I will first address Mr. Bennett's cartoon. He's 100% spot on. Although, how many of us complain about seeing Aaron Rodgers in commercials all the time or Peyton Manning? Personally, I appreciate commercials in the sense they offer free viewing/service. I do not like having insurance, car and pill commercials repeatedly shoved down my throat. I would rather a platform that promotes regional businesses at a discounted price per commercial break. If you have a 3 minute break, allow 2 local/regional businesses to purchase those 30 ad slots within reason and let the other 8 30 second slots go to top bidder. Imagine how much this will help the regional area businesses GROW, which adds JOBS. Guess what, more JOBS means LESS CRIME.
I'll get into that more after this.
I love statistical analysis, absolutely love it. That said, we know stats lie and can be manipulated to perpetrate any "truth" or "fact" one wants to promote.
Using first graphic on the link shared. The individuals shot, do we question why they attracted police attention? Were they breaking the law? Were they simply walking down the straight and officers pulled the trigger?
Originally Posted by: Zero2Cool
This was addressed further down the page, specifically 31% of black people killed were suspected of violent crime.
This argument in itself is absurd. What level of crime justifies killing the accused? Who gets to make the determination? What happened to innocent until proven guilty? I know there are some cases (like shootouts, armed robberies, etc) where lethal force is absolutely necessary - but in our country excessive force is a serious problem that very few first world nations have.
We absolutely have a racial issue in this Country. There is no denying it. The question is how we do reverse it?
Ask yourself this. If we didn't see on the news black person killed, black person robbed, hispanic person raped, etc ... over and over and over again ... would we have the connection to build the delusional fear that race is linked to a crime? Do you understand this? Do you make the connection? Do you see the PROBLEM?
Why are we shared this information? Because the MEDIA feels we NEED to know. Why do we NEED TO KNOW? To be AWARE! Do you understand yet? Do you see the problem?
Reports of murders commited by minorities, black on black crime, etc, have historically (and continue to be) sensationalized to paint minorities as "the other", to dehumanize, it's a classic out of the facist playbook perfected by the Nazis (I'm not saying this as to compare people posting here to Nazi's, but if you want to look at race, you have to understand your history). If we dehumanize minorities, we don't need to worry ourselves when they are disproportionately abused by the police, passed up for jobs, beaten and lynched in the streets. We paint broad brush strokes - if black teens in south Chicago and Baltimore are killing each other, black people must be inherently violent - they must be sub-human, and as soon as we accept that, we don't have to worry our conscience with petty issues like systemic discrimination or Police brutality. Don't look into the socioeconomic reasons black kids in these neighborhoods succumb to violence - they're black and out of control after all, that's all you need to know. Put a bow on it and get back to watching football.
It's a tactic we use to great effect to justify killing hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians in the middle east. "They come from countries that support terrorism", "they are animals". If they didn't want to die, they shouldn't have been born there! This rhetoric often comes from a stance of complete ignorance, people who are completely unaware of our countries' direct role in the region's current strife, how much of this dates back to the Sykes Picot Agreement, etc. Again we have to be aware of history to start to understand racism and dehumanization.
http://nprillinois.org/post/ex-neo-nazi-sheds-light-alt-right-life-after-hate#stream/0 Most people are not extremist, but we let extreme viewpoints filter in at what we perceive as acceptable levels. One might not want to literally lynch a black person, but there are many, many layers to the onion of racism and we dehumanize minorities in so many aspects of daily life.
We see special awards for black athletes. Black specific dating sites. Even a college black hall of fame. We see statues removed. If we want to be considered equal, why doesn't it go both ways? I can't help wonder, is this helping or is this creating more racism and divide in our Country?
This argument only makes sense if we're completely unaware of historical context. Why would we need a Hall of Fame specifically for black people? The answer is simple, black people have been treated as less than human in this country for a very long time, and continue to be. If action is not taken to specifically recognize minorities, recognition rarely occurs. This is an issue that has improved over time but that doesn't mean we can throw our hands in the air, excited with our achievements and declare racism is over.