Ok, let’s try a historical example. Indians killing Indians in defence of the British Empire.
Same shit, different century…
Didn’t this type of thing happen throughout the glorious british empire
Wasn’t it the case that it wasn’t a lawful arrest to begin with, and they had not even used the appropriate methods?
Sounds like police escalating things unnecessarily and yet getting defended yet again…
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It fascinates me that you always see the fault of the escalation being the victim’s, and never the police.
It’s never the system in which the police force is structured. It’s never how the police are trained. It’s never the culture of the police.
Always the victim’s fault.
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Isn’t the point that @Bekloppt is making that you can be a participant in a system that discriminates against you?
@Klopptimist is trying to argue that black police attacking black civilians is definitively not white supremacy at work, when in reality it’s quite easy to see examples where that argument completely falls flat.
Apologies if I’ve misread what you said though.
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You have a very basic idea of what racism is and what it’s parameters are.
In this case another black man has been killed by the police and your position is that can’t be racism because it was black lads wot done it.
Racism is much more complex than this, and in this case the speaker is fully justified in argument that the issue is not that the police officers were black, but that the police force has a problem of structural racism that continually leads to black men being murdered whilst placed under arrest. It doesn’t become not racist because some black officers expressed the values of the racist police. In fact it shows is pervasive and normalised that racism is.
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I’m 58 year old, white and British.
Just wondering where I stand in the ladder of blame/guilt.
You’re fine. But it is important to be aware of what came before, what created the conditions you live in, and where you stand in relation to the society you live in.
I’m a white bloke of your generation and I’m not responsible for the British Empire either, but we both grew up in a society that was soaked in the privileges and responsibilities of that time.
Our experience is not the same as a Jamaican, a Bangladeshi or a New Zealander. That’s not our fault, but it’s something to consider.
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Exactly
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The above in response to Bekloppts post.
The way in which the police dealt with this incident may well be an institutional problem but that doesn’t necessarily mean racism though.
Over zealous cops murdering a citizen happens but If we continue to call it racism maybe we are not properly getting to the real issue which is how the police go about doing their work ,ie shoot first ask questions later.
I have no doubt that racism, in America in particular,is a huge problem but i think that blaming racism every time this happens almost allows perpetrators a cover story.The individuals who committed this crime need to pay for what they have done and the institution which employed and trained them need to be forced to change their heavy handed tactics when dealing with the public.
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Resisting arrest is not a capital crime. Especially not ex-judicially.
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Ok, let’s look at it this way, how often does this happen to white motorists who are stopped for ‘traffic violations’?
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I don’t know but it might happen a lot more than we realise in countries where it doesn’t get the same level of attention that incidents in America get.
I’m not saying this didn’t happen because the guy was black,but if your first response is to see it as racism maybe we are not then seeing what needs to change to ensure discrimination of all kinds are stopped.
It was a traffic stop. They approached his car with guns drawn and physically dragged him out of the car immediately upon reaching it. Without reasonable cause to treat this as more than a traffic stop, which they dont have, this has already gone too far at this point. His “resistance” up to this point, such that was any, was him naturally responding to being unlawfully roughed up and letting them know he would comply if they backed off.
Within second of being dragged out of his car he is lying on the ground unrestrained demonstrating that he is complying. Among multiple threats of tazering him, he receives one demand to “get on the ground.” He raises his head and looks around incredulously to say “I’m on the ground already…WTF do you want me to do?”. They respond to that point by macing him. This is generally an escalating event because the cops tend to mace each other get even more angry about the situation and then take it out on the victim. This is exactly what happened from in this case from that point.
This was not an arrest. It was a car jacking.
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I suspect that there is considerable evidence to suggest that a black person who is stopped by the police is more likely to end up being assaulted or mistreated than a white person in the USA, UK and everywhere in Europe.
I’d be happy to be proved wrong.
I grew up in 70’s/ 80’s Liverpool mate…I’m not sure I viewed myself as being ‘soaked in privilege’ at the time and doubt anyone else did either.
I have 0% responsibility for any of the ills that are prevalent in the world today and anybody suggesting I should indulge in some form of self-flagellation for what’s gone before can go fuck themselves basically. Not suggesting that’s what you’re saying btw.
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What if you recast the British behavior in Ireland as racism? Keep in mind that race is not a real thing so demanding that it can only exit when applied to group x I think misses the point of how racism has always been applied. Far more broadly than it being an anti-black thing it is a thing directed at any group not considered to dominant group in a power structure using characteristics that can be easily identified. That is what the police do everywhere regardless of what the demographic of the dominant group is and what group is being targeted as the “other”.
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You may be right,but i dont have to go back too far to remember when young lads where pulled into cop shops to be given a few slaps to ensure they stayed on the straight and narrow,and race nor guilt ever came into it.
Framing racism as systemic actually absolves individuals from personal responsibility from the consequences of the systemic aspect of it so I dont understand why those most commonly critical of the idea of it tend to do so because its not their fault.
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I think I was clear that neither you nor I should indulge in self flagellation.
I meant the society as a whole. Britain, to this day, enjoys privileges of its empire. They may not have been very tangible in Liverpool when you were growing up, but they were certainly evident in the City of London.
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