


You're also making general assumptions for no reason. After all, you've made plenty of them while we were here. How about I quote each and every single one of them?

Seriously, white people are deluded.

But considering so many white people lack basic empathy for people who aren't white, it makes sense to hear them call for rioters to be thrown in jail rather than actually deal with the topic of police violence.

White people only ever want black people to protest "peacefully" because then they'd be free to continue ignoring them.

I don't see what you have to make these generalizations just to make a point. After all, I haven't made any generalizations myself. Back to the thing,


You also seem to forget which laws they broke. After all, the latter you have listed with the exception of breaking laws (which we haven't factored in) are peaceful. For example, a lot of the protests were sit-ins which either violated segregation laws or stopped business in one area. There is nothing violent with sitting at an area to inhibit business or to prove a point. The same for the things Rosa Parks and others did regarding buses; from refusing to move to another seat on the bus from not even using the bus at all.

Again, read about the things Martin Luther King – as well as other Civil Rights leaders – actually said and did. Read about how much of a bloody street fight the Civil Rights Movement actually was. And then read about the things Black Lives Matter is doing. Read about the reactions to both. You'll find there are far more similarities than differences.

I'll happily compare a violent group to violent actions during a certain era. After all, that's what they've done!


You have a point that without Slavery, there would be no Civil War.


Now, regarding your reaction, that was the point of the statement. I wanted to see if you would actually give me more than just 2 people who were legitimately killed by police without proper reasoning. You were only pointing out isolated incidents; of which is questionable. Another thing; 70%ish of police shootings are actually justified, and there is the fact that Blacks tend to make less money (on average) than the rest of the races according to page 13 on this. 35k for a household is not a healthy amount; and as people should know, there tends to be more crime between poorer members of the community that the wealthier members. Here is also the a 2013 study also pointing to this. There is also the factor with the location of the communities, as said here.


Combine these factors, and you have a potential hot spot for criminal activities, whether it be selling drugs on the side for more cash, burglary, ETC. It would be a similar situation if the whites where the majority in those neighborhoods and blacks the majority in poor white-majority neighborhoods.

Edit: Also, there is the fact that a lot of peaceful protests became violent due to police during the Civil Rights Movement. This, added with the peaceful protesting aided into bringing about equal rights.