(05-29-2020, 07:33 PM)JagJohn Wrote:

(05-29-2020, 06:00 PM)jagibelieve Wrote: No.  I'm not going to deny that there are in fact still people that hold racist beliefs.  However, I would estimate that the percentage is VERY small.  I know people around my age (mid 50's) that have learned that racist ideas were wrong.  Their elders (parents, relatives, etc.) might not have.  I know that my great aunt used to call black people "coloreds" until the day that she died.  There was no changing a 90 year old woman's mind about that.

I would guess that most people age 60 or less don't believe or look at race/color the way that they did pre-1970 or so.

As far as "racial injustice", I don't think that it's a real "problem" today.  Everyone has the same opportunity to achieve (or not) whatever they want to achieve.  A poor black kid growing up poor in a ghetto has the ability to become an award winning neurosurgeon. - Ben Carson

A black woman who grew up in Birmingham, Alabama when segregation was still a thing became Secretary of State. - Condoleezza Rice.

A poor black man grew up to become the CEO of a major food chain. - Herman Cain

People need to get rid of the whole "victim" deal, especially with regards to race.

Since I answered your question why not answer what I have been asking?  Regarding this whole case, why did the officers take the suspect down to the ground and why were they restraining him the way that they were (as shown in the publicly released videos/pictures)?  Why is that part left out of any video clips or pictures?

I would put money on it that the reason they did that wasn't because of his race or skin color.  There had to be a reason.

And before anyone says that I'm justifying or condoning the actions that the officers took, I am not.  I'm just questioning why they did what they did and what led up to it.  That part hasn't been presented yet in the court of public opinion.

Good post, it's nice to have a bit of rational discussion.

I understand your view, and I agree with you that the people in society who hold blatant racist views are fewer than in the past (at least if you look at it on the grand scale of history). But I definitely disagree about racism not being a big factor in the US today. I don't believe that something that was so entrenched in people's lives back then just fades away to basically nothing, and I don't believe that the society we live in today is fair for all; centuries of oppression created a structured society that still leaves many people facing much greater odds of achieving "success". Of course there are examples of people who have beaten the odds, but there are so many more examples of people who could not.

I hope that your vision of an equal society is something that we could achieve in the future, but I think there are many things that should be done to help bridge the seemingly increasing gaps that have emerged. NYC's logical and clear proposals about reforming police use of force and vetting for racial bias seems like an obvious immediate example of something that could make a difference, even if only in perception at first.

As far as your questions about what may have happened in this case to end up with the man on the ground, I obviously don't know anything you don't know. It would be interesting to see, for sure. But in my mind it doesn't change a thing about what happened once he was on the floor, cuffed, with three cops kneeling on him, essentially begging for his life. 

Either way, personally I am less interested in the specifics of each and every case like this. I always look at the big picture, and when you put this case in the context of so many others that we have seen over the last decade or so (and not just those that result in death), I find it impossible not to think about a bigger underlying problem that link these things. I know jj and last42 will see that as some kind of neurosis on my part, I feel similarly about their narrow use of statistics and how they ignore the views of people who actually live the experience, and the visual evidence that forms a terrifying whole, not a series of singularities.