Reactionaries

[BikerDude]

It's Friday. Time to stir the pot
.
Time to once again celebrate the "professionalism" of the thin blue line.
"Stay outta Malibu deadbeat!"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvzLJWkJlKM

If any of us not in the law enforcement community acted like this at work they would fire us and escort us off the property with security.
Yet the one profession where it is most important that people conduct themselves properly and lawfully gets away with this stuff continually.
It goes on and on...
I find the beating of the guy in the wheelchair particularly amazing.
Yet this type of thing is more and more common.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlKBrlSyPag

It's always when it's like 20 cops 'vs' one guy who most of the time doesn't seem like a threat and definately not a real threat against 20 cops with guns drawn. They roll up on a homeless guy with guns drawn and wonder why these guys react the way they do. Obviously they are scared shitless.

[RandoRock]

I work in the law enforcement community so perhaps I can shed a little light on the subject. Like all professions you will have good employees and bad employees, I agree with your point that it is very important for the law enforcement community to conduct themselves in a professional matter at all times but unfortunately due to the law of averages there will always be the few that paint the majority in a negative light. The thousands of good cops doing their job in a professional manner almost never makes the news but the few asshats always grab headlines. It's unfair to cast a blanket over all of law enforcement due to the actions of these disgraceful individuals, some of the best people I ever met have been other members of the law enforcement community.

The issue of several cops vs one individual really boils down to safety. I know more times than not it seems excessive but at the end of the day a cop is just a person doing their job. It is not a cop's job to stand one on one with a potentially violent suspect just because of the worlds sense of what looks good or appropriate. The sooner police are able to get a situation under control the better it is for all involved and more officers help that. The injuries sustained by both parties are significantly lower when the suspect is out numbered it's not some power trip, it's about making sure everyone goes home at the end of the day. Another thing people don't seem to realize is a lot of how cops approach a scene comes from the information they are given by dispatch. If dispatch says that there is a suspect with a weapon then most likely cops are coming guns drawn because like I said before they don't want to end up as a folded flag on their spouse's mantle.

I'll also let you in on a company secret, we are scared, maybe not scared shitless as you put it but yes responding to any incident there is a certain level of fear involved. It's like I said everyone just wants to go home at the end of the day, and they few people I've known that have had to take a life in the line of duty have been changed forever by the experience. Working in law enforcement is the job where you are hated if you do it and you are also hated if you don't, the public expects some sort of superhero out there but that's not what they are, they are regular people that lay it all on the line every single day for people that don't respect them. Sorry if this comes off as long winded and ranty but this is a topic that hits close to home for me. I've lost friends doing this job and I've seen countless more injured because policies put into place to appease the public that have no idea what the job really entails.

In the interest of full disclosure I didn't watch the videos you posted since I'm at my work desk and my slackerness can only go so far while on the clock but my points remain the same. The members of the law enforcement community that blatantly step over the line should 100% be held accountable, sure I can admit that in a lot of incidents I usually prefer to give the benefit of the doubt to the cop until I get all the information. That being said if they fucked up then they fucked up and cop or not nobody is above the law. Prime example being Tamir Rice, I know this was a hot debate on both sides but based on the video, the letter from his previous department, and eye witness accounts that cop was 1000% wrong. He murdered a young man because of his own inability to handle a stressful situation. On the other hand, I know this is bound to start some debates, Michael Brown. He committed a robbery, refused police directives, and attacked an officer. The whole reason he was stopped in the first place was because he was in the middle of the road and yet he escalated it to the point where he lost his life. Could less lethal devices have been used? It's hard to say but that doesn't change the fact that had he merely complied then it would have been a nonissue anyway. The same with the Eric Garner case, he was given a directive to stop selling cigarettes illegally and he chose to ignore those directives. On the other side of that though if the cops policy prohibits the use of vascular restraints or headlock take downs then he should have followed his use of force policy and choose another way. Either way though that doesn't change the fact that Eric Garner was not strangled to death by police as many are quick to claim. The altercation caused cardiac distress which lead to his death at the hospital later, the fact that any sort of choke hold or headlock was used had nothing to do with it. Just because the cop was wrong doesn't automatically mean the suspect was right. It's that sort of close minded thinking that has led to this whole anti police culture that has been gaining ground for the last couple years. If there is to be accountability then it needs to be on both sides. Just because someone died resisting arrest doesn't make them a hero and just because a police officer used deadly force it doesn't make them a villain.

Since this took a while to write I went ahead and watch the videos you linked. The first clip in the second video strikes a particular nerve with me because I currently work in a prison as a Corrections Officer and stuff like that not only makes us look bad but its the reason policies get put in place that tie our hands when a situation actually does call for force. All that aside just read some of the comments posted on that second video. Several off them call for violence against police officers just because they are cops. On person said he would kill a cops children. That is why police are fearful, that is why they come in guns drawn. We now live in a society where it is not only accepted its down right encouraged to hate police and in turn several of the good cops have lost their lives in random acts of violence.

Okay this became more of a book than I wanted it to but like I said this hits close to home. Hopefully you find your pot sufficiently stirred.

[RandoRock]

I lied, I'm not done stirring because I thoroughly enjoy this community and I would be remised if I didn't at least say my full piece regarding another community I care deeply about.

The law enforcement community needs peoples support now more than ever, our spirit is broken because the public that we signed up to serve would like nothing more than to watch us fail. It makes a stressful job even more stressful when no matter what you do you are automatically the villain. It's easy to be the arm chair quarter back and say what you would have done better but its a whole hell of a lot harder to actually get out there and throw the ball. In doing this job I've seen things that most people could never understand, yet for every stabbing, every lock-n-sock, every suicide, every rape, every beat down, and well every other thing I've had to respond to I've always had this underlying sense that I was doing something good. The men and women that do this job do it so others don't have too. Whether the world wants to admit it, it is important and it is necessary. 

I've had friends shoot themselves, drink themselves to death, I've seen people lose their families, and even others lose their mind. I've watched grown men cry after a brutal incident and I've seen that look in someone's eye when you know that they will never be the same. These are people that suffer day in and day out so that way the public that hates them doesn't have to.

I know nothing of your past experiences or your life in general. I have no knowledge really of anything about you except we share common religious beliefs. Because I know nothing about you then I cannot not make any assumptions, I cannot look at your avatar photo or signature and claim to know exactly what was going on the moment you chose them. I can't read your post and know the full story of why you're sharing what you're sharing. So I don't try to, I don't pretend to, I don't tell you what you could have done better, and I don't pretend to know how you feel. ( I mean the royal you, the editorial, not any one specific person)

So why is it people can read a news article, watch a video clip, see a still photo, or even just hear about a situation word of mouth and they are all the sudden experts on everything that Officer did or didn't do? I'll give a prime example as it is one that gets thrown around a lot. Someone snaps a photo at the end of a violent altercation, the suspect is on the ground or in the car and the cops are smiling, hell they may even high five. People are quick to jump all over that as some sort of enjoyment in using violence. Well I'll tell you from first hand experience that enjoyment has nothing to do with it. During a use of force the body goes through a pretty major adrenaline dump, your sense go, your fine motor skills go, you get tunnel vision, and when it's all over there is almost a state of shock that most people have a different reaction to. Some laugh, some cry, some just sit there and stare. It's not uncommon for my fellow Officer's and I to laugh, smile, or even high five after handling a violent situation and it's not because we are happy we got to use violence, it's because we are stressed to our core and we are happy it's over. We're happy that everyone gets to go home.

I'm not trying to force any opinion on you(once again, royal you) and I'm not trying to feed you full of some sob story. All I'm trying to do is shed a little light on the side of the story most people either don't get to see or refuse to acknowledge. In a perfect world everyone would be able to look at a situation with an open mind and hold back on judgment until they understand the full story but as we all know the world is far from perfect. All I can hope is that my blathering on will maybe help someone to look at these situations with a little more objectivity.

Okay I'm done for real now, not only has the pot been stirred but it seems to now run over.

[Reverend Al]

It's pretty clear that Joe Public has his or her own perceptions about who and what law enforcement officers are.  The one thing a lot of people seem to forget is that they're people--people who occasionally make mistakes just like the rest of us, have lives just like the rest of us, have families just like the rest of us, have bad days just like the rest of us.  And, just like any other profession, some of them are simply better at it than others.

I've had a number of interactions with law enforcement officers for various reasons over the years.  Most of them were reasonable people who treated me with respect because I treated them with respect.  But not always.  Once I got pulled over by an L.A.P.D. officer after leaving a bar with two friends.  He had a tremendous amount of negative macho attitude the entire time he spoke with me, presumably because he thought he'd be dealing with an unruly drunk driver.  The thing is, I hadn't imbibed any alcohol because I was driving.  So I took some control of the situation by showing him respect, answering his questions directly, and complying with his requests (i.e., I did the things you're supposed to do when dealing with a law enforcement officer).  I "killed him with kindness".  He still walked away angry, probably because after 30 minutes he could only write me a "fix it" ticket for a burned out license plate light (his excuse for pulling me over in the first place), but I and my friends drove home that night.  If I'd given him any problems, things would likely have turned out differently.

On the other hand, another time I got pulled over as a friend and I were driving home after seeing a late night movie.  The officer was polite and rather friendly, even as he asked me to get out of the car and talk with him on the sidewalk.  Now, this was very early in the morning (around 1:00 a.m., I think) and the street wasn't particularly well lit.  After a few minutes I noticed his partner had taken a position about 10 feet behind me, at which point I realized I was standing with my hands behind my back.  I interrupted the conversation to apologize for doing so, and slowly brought my hands to a position in front of my body where the officer could see them clearly.  The expression on his face was priceless--he was obviously surprised that I'd thought to take his comfort into consideration.  And, probably because of my demeanor (and maybe my appearance), he asked me three different times during our conversation, "Are you sure you've never been in prison?"    To this day I have no idea why he pulled me over in the first place; he never mentioned it and I never asked, and my friend and I left without having been cited for anything.

So, bad encounter that ended well, good encounter that ended well.  Why?  Because in both instances I treated them with the same level of respect that I would show to anyone else.  Hell, I've had a couple of officers thank me for being so cooperative and understanding, and even had one apologize for giving me a ticket.  But I'm not naive.  I've watched officers in my home town hassle people for no apparent reason, and watched others be overly aggressive in a situation that didn't appear to warrant that level of attitude.  But then, I know they have to deal with a bunch of assholes on a daily basis, so I can somewhat understand why their levels of patience might wear thin on occasion.

Aw, hell, I'm ramblin' again.  I guess the point I'm failing to make is that I tend to not make assumptions whenever I see videos like these because I wasn't there and don't have enough information to determine who was at fault.  I've heard stories from officers and non-officers, and know that encounters like these are almost always various shades of right and wrong.

[RandoRock]

You, Reverend Al, are a Dude we can all take a lesson from. I couldn't have said it better, I know because I tried with a 3 page essay in my previous post haha. If there is one thing I wish the public could understand it's that Cops, Jailers, Correctional Officers, Special Agents, Military, and so fourth, are all just people like them. The only difference is job title, just like the only difference between an inmate and myself are the circumstances that brought us here. When it comes down to it I'm just trying to do my time and go home, same as them. I get my break between shifts but ultimately I'm still doing 30 years in prison.

Any interaction with law enforcement should just be treated as another person to person social interaction. Be respectful and act like you have some sense and 99% of the time your respect will be returned. Like you said there will always be that 1% that cannot be reasoned with and it's like that from both sides. I treat every inmate with respect and as a result I very rarely have any issues but every so often I have that one individual that cannot be reasoned with. It happens but just like in all things the only thing I can control is myself so like you said just kill them with kindness. Sometimes it works and sometimes they still try to get squirrely and I get an opportunity to show off my ground game. It's just a law of nature, some people are assholes and there is nothing anyone can say or do to stop it. The police chief of Malibu is a prime example of this.

Well look at that, even when I agree I still go on long rambles. 

[Reverend Al]

...just like the only difference between an inmate and myself are the circumstances that brought us here...

Without trying to turn this into a "nature versus nurture" discussion, I do believe that the circumstances of our lives play a part in the direction our lives take.  All things considered, I've had it easy.  I've never been rich, but I've never been so poor that I had to resort to unlawful means to obtain food, clothing, shelter, or anything else necessary to maintain my life.  So I'm well aware that my opinions towards the people who work in law enforcement are more positive than negative because I've never been on the "wrong" side of their profession...well, except for some speeding tickets.    But if the circumstances of my life had been different and had forced me to make different decisions, my opinions would likely also be very different.

[ZoeAbides]

Some very nicely written and well-thought out commentaries from you both.  But to stir the pot a bit further, I offer a question for your consideration...

Are you both white men?

White (cis, male, hetero, etc) privilege goes a looooong way when dealing with the cops.  This comes from an ex-police officer's (and chief's) daughter.  I know how to act and speak to police, taught to me by my dad long ago, so don't get me wrong.  But the rainbow flag sticker on my car does paint a bit of a target on my back and this doesn't preclude police.  (I'm also in the bible belt).  I'm also not usually wearing makeup, (unlike my avatar picture) and don't dress very femme.  All this and I still have white privilege on my side.

There are historic problems with police and race (and gender, and sexual orientation as well).  Sometimes a suspect can act perfectly and still get beat down just because of the aforementioned.

Just food for thought... a little Kahlua in the cream.

[Reverend Al]

Some very nicely written and well-thought out commentaries from you both.  But to stir the pot a bit further, I offer a question for your consideration...

Are you both white men?

White (cis, male, hetero, etc) privilege goes a looooong way when dealing with the cops.  This comes from an ex-police officer's (and chief's) daughter.  I know how to act and speak to police, taught to me by my dad long ago, so don't get me wrong.  But the rainbow flag sticker on my car does paint a bit of a target on my back and this doesn't preclude police.  (I'm also in the bible belt).  I'm also not usually wearing makeup, (unlike my avatar picture) and don't dress very femme.  All this and I still have white privilege on my side.

There are historic problems with police and race (and gender, and sexual orientation as well).  Sometimes a suspect can act perfectly and still get beat down just because of the aforementioned.

Just food for thought... a little Kahlua in the cream.

That is most definitely a valid question in the context of this discussion.  Yes, I am a white heterosexual male.  As such, while I can acknowledge the fact that someone's skin color, sex, sexual orientation, age, weight, and/or any other number of defining characteristics can indeed result in the creation and maintenance of prejudices, I have admittedly had very little experience with such prejudices in my life and therefore cannot discuss them from any practical frame of reference.

[jgiffin]

Those factors only matter if we presume the cop is racist, misogynistic, and/or anti-gay. I'm sure some cops are. But I presume we agree those fucktards need fired and/or jailed, depending the nature and scope of their prejudices and offenses. The broader point and, I think, the more interesting one is "what about the power-tripping a-hole cops who just do bad shit because they can?" The ones who resent the constitution and civil liberties. The ones who got the job just so they could wear a badge. The ones who would prefer to replace "to protect and serve" with "to harass and intimidate."

I think it's critical to remember that (99% of the time) when we encounter a cop, he's* on the job - we're just living our lives. I expect more of them because of that. Guess what - I'll take more of your shit without resorting to a suplex if you encounter me at work, too.  I get that they're people (my brother is a cop and works for the marshals, several of my friends are cops, and I'm a (civil) attorney), but if they react like this even 1% of the time, they need to find another line of work...preferably one where they're not armed and able to accost citizenry.













* I'm using "he" in the interests of grammatical ease and simplicity. Feel free to mentally say "he and/or she" if it fits your narrative.

[RandoRock]

 The whole "nature vs nurture" debate is something I've never taken much stock in considering, and please forgive me if parts of this are a bit too blunt, during my upbringing I was unfortunate enough to be involved in many a situation that involved various levels of abuse. I watched my mom get beat on a pretty much daily basis, I myself was beat on occasion, and when you add in the unfortunate things that would happen to me at night (I'm sure you get the point so I'm not going to elaborate) it makes for a pretty shitty time. In all that I learned one thing above all else, it sucked! It was an awful experience that caused me a great deal of pain over several years and still causes me the occasional issue to this day. Now why is this important? Because if I know how awful it is why would I want to do it to someone else? That's always the excuse you get from the woman beaters and child molesters is that whole cry baby bullshit about how it happened to them. That gives nobody the excuse to inflict that sort of pain onto others.

I also grew up with several quite mean step dads and my own biological father refused to acknowledge me for 21 years and after I finally did contact him, he pretty much told me that if we talked it would ruin the vibe of his new family and to never call him again.

I'm not trying to bum anyone out or throw out my sob stories, the point I'm trying to make is that all these excuses that criminals use are pretty much bullshit. I hear the dad issues one about 1000x a day and like I said before the abusers always try to justify it by saying it happened to them.

Okay that's enough of that cheerful subject. Moving on to the whole white privilege thing; yes I am a white, hetero, male and I know this is going to ruffle some feathers but I'm a pretty strong believer that the whole white privilege argument is bullshit. Now before we jump to throwing out the racist accusations just hear me out.

Based on what I've seen regarding how certain individuals are treated I've reached the conclusion that about 80% of the time(I'll agree that there are just some people who are racist asshats) its not someone's skin color that dictates how they are treated but more their demeanor and how they present themselves. It comes across as more of a cultural thing than a race thing. When a man, regardless of skin color, walks around with his pants hanging off his ass, being loud, obnoxious, and well everything else that fits the stereotype of "thug life" they are going to treated with a certain level of apprehension. Why? Because typically these are the fellas that are going to do something that makes your night way worse than it needed to be. This is regardless of skin color because I have seen quite a few white guys, Hispanic guys, and even the occasional Asian walk around with the thug life attitude. It's that culture and attitude that leads to negative interactions with law enforcement or really anyone in general. How you behave towards others directly impacts how they behave towards you and a good majority of the time race has very little to do with it.

The reason it becomes seen as a racist issue is because typically when you see people behaving in such a way they are young black guys. Once again I know some of you are immediately going to assume I'm racist but it's not racism its just the truth. Before everyone goes off the rails here thinking I'm some kind of Nazi I'm well aware that there are plenty of white fellas that by into that lifestyle just like I know quite a few black guys that could easily fit under the definition of redneck. I also know that a group of hillbilly rednecks can cause just as much apprehension as a group of gangster thugs. Color aside it all boils down to behavior, and just to show you where I'm coming from lets run through a little scenario for you.

*Celebrities' names are used to portray likeness not the actual celebrity* You are sitting in the park, just sort of hanging out maybe listening to some bowling tapes or whale sounds, when you are approached by a man that bears a striking resemblance to Lil' Wayne. The man in not so eloquent terms asks to use your phone...do you give it to him?

Now same scenario but with a different whale tape, you're just hanging out and a man who bears a striking resemblance to Dr. Ben Carson approaches and politely asks to use your phone. Do you give it to him? 

How'd you do? Did you let Lil' Wayne call his baby momma or did you let Dr. Ben Carson call his wife? They are both black men, in the same park, asking the same questions but I bet you had to think about it more before you gave one the phone. Does that make you racist? Or does that make you someone who looks at behavior?

You can run the same scenario with all the ethnicities and I'm pretty sure the results will be the same. Hell even switch it up and have 90s version of Eminem be the first guy and Morgan Freeman be the second. My point is that while racism does exist it is pretty silly to it's the only underlying factor on how certain people are treated.

Going back to the whole white privilege thing; I'm white and I can tell you from experience my life has not been inherently easier because of that fact. My own choices and actions led me to where I am and skin color was neither a help nor hindrance in pretty much any situation. Except for one blatant case of racist practices where My brother, who is half Mexican, and myself were both working at the same job, had the same college schedule, the same bills, hell basically the same lives except for the whole partly Hispanic thing. We both applied for food stamps since we were broke college fellas, he checked the Hispanic box and I checked the Caucasian box on the application. Other than that and the names on top they were exactly the same( we decided to make an experiment out of it) and when we got our responses back one was approved while the other wasn't. Care to guess who didn't get approved?

Real racism does exist but it's become overshadowed by this strange new desire everyone has to stop holding people accountable for their actions. If a black guy gets arrest it's automatically because the system is racist. No matter what he was doing that caused his arrest, the only reason it happened is because racism in America. If a white guy gets promoted it's because of white privilege, regardless of the work he put to earn it the whole reason it happened was because everything is easier when you're white. We as a society have become so obsessed with race that we no longer hold anyone accountable for their behavior.

but as always these are just like my opinions, man.

Also Jgiffin is right as well, if a cop or anyone for that matter is a racist, misogynistic, homophobic, they should be held 100% accountable and fired, drug through the muck, or just taken out to the middle of the desert and left there.   

[RandoRock]

One more thing I forgot to mention in my wall o text is that all this "boy who cried racism" really does is take focus away from real issues. Take the blatant homophobia that runs rampant not only in everyday society but is also flaunted quite regularly in our government. Homosexuals are actively discriminated against not only by peoples actions but by actually legislation that dictates what they can and can't do just because they are gay.

There are no more laws that restrict different races from anything, there are no policies, procedures, pending legislation, current legislation, or anything at all that prohibits one race from doing something and not another.

Yet there are all of those things for the LGBT community. Not only that any time progress is made for equal rights for homosexuals it is not only openly protested it is also publicly fought against by our government. They don't even try to hide their hate and bigotry, in fact some of them use it to garner support! People are too busy focusing on the media induced problems that they are failing to recognize the real evil that's happening.

[ZoeAbides]

While I understand and respect your point of view, and I don't necessarily think you're a racist, it's quite easy for those with privilege to not see it, (or even think it's a myth).  I myself had to learn as well, as it's mainly invisible to those with privilege.  Note, those WITH privilege does not necessarily mean you HAVE privilege or ARE privileged in the traditional sense.

I humbly and kindly submit two articles:

White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack by Peggy McIntosh http://ted.coe.wayne.edu/ele3600/mcintosh.html

Explaining White Privilege To A Broke White Person (which is a good follow-up article to the first one) http://occupywallstreet.net/story/explaining-white-privilege-broke-white-person

Happy reading and happy learning!

[BikerDude]

The issue of several cops vs one individual really boils down to safety. I know more times than not it seems excessive but at the end of the day a cop is just a person doing their job. It is not a cop's job to stand one on one with a potentially violent suspect just because of the worlds sense of what looks good or appropriate.

I'm not suggesting that. I'm saying that when there are 20 cops and one guy without a gun it seems spectacularly excessive that he ends up shot multiple times. I think it is a good thing to have many cops respond. So that they don't have to shoot the suspect. But it seems to generally go the other way.

The main thing is that I get it that being a cop is a very difficult job. It takes a very committed person possessing of certain skill and temperament. Likewise being something like a surgeon. But nobody suggests that the difficulty relieves a surgeon from doing a good job. In fact it is accepted that they should be held to the highest standard. If a surgeon exhibits gross negligence he doesn't get to continue being a surgeon. What percentage of the cops in the video would you suppose are still cops? I'm betting pretty much all of them.
It's difficult not to come away pretty sure that there are a lot of cops who prefer / hope for a violent end to such encounters.
In fact I'd have to say that the profession really does seem to attract people who enjoy violence. I'm sorry if that seem offensive to the law enforcement community but to me it seems in the light of so many events to be very very evident.
And I've known several people who went into law enforcement since they were kids. I'd have to say they like carrying a gun and kicking ass.
And yeah probably shooting people given the "opportunity".

[RandoRock]

Before I get into it just a fair warning, I love to debate! So many of my answers are probably going to be fairly long and despite any colorful language I may use please know that I am perfectly calm.

The one overlying theme behind every article I've ever read about white privilege is that they never present any real facts or evidence to support their claims, Most of what is listed in the first article is unsupported by any real facts whatsoever, it's just the author listing off things that she thinks without backing them up. The author claims that because she is white she can do all these things and she is implying that she knows for a fact all of them are specifically white advantages; yet she offers no evidence to support her claims. To me that's not white privilege but just regular ignorance. I generally refrain from posting articles as a way to strengthen my arguments because for every article you find that claims one thing I can find another that claims the opposite. In the interest of full disclosure I have read the first article before since, like the second one says, it's been around forever.

What the white privilege argument fails to really do is address the fact that most of the points are just perceived privileged, it's easy for me to see someone smile at me while I'm shopping and claim that it's because I'm white. Just as it would be easy for a black person that wasn't smiled at to claim it was a case of "everyday racism". The problem with making claims like that is there no way to determine all the factors that go into people's daily interactions with one another. Being able to move into a new neighborhood and feeling welcome is not a white privilege, the author should move to predominantly Black,Asian, or Hispanic neighborhood and see if she can still claim the same. Now once again I know people are probably reading this and thinking "man this guy is racist" or "this guy just doesn't get it because he's white" which are the two most common responses i get whenever this topic is brought up since we now live in a world where you either agree that white people are naturally privileged and ingrained with "passive racism" or you are just a full blown racist that "doesn't get it" which is not only crazy, it's sad.

How is it people can be so quick to throw out the white privileged label for perceived slights but are so willing to ignore the blatant acts of discrimination that happen in this country everyday. Lets take a look at some, shall we?

The NAACP
The Executive Leadership Council
Association of Black Psychologists
American Association of Blacks in Energy
National Association of Black Accountants
National Organization of Black Hotel Owners

I could go on but there are literally dozens of organizations that market themselves as being only for a specific race and every race has them, except for white people. If a white person was to try and start any organization that was marketed towards other white people then they would almost immediately as a racist trying to start a hate group. Just like if me as a white man was to say that I'm proud of my ethnicity I would be labeled racist. The former UFC heavyweight champ had Brown Pride tattooed across his chest. Do you think he would have even got to be in the organization at all if it said White Pride? Whether people want to admit it or not this is discrimination, it is just socially acceptable discrimination because it is directed towards white people and we are the only group that it is acceptable to openly hate.

We've let this whole racism thing become such a huge factor in our daily lives that it's gotten to the point that even the most mundane things are becoming racist news stories. Take the Oscars for example, people were threatening to boycott because of the absence of black nominees. Instead of looking at who earned what or what movie was best all people could see was an opportunity to claim racism. On that same note why not take a look at how many white NBA MVP's there have been in the last 10 years. I'll save you the time, it's not a high number. So what's the difference? Shouldn't awards only be given to those that have earned them? If the best player in the NBA every year is a black guy then every year the MVP should be a black guy. It's as simple as that, race should have nothing to do with it. Just like at the Oscars, if the best actor every year is a white guy then it should be a white guy that wins. We are letting this notion that everything is racist dictate our every move and it's becoming crazy.

It is important to remember the sins of our past, we as a society should never forget that America was built on the blood and tears of many races. Yes white people did some horrible, horrible things throughout the years and we shouldn't forget but we will never move forward it if we keep letting the sins of the past dictate our future. Our past is horrible but it has led us to where we are today, if we could stop arguing and trying to make people feel guilty about things that happened 200 years ago and instead focus that energy on trying to improve the future there is no telling what we could accomplish in the next 200 years. Stop drawing lines in the sand and start treating each other as American's, we are the only country that puts the African, Asian, Mexican, or European label on ourselves when talking about people born in this country. Go as a black guy in France if he's African French...He'll look at you like you're crazy. We need to quit going out of our way to be divided or things will never improve.

Even though I said I was against posting links in my arguments I'll leave with the following.

https://youtu.be/GeixtYS-P3s

 

[RandoRock]

@BikerDude

Saying that it generally goes the other way is just not true. If every Police interaction ended in violence then I would agree with you that there is a real problem. It's like i said before the only stories you ever heard about are the bad ones. On the same token if a surgeon does something good you are much more likely to hear about it but you are way less likely to hear about the thousands of people that die every year as a result of Doctor malpractice and those Doctors get to keep practicing medicine. I agree with the fact that there are cops out there that are just in it for the thrill or to feel powerful but to say that it's any sort of a majority of them is just not accurate. The majority of cops are good people that are doing a stressful job, it's the ones that are trying to be Vick Mackie from the Shield that make the profession as a whole look bad and I think we can all agree that there is no need for shitheads like that running around with any sort of authority.

Hate the bad cops but don't lump the good ones in with their bullshit.