Serious Police Brutality in the U.S.

[Myzozoa]

1. racism=/=exclusion

2. how would you go about showing that 'racism' has always existed or even that exclusion has always existed in human societies?

is your definition of a society predicated on exclusions? mine probably is, but i fail to see why exclusion=/=racism. like if i dont want to talk to you because youre dumb, for example, it may be appropriate to exclude you from conversations in which matters requiring critical deliberation are discussed. that isn't racism tho, sorry.

racism and capitalism (i.e imperialism/colonialism, see lenin, unless ur actually an uncultured swine) actually emerged at the same historical moment, when we are talking about racism we mean something that is bounded from the inception of european colonialism from the renaissance until now. Over time, from discourses of geographical determinism, and the religious/ colonial discourses, racism became codified in new pseudo-sciences such as criminology, psychometry, and phrenology, and in the law and economy through institutions such as slavery, (the police as slave catchers, and overseers on the plantation).

Our current political system, since the USA gained hegemony following the decline of the british empire in the late 19th century, follows a 'new' colonialism. Familiar racist tropes brought to bear on new contexts. The new colonialism is more inverted, and subtle, preferring affective manipulations and economic exploitations to holding direct political control over a territory. Nonetheless, the economic systems established according to the logics of racism persist as, examples, monocultures across latin america, unstable national boundaries drawn according to colonial-era spheres of control, the discourse of nationalism itself incorporates (like a corporation over a territory, the british east india company has evolved into Shell, Chevron, Chiquita and Dole) a hierarchy, a state beholden to nation of singular identity (israel, apartheid south africa, america in the declaration of independence).

Hitler was able to make his anti-semitism convincing as an economic argument. The history of slavery in the united states was about an economic interest and the willingness to confront it.

again this is not a matter of philosophy

we are not talking about whether racism and capitalism can be said equivocally, but pointing out they have the same being historically, into the present.

racism is not an attitude, it is systemic. it is calculated, or I would even say, it informs the calculation itself.


idk why, or even if, it is really so hard to review history, but i do know how easy it is to turn to silly philosophizing as a practice of denial.

so

for the third time in this thread

https://sph.umd.edu/sites/default/files/files/Harris_Whiteness as Property_106HarvLRev-1.pdf

 

[Soul Fly]

I am pretty affirmative about the continued existence of exclusion in Human society. It's called History. It is readily agreed that despite all the horrible conflicts that poisons society it is, and I say this with a great sense of irony, the most peaceful period in human history. Your question is like asking "how do you know god doesn't exist". I don't, but it doesn't work that way.

again this is not a matter of philosophy

we are not talking about whether racism and capitalism can be said equivocally, but pointing out they have the same being historically, into the present.

racism is not an attitude, it is systemic. it is calculated, or I would even say, it informs the calculation itself.

having "the same being historically" is surely something powerful. Granted. I don't think I'm presenting a case for denying the oppressive role capitalism. The symbiotic copulation of the two. Inasmuch I agree with a lot of your (caustic) assertion here, some of which strangely superficial, but we'll get to that in a bit.

Firstly to the questions of "new colonialism". Even going along with your Saidean scope of how this new form of hegemony pervades (side plug: Orientlism is a superb read) what you fail to answer are a rather basic question.

Are capitalism and racism coterminous or does one have a dictating motivation over the other?
You assume the former I'd argue the latter has more validity.

To draw out your very example. when you "exclude" me for being dumb, you are in practice using a cultural signifier of dumbness, but where are you deriving the signs to populate it? Sure if you refuse to engage with, say Deck Knight, because he is a flaming idiot, that's valid. But even so can you really objectively determine the quantity of "dumbness"? Remember throughout history, coloured people were not discriminated against because of their colour but with the cultural configuration that came with their colour, which was then framed around to be a quality for exploitation. They worship strange gods, the speak gibberish, they wear masks and do creepy ceremonies. All of this created social signification very akin to "dumbness" a.k.a "primitive" a.k.a "uncivilised". This goes for all sorts of marginalised groups.

"If they were as good as we are than us, then they would not let them rule us," they said. "It's simple Darwinism"

This is very pervasive and subtle, even Obama unfortunately placed a providence in it despite being such an exceptionally moral human being, when he would lecture black people for continuing to “make bad choices.”

You would do well to remember O.G imperialism began as a "civilising mission". Even before there were colonies, or schools, or trade carts, or merchant ships, there were explorers to document the exotic wildness of the new word, and missionaries to tame it. And that is the real calculation of the system. It doesn't game the odds, it changes it.

To bring back the question to that of economics. If the hegemonic superstructure of capitalism is indeed informed by racism does it shape it, or is it shaped in turn. I would really say the latter. The same way science was injected with racism to then make a feedback loop of inferiority, i.e rationalising your inferiority into a science (a trend that still exists in subliminally to this date... watch Sam Harris or Richard Dawkin speak). It is in this same way racism percolates into the socio-political fabric.

I can understand why it is easier to pretend otherwise. Make racism or white privilege endemic to an economic system (how? you show correlation but stop painfully short at causation but moving on....) and that softens the burden. It is the machinations of a system that keep it alive, it explains disproportionate agency, it tries to scrub the tainted heritage of the american dream clean. White people don't have to live with what is essentially their original sin.

It is in this context perhaps, Didi Delgado's infamous statement, “All white people are racist. Start from this reference point, or you’ve already failed,” makes sense.

Moving on: substantiation. I would be hypocrite at this point otherwise.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case-for-reparations/361631/

In this essay, which is perhaps the most profound analysis of the racist genealogy of a modern, post-slavery america in recent times, Coates makes a strong fundamental case for the pervasive super-economic quality of racism, something that, sure propagated through the socio-pilitical system, but one which is definitely propped up by whiteness. While the entire essay is a must-read, the section I' going to focus on are the tribulations of Clyde Ross, a black person who made it out of the lynch-crazy south in early 20th century and tried to make his life in the more tolerant north.

Clyde's foray into this world coincides FDRs New Deal which expanded the size and scope of the of the government and introduced the most stringent set of market regulations (well by US standards anyways) post-depression ever seen in america, and possibly ever since. This new big government also came with the FHA which would help middle class and lower class Americans become house-owners. House-owning of course being the pinnacle of self-sufficiant americanness in the Eisenhower years. A programme you would think is perfect for the waves of blacks fleeing persecution from the south who hold blue collar/daily wage jobs. Well....

In 1961, Ross and his wife bought a house in North Lawndale, a bustling community on Chicago’s West Side. North Lawndale had long been a predominantly Jewish neighborhood, but a handful of middle-class African Americans had lived there starting in the ’40s. The community was anchored by the sprawling Sears, Roebuck headquarters. North Lawndale’s Jewish People’s Institute actively encouraged blacks to move into the neighborhood, seeking to make it a “pilot community for interracial living.” In the battle for integration then being fought around the country, North Lawndale seemed to offer promising terrain. But out in the tall grass, highwaymen, nefarious as any Clarksdale kleptocrat, were lying in wait.
​

Coates starts to describe a form of racism that is equal parts disgusting and unbelievable. Long story short, he along with many other bright-eyes African american families were tricked into buying houses "on contract", which is "a predatory agreement that combined all the responsibilities of homeownership with all the disadvantages of renting—while offering the benefits of neither."

Now at this juncture it is important to note that the way Clyde Ross was getting fucked was detached from the legitimacy of the robbery in eyes of the law. This is perhaps most properly illustrated when Clyde Ross tries to get loans under the FHA schemes (the one that was meant o help people exactly of his socio-economic class remember?), and this is what happened.

Ross had tried to get a legitimate mortgage in another neighbourhood, but was told by a loan officer that there was no financing available. The truth was that there was no financing for people like Clyde Ross. From the 1930s through the 1960s, black people across the country were largely cut out of the legitimate home-mortgage market through means both legal and extralegal. Chicago whites employed every measure, from “restrictive covenants” to bombings, to keep their neighbourhoods segregated.​

"means both legal and extralegal" means that this robbery was enacted regardless of socio-economic realities. A combination of red-lining (the practice of deciding property value and loan-worthiness of certain area in the city), hooliganism, intimidation, and all sorts of legal-chicanery. Causing these families to get caught in the feedback loop I alluded to. Not the cleanest line but I hope you have been able to hang on.

Remember that bit about not gaming the odds but changing them? Yeah. Quoting Black/White:

Locked out of the greatest mass-based opportunity for wealth accumulation in American history, African Americans who desired and were able to afford home ownership found themselves consigned to central-city communities where their investments were affected by the “self-fulfilling prophecies” of the FHA appraisers: cut off from sources of new investment[,] their homes and communities deteriorated and lost value in comparison to those homes and communities that FHA appraisers deemed desirable.
​

To perhaps drive home that racism is indeed propped up by a fundamental quality of "whiteness" is the tragic denouement of Ross's story. He manages to collectivise with fellow black homeowners, in a collective called the "Contract Buyers League", which took the predatory practice to court and in the very clearest term showed how it violated the fundamental tenets of the lawful regulation of the system (that being the capitalist one we're keen to topple here). And found out to the essence of racism isn't the configuration of an economic. It was much simpler.

It was an attitude. It was disrespect.

Coates again:

The suit (brought forth by the Contract Buyers League) was rooted in Chicago’s long history of segregation, which had created two housing markets—one legitimate and backed by the government, the other lawless and patrolled by predators. The suit dragged on until 1976, when the league lost a jury trial. Securing the equal protection of the law proved hard; securing reparations proved impossible. If there were any doubts about the mood of the jury, the foreman removed them by saying, when asked about the verdict, that he hoped it would help end “the mess Earl Warren made with Brown v. Board of Education and all that nonsense.”​

Striving for the regulation or the demolition of economic systems is unlikely to solve racism or even alleviate it very much. The kind of racism that proliferates today cannot be eliminated by simply achieving parity, economic or otherwise. Aiming for respectability is a self defeating exercise in the face of trenchant disrespect.

Coming back to your casual Hitler analysis, I could very easily argue that Hitler's arguments stemmed from a broken conditions of post-WWI Germany that had emasculated a rising superpower in the most embarrassing way possible. A populace that was never invested in the war had to bear the brunt of Bismarkian interdependence failing (I recommend Carlin's Hardcore History if what I just said sounded gibberish), and they were primed to believe an affirmative theory celebrating an Aryan identity and creating a big other for their predilections, the Jews. The essence of this is still rooted in a bestial sort of rejection, exclusionism. I don't see why you threw in Hitler randomly at your argument. But if you're gonna do it, do it properly.

From Timothy Snyder's Bloodlands

As Hitler imagined the future, Germany would deal with the Slavs much as the North Americans had dealt with the Indians. The Volga River in Russia, he once proclaimed, will be Germany’s Mississippi.
​

Perhaps quite ironically Hitler's Nuremberg Laws were literally inspired by American race laws. I realise this can work both ways because of how transitive relations work. Maybe we're on the same page with different lenses. But I'll daresay unlike you I have tried to frame an informed context around it. You haven't. You have just rudely implied it.

So stop giving patronising kiddie synopses on neocolonialism, and repeating abstract assertions and tangential source links... and maybe take a crack.

Otherwise it's (heh) disrespectful.

 

[Myzozoa]

lol try harder to make it seem like ur still disagreeing while walking back everything, i would line by line, but honestly id end up typing 'lol' too many times. i wont go to that extent.



1. How would you go about showing that this is the most peaceful time in human history? And is that because we live in the most just time? or because we have channeled violence to peripheries. Violence is compartmentalized and appears not to surface.

Ur talking about your own privilege, and projecting it as a universal.

Fanon says: "If you look out over the colony, all is in it's place, organized, according to the colonial order. It would seem to be entirely peaceful from the center. The violence is pushed to the margins and boundaries."

Like can we not all just admit that we don't know everything?? That these gross totalizing statements about the state of our present moment, largely fail to have any meaningful content when one considers the diversity of experiences, and particularly whether the extent of that diversity isn't predicated on economic differences.

How can you go on and on about the importance of economic shit, in your post, and within your sources and then casually go:

""means both legal and extralegal" means that this robbery was enacted regardless of socio-economic realities."

guess what:

2. I assert, that this person's experiences of economic and social disenfranchisement would NOT have happened inevitably under any socio-economic configuration, this assertion or interpretation is literally a pile of crap. Contrary to what you say, I argue that this person DID exist, was in fact a real historical subject that had experiences informed by their situatedness in a white supremacist capitalist society, and that under at least one other likely socio-economic regime this person could not have possibly faced this difficulty in finding housing in just this same way, according to this same historical movement, in response to the same confluence of forces. I think it is actually worth honoring these experiences as actually situated in a personal context and understanding that, that this person's experiences REALLY HAPPENED, and that it does nothing to tell ourselves that it could not possibly have happened any other way. This person didn't just live at any old time, in any old context.

just read the piece again honestly, ur interpretation is disingenuous, it's not even supported by your quote. as extralegal and legal processes are situated within capitalist political contexts. the extralegal and legal processes inform one another, they are part of the same set of norms and the same system of pricing. there is always a legalized economy and an illegal one, with the boundary changing and being renogotiated. legality has nothing to do with inside or outside capitalism, there is no outside to capitalist ordering: covert economies are implicated by their relations to overt ones.


racism is foundational to capitalism, the exploitation of bodies for profit demands the dehumanization of laborers in order to extract surplus value from their labor for profit. Sexism, racism, the fungibility of black and femme bodies is the foundation of our economic system, the ability to stretch people's time and energy to the maximal extent. Difference is made maximally consumable. Non white neighborhoods become undesirable while the house values in the suburbs rise. Today, my parents house in california, a place with a long colonial history, has the sae monetary value as 10+ houses in detroit.

My rent in Santa Cruz, a picturesque neo-colonial paradise (i.e fairly dystopian in terms of economic extraction), costs significantly more than rent in Brooklyn, NYC. In the other parts of the bay, rents are starting to get to santa cruz levels, the bay's gentrification is newer than the agricultural colonialism of the central valley that informs santa cruz's economic present.

So id say racism is an attitude it in so far as it emerges from and is sustained by a profit motive. that is wild semantics tho.


Like if you want to know

i would not even disagree with you in regards to your analysis of me calling you dumb by implication: that gesture evokes some white supremacist discourse (the discourse of ablism that is fundamental to capitalism), is that what you want me to say? I would not even deny it lol.


We are still dealing with the courts inability to imagine a non-white supremacist governmental economic obligation. The segregation that existed before that courts ruling persists in america to this day, only more entrenched by the precedent of allowing the market failure of segregation to persist (market failures lead to accumulations of wealth in historical time). Had the courts ruled that the government is obligated to, or that citizens could sue for intervention, intervene in instances of de facto racialized economies and polities, citizens/communities would not still be so impotent to address these dysfunctional systems. Instead the standard is, as you point out, evidence of an attitude or practice. So here we are.

i really dont care what u bold or italicize, fact is you haven't explained at any point how the text makes an argument that racism is an attitude, or that if it has attitudinal processes, that those aren't fundamental to the maintenance of a capitalist economy or to its productive purposes.
it is obvious, if you had any inclination to read, that I'm saying that capitalism and racism cannot be disassembled and that they emerged at precisely the same historical moment because they are actually fundamentally identical and intractable, mutually supporting. I find it extremely unlikely, nearly impossible, that under a social regime that humanizes people rather than treats them according to marginalizing logic of consumer-laborer, that dehumanization would be economically vital. Racism derives its appeal, even people who 'know better', due to it's economic potency, driving down the wages of all laborers, but not equally. This creates many alibi's for capitalism as a means to address racism or as something that can be delinked from racialized hierarchies.

And didn't we, the privileged under capitalism, still have to fight for shit like weekends? days off? no child labor? substantial wages? we're still fighting for these things in many places.


We don't all experience the violence of capitalism equally. This is a potent effect of neo-colonial capitalism's ability to project a picture of a peaceful situation even as bodies at the margins (the homeless, etc) are constantly disappearing due to violence (dead, jail, mental institution, trafficked on a farm or street corner). We are motivated to maintain an economic situation that keeps us sheltered from these violences (criminalization, pathology, enslavement or exploitation), motivated to be productive under capitalism.


i dont even get what ur saying, it is self contradictory, with regards to respect, does it matter or not? Is it worth seeking or not? and how? I don't know how respectability politics could possibly be invoked in a response disagreeing with me lol. I'm the one over here saying that racism does not consist in an attitude, i.e not solved just by newfound pretense of respect.


basically the whole thing about respectability politics reeks of 'i didnt read your post, but i like to hear myself talk. and btw i read this piece by Coates and it disagrees with you, but I cant say how, so Ill just assert that it does.' I dont get it, where did i say black people made bad choices? im literally saying they're victims of violence, so unless ur also accusing me of blaming the victim, im wildly confused.

ok


ur welcome for dis post, another chance for u to hear the sound ur own voice by replying.


regarding all that holocaust stuff, German anti-semitism predated hitler, the deteriorating economic conditions made elimination-ist anti-semitism an economic and political order that was desirable and functional as a total war project and as an extension of a colonial project turn inward on europe. I suggest seeing debates between Browning and Goldhagen (their respective historiographies that seemingly disagree, but illustrate mirrored hermeneutical approaches, and then Stone Histories of the holocaust, the chapter on colonialism. you will not understand any of it until you read the first 4 chapters in Stone, btw).

all available thru ur uni internet connection, grad student.

the holocaust was a colonial project. and i really could not careless about debating you wrt to holocaust stuff, as it would literally be str8 u gaslighting me given my education, ethnic/social/religious identity, and actual project experience in this area that i do not feel the need to disclose.


you got the like from famous illiterate user Ary lol gw

 

[GatoDelFuego]

1. How would you go about showing that this is the most peaceful time in human history? And is that because we live in the most just time? or because we have channeled violence to peripheries. Violence is compartmentalized and appears not to surface.

https://www.good.is/articles/closer-to-peace-than-ever
http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/05/17/rick_nevin_murder_statistics_safest_year_ever.html

I'm sure these statistics are just projection of privilege but w/e, you could have found these yourself as they are

all available thru ur uni internet connection, grad student.

racism is foundational to capitalism, the exploitation of bodies for profit demands the dehumanization of laborers in order to extract surplus value from their labor for profit. Sexism, racism, the fungibility of black and femme bodies is the foundation of our economic system, the ability to stretch people's time and energy to the maximal extent. Difference is made maximally consumable. Non white neighborhoods become undesirable while the house values in the suburbs rise. Today, my parents house in california, a place with a long colonial history, has the sae monetary value as 10+ houses in detroit.

My rent in Santa Cruz, a picturesque neo-colonial paradise (i.e fairly dystopian in terms of economic extraction), costs significantly more than rent in Brooklyn, NYC. In the other parts of the bay, rents are starting to get to santa cruz levels, the bay's gentrification is newer than the agricultural colonialism of the central valley that informs santa cruz's economic present.

Legit question: can you explain to me what this means? I really am curious and am not trying to be smart with this one.





Btw I would like to be the first to congratulate you on your receiving of a like on smogon.com from the great user ary.

 

[thesecondbest]

I did some research on this guy, and apparently he was pro Hitler. Not the best person to quote...
Also there is a difference between racism and oppression, oppression is racism + power. Also if you think socialism means nobody had power you are Wrong, it literally means you give excess power to the government which makes it easier for them to commit genocide, which is the worst form of oppression. Now I get why Mr Carmichael was pro Hitler!
Also responding to this: " Today, my parents house in california, a place with a long colonial history, has the sae monetary value as 10+ houses in detroit."
This literally had nothing to do with race, half the reason why these houses cost so much is because of immigrants lmao there isn't some white supremacist conspiracy to increase house prices. And I love how you mention Detroit but not the entirety of middle America where poor white people live, probably because you think poor white people don't exist

 

[Soul Fly]

GatoDelFuego Myzo knows I'm grad student, so he's using that fact paint a snide picture of privilege and my (rhetorical) laziness, since I am lucky enough to have access to a lot of academic portals through my uni internet. Hope that solves one of your mysteries.

Myzozoa

well I don't judge validity of posts by who likes it, but good to see you do. Very healthy approach. Said user also seems to have liked you so might wanna edit out the insult you obviously thought was going to be a cherry on your diss-cake.

re: violence and peace. No I was talking about balance of probability (Gato's kinda gone ahead and done some of things you really should have). But idgaf because that's an astounding diversion. Did you miss the bit where I wrote that "with a heavy sense of irony", or that my original assertion was that we have lived in constant violence and you disagreed otherwise, but now you're fucking posting Fanon about constant universal marginality of violence and illusions of peace... which by the way only to lends credence to my point in first place? What do you really believe in? Anything that allows you to get more brownie points at the internet?

Now who's walking back on what?
--
You can't ask people not make generalisations when you make huge ones yourself. You don't know jack shit about where I live and in what conditions, and what my cultural past is. I don't pretend to know yours. Please be extremely careful before telling me that I'm projecting privilege, as some catch-all rejection of what I'm saying. Very clearly one of us being a know-all here.

I'm not denying the sins of capitalism here, no matter how much you want to make it look so. I also know how gentrification works, and how its racial implementation works. What you explained to me was integral to Coates' analysis of Chicago, you'd know if you really spent time carefully reading the source. Something you imply but I'm rather unsure of at this point.

See here's the deal, you just can't explain a new concept from economic/political theory and then somehow make that mean you have refuted points. Wow nice analysis of gentrification. Oh damn we don't access capitalism equally. Yo don't say, professor smogon! Doesn't do an iota for you. Here I'm gonna make this real simple.

if you stand by this statement

racism is foundational to capitalism, the exploitation of bodies for profit demands the dehumanization of laborers in order to extract surplus value from their labor for profit.

then you are giving credence to the fact that the system (1) needs a division between master and worker, the former who will exploit the latter and accrue value. Now if that's the case. (2) How was this division decided? If you in your own words are saying racism is foundational (you really should pay attention to what I'm italicising, I not doing this for a e s t h e t i c s /js) to capitalism then you are, quite simply arguing for the pre-existent, overarching nature of racism. Do otherwise if you actually want to argue against me.

Imma gon make this even more simple, cos I like you man.

prove this:

racism and capitalism (i.e imperialism/colonialism, see lenin, unless ur actually an uncultured swine) actually emerged at the same historical moment

prove this. do it. you still haven't. Closest you have come is saying is that racism is very compatible with the exploitative underbelly of capitalism. Great. Bread and Nutella go well together, they must have the same historical moment. Pardon the belittling but I don't know how else to get it through to you.

Despite your ill-directed merk I did read your post. twice actually. I might actually stop though if you keep giving capitalism 101s instead of real arguments.

basically the whole thing about respectability politics reeks of 'i didnt read your post, but i like to hear myself talk. and btw i read this piece by Coates and it disagrees with you, but I cant say how, so Ill just assert that it does.'

yes that's exactly what happened and I stayed up till three to write like what, 2000 words, just for so I could be seen disagreeing with the great myzozoa. fuck you lol. do you sometimes lift off from planet earth because of your huge-ass ego?

I dont get it, where did i say black people made bad choices? im literally saying they're victims of violence, so unless ur also accusing me of blaming the victim, im wildly confused.

No I said that, as a part of of a rather extensive analysis of how respect, or rather disrespect works. That doesn't cast you in fair light rn considering you just threw a metric shitton of shade at me for 'not reading'. Go read it again.

the holocaust was a colonial project. and i really could not careless about debating you wrt to holocaust stuff, as it would literally be str8 u gaslighting me given my education, ethnic/social/religious identity, and actual project experience in this area that i do not feel the need to disclose.

I should say the same thing to you about us discussing race and privilege. If you couldn't care less to argue with people about stuff you bring up, then DON'T bring them up. Because your later dismissal sounds like a lateral move. Not that I agree with you,but fair enough.

Turning down the heat for a moment here. Why am I doing this? Simple. Resisting the racial directive of neo-colonialism isn't simple as resisting capitalism. Its a part of it, but to give them "the same being" or variations thereof limits the scope of the colonial damage. And I say this with a more than healthy realisation of how far economic superstructures stretch. Racism, or other such innate mechanisms of exclusion is an attitude for me because it has its own cogent motivations, that sickens and paralyses regardless of the system it occupies. There is nothing small or mere about attitudes. You seem to underrate it. Racism is a fellow voyager of capitalism but its identity is far more pervasive. I refuse attempts to regularise this beast and make it one with capitalism. That's a disservice.

Social Reform (i.e fixing of 'attitudes/practices that stem from said attitude') before Political Reform. Period. As far as I'm concerned good luck demolishing capitalism without it. Or expecting anything good to come out of it even if the proletariat effectively collectivises. Look at Lenin's Russia, since you seem to admire him so much. Or for that matter literally every attempt to set up an alternative political-economic system.

Since you seem to have read Fanon:

The natives' challenge to the colonial world is not a rational confrontation of points of view. It is not a treatise on the universal, but the untidy affirmation of an original idea propounded as an absolute. The colonial world is a Manichean world. It is not enough for the settler to delimit physically, that is to say with the help of the army and the police force, the place of the native. As if to show the totalitarian character of colonial exploitation the settler paints the native as a sort of quintessence of evil. Native society is not simply described as a society lacking in values. It is not enough for the colonist to affirm that those values have disappeared from, or still better never existed in, the colonial world. The native is declared insensible to ethics; he represents not only the absence of values, but also the negation of values. He is, let us dare to admit, the enemy of values, and in this sense he is the absolute evil.
​

w.r.t attitude.

 

[termi]

Also if you think socialism means nobody had power you are Wrong, it literally means you give excess pet top the government which makes it easier for them to commit genocide, which is the worst form of oppression.

can you at least pretend to have read up on what socialism actually means? the end goal of marxism is a classless, stateless society. this isn't hard.

 

[Steel With It]

Also if you think socialism means nobody had power you are Wrong, it literally means you give excess pet top the government which makes it easier for them to commit genocide, which is the worst form of oppression.

I'm not sure what "Excess pet top" is, but if you meant "Excess money to"...

So, you're talking about your beloved Trump's deathcare bills, right?

 

[thesecondbest]

can you at least pretend to have read up on what socialism actually means? the end goal of marxism is a classless, stateless society. this isn't hard.

Yes and every time people tried it wasn't real socialism, I'm done hearing that bullshit. How can wealth be shared in a stateless society? The whole point of socialism is making the rich share money with the poor, which requires some power to force them to do so. That is why no stateless socialist society has existed or every will exist. Socialism works great on theory, but please give me one example of stateless socialism in practice. I can give you ten plus examples of socialist societies with States, and they all turned shitty.
Anyways this thread is getting off topic lol

I'm not sure what "Excess pet top" is, but if you meant "Excess money to"...

So, you're talking about your beloved Trump's deathcare bills, right?

It was supposed to be excess power to, which any healthcare bill allowing government intervention gives. I am pro public option, which allows people to choose while also decreasing cost for everyone. Some government intervention can be ok, but too much inevitably leads to tyranny
Also when the fuck did I ever say I liked trump lol. If I could have voted I would have voted Gary Johnson. But everyone who disagrees with you is a republican right?

 

[termi]

Yes and every time people tried it wasn't real socialism, I'm done hearing that bullshit. How can wealth be shared in a stateless society? The whole point of socialism is making the rich share money with the poor, which requires some power to force them to do so. That is why no stateless socialist society has existed or every will exist. Socialism works great on theory, but please give me one example of stateless socialism in practice. I can give you ten plus examples of socialist societies with States, and they all turned shitty.

If you truly did read up on socialism using actual marxist literature or at the very least good, objective summaries of marxist literature and you come to the conclusion that "socialism is the rich giving money to the poor", you haven't understood any of it at all and may genuinely be too ignorant to be capable of proper discussion. However, I'm more inclined to think you're just afraid of critically engaging with actual marxism, preferring to make a caricature out of it in order to dismiss it offhand.

There aren't many examples of stateless socialist societies because revolution is pretty fucking difficult, but the Free Territory and revolutionary Catalonia are good examples. Unfortunately both could only exist for a few years before getting crushed respectively by the Bolsheviks and the fascists, but that's beside the point. They did exist, and if it's up to me they will exist in the future.

As for those states that turned to a more authoritarian or totalitarian approach: they're usually marxist-leninist or a variation thereof, which means that they support the idea of a one-party state that "prepares" the country for a true communist society in which the state does not exist anymore. In practice the state doesn't seem very likely to wither away and just kinda sticks around, which is one of the reasons why I have more of an affinity for more libertarian approaches to marxism, but in any case, to assert that marxism is incompatible with the idea of a stateless society is simply false.

OT: fuck the police

 

[Myzozoa]

https://www.good.is/articles/closer-to-peace-than-ever
http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/05/17/rick_nevin_murder_statistics_safest_year_ever.html

I'm sure these statistics are just projection of privilege but w/e, you could have found these yourself as they are



Legit question: can you explain to me what this means? I really am curious and am not trying to be smart with this one.





Btw I would like to be the first to congratulate you on your receiving of a like on smogon.com from the great user ary.

yawn can you find some stats that dont go off of a baseline of ww1. like yeah we arent in a world war where piles of men are killing each other, I don't see how you can conclude that this is because this is the most peaceful time we've ever had in our species history. this is so bad.

LOL






not to mention that death is not the only form of violence being discussed. nor do i see how, even if this is the most peaceful time, that this is an excuse for, or a reason to ignore, what is happening in the world. That it happened worse then, doesn't make it okay now. How is the lens of 'this is the most peaceful moment' helpful to millions of people incarcerated (as an example)?


as they say: "I know the difference between right and wrong."


and if millions of people suddenly die gosh will your faces be red, if you notice. those statistics will be worth a lot im sure.

 

[gvmgvm40]

racism and capitalism (i.e imperialism/colonialism, see lenin, unless ur actually an uncultured swine) actually emerged at the same historical moment, when we are talking about racism we mean something that is bounded from the inception of european colonialism from the renaissance until now. Over time, from discourses of geographical determinism, and the religious/ colonial discourses, racism became codified in new pseudo-sciences such as criminology, psychometry, and phrenology, and in the law and economy through institutions such as slavery, (the police as slave catchers, and overseers on the plantation).

...

idk why, or even if, it is really so hard to review history, but i do know how easy it is to turn to silly philosophizing as a practice of denial.

Are you familiar with history of the Middle East? Because economic privilege/exclusion, the economic institution of slavery (even if it's largely household slavery and not capitalist plantation slavery, European style) and as a result, discourses of geographic determinism and the intertwining of racism and "scientific" (proto-scientific?) treatises/literature predates capitalism and European colonialism by a good while.

Surely you must be at least familiar with Ibn Khaldun's Muqaddimah from late 14th century. Some passages dealing with geography are pretty striking, and you wouldn't have known it's from a 14th century Maghribi Arab and not a 17-18th century European if I hadn't told you so:

Close to it in the north is the country of the Lamtunah and of the other groups of the Veiled Berbers (Sinhajah), as well as the deserts in which they roam. To the south of this Nile, there is a Negro people called Lamlam. They are unbelievers. They brand themselves on the face and temples. The people of Ghanah and Takrur invade their country, capture them, and sell them to merchants who transport them to the Maghrib. There, they constitute the ordinary mass of slaves. Beyond them to the south, there is no civilization in the proper sense. There are only humans who are closer to dumb animals than to rational beings. They live in thickets and caves and eat herbs and unprepared grain. They frequently eat each other. They cannot be considered human beings. All the fruits of the Negro territory come from fortified villages in the desert of the Maghrib, such as Touat, Tigurarin and Ouargla.

The inhabitants of the zones that are far from temperate, such as the first, second, sixth, and seventh zones, are also farther removed from being temperate in all their conditions. Their buildings are of clay and reeds. Their foodstuffs are durra and herbs. Their clothing is the leaves of trees, which they sew together to cover themselves, or animal skins. Most of them go naked. The fruits and seasonings of their countries are strange and inclined to be intemperate. In their business dealings, they do not use the two noble metals, but copper, iron, or skins, upon which they set a value for the purpose of business dealings. Their qualities of character, moreover, are close to those of dumb animals. It has even been reported that most of the Negroes of the first zone dwell in caves and thickets, eat herbs, live in savage isolation and do not congregate, and eat each other. The same applies to the Slavs. The reason for this is that their remoteness from being temperate produces in them a disposition and character similar to those of the dumb animals, and they become correspondingly remote from humanity. The same also applies to their religious conditions. They are ignorant of prophecy and do not have a religious law, except for the small minority that lives near the temperate regions.

Therefore, the Negro nations are, as a rule, submissive to slavery, because (Negroes) have little (that is essentially) human and have attributes that are quite similar to those of dumb animals, as we have stated.

FOURTH PREFATORY DISCUSSION

The influence of the air (climate) upon human character.

We have seen that Negroes are in general characterized by levity, excitability, and great emotionalism. They are found eager to dance whenever they hear a melody. They are everywhere described as stupid. The real reason for these (opinions) is that, as has been shown by philosophers in the proper place, joy and gladness are due to expansion and diffusion of the animal spirit. Sadness is due to the opposite, namely, contraction and concentration of the animal spirit. It has been shown that heat expands and rarefies air and vapors and increases their quantity. A drunken person experiences inexpressible joy and gladness, because the vapor of the spirit in his heart is pervaded by natural heat, which the power of the wine generates in his spirit. The spirit, as a result, expands, and there is joy. Likewise, when those who enjoy a hot bath inhale the air of the bath, so that the heat of the air enters their spirits and makes them hot, they are found to experience joy. It often happens that they start singing, as singing has its origin in gladness. Now, Negroes live in the hot zone (of the earth). Heat dominates their temperament and formation. Therefore, they have in their spirits an amount of heat corresponding to that in their bodies and that of the zone in which they live. In comparison with the spirits of the inhabitants of the fourth zone, theirs are hotter and, consequently, more expanded. As a result, they are more quickly moved to joy and gladness, and they are merrier. Excitability is the direct consequence.

This sort of stuff is dime a dozen in the literature of the period, and in the later Ottoman literature as well. Or going even further back, the Umayyads (mid 7th-mid 8th centuries) had an institution called mawla/mawali (pl.). I'm quoting this from Wikipedia because this is pretty much basic knowledge about the Umayyad period:

"The term gained prominence during the Umayyad Caliphate (c. 661-750 CE/41–132 AH), as many non-Arabs such as Persians, Africans, Azeris, Turks and Kurds converted to Islam. The influx of non-Arab converts to Islam created a new difficulty in incorporating them into tribal Arab society. The solution appeared to be the contract of wala', through which the non-Arab Muslims acquired an Arab patron (mawla). They continued to pay a similar tax that was required from the people of the book [i.e. Christians and Jews] and were generally excluded from government and the military until the end of the Umayyad Caliphate. In Khorasan and Persia, the Arabs held most of the higher positions in the armed forces and in the upper echelons of government."

Or going back even further (and foreshadowing this), from Mohammed's Farewell Sermon:

https://www.islamreligion.com/articles/523/prophet-muhammad-s-last-sermon/

"All mankind is from Adam and Eve, an Arab has no superiority over a non-Arab nor a non-Arab has any superiority over an Arab; also a white has no superiority over black nor a black has any superiority over white except by piety and good action. Learn that every Muslim is a brother to every Muslim and that the Muslims constitute one brotherhood. Nothing shall be legitimate to a Muslim which belongs to a fellow Muslim unless it was given freely and willingly. Do not, therefore, do injustice to yourselves."

Slavery and slave existed in pre-Islamic and early Islamic times too, although on a smaller scale than after the Muslim expansion. Isn't this proof for existence of racism that inevitably accompanies it?

I would agree that racism and economic exclusion is intertwined, but pre-capitalist modes of production also had their own hierarchies and practices and discourses legitimizing and reproducing this (=racism, no?)

 

[GatoDelFuego]

So Myzozoa did you read the article, or just take a glance at the graph and instantly guffaw?

According to Harvard psychology professor and author of The Better Angels of Our Nature, Steven Pinker, this steep decline in worldwide violence which has been happening over the past few centuries “may be the most significant and least appreciated development in the history of our species.”

In the book's description, we have:

With the help of more than a hundred graphs and maps, Pinker presents some astonishing numbers. Tribal warfare was nine times as deadly as war and genocide in the 20th century. The murder rate of Medieval Europe was more than thirty times what it is today. Slavery, sadistic punishments, and frivolous executions were unexceptionable features of life for millennia, then suddenly were targeted for abolition. Wars between developed countries have vanished, and even in the developing world, wars kill a fraction of the people they did a few decades ago. Rape, battering, hate crimes, deadly riots, child abuse, cruelty to animals—all substantially down.

How is this helpful to the millions incarcerated now? It's not. But I don't believe that to be mine or soul fly's point. You said:

1. How would you go about showing that this is the most peaceful time in human history? And is that because we live in the most just time? or because we have channeled violence to peripheries. Violence is compartmentalized and appears not to surface.

Yes, we are living in the most peaceful time in human history. Your thesis seems to be that we are not living in the most peaceful time, and violence only "appears" to not exist because it is concentrated on the "others". Am I wrong with assuming that? And I don't really disagree that violence is concentrated on certain individuals but...we ARE living in the most peaceful time. Even if violence is concentrated on specific groups it is still lower today than it ever has been. So come up with a different argument.

racism is foundational to capitalism, the exploitation of bodies for profit demands the dehumanization of laborers in order to extract surplus value from their labor for profit. Sexism, racism, the fungibility of black and femme bodies is the foundation of our economic system, the ability to stretch people's time and energy to the maximal extent. Difference is made maximally consumable. Non white neighborhoods become undesirable while the house values in the suburbs rise. Today, my parents house in california, a place with a long colonial history, has the sae monetary value as 10+ houses in detroit.

My rent in Santa Cruz, a picturesque neo-colonial paradise (i.e fairly dystopian in terms of economic extraction), costs significantly more than rent in Brooklyn, NYC. In the other parts of the bay, rents are starting to get to santa cruz levels, the bay's gentrification is newer than the agricultural colonialism of the central valley that informs santa cruz's economic present.

So are you going to say anything substantial about this or just laugh some more?

 

[Myzozoa]

just give it time man. i hope the book represented by the article is correct.

btw if you read my post again, i actually never made any claim about whether this time was most peaceful or not. I have read the article you posted, but have not read the text mentioned in it so cannot speak to the quality of the research, nor have read any criticisms of it. It could very well be true: but I have maintained an attitude of indifference to whether or not this is in fact the most peaceful time, interrogated why it could appear to be that way (due to the movement of violence to the margins of society), violence rendered invisible or natural. For example we 'abolished' slavery, but there are still slaves in our world 'human trafficking', it still occurs all over the world to keep our food prices low.

I have, in fact, maintained nothing but an attitude of skepticism about all claims as to whether or not this (btw you never tell me when this 'most peaceful' era began) is the most 'peaceful' era. Maybe we have different attitude about violence now?

You'll notice I have never mentioned or referenced there being a time period more peaceful than this.

Now, could you finish responding to my post:

How is the lens of 'this is the most peaceful moment' helpful to millions of people incarcerated (as an example)?

my thesis is so obviously not "this is not the most peaceful time" that it really speaks to how mad my posts must make you. cant you see Im still making an argument about racism and capitalism, and how capitalism is sustained by racism and vice versa?

If you want to talk over the details, feel free, but I'd prefer to stick to a discussion informed by these concepts as that is more in line with the topic of the thread.

(un)Surprisingly, Steven Pinker, the author of the book, no where attributes the peace to capitalist progress or technological progress, but rather to specific political developments (large centralized nation states), education, and to 4 sentiments too... (empathy, etc)

i.e the decline of violence is due to the centralization of the means for violence is now int he hands of the state. this is a very tenuous thesis considering that rests on nuclear war never happening ever, I would point out, just to begin with.

ok im gonna go do something else and wait for this thread to be on topic, because i cant help but feel ppl are just posting 2 links and then i give a long reply, it's a waste of my time with most of these links, when there are already other ppl who have criticized them, ur just too lazy too look it up, so why shud I do it for u?

 

[Myzozoa]

Criticism[edit]
R. Brian Ferguson, professor of Anthropology at Rutgers University–Newark, has challenged Pinker's archaeological evidence for the frequency of war in prehistoric societies, which "consists of cherry-picked cases with high casualties, clearly unrepresentative of history in general."[25] Whereas "y considering the total archaeological record of prehistoric populations of Europe and the Near East up to the Bronze Age, evidence clearly demonstrates that war began sporadically out of warless condition, and can be seen in varying trajectories in different areas, to develop over time as societies become larger, more sedentary, more complex, more bounded, more hierarchical, and in one critically important region, impacted by an expanding state." Ferguson's examination contradicts Pinker's claim that violence has declined under civilization, indicating the opposite is true.

Despite recommending the book as worth reading, the economist Tyler Cowen was skeptical of Pinker's analysis of the centralization of the use of violence in the hands of the modern nation state.[26]

In his review of the book in Scientific American, psychologist Robert Epstein criticizes Pinker's use of relative violent death rates—that is, of violent deaths per capita—as an appropriate metric for assessing the emergence of humanity's "better angels." Instead, Epstein believes that the correct metric is the absolute number of deaths at a given time. Epstein also accuses Pinker of an over-reliance on historical data, and argues that he has fallen prey to confirmation bias, leading him to focus on evidence that supports his thesis while ignoring research that does not.[27]

Several negative reviews have raised criticisms related to Pinker's humanism and atheism. John N. Gray, in a critical review of the book in Prospect, writes, "Pinker's attempt to ground the hope of peace in science is profoundly instructive, for it testifies to our enduring need for faith."[28]

New York Times columnist Ross Douthat, while "broadly convinced by the argument that our current era of relative peace reflects a longer term trend away from violence, and broadly impressed by the evidence that Pinker marshals to support this view," offered a list of criticisms and concludes Pinker assumes almost all the progress starts with "the Enlightenment, and all that came before was a long medieval dark."[29][30]

Theologian David Bentley Hart wrote that "one encounters [in Pinker's book] the ecstatic innocence of a faith unsullied by prudent doubt." Furthermore, he says, "it reaffirms the human spirit's lunatic and heroic capacity to believe a beautiful falsehood, not only in excess of the facts, but in resolute defiance of them." Hart continues:

In the end, what Pinker calls a "decline of violence" in modernity actually has been, in real body counts, a continual and extravagant increase in violence that has been outstripped by an even more exorbitant demographic explosion. Well, not to put too fine a point on it: So what? What on earth can he truly imagine that tells us about "progress" or "Enlightenment" or about the past, the present, or the future? By all means, praise the modern world for what is good about it, but spare us the mythology.[31]

Craig S. Lerner, a professor at George Mason University School of Law, in an appreciative but ultimately negative review in the Claremont Review of Books does not dismiss the claim of declining violence, writing, "let's grant that the 65 years since World War II really are among the most peaceful in human history, judged by the percentage of the globe wracked by violence and the percentage of the population dying by human hand," but disagrees with Pinker's explanations and concludes that "Pinker depicts a world in which human rights are unanchored by a sense of the sacredness and dignity of human life, but where peace and harmony nonetheless emerge. It is a future—mostly relieved of discord, and freed from an oppressive God—that some would regard as heaven on earth. He is not the first and certainly not the last to entertain hopes disappointed so resolutely by the history of actual human beings."[32] In a sharp exchange in the correspondence section of the Spring 2012 issue, Pinker attributes to Lerner a "theo-conservative agenda" and accuses him of misunderstanding a number of points, notably Pinker's repeated assertion that "historical declines of violence are 'not guaranteed to continue.'" Lerner, in his response, says Pinker's "misunderstanding of my review is evident from the first sentence of his letter" and questions Pinker's objectivity and refusal to "acknowledge the gravity" of issues he raises.[33]

Professor emeritus of finance and media analyst Edward S. Herman of the University of Pennsylvania, together with independent journalist David Peterson, wrote detailed negative reviews of the book for the International Socialist Review [34] and for The Public Intellectuals Project, concluding it "is a terrible book, both as a technical work of scholarship and as a moral tract and guide. But it is extremely well-attuned to the demands of U.S. and Western elites at the start of the 21st century."[35]

Two critical reviews have been related to postmodern approaches. Elizabeth Kolbert wrote a critical review in The New Yorker,[36] to which Pinker posted a reply.[37] Kolbert states that "The scope of Pinker's attentions is almost entirely confined to Western Europe." Pinker replies that his book has sections on "Violence Around the World", "Violence in These United States", and the history of war in the Ottoman Empire, Russia, Japan, and China. Kolbert states that "Pinker is virtually silent about Europe’s bloody colonial adventures." Pinker replies that "a quick search would have turned up more than 25 places in which the book discusses colonial conquests, wars, enslavements, and genocides." Kolbert concludes, "Name a force, a trend, or a ‘better angel’ that has tended to reduce the threat, and someone else can name a force, a trend, or an ‘inner demon’ pushing back the other way." Pinker calls this "the postmodernist sophistry that the The New Yorker so often indulges when reporting on science."

An explicitly postmodern critique—or more precisely, one based on perspectivism—is made at CTheory by Ben Laws, who argues that "if we take a 'perspectivist' stance in relation to matters of truth would it not be possible to argue the direct inverse of Pinker's historical narrative of violence? Have we in fact become even more violent over time? Each interpretation could invest a certain stake in 'truth' as something fixed and valid—and yet, each view could be considered misguided." Pinker argues in his FAQ page that economic inequality, like other forms of "metaphorical" violence, "may be deplorable, but to lump it together with rape and genocide is to confuse moralization with understanding. Ditto for underpaying workers, undermining cultural traditions, polluting the ecosystem, and other practices that moralists want to stigmatize by metaphorically extending the term violence to them. It's not that these aren't bad things, but you can't write a coherent book on the topic of 'bad things.' ... physical violence is a big enough topic for one book (as the length of Better Angels makes clear). Just as a book on cancer needn't have a chapter on metaphorical cancer, a coherent book on violence can't lump together genocide with catty remarks as if they were a single phenomenon." Quoting this, Laws argues that Pinker suffers from "a reductive vision of what it means to be violent."[38]

In a professional Review, philosopher Maximiliano Korstanje argues that violence has declined, but not for the reasons stipulated in Pinker´s book. Violence and rivalry not only are innate to humans but also pave the ways for the construction of culture. Its decline corresponds with an indicator of submission and control. In order for monopolizing the means of production, financial elite needs from peace, mobility, tourism, democracy and commodity-exchanges. What violence decreased is not good news simply because capitalism proved to be a machine to create material asymmetries. Paradoxically, while this world became less violent, it turned out more unjust for many peripheral classes.[39]

John Arquilla of the Naval Postgraduate School criticized the book in Foreign Policy for using statistics that he said did not accurately represent the threats of civilians dying in war:

The problem with the conclusions reached in these studies is their reliance on "battle death" statistics. The pattern of the past century—one recurring in history—is that the deaths of noncombatants due to war has risen, steadily and very dramatically. In World War I, perhaps only 10 percent of the 10 million-plus who died were civilians. The number of noncombatant deaths jumped to as much as 50 percent of the 50 million-plus lives lost in World War II, and the sad toll has kept on rising ever since".[40]

Stephen Corry, director of the charity Survival International, criticized the book from the perspective of indigenous people's rights. He asserts that Pinker's book "promotes a fictitious, colonialist image of a backward 'Brutal Savage', which pushes the debate on tribal peoples' rights back over a century and [which] is still used to justify their destruction."[41]

Nassim Taleb[edit]
Statistician and philosophical essayist Nassim Taleb used the term "Pinker Problem" to describe errors in sampling under conditions of uncertainty after corresponding with Pinker regarding the theory of great moderation. "Pinker doesn’t have a clear idea of the difference between science and journalism, or the one between rigorous empiricism and anecdotal statements. Science is not about making claims about a sample, but using a sample to make general claims and discuss properties that apply outside the sample."[42] In a reply, Pinker denied that his arguments had any similarity to "great moderation" arguments about financial markets, and states that "Taleb’s article implies that Better Angels consists of 700 pages of fancy statistical extrapolations which lead to the conclusion that violent catastrophes have become impossible... [but] the statistics in the book are modest and almost completely descriptive" and "the book explicitly, adamantly, and repeatedly denies that major violent shocks cannot happen in the future."[43] Taleb with statistician and probabilist Pasquale Cirillo went on to publish a formal refutation in the journal Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications where they investigate the theses of “long peace” and drop in violence and find that these are statistically invalid and resulting from flawed and naive methodologies, incompatible with fat tails and non-robust to minor changes in data formatting and methodologies. They propose an alternative methodology to look at violence in particular, and other aspects of quantitative historiography in general in a way compatible with statistical inference, which needs to accommodate the fat-tailedness of the data and the unreliability of the reports of conflicts.[44][45]​

 

[Myzozoa]

GatoDelFuego

Soul Fly

 

[thesecondbest]

if it's up to me they will exist in the future

Well they will either exist or not. You here concede that you want them to exist. Unfortunately that's not the same thing as them existing lol
But this is off topic again so I will bring up some Statistics regarding police brutality
1/2 of deaths are white 1/4 black even though 2/5 of the prison population is black - 25% of victims but 40% of prison (these stats are via a far left source the young turks in their video slandering police lives matter so stop with you usual bs of accusing me of bringing stats from breitbart) so that means they are underrepresented in police deaths!
this is why i say it has nothing to do with race, it's just a general issue
Also am I allowed to quadruple post or can only Myzozoa do that because she's far left?

 

[Shrug]

Also am I allowed to quadruple post or can only Myzozoa do that because she's far left

myzozoa is a centrist actually. lets keep this thread civil and not resort to personal attacks

 

[Asek]

Well they will either exist or not. You here concede that you want them to exist. Unfortunately that's not the same thing as them existing lol
But this is off topic again so I will bring up some Statistics regarding police brutality
1/2 of deaths are white 1/4 black even though 2/5 of the prison population is black - 25% of victims but 40% of prison (these stats are via a far left source the young turks in their video slandering police lives matter so stop with you usual bs of accusing me of bringing stats from breitbart) so that means they are underrepresented in police deaths!
this is why i say it has nothing to do with race, it's just a general issue
Also am I allowed to quadruple post or can only Myzozoa do that because she's far left?

look up us racial demographics and then say you dont see there being a specific problem with race

not to take away from your point that the police are generally violent and / or assholes but you're making the case that it isnt disproportionate towards certain groups when it very much is

 

[thesecondbest]

look up us racial demographics and then say you dont see there being a specific problem with race

not to take away from your point that the police are generally violent and / or assholes but you're making the case that it isnt disproportionate towards certain groups when it very much is

You can make the argument that sentencing is racist and that drug laws are dumb, which i partially agree with, but looking at brutality, you have to compare prison% to deaths%. Thats what this thread is about

EDIT: OK Jellicent seems to have no idea what my point is, but I think prison % is related to police encounters, and police deaths should also be related to police encounters. Shouldn't they be the same %? Obviously police deaths don't happen in jail, but that wasn't my point.

 

[Jellicent]

1/2 of deaths are white 1/4 black even though 2/5 of the prison population is black - 25% of victims but 40% of prison (these stats are via a far left source the young turks in their video slandering police lives matter so stop with you usual bs of accusing me of bringing stats from breitbart) so that means they are underrepresented in police deaths!

You can make the argument that sentencing is racist and that drug laws are dumb, which i partially agree with, but looking at brutality, you have to compare prison% to deaths%. Thats what this thread is about

Do you really think most prison deaths are at the hands of police? The overwhelming majority of them are due to diseases like cancer, not violence. Whites in prison are also about twice as likely to commit suicide as blacks. Down in jail, suicide's the top killer, and whites are 5 times as likely to kill themselves as blacks. Usually, they haven't even been convicted yet.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...oners-die-behind-bars/?utm_term=.6004d4230070

http://www.ebony.com/news-views/prison-inmate-deaths#axzz4mCjrbhEs

 

[Cresselia~~]

:(

 

[atomicllamas]

http://www.startribune.com/woman-ki...ed-shooting-in-south-minneapolis/434782213/#1

I've avoided answering the poll in this thread because I think both of the "Yes" options are correct, the police have a brutality problem if you remove the violence against black men, but there is also an obvious racial bias involved. I've always been kind of confused as to why conservatives have been so adamantly defending the indefensible (ie all the excuses made for cop that shot Philando Castile, or Rekia Boyd, or Eric Garner), if you prefer a small government you surely shouldn't be in support of a government backed group that can kill with what seems to be impunity at this point. I think it probably has to do with the fact that the right wing in the US is such a monolithic group (overwhelmingly white and christian) that when the media reports the death of a POC at the hands of the police its a "them" problem (also maybe I'm generous saying they want small gov't when their social policy is essentially let me force my religious beliefs down your throat as laws, but I digress). I bet I won't see the "liberal" media won't be showing any mug shots or show any of her facebook pictures that paint her in a bad light (as they shouldn't) and there will be several people in the media saying shit along the lines of "how could this have happened?" when if you've been paying attention it was clearly inevitable. Police in the US are given huge power and are rarely punished when they misuse it, alongside that there is a segment of the population that essentially worships them (blue lives matter, sidenote if your response to a group that's name is stating "black people's lives matter too" is to accuse them of "reverse racism" and hijack their name for the group of people shooting black men w/o consequence, then sorry, you are in fact racist, and it takes about a 30 second gander at a blue lives matter page to realize they are a hotbed of racial prejudice and also take a weird delight in morbid violence). Hope this opens some people's eyes that police violence as a whole needs to be looked at and we shouldn't be increasingly militarizing the police.

Anyways, hope justice is served in this case (probably will be cause white victim), but I have to wonder what the point of having body cams are if the police can turn them off whenever it is convenient for them, seems dumb. Also looking forward to people not saying, "well she must have done something wrong to get shot" ignoring that police are specifically hired and trained to do their job, while holding them to a lower standard than a citizen without training being held at gunpoint.

 

[Myzozoa]

https://blindfieldjournal.com/2017/07/18/the-black-bloc-which-was-not/

"
As Joshua Clover has helpfully shown in his study on the historical relation between the riot and the strike, riots are a mode of struggle that simultaneously address themselves to police, the state, and capital. That is to say, riots are not simply ephemeral and spontaneous expressions of discontent but are ‘a mode of survival that seeks to resolve the crisis of the reproduction of labor within the spheres of circulation and consumption.’ [3] To détourn Stuart Hall’s formulation: riots are a mode through which class struggle is lived.

Additionally, riots respond to the reality of the function of policing understood as ensuring the security of an economic system that was born from, and needs to maintain, the subjugation of people of color, the poor, queers, women, migrants, and refugees. That is, the job of the police isn’t to ‘protect and serve,’ or to help any citizen whatsoever when they are in danger, but rather to secure, defend, and maintain lucrative economic conditions at the national level for value production, as well as enforcing the illegality of subsistence outside the legally acceptable market of waged-labour. Again, it is this defense of capital and criminalization of those who resist becoming part of surplus populations that is being encountered once more in Hamburg. And as if to corroborate this claim of the police’s inherent role in the protection of capital, Timo Zell, a spokesman for the Hamburg police helpfully puts to rest any remaining doubts: this year’s G20 will be “the biggest operation in the history of Hamburg’s police.” [4] It is because riots are a form of struggle that is equally anti-state, anti-police, and anti-capitalist, that the particular combination of police and capital at this week’s G20 summit should be nothing short of a riotous affair.

"

 

[dice]

actually let's just keep it going..

here's a phenomenon i've taken note of.

if yr reactn to state-sanctioned murder is to:

• punctuate whether or not the slain had a weapon i.e. "they were unarmed!"
• comment on the degree to which the slain performed a version of non-threatening citizenship i.e. "they were on the honor roll!"
• present a version of a resume as if the right to breathe is a job for which only certain candidates are qualified i.e. "they worked hard to support their family/get a degree!"

then you aren't actually against the state murder of black, indigenous, trans, and queer ppl; you just want them to be more selective about whose blood they are spilling in the streets.

i will never re-post an article that uses the word "unarmed," assuming the victim deserved to be murdered otherwise.

i will never re-post an article that talks about "gang-related," anything, as if that description explains anything beyond the radical degree to which the state fails us and we organise to do for ourselves.

i will never argue or signal boost anything grounded in making a case for folx' humanity.

i hope u do the same.