Race in America
 

Is there any evidence of things getting any better?

Yes. Things are much better. This made the news and the cops got in trouble.

Only a few years ago, this would go unnoticed.

I think good quality video in everyone's pocket can help. "Karen" in Central Park was unable to get a guy in trouble...

IIRC, they both had left before the cops got there, so there's no way to know how that would have gone.

Of course this is where photo-shopping could really hurt us. I'm already seeing pictures of the officer at a Trump rally and wearing a hat with a racist slogan. Our divisions are easy targets for bad actors.

You're right, and this is true, but goddamnit we've only managed to progress to the point where you get fired from your job for LITERALLY MURDERING SOMEONE. You get fired. For murder. That's not getting "in trouble"

To be fair, I am trying to avoid consuming much news, because it's not healthy to let so much shit enter your life when you can't do anything about it. So I have only looked at a few headlines on this incident.

That is wise man, I think I need to find some balance in my social media intake. It'll be easier when I get back to work next week.

We finished watching When They See Us about the Central Park Five last night. Now I'm obsessing on race. Media plays such a big role in this. The press ran with the Wilding story which was an early domino in a lot of bad shit in NYC and the country.

One of my High School friends is dealing with the terror of race right now. She adopted two African babies years ago and is raising them in rural NY. The boys are really tall well built middle-schoolers who look like high-schoolers and by all accounts are smart sweet kids. It may not really matter who they are though, it's what they are...

Racism is not only judgement based upon color of skin. Racism is judging anyone on any first impression. An emotion. That conclusion comes from an emotional brain of a child. And not from an adult who is thinking like an adult.

In that event, the suspect was fully handcuffed and walked back to a police car. For some reason he fell to the ground at that car. And then the officer pressed his knee into that black suspect for maybe four minutes. Doing so (for some reason) even with one hand constantly in his pocket. Pressed until (as paramedics speculate) the suspect died. Paramedics never found a pulse.

This is true. There are lots of other cues people take into consideration, even subconsciously when assessing the race of another person. Then, acting on that information without properly considering other pertinent factors, that's racism. Those other cues could be dress or name or zip code, etc. Of course each of us is more than just what can be observed from a distance or through a screen. Race, by itself, is just a social construct. Twist the kaleidoscope a little more one way or the other and the same content displays a different pattern entirely. One Karen's "bushy haired stranger" is another person's friendly fellow birder. Which pattern better fits reality?

No, tw, no. You're wrong about judging on first impressions. That's prejudice and stereotyping. People judge All. The. Time. It's how we all move through the world. But those among us who glide through on autopilot miss a lot.

Racism is the result of lazy thinking. Thinking is hard, observing and learning should be an ongoing process, *like children do*. They do it because it's fun and interesting. *Adults* who believe they already know what they need to know about a situation or a person, and act in a racist way, they're exhibiting a learned behavior. But they're doing in place of actual learning--just concluding. That's prejudice; prejudging before the pertinent information is known.

Idk, man...I know a lot of people (on both sides of the coin) that work pretty damn hard to be racist/and or take something in an unintended racially charged way.

You have just described how many judgments are made only on height. A cleft lip. Clothes or even and only observing hoes. Whether they talk with a foreign accent. Body odor. Parkinson's disease. Facial expressions. Tourette syndrome. People are judged by all those other 'First Impressions' just like they are judged for their skin color.

Because others are lazy and for many other reasons. All reasons directly traceable to making decisions from an emotional brain. And not waiting to learn facts - that the adult brain needs before it can make any such judgement.

Yes, lazy is one reason why people do not have enough attention span to learn before making judgement. And so we have a president who is a classic racist - who makes all judgments using his 30 second attention span. Just another of many reasons why one judges others only using emotions. And in his case, also due to ego. Another reasons for his racist behavior.

Judging anyone by first impressions is racism. The Don does that constantly - like any good racist always does. No wonder he publically praised the KKK, White Supremacists, and Nazis.

Nobody has any logical reason to believe racism is only about race.

Yes, one may foolishly make that conclusion because race and racism sound so similar. Using another classic thinking error called 'word association'. As if somebody from Hungary must always be hungry. It must be true. Those words sound alike.

Racism has always been about judging others only using first impressions. Why they do can be explained by so many other reasons. Skin color was simply a first and obvious example, so blatant, that millions must die.

Lazy is only one of many reasons why racist judge people only on first impressions.

Tw said his opinion more times more times than BigV said his. Tw wins, BigV loses and is a poor loser at that for not having thanked tw for teaching him English.

How emotional was he? His knee was in George Floyd's neck for almost nine minutes. Floyd had stopped displaying signs of life after about four minutes. Clearly was not a threat to anyone. Derek Chauvin's hand were even in his pockets. Floyd was never a threat. That was absolute (maximum) contempt for Floyd.

Contempt is obviously an example of the emotional brain making decisions. If his adult brain was in charge, he would have put Floyd in a police car eight minutes earlier - long after Floyd was fully handcuffed. Or he would have investigated why Floyd was not moving for so many minutes. All that is required by police training. But that requires one to be using the brain of an adult. To be thinking in a logical and responsible manner.

The brain of a child is not capable of thinking logically or responsible. That is where contempt, anger, hate, fear, prejudice, and stereotyping comes from. The job of an adult's brain is to control and restrain a child's brain. Only adults can learn police training. Only adults have mental abilities (the adult brain) to learn that stuff.

Others were also using emotions. Three other officers, if thinking like an adult, would have intervened. They clearly did not even try. That was not a adult acting in an adult manner. They also demonstrated contempt - an emotional decision - for a black man. If acting as an adult, police training would have intervened. But responsibility and logical thought only comes from an adult's brain.

We know from statistics and from police training that those four officers would not have done that had it been a white man. Floyd was not a threat to anyone - as Chauvin clearly demonstrates. He had so much emotional contempt for Floyd as to even leave his hands in his pockets.

Floyd was dead long before those nine minutes. That was not an accident. Or even manslaughter. That was murder directly traceable to emotional decisions (contempt, prejudice, stereotyping) by Chauvin and three peers. An adult who uses emotion to kill someone is, at minimum, second degree murder. If his contempt for Floyd can be proven that massive - that emotional, then that is 1st degree murder.

Four years earlier, a black man was stopped outside Minneapolis. An officer requested the passenger's license. Castile was not even driving. That black man reached for his wallet. Cop shot him five times. The officer later said a black man was reaching for something. Of course he was - his wallet. He even said so. An emotional officer knew it was a gun and shot him ... five times. That is not a decision based only in emotions? Of course it is. That is an adult acting like a child.

Those who do not learn what an adult is required to do also love Trump. He openly encourages emotional behavior. The emotional love it when Trump lies daily. Promotes hate. Stereotypes others. Constantly demonstrates prejudiced and insults them. Many adults do not act as adults. They entertain their emotions. A "Me-Me-Me-Me" attitude that even wants to 'wreck shit'.

A child only understands the world in terms of "Me-Me-Me". He does not yet have an adult's brain. So childish as to even believe their rights are more important than their responsibilities.

Only the brain of an adult understands things such as responsibility.