3623

I was trying to think of how this can be “fixed” - obviously treating people as equals and as you would want them to teat you is the simple answer, but how to achieve that?

Would having more Black police offices and people in power help the situation?
Is there something preventing this from happening? (racism?)

In South Africa, there was fear around the end of apartheid, fear that “the black were going to drive the whites into the sea”, civil war etc. Then, it happened, apartheid ended, black people started owning companies, getting into positions of power and authority, and society did not collapse. The police person that came to help you when you needed it was black and neither of you cared (*some did but unfortunately you get racists everywhere).

New York Times

In impoverished black townships like Alexandra, the enmity between the police and black South Africans was so bad in the mid-1980s that residents chased away black police officers who lived in the township by burning down their family homes.

But with the end of apartheid in 1994, change came quickly. The local police force here got its first black commander. Now, all but a handful of the Alexandra police station’s officers are black, and many live in the community. Police stations are no longer redoubts with gates and guards who restrict entry.

Our demographics are very different to those of the US (we have 67% African, 21% White population and USA has 12.7% Black/African American and 73% White) so I’m not sure how relevant this is but it could be something.

I’m extremely grateful that we ended Apartheid and had Mandela get released from prison, get voted into power, turn around and say “The time for the healing of the wounds has come”

Sorry, this is a bit all over the place,
tldr: Would having more black people in positions of authority help and how can that be achieved?

I think you’re in for a very hard time until the fucktard that you have as president is removed and change can happen from the top down.

3624

This was great, thanks. That bible prop photo op is the most transparently cynical act I’ve seen from an American political office holder in my lifetime. And that’s saying something. You usually only see something like that from some evil character in a movie.

3626

Get rid of the racist president.

3627

Necessary but not sufficient.

There have been multiple good plans posted here over the last few days, most with common elements like demilitarizing the cops, ending or weakening qualified immunity, etc.

3628

2nd Degree Murder is the new charge, other 3 officers charged (not clear what charges).

3629

Well, of course. I don’t think this required Scottsplaining.

3630

I didn’t mean it that way, sorry.

3631

Really good (and growing) turnout at a rally here in my small New Hampshire. The majority are f cars driving through our central square are beeping in solidarity including a tractor trailer driven by a bearded white rural blue collar driver. The volume is impressive. And mask usage is 100%.

3632
3633

No worries. :)

Step 1. Get rid of the racist president.
Step 2. Nitty Gritty.

Hopefully we can get cracking on Step 2 while we wait for Step 1.

NOVEMBER, TAKE ME AWAY

3634

Cincinnati:


3635

Not a great thought here. Cotton absolutely would send the military into the streets. “No quarter” and all. And he’s as big an asshole as DJT in his own way.

And no way the fucking NYT should have ever printed this op-ed.

3636

Sounds like a great Catch-22 question for FBI interrogators.

“Are you opposed to fascists, or are you with them?”

Opposed? You’re ANTIFA!

With them? You’re a fascist!

3637

“I don’t think there’s a question of whether there will be spikes in cases in 10 to 14 days,” Mark Shrime, a public-health researcher at Harvard, told me. “With so many protests happening, that are getting so much bigger, I don’t think it’s a question of if, but when and where.”

Maimuna Majumder, a computational epidemiologist at Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, agrees. “All things considered, there’s little doubt that these protests will translate into increased risk of transmission for COVID-19,” she told me by email.

Yet that risk does not lead Majumder to oppose the protests. “I personally believe that these particular protests—which demand justice for black and brown bodies that have been brutalized by the police—are a necessary action,” she said. “Structural racism has been a public-health crisis for much longer than the pandemic has.” Even the COVID-19 pandemic has harmed black people disproportionately, Majumder told me. While about 13 percent of Americans are black, a quarter of all COVID-19 deaths where the victim’s race is known have befallen black people, according to the COVID Racial Data Tracker.

Personally, I am still experiencing psychological whiplash from the zeitgeist of a week ago (never ever ever go outside without a mask and stay at home unless you absolutely have to go out) and the zeitgeist of right now (everyone across the world fill the public squares in solidarity). But this appears to be a thing that is happening. Part of me wants to go join a march, as L.A. is clearly an epicenter of this. (The whole thing went next-level at Fairfax and Beverly, about two blocks from where I live.) But an arguably bigger part of me doesn’t want to get COVID and either get sick or pass it to my wife and daughter.

TL/DR: 2020 is an insane-ass year, and ‘interesting times’ are much better encountered in the pages of a book.

3638

There is no easy answer here. But I just can’t criticize folks for not sitting this one out. This might be a spark that ignites generational changes in policing and institutional racism in this country. Maybe 100 years from now people look back at this week as a turning point. Venting on twitter ain’t gonna’ cut it.

3639

Police are largely standing low key blocks away chatting but there is a representative of both city and state police in the crowd holding signs saying “We hear you.”

3640
3641

That you cannot seem to grasp that access to quality healthcare for black communities is ONE OF THE MAIN REASONS that the coronavirus has hit this population the hardest is staggering to me.

The folks out there protesting? That’s one of the things they’re protesting about.

What did you think “systemic racism” meant??

3642

The shit writes itself.

3643

By this contextless body-count metric the civil war was completely unjustified.