Sandydragon wrote:
It means that there are still plenty of daily incidents where the police are acting quite reasonably. Of course there are incidents where it looks clearly unreasonable and they should be called out on that, but that doesn't mean that every incident is going to be racist or involve excessive use of force so don't assume that it does and people should stop trying to highlight every singe incident as such. It dilutes the perfectly valid arguments that can be made.
I just don’t get this.
Sure you can find people who are saying every single cop is a racist and every single cop loves assaulting people but that doesn’t mean people highlighting the hundreds of terrible incidents caught on film (even just in the last couple of weeks) is the same thing.
Calling attention to it is not dismissing all the positive interactions, it’s just pointing out the sheer volume of incidents where Police fail to calm or de-escalate potentially violent situations. Framing it as though Police managing to restrain themselves from committing crimes (against their own citizens) counts as a positive, rather than the norm, is setting such an absurdly low bar.
Everyone is probably guilty at times of responding to only the dumbest, most sweeping generalisations made by those on the other side of the argument. The fact some people are going OTT about how bad all cops are does not diminish the horror of what the real perpetrators are doing. And there seem to be an awful lot of them.
What he said.
By saying the police overreacted instead of saying that the police perpetrated a crime against an innocent, on several occasions, is a gross misrepresentation of fact. I'd argue that is far more harmful than the handful of people who are going OTT by labelling all police as racist thugs.
But, again, as Trevor Noah pointed out, by association they look very bad because they're not standing up against their colleagues who are racist thugs.
In fact, he likens the police (in the US) to a gang in the way they step up to protect their own rather than stepping up to condemn violence against the very people they are sworn to protect.
The sense of perspective is saying that the police in the US is an extraordinarily corrupt organisation unfit for its purpose and should be remodelled from the bottom up into something that actually serves and protects people.
Do you actually read any of these posts? Where police have used excessive force should be called out. I've consistently argued for that. The term 'excessive use of force' is the correct one by the way - feel free to look it up.
Highlighting incidents where the facts have not been established and where police officers may have used force reasonably is just adding more fuel to the flames and is nonsense. Thats the point I'm making. Use some perspective to accurately highlight those incidents where there is excessive force. Its that simple.
Mikey Brown wrote:That BBC article is fucking stupid. There’s good arguments the middle class is basically disappearing in many places, particularly cities.
I guess it’s just better optics not to acknowledge the volume of people who could only reasonably qualify as ‘poverty class’. Just pretend they don’t exist.
Mikey Brown wrote:That BBC article is fucking stupid. There’s good arguments the middle class is basically disappearing in many places, particularly cities.
I guess it’s just better optics not to acknowledge the volume of people who could only reasonably qualify as ‘poverty class’. Just pretend they don’t exist.
Well if you disagree with the definitions of class, and what makes a person's class provided in that article then it would seem to be a fucking stupid article but accusing them of deliberately manipulating definitions to minimise numbers in poverty seems quite a leap.
What arguments/evidence do you have for saying that the middle class is disappearing?
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It was so much easier to blame Them. It was bleakly depressing to think They were Us. I've certainly never thought of myself as one of Them. No one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We're always one of Us. It's Them that do the bad things.
Mikey Brown wrote:Anyone seen anything clear around Erik Salgado’s death yet? I’ve heard conflicting reports whether his unborn child died too or not.
Sarah Grossman has died, seemingly from being pepper sprayed and tear gassed.
We seem to be at a point now it’s just a matter of seeing if the police can go a whole 24 hours without breaking the Geneva convention.
ACAB
For further emphasis on my point.
2 incidents where are both tragic and not yet fully understood.
The initial comments; breaking Geneva convention and ACABs.
We have no idea yet if they are the result of excessive use of force, or perfectly legitimate use of force. Yet the assumption is made and the police are judged by the prejudices held. Unhelpful which is what I was calling out, not legitimate identification of excessive use of force.
Mikey Brown wrote:That BBC article is fucking stupid. There’s good arguments the middle class is basically disappearing in many places, particularly cities.
I guess it’s just better optics not to acknowledge the volume of people who could only reasonably qualify as ‘poverty class’. Just pretend they don’t exist.
Well if you disagree with the definitions of class, and what makes a person's class provided in that article then it would seem to be a fucking stupid article but accusing them of deliberately manipulating definitions to minimise numbers in poverty seems quite a leap.
What arguments/evidence do you have for saying that the middle class is disappearing?
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Because the number of shop owners is declining so of course the middle class is shrinking - we just haven't realised it.
Sandydragon wrote:
It means that there are still plenty of daily incidents where the police are acting quite reasonably. Of course there are incidents where it looks clearly unreasonable and they should be called out on that, but that doesn't mean that every incident is going to be racist or involve excessive use of force so don't assume that it does and people should stop trying to highlight every singe incident as such. It dilutes the perfectly valid arguments that can be made.
I just don’t get this.
Sure you can find people who are saying every single cop is a racist and every single cop loves assaulting people but that doesn’t mean people highlighting the hundreds of terrible incidents caught on film (even just in the last couple of weeks) is the same thing.
Calling attention to it is not dismissing all the positive interactions, it’s just pointing out the sheer volume of incidents where Police fail to calm or de-escalate potentially violent situations. Framing it as though Police managing to restrain themselves from committing crimes (against their own citizens) counts as a positive, rather than the norm, is setting such an absurdly low bar.
Everyone is probably guilty at times of responding to only the dumbest, most sweeping generalisations made by those on the other side of the argument. The fact some people are going OTT about how bad all cops are does not diminish the horror of what the real perpetrators are doing. And there seem to be an awful lot of them.
I'll repeat myself then.
Whilst there are plenty of actual incidents where police have used excessive force in the past couple of weeks, assuming that every incident is the fault of the police, or that harassment/racism is present is plain wrong. Each incident should be viewed on its own merits, not with pre-conceptions. Those that are, or appear to be, clear excessive then of course they should be called out. But there are equally occasions where Police in the US, and elsewhere, will use force quite reasonably, including lethal force, where it is perfectly legitimate. Labelling all incidents as shocking dilutes the valid message that needs to be aired.
Framing it as though Police managing to restrain themselves from committing crimes (against their own citizens) counts as a positive, rather than the norm, is setting such an absurdly low bar.
FFS that's not the argument I am making.
The police are permitted to use force when it is reasonable. Where an incident meets the criteria, there is no point in anyone jumping up and down and shouting about excessive force or racism when clearly the police officers in question were acting with the laws given the situation.
If you feel that the use of reasonable force by a police officer in the course f their duties is a crime then that is fucking stupid. There are occasions when it is necessary.
Call out the police when they breach those laws, not when they operate fairly. At the moment, every incident is hitting social media and they are all being highlighted as police brutality and or racism. That is simply not the case. Hence the call for some perspective.
That is not what I’m saying, and it’s obviously a logic trap anyway. I feel like we’re arguing two sides of the same coin here at points.
I agree treating every single interaction as a hate-filled, racist act of criminality by the police is incredibly unhelpful and dilutes the impact of the bad stuff. That was exactly my point about responding to the worst criticisms of those opposing you. I don’t know if you’re directing that at everyone here disagreeing, the mainstream media as a whole, or just Cashead and his dank memes.
What I was saying was that (aside from the excess noise) the volume of alarming incidents, and officers quite clearly using the laws as an excuse to violent in cases, is still massive. I don’t think the bleating from either end of the spectrum about either the police or BLM being 100% bad changes that.
Mikey Brown wrote:Anyone seen anything clear around Erik Salgado’s death yet? I’ve heard conflicting reports whether his unborn child died too or not.
Sarah Grossman has died, seemingly from being pepper sprayed and tear gassed.
We seem to be at a point now it’s just a matter of seeing if the police can go a whole 24 hours without breaking the Geneva convention.
ACAB
For further emphasis on my point.
2 incidents where are both tragic and not yet fully understood.
The initial comments; breaking Geneva convention and ACABs.
We have no idea yet if they are the result of excessive use of force, or perfectly legitimate use of force. Yet the assumption is made and the police are judged by the prejudices held. Unhelpful which is what I was calling out, not legitimate identification of excessive use of force.
I did explain already those were separate points about what was happen in the US, given the conversation was entirely about statues in the UK at that point.
I was asking if there was any clarity on what happened with either incident so I’m not what assumptions you’re suggesting I’ve made?
The Geneva convention comment was based on twitter thread of incidents caught on video, many of which as I described had police officers attacking medics while they were trying to help injured people.
Mikey Brown wrote:That BBC article is fucking stupid. There’s good arguments the middle class is basically disappearing in many places, particularly cities.
I guess it’s just better optics not to acknowledge the volume of people who could only reasonably qualify as ‘poverty class’. Just pretend they don’t exist.
Well if you disagree with the definitions of class, and what makes a person's class provided in that article then it would seem to be a fucking stupid article but accusing them of deliberately manipulating definitions to minimise numbers in poverty seems quite a leap.
What arguments/evidence do you have for saying that the middle class is disappearing?
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Because the number of shop owners is declining so of course the middle class is shrinking - we just haven't realised it.
Total balls.
Well, a third class originally came from merchants. There were the workers, the elite, and the merchants. Then that got changed to basically be the educated, the less educated and the elite, again.
That definition is useless now as so many people have got tertiary education that there’d be a huge middle class.
But the vast majority of them are working to make the elite richer. I’m pretty sure that’s the definition of working class.
2 incidents where are both tragic and not yet fully understood.
The initial comments; breaking Geneva convention and ACABs.
We have no idea yet if they are the result of excessive use of force, or perfectly legitimate use of force. Yet the assumption is made and the police are judged by the prejudices held. Unhelpful which is what I was calling out, not legitimate identification of excessive use of force.
I did explain already those were separate points about what was happen in the US, given the conversation was entirely about statues in the UK at that point.
I was asking if there was any clarity on what happened with either incident so I’m not what assumptions you’re suggesting I’ve made?
The Geneva convention comment was based on twitter thread of incidents caught on video, many of which as I described had police officers attacking medics while they were trying to help injured people.
Isn't the Geneva convention just for actions in war?
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It was so much easier to blame Them. It was bleakly depressing to think They were Us. I've certainly never thought of myself as one of Them. No one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We're always one of Us. It's Them that do the bad things.
Donny osmond wrote:
Well if you disagree with the definitions of class, and what makes a person's class provided in that article then it would seem to be a fucking stupid article but accusing them of deliberately manipulating definitions to minimise numbers in poverty seems quite a leap.
What arguments/evidence do you have for saying that the middle class is disappearing?
Sent from my CPH1951 using Tapatalk
Because the number of shop owners is declining so of course the middle class is shrinking - we just haven't realised it.
Total balls.
Well, a third class originally came from merchants. There were the workers, the elite, and the merchants. Then that got changed to basically be the educated, the less educated and the elite, again.
That definition is useless now as so many people have got tertiary education that there’d be a huge middle class.
But the vast majority of them are working to make the elite richer. I’m pretty sure that’s the definition of working class.
Isn't pretty much everyone working to make the "elite" richer?
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It was so much easier to blame Them. It was bleakly depressing to think They were Us. I've certainly never thought of myself as one of Them. No one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We're always one of Us. It's Them that do the bad things.
cashead wrote:If you could provide an example of someone who only did 1 evil act, who then presumably balanced it out with philanthropy, kindness and generosity, that would be great.
Alfred Nobel? Or was that just what we learned in Chemistry?
Digby wrote:I do quite the proposed route forward with the Colston statue from Banksy
“Here’s an idea that caters for both those who miss the Colston statue and those who don’t. We drag him out the water, put him back on the plinth, tie cable round his neck and commission some life-size bronze statues of protesters in the act of pulling him down. Everyone happy. A famous day commemorated.”
Love it!
Last edited by Which Tyler on Wed Jun 10, 2020 2:04 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Mikey Brown wrote:That BBC article is fucking stupid. There’s good arguments the middle class is basically disappearing in many places, particularly cities.
I guess it’s just better optics not to acknowledge the volume of people who could only reasonably qualify as ‘poverty class’. Just pretend they don’t exist.
Well if you disagree with the definitions of class, and what makes a person's class provided in that article then it would seem to be a fucking stupid article but accusing them of deliberately manipulating definitions to minimise numbers in poverty seems quite a leap.
What arguments/evidence do you have for saying that the middle class is disappearing?
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I have none at all. I guess just looking at the ‘middle’ of a society with so many astronomically rich and so many unbelievably poor just seems totally pointless. But that’s not the same thing.
It’s a common talking point you see where more affluent people can pretty much pretend poor people don’t exist. The “just work harder and stop being so poor” stuff. It’s probably exactly the thing I was criticising before of responding to some faceless entity on the internet.
I shouldn’t have said that as if the BBC themselves are trying to fiddle the optics. The idea of people in real, desperate poverty referring to themselves as the Precariat Proletariat was just too much for me.
Mikey Brown wrote:That BBC article is fucking stupid. There’s good arguments the middle class is basically disappearing in many places, particularly cities.
I guess it’s just better optics not to acknowledge the volume of people who could only reasonably qualify as ‘poverty class’. Just pretend they don’t exist.
Well if you disagree with the definitions of class, and what makes a person's class provided in that article then it would seem to be a fucking stupid article but accusing them of deliberately manipulating definitions to minimise numbers in poverty seems quite a leap.
What arguments/evidence do you have for saying that the middle class is disappearing?
Sent from my CPH1951 using Tapatalk
I have none at all. I guess just looking at the ‘middle’ of a society with so many astronomically rich and so many unbelievably poor just seems totally pointless. But that’s not the same thing.
It’s a common talking point you see where more affluent people can pretty much pretend poor people don’t exist. The “just work harder and stop being so poor” stuff. It’s probably exactly the thing I was criticising before of responding to some faceless entity on the internet.
I shouldn’t have said that as if the BBC themselves are trying to fiddle the optics. The idea of people in real, desperate poverty referring to themselves as the Precariat Proletariat was just too much for me.
I know what you mean, my folks live in East Sussex and their little bubble drives me crackers with their complete lack of awareness that some folk can't afford BMWs or 4 foreign holidays a year.
I would hope, being a teacher in and around Glasgow and Clydebank for the last 10 years, my eyes would be a little more open, altho I guess I'm as susceptible as anyone to being in a bubble.
I just think the death of the middle class is very much overstated. Even sink schools in West Dunbartonshire have a higher number of what I would call middle class kids than working class, altho I have to admit that is using my utterly non scientific assessments of other people's class. If I could be arsed I would look up their SIMD figures, but as that might take this particular soap box out from under me, I haven't done that yet.
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It was so much easier to blame Them. It was bleakly depressing to think They were Us. I've certainly never thought of myself as one of Them. No one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We're always one of Us. It's Them that do the bad things.
If you're looking for an example of one "evil" act, Leo Szilard is a good example. Helped create the Manhattan project, then regretted it for the rest of his life and was an advocate for de-nuclearisation.
Donny osmond wrote:
Well if you disagree with the definitions of class, and what makes a person's class provided in that article then it would seem to be a fucking stupid article but accusing them of deliberately manipulating definitions to minimise numbers in poverty seems quite a leap.
What arguments/evidence do you have for saying that the middle class is disappearing?
Sent from my CPH1951 using Tapatalk
I have none at all. I guess just looking at the ‘middle’ of a society with so many astronomically rich and so many unbelievably poor just seems totally pointless. But that’s not the same thing.
It’s a common talking point you see where more affluent people can pretty much pretend poor people don’t exist. The “just work harder and stop being so poor” stuff. It’s probably exactly the thing I was criticising before of responding to some faceless entity on the internet.
I shouldn’t have said that as if the BBC themselves are trying to fiddle the optics. The idea of people in real, desperate poverty referring to themselves as the Precariat Proletariat was just too much for me.
I know what you mean, my folks live in East Sussex and their little bubble drives me crackers with their complete lack of awareness that some folk can't afford BMWs or 4 foreign holidays a year.
I would hope, being a teacher in and around Glasgow and Clydebank for the last 10 years, my eyes would be a little more open, altho I guess I'm as susceptible as anyone to being in a bubble.
I just think the death of the middle class is very much overstated. Even sink schools in West Dunbartonshire have a higher number of what I would call middle class kids than working class, altho I have to admit that is using my utterly non scientific assessments of other people's class. If I could be arsed I would look up their SIMD figures, but as that might take this particular soap box out from under me, I haven't done that yet.
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We definitely have more white collar jobs than previously. If you count traditional working class roles, such as they are left, and many service jobs as blue collar then it’s still fair to say that the
Middle class has expanded and the working class shrunk. Even some of the blue collar jobs look very different to traditional jobs in that category.
Which makes bleating in about class seem a bit antiquated.
Which Tyler wrote:I have privilege as a white person because I can do all of these things without thinking twice:
Homicides involving the police are stupidly high in the USA, indeed there's simply far too much brutality from the police in the USA. And one of the things which might come out of this is for a number of people to reconsider what they expect from a public service intended to keep them safe, even if they are a white racist because they shouldn't be assuming the police are no threat to them, the numbers don't suggest anyone can assume they're safe when interacting with the police. No question it's a disproportionate outcome, and that one would hope will be more fully addressed finally, but we'd be skirting over the grief of a lot of white families to suggest white privilege will protect you from the police
Which Tyler wrote:I have privilege as a white person because I can do all of these things without thinking twice:
Homicides involving the police are stupidly high in the USA, indeed there's simply far too much brutality from the police in the USA. And one of the things which might come out of this is for a number of people to reconsider what they expect from a public service intended to keep them safe, even if they are a white racist because they shouldn't be assuming the police are no threat to them, the numbers don't suggest anyone can assume they're safe when interacting with the police. No question it's a disproportionate outcome, and that one would hope will be more fully addressed finally, but we'd be skirting over the grief of a lot of white families to suggest white privilege will protect you from the police
Don't know how accurate these are
For every 10, 000 black people arrested for violent crime, 3 are killed by the police.
For every 10, 000 white people arrested for violent crime, 4 are killed by the police.
In 2019, 49 unarmed people were killed by the police. 9 were black. 19 were white.
The likelihood for a black person being shot by the police is as high as being struck by lightning.
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It was so much easier to blame Them. It was bleakly depressing to think They were Us. I've certainly never thought of myself as one of Them. No one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We're always one of Us. It's Them that do the bad things.
Which Tyler wrote:I have privilege as a white person because I can do all of these things without thinking twice:
Homicides involving the police are stupidly high in the USA, indeed there's simply far too much brutality from the police in the USA. And one of the things which might come out of this is for a number of people to reconsider what they expect from a public service intended to keep them safe, even if they are a white racist because they shouldn't be assuming the police are no threat to them, the numbers don't suggest anyone can assume they're safe when interacting with the police. No question it's a disproportionate outcome, and that one would hope will be more fully addressed finally, but we'd be skirting over the grief of a lot of white families to suggest white privilege will protect you from the police
Don't know how accurate these are
For every 10, 000 black people arrested for violent crime, 3 are killed by the police.
For every 10, 000 white people arrested for violent crime, 4 are killed by the police.
In 2019, 49 unarmed people were killed by the police. 9 were black. 19 were white.
The likelihood for a black person being shot by the police is as high as being struck by lightning.
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They are the most cherrypicked stats in the history of cherrypicking.
And if 49 unarmed people are killed by the police, and 28 were white or black, that means Hispanics and Asians are in serious danger!
