@hmchan do you agree that police brutality in the US is more commonly directed at black people? do you agree that the police are more lenient with whites than blacks? do you agree that their tendency in any given situation is to assume that the black person(s) involved are in the wrong?
In many circumstances I would agree that the issue shouldnt be restricted to a single race or denomination. This isnt one of those circumstances. It has been very clear that in the US, police appear to be far more aggressive and use far more (i.e. excessive) force dealing with blacks than with whites.
Do you - hand on heart - believe that anyone would be able to convince
you to change
your mind on this?
I dont think
@hmchan comes across particularly well, and he also failed to respond to a post of mine earlier where I posted him three relatively straightforward yes/no questions. But he isnt being aggressive (most of the insults have been in his direction, in fact) and is at least attempting to put his viewpoint across in a reasonable fashion. If you dont want to engage with him - which is completely understandable - then just dont engage with him. Put him on ignore if you really feel there is no value to any discussion with him.
Its mildly ironic that in a thread where a major part of the talking point is people's right to freedom of speech, that we are having this discussion.
I think most of the points have been addressed in #3427. I agree that black people are often treated unfairly by the cops, this includes being treated in a less lenient way etc. These are classic examples of racism, and people can always voice their dissent to these racist acts from time to time, but not making use of Floyd's death as it's a clear case of police brutality.
For the brutality part, however, I personally have some conservation. From the social experiment, the majority of participants including black people themselves were more likely to shoot at their black friend rather than a white stranger. While you may argue this is already a kind of racism, I think the definition would be too broad this way that basically everyone is a racist.
Many talk about police's bias towards the black, but they fail to acknowledge their own bias. They presumably think Chauvin murdered Floyd due to racial profiling, solely based on so-called history and pattern without any evidence. Using the same metaphor as before, it's like a murderer must also be a rapist just because many killers rape their victims in the society.
When a white man is knelt to death, it's police brutality; when a black man is killed in the same way, it's racism. It just doesn't make any sense. Those who see it this way are actually the greatest racists, because they view and categorize the same event differently. Now it seems people value black people higher than others, as their death arouses attention while few care about others.
Unlike others, I'm always prepared to change my mind, as soon as there is any direct evidence pointing to the involvement of racism in this particular case. Maybe someone would testify against him in the trial, maybe someome would leak some stories to the press. Honestly, I hope Chauvin can be proven a racist in the end, otherwise all these protests look far less legitimate and meaningful, as they have already been without a clear aim and a concrete demand.