Where I Stand On Police Violence Against Blacks, and Racism

[ManOnFire]

I have to admit it's been pretty appalling for me to witness racism lately here on GaG concerning the racial issues with the police in America. Of course, it isn't the first time I've seen it on the web, as I also saw it on Answerbag and Experience Project before. So after enough thought and observation I do want to say what I think.

Black people...

As a black man, let me be upfront and say right now that black people ain't perfect. Hell, I could write you a series of Takes in succession enough to be made into a book about what's wrong with us and what needs to change, but that could go on for weeks. But what I can say concerning violence and crime is that I am pretty sick and tired of it being a focus in the black community.

We don't want to be stereotyped and discriminated against, yet we glorify rap and hip hop that sings about crime, and we adore rappers that came from criminal backgrounds or are still criminal. Our young sons are out on the streets dealing drugs, stealing, robbing stores, and punching and stabbing people on the train. Our young sons are hanging with gangs or negative circles, or just want to copy the image of bad "n!ggas," and being proud of "getting locked up" and having a record, not realizing how it hurts them later on. And our mothers are in the church claiming to love the Lord yet not teaching their kids to live a right life - and will even try to protect them in their misdemeanors or even encourage it.

We talk about the hood life proudly, love talking about who got shot, or wanting to do something or get back at somebody we don't like. Yes, I know not ALL of us are like this, but at the same time we've made this image a widely known one of ourselves. One minute we hate the white man stereotyping us and saying we're all criminals, but the next we're glorying in that lifestyle and image. And we want it to be okay if we can walk into a Walmart or Target in a white area dressed like a hood or nasty ghetto girl, but not be stereotyped as one.

When you're trying to copy the negative images of crime and have one yourself, you can't be taken seriously. So when people like Michael Brown and Alton Sterling - who were thuggish - get killed, I feel bad for them that it was done out of racism, but then I still find myself thinking, "Maybe if you weren't in that life, you might have lived." When you're doing wrong and in the wrong circles, it does catch up with you, especially for black people.

Alton Sterling

My mother kept me and my brother out of the streets growing up, and we were raised to dress decent, keep our hair decent, and not talk and act like the other ones. And it paid off. We were respected for it by not only the ghetto neighborhood guys but also white people. Have we experienced discrimination by the police before? You can bet your ass we did, and it's probably something 98% of black men have or will experience anyway, but even in that the police could still see we were clean cut, and went on their way.

Having said all that, I don't think black people are perfect, and in some ways we can make ourselves bait for trouble. And while some white people think we're dangerous to all society, most black crime is against our own people, not them.

The police...

I hear a lot of the classic covert - and sometimes not so covert - racist arguments in defense of the police for killing black people, and they don't change my mind. While Sterling and others might have already been typical street crime thugs, that still does not give the police the right to abuse the law they swore to uphold, and especially not out of race. Whether white people want to face it or not, they are less likely to be killed by police, and that does stand to be true. I hear all these angry white guys trying to claim how badly they have it too with the police, and it's not the same. And others pretty much even try to say black men deserve it.

If some white guy out on the streets was selling stolen car parts, bootleg movies, or drugs himself, and he was confronted by the police, 99% of the time they are not going to wrestle him to the ground and kill him.

There does seem to be some kind of fear factor with police in confronting black men. Or pure disregard. Stereotypes are heavy in America that black men are violent and carry guns, so the police feel they don't need to think twice about shooting. Yet the facts are that since the Civil Rights movement, it's been the police to be more violent towards blacks than vice versa. And even if the "suspect" does have a weapon on him, they will rarely use it when confronted by the police. Alton Sterling did have a gun on him, and he wasn't reaching for it. Philando Castille initially warned police that he had a weapon but also a gun permit, that he wanted them to see so they wouldn't attack him.

What a lot of people also try to overlook is that the police can create the stories they want to make themselves look innocent. They destroy or tamper with video proof, police reports, and other evidence. They cover up their crimes. They lie and say it was the citizen or pedestrian in the wrong. And they get away with it. Police chiefs will stand by them. As does Internal Affairs. State attorney generals. And judges. All of these authority groups work together for their own good, so they're not about to convict their own. While there have been some cases where families won lawsuits against the police, for the most part the legal system is already set up to agree with law enforcement, especially in racial cases, and we've already seen that in the cases of Freddy Gray, Trayvon Martin, and Michael Brown.

So having said all that, I still think the police's actions are worse because they are the law and supposed to uphold it. When you fail at it, you lose my respect and I can't take you seriously like you think I should. I think black men are wrong to want to look or act thuggish, but I also think the cops are very wrong to abuse and kill discriminatorily.

Shootings on police officers...

Lately we're seeing strike-backs happening where black shooters are killing the police, and people are saying how awful it is and how not all cops are bad and shouldn't have to pay for what other cops do. This is a similar ideology to other comebacks when whites are victims in some way. White people are getting sad and angry about cops being killed, but aren't thinking about how black people feel on the other side of it. It should be a day of mourning when your cop husband, father, or brother is gunned down, but all you can give when innocent black men are killed is, "We don't know what really happened that day. For all we know he really did intend to hurt the police," or "The evidence shows that the guy was a crook. Get over it." It's taking it too far when cops are killed, but not when black men are.

I really can't say I feel either way about what's happened to those cops. My feelings are neither invested or uninvested in it really. I basically see it as the unfortunate part of the circle of life. Tables turn in every age, circumstance, and society. It's just how life works. Some people will start being on the receiving end. It's neither good or bad. It's what they call karma. Karma is intended to get our attention and wake us up with an important message, and the key is to heed it and learn from it, otherwise you will go into further failure.

Police at the Baton Rouge shooting last week

Having said that, I neither support or disapprove of the black shooters who killed those cops. I will say that it certainly doesn't make us look good since we're already stereotyped as gun-toting thugs anyway, so that doesn't help. But a message is being sent here that we're supposed to listen to.

Black Lives Matter...

You have a lot of people who are also against the Black Lives Matter movement and think it's radical or "terrorist," but I actually see nothing wrong with it. Some white people want to point out what some bad members in the group have done to try to devalue its cause, but some bad apples in a group doesn't make it bad because you say so. If that's the case we might as well call the U.S. government a despotic terrorist regime for striking other nations like Iraq with calculated intent, lying about all our political motives, imposing our rules on other nations, and killing many innocent people in the name of conflict. Not to mention many politicians have been child molestors or rapists or have sexually harassed women interns. Yet the same people who want to demonize BLM for its bad members want to wave the American flag loud and proud and praise our leaders. What a joke.

Then you have the white people - and it is mostly white people I hear - who want to say, "It's not just black lives that matter, all lives matter." This is just their way of not wanting to humble themselves and acknowledge that black lives are significantly being injured by law corruption. Of course all lives should matter, but that in itself didn't matter to white people until black people started expressing the need for their people's lives to matter.

Trying to disregard the issue by highlighting how "all lives matter" just stirs anger and resentment in people of color, because you're basically trying to brush off their concerns through minimization: "You're not the only one suffering, everyone is suffering," when that really is just Bullshit. White people still are not brutalized or victimized by law enforcement like people of color are, no matter how much the angry white guys - and anonymous white women - here want to prove otherwise with their FOX News statistics and all that other tilted crap.

Racism in America...

Although many of us claim that America is less racist and more tolerant than we were before, I do question that to an extent. In many ways we have gotten better racially, and blacks have rights like whites, but in our social infrastructure there can still be friction. Much of our racism today is more covert and secretively calculated. I once heard a radio program last year on a black radio station saying that a study shows that today's generation of white Americans is actually more racist than their parents and grandparents. I don't know if I exactly agree with that, but it is still present in today's generation to some degree.

Some white people try to talk about counterracism and how black people are racist too. And it is true, black people can definitely be racist, especially with our jokes about Hispanics speaking Spanish so fast and living in a house full of 12 people, and jokes about Asians. But the issue is that it's still mostly white people in positions of power and influence, so the decisions they make and what they do for people - or not do - will tell us where they stand on race. And it isn't black people killing someone of another race out of racial prejudice. That's the difference. We have a black president, but much of his authority has been hindered by a white majority in Congress.

Social media is one of the places where racists love to come out and play, so you see it best here and other places, and it can be surreal. Recently I posted a Take on relationships between black men and white women and what I love and hate about it as a black man, and I could definitely say the results were pretty racist, with white males taking offense as if they fear black men stealing their women, and even some white women were against it, and of course black women took it as a slight when I never even mentioned them, only to momentarily praise their own beauty, but they overlooked that. I simply wrote about what I thought was both beautiful and negative about those relationships, and most people read it the way they wanted to. It was both amazing and humorous for me to see. It is true that a lot of Gaggers' reading skills are not very good.

Yet I'm seeing the guys like Polocrew, Fearless_Banana, and anonymous white males - and some white females like KittieCat - writing about black people and black movements being negative, and how they won't apologize for being white anymore, and people are agreeing with them. Witnessing it can be somewhat appalling and fascinating.

We do have more work to do on racism, but progress is hindered and anger is stirred when we're trying to justify people for why they acted against people of color or outright deny it.

Some stats...

While I generally don't have problems with white people, and I like white girls, I'm still no fool. I'm still black and I'm aware of the world around me. I'm never really big on statistics and studies, but I do wanna share some here about race that not a lot of people really know about. Something to sober the racist whites mouthing off about people of color and listening to FOX News:

More white people are actually on foodstamps and welfare than blacks.

Even I didn't know this until a few years ago. Racist white conservatives love talking about black mothers leeching off the welfare system, when more whites are doing it than blacks.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/28/food-stamp-demographics_n_6771938.html

White men make up the majority of rapists in America more than black men.

Because the photo of the chart didn't meet GaG's extremely annoying photo upload size requirements, I can't post it. But according to RAINN, it shows that 57% of rapists are white males while 27% are black.

https://www.rainn.org/statistics/perpetrators-sexual-violence

More murders are actually committed by whites.

According to a chart from as recent as 2013.

Most mass shootings are done by white males.

Although whites like to focus on violent crime being done by blacks, the majority of mass shootings in America are done by young white males.

https://www.vice.com/read/why-are-so-many-mass-shootings-committed-by-young-white-men-623

Just something to think about.

#sorrynotsorry #allyouneedtoknow #BlackLivesMatter #AllLivesMatter

[Waffles731]

Good take, I just wrote one about how the argument that Alton sterling had a rap sheet doesn't give anyone the excuse to shoot him
www.girlsaskguys.com/.../a29597-just-because-someone-has-a-rap-sheet-doesn-t-make-it-okay-to-shoot

[CHARismatic110]

A Take from you that I didn't cringe or want to throat punch you while reading. That's a first. That aside, you make valid points. I agree w

[CHARismatic110]

Stupid GaG.

As I was saying, I agree with a lot of this. And I've seen those comments by said users and the amount of people that agree and hop on the hate-wagon is really sad, but not surprising. Sadly, people will come here just to try to discredit what you've said with the same old sad arguments. Your comment section is gonna be a shitshow. Good luck.

[ManOnFire]

@CHARismatic110 Lol. I'm not concerned about what makes you cringe (the use of that word tells me you read my last Take about black men and white women, as all the other group thinkers used that word to describe it ;-) ). We're still black people, so we know what we're talking about.

[CHARismatic110]

The last Take I read of yours before this one was the plus size one.

[ManOnFire]

@CHARismatic110 But you liked that one... O. o

[CHARismatic110]

True. So then this is the second one.

[madhatters4]

great take. fair and balanced.

focusing soley on a small portion that many (not you) take issue with is the "all lives matter" vs "black lives matter". i wish people could just understand that it's a simple slogan meant to highlight the way in which African americans seem to be the target of police and law enforcement. it is of course not to suggest that only black lives matter or that black lives matter more than another demographic, simply that they are trying to highlight an issue that includes things like 40% of unarmed men killed by police are only 6% of teh population.

people also tend to not really know that black lives matter does focus on other issues (issues not involving black people) however the police violence is front and center in the media so it is the most talked about.

the simple fact is when an American person dies needlessly (regardless of race) it should matter to everyone in America

again Great Take!

[Relentless_Hippie]

I personally think the BLM movement is both stupid and unnecessary. Black Americans make everything about color whether it be good or bad. It doesn't matter what is happening if a black person is involved they will attribute that to the color of their skin. Some of these things I disagree with and honestly some of these things made me angry.

Obama isn't black, he is a mixed president. He is just as white as he is black and I'm tired of black people stripping that from us. We're never good enough for blacks until it's time to make them look good. We've got a MIXED president, we've NEVER had a black one.

Those statistics were taken out of context. Blacks make up about 13% of the population. The statistics about welfare were relevant to the people on welfare. If there is a huge number of whites in America, and 40% of welfare recipients are white, that doesn't mean 40% of white people are on welfare. It means 40% of welfare recipients happen to be white, and if there are more white people in this country and a percentage like that is so big for such a small thing, that should tell you only a small percentage of white people are on welfare. It's like a 10 question test versus a 100 question test, the percentages will not be an accurate representation of the truth. If 25% of those recipients are black, and blacks are a small percentage of the whole population, then that should tell you there is a very large percentage of blacks on welfare in comparison to the rest of the black population. This same logic can be applied to the rest of those statistics.

As for those police officers no, it isn't Karma, it's murder. Murder is NEVER karma. Karma happens to people who put bad out into the world and they're getting their just desserts. These were police officers who had nothing to do with anything that isn't Karma and you should be pissed that people would do that to them and hurt those innocent men. You're black, if a lot of black people commit violent crimes is it Karma if someone robs you or attacks you? If a lot of rapists are men, is it Karma for someone to rape you? If a lot of child abusers are women, is it Karma for someone to abuse the women in your family? NO. Therefore it is NOT Karma that these things took place. Just because someone shares the same color or the same uniform as someone who does bad things doesn't mean they should be mistreated and harmed.

I'm not angry with you, I'm just angry in general. All these racist remarks are about me at EOD

[ManOnFire]

Sometimes black people DO make issues of race where there isn't one, but in this situation, race is very much a part of it. Obama is not a full-blood black, no. And I think he's a limp dick in many ways, but most people are still going to see the black in him and hate that.

I never really believed that stats that say blacks are 12/13% of the pop. We have much higher birth rates than whites do, not to mention blacks are often undercounted in the census, so I would say there are a lot more of us than 13%. Maybe more like 30 or even 40%.

As I said, I neither agree or disagree with those cops being killed. Karma does happen in its own way to get people to pay attention to its message, and sometimes innocent people WILL be part of it.

"You're black, if a lot of black people commit violent crimes is it Karma if someone robs you or attacks you?" - It may be.

[Relentless_Hippie]

How on earth would that be Karma? That makes no sense! You deserve to have bad things happen to you because of other black people? Well then by this logic all of those men deserved to die and BLM is a pointless movement because Karma should come around a kill everyone off.

[Relentless_Hippie]

And it doesn't matter what people see in him, people only see black because of racist assholes and racist black people. It doesn't matter what people CHOOSE to see it isn't going to change what he IS. I hate how black people treat us. They treat us horribly all of our lives and when anyone of us does anything good they steal it away!

[ManOnFire]

Perhaps it should put it more into a spiritual context of 'judgment' instead of karma. In the Bible, God repaid evil leaders and evil nations through particular judgments, as we saw in Exodus. Not all of the Egyptians were bad people who hated Israel, even though most didn't feel great about them, but God still plagued them and took the lives of their sons to send a message. I'll use that perspective instead.

[Relentless_Hippie]

I'm sorry but these things are so frustrating for me. Everybody is being racist and it isn't right. It's all just so frustrating it reminds me of my childhood.

[jonesjessica812]

If white people wouldn't stop racial profiling black men in stores and act like every black man's a thug maybe there wouldn't be any of that or it would be more peaceful. It takes two to tango. If you want things to change, if gotta do your part but we all know quite people are never gonna change

[WalterRadio]

Sounds like you are on the wrong side of right.

Here are some facts: While blacks are only about 12% of the population, over half of all murderers are black (I have a different year than you). If one looks at non-domestic cases, a white (or black) person is more likely to be murdered by a black person than a white person, even though blacks are only 12% of the population.

You mention Gray, Brown and Martin. They are CRIMINALS. Brown and Martin are VIOLENT CRIMINALS. They attacked innocent people, they deserve to be killed in self defense. BLM is nothing more than an attempt to take the side of criminals and push the police out of the hood so the criminals take control and can terrorize the good people without sense enough to move.

My black nextdoor neighbor came to my door yesterday to tell me that a house on the other side of him had some vandalism. He said, "I don't mean to sound racist, but if you see black people around with tattoos on their arms, call the police. They don't belong here." He grew up on s-side Chicago.

You point out that more whites are on welfare than blacks. That is true. But the percent of blacks on welfare is about twice the rate as whites. You can't look at the total numbers, you have to look at the percent of each race, whether for welfare or criminals.

As far as random mass killings go (not terrorism, drug, or domestic dispute), there is a near 100% correlation between the killer and being on psychiatric drugs. The incidence of race between black, white, and Asian closely matches the distribution of those on those drugs.

As far as rape, again, you show the RATE of black rapists as being twice that of whites. Furthermore, black women are less likely to report a rape than white women, so with that adjustment, we are talking three times the difference.

And here you have crossed the line:
"I neither support or disapprove of the black shooters who killed those cops"
In every case of an officer shooting a black man (or child) without justification, they were in a situation and had to make a split second decision. Sometimes they get it wrong. These cop killers planned to kill officers. The knock out game attackers planned to hit white people. The Atlanta baby killer planned to kill a white person.

"And it isn't black people killing someone of another race out of racial prejudice"
That is just a lie. There is no comparison, there are FAR more racist blacks than white, and they are FAR more likely to violently act on that racism.

[Jayded1]

This is a great Take. I agree with a lot of what you are saying but you have some stats wrong and I disagree with some things you say. Sadly this won;t allow me to say as much as i would like due to character limits. It is always difficult to debate this topic as a white male without being called racist. I will however try, rest assured though I respect all people and think skin colour means nothing, or sex or religion for that matter. Now on to things I disagree with. Remember a lot you said is correct, most rape is committed by whites, more mass shootings by whites.

More murders are actually committed by whites.

Soooo far from the truth, where did that chart come from? This is directly from the FBI Crime Stats Page. In 2012, white males were 38 percent of the population and committed 4,582 murders. That same year, black males were 6.6 percent of the population but committed 5,531 murders.

Whether white people want to face it or not, they are less likely to be killed by police,

Also not true, 4 times more white people are killed by police then black people. Now this stat is misleading because the population difference but the core fact remains, blacks are not more likely to be killed. 97% of black males killed each year are by other black males, 3% by police. So as a black male you are FAR FAR FAR more likely to killed by another black male.

Alton Sterling was a convicted pedophile and women beater. The 911 call the police got about him that night was due to him pointing a gun at someone and threatening their life. In the video the cop that tackled him was putting his life in danger to save Alton by trying to restrain him, KNOWING he had a gun. Alton tried to reach for the gun, was ordered not to and then shot. Not to be cruel, but he got what he deserved. The media is painting a terrible picture, the media is the true villain, for years the lie or mislead the public against the police. Mike Brown is another perfect example. Here is a black gun instructor saying the cops had no choice but to kill Alton.

controversialtimes.com/.../

Black Lives Matter are terrorists in my opinion. I actually have a small Take on them myself

www.girlsaskguys.com/.../a29570-black-lives-matter-why-i-cannot-support-it

I don't have enough space to write more on BLM but here is a youtube video by a black man who i agree around 80% with and sums up my opinion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFSfGHFH1J8

[Anonymous]

Went anonymous to avoid all the haters. Response limited due to space. 1. I am Caucasian or "white". 2nd, I have friends, co-workers and relatives that are white, black, native American. 3rd, I just am tired of hearing how much harder "blacks" have it than other races. We all face discrimination.
The Washington Post: The conventional thinking about police-involved shootings, and some scientific research, has been that black suspects are more likely to be shot than white suspects because of an implicit racial bias among police officers. But now a new study has found exactly the opposite: even with white officers who do have racial biases, officers are three times less likely to shoot unarmed black suspects than unarmed white suspects.
Research by Washington State University. Similar to a the results of Roland G. Fryer Jr. (a black man), the author of the study and a professor of economics at Harvard.
From Jared Taylor, American Renaissance, July 1, 2015 citing the DOJ:
2kpcwh2r7phz1nq4jj237m22.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/.../NCFS-Table.jpg
This table can be used for a number of interesting calculations. First, we find that during the 2012/2013 period, blacks committed an average of 560,600 violent crimes against whites, whereas whites committed only 99,403 such crimes against blacks. This means blacks were the attackers in 84.9 percent of the violent crimes involving blacks and whites. This figure is consistent with reports from 2008, the last year DOJ released similar statistics. Perhaps not coincidentally, that was the year Mr. Obama was elected president.
Interestingly, we find that violent interracial crime involving blacks and Hispanics occurs in almost exactly the same proportions as black/white crime: Blacks are the attackers 82.5 percent of the time, while Hispanics are attackers only 17.5 percent of the time.
Some observers argue that what causes the overwhelming preponderance of black-on-white over white-on-black violence is “chance of encounter,” due to the fact that there are five times as many whites as blacks in the American population. However, there are only about 30 percent more Hispanics than blacks, yet black-on-Hispanic violence is almost as lopsided as black-on-white violence. This suggests blacks may be deliberately targeting both whites and Hispanics. The are approximately 5 times as many whites as black in America. So if it were looked at a percentage of the population whites should be 5 time higher in all areas. That is not the case.

[Grubhub]

What kind of discrimination do white people face when the world is run by white people?

[Opinion Owner]

@Grubhub I guess you didn't read what I wrote. Violent attacks certainly qualify as discrimination. In fact, if a white attacks a black its labeled a hate crime. When a black attacks a white, its just a criminal statistic. There's some discrimination for you.

Ever heard of historically under utilized populations? That's where the government discriminates against whites to give contracts to less qualified blacks. There's some more discrimination for you.

How about admissions to colleges and universities, yea they openly discriminate there also against whites.

[Grubhub]

Yet when a black attacks a white blacks get locked up. White people get away with murdering black people

[Grubhub]

You’ve never been judged by a non black person a day in your life and yet white people say white privledge don’t exist

[Opinion Owner]

@Grubhub you don't know who I have been judged by. Nor have you been judged by only a white person. Grow up. Your not discriminated against. Your privileged. White people are the ones who are discriminated against in today's society.

[Grubhub]

You’re white, you don’t get judged due to white privilege. Admit it

[Grubhub]

I’ve been judged by others by it’s like 90% of whites people doing it. Also you and I both know blacks people wouldn’t be going through the level of racism today if it weren’t for white people. In a lot of places if a black man goes to Asia or India he gets judged while the white man gets treated well. White america spreads hate

[Grubhub]

If white people are the ones judged then tell me about times you were judged by a person who wasn’t black. I bet you can’t

[Brokenheartedx]

www.dailymail.co.uk/.../...ering-knife-wounds.html

... UK cops don't carry guns so why they get stabbed?
Americas BLM movement here is now null in void, in my view the only reason people carry weapons is to use them in the intention to maim or kill someone else.. so if they get shot and killed by cops well it's not a hard loss right? Better than some innocent person death by mistaken identity these thugs killed by mistake yeah

Black people you are no more special than white or Asian people not only do we all bled red we also have other things in common.. when we come of age we are stripped of names to the government we are just a number they have given us.. Yup

I'm sick of celebs stirring the pot to.. they open their mouth to stir it up between races I've yet to see one tuck in to hard earned cash paid for by these poor people who
Look up to them.. to improve other people's lives.. dirt poor council estate areas would benefit some cash from celebs but nope not a thing.. they think theyre helping if American council areas are anything like ours they are always overlooked by the government.. only time Anyone remembers they are there is when to many people get killed or crime to high..

That's my
Opinion but I'm European white and we have bigger fish to fry..

If people want to make a difference in this world

[ManOnFire]

Good. Now get on back to Europe and focus on those bigger fish to fry.

[Brokenheartedx]

Black lives matter lol using what happened in the past to justify carry on guns now.:. if only Americans had waited 100 years could of gave them loads tryin to get in the UK.. lol:..

[ManOnFire]

LMFAO! You're commenting about an issue in America that you don't even understand it that well or live with. BLM isn't about what happened in the past to justify carrying guns, it's about standing up against what the police are doing NOW! Lol.

[Brokenheartedx]

It's spreading to the UK so it is our problem.. UK never shot black men dead our cops don't carry guns.. the only time 2 black Menwere shot they weren't shot dead and it was deserved they hacked up and beheaded a soldier on the street! Our police went to America to teach Americans how to disarm without need of guns.. our money not American tax payers money for that.. I can comment on it if I want.. thugs carry guns for reasons so that's 2 more thugs off the street and your whinging for? I don't care if they are black all I see is 2 idiots carryin weapons with a history with run ins with the law.. waste of time with people like that.. n u shouldn't waste ur time with people like that either.. no one is above or over the law.. the cops will always win there is a few arseholes in the police but their protected so why fight them? just be a law abiding citizen like normal people

[ManOnFire]

@Brokenheartedx I really wouldn't know about what's going on in the UK - mostly due to American egocentrism in the news - so I'm not about to comment on your situation. However, I do know from some other Brits I've talked to that apparently there's still racism in the UK, so I can't say if the black people there are right or wrong for starting up BLM over there.

Either way, it isn't just about thugs carrying guns. The police in America are shooting innocent black people - one just happened today in Florida to a therapist! The point is that there is discrimination PERIOD, whether the black person is a thug with a gun or not.

[HonestWhiteGuy]

Blacks are never racist right bud? Absolute clown.

[Brokenheartedx]

And racism in Britain is going to get worse as long as certain religion keep raping our kids.. and coming here to get the goodies ie new houses that's furnished.. free schooling and healthcare... people are getting pissed off.. u think black lives matter read the boats coming from Africa.. boat full of men the women on board apparently died of the fumes.. strange don't u think? they are all in it together they blamed kids as young as 12 for allowing to be raped as it *takes 2 to tango* police covered it up kept it quiet for years so please don't type about police corruption ur preaching to the choir

[Anotherdumbblonde]

The fck did I just read...

[Anotherdumbblonde]

You're exactly right about everything you've said. I'm a pale blonde girl and i've been pulled over for the most ridiculous, made up things ever. The cops always talk down you, always ask unnecessary questions, always assert authority even when you're being respectful to them. So I could only imagine what goes on towards black people. Police have way too much authority, not enough training and not enough supervision. Of course they're not all bad but that doesn't make it any less true.

You're right about some black people as well, a lot of them are their own worst enemy and refuse to acknowledge it. It reminds me of when women go around saying "men only judge us by our looks". Then five minutes later they're asking how to get a thigh gap or worshiping a celebrity for how beautiful she is. At some point you have to take responsibility for something that you're glorifying. Doesn't mean that you deserve to be shot by some power-hungry, trigger happy cop for it though.

[ManOnFire]

Excellent response :-)

[jonesjessica812]

Some cops just pull girls over just to talk to them. That's exactly why the police is a pile of shit

[Ratiocinative]

I can appreciate your attempts to acknowledge that Black people are to blame for their problem, but when you misrepresent and misinterpret facts it shows you really aren't all that sincere.

#1) Black people make up ~12% of the population and White people make up ~60%. So when 40% of SNAP recipients are white and 25% are black, that equates to Blacks being about 3 times more likely to be a recipient. How exactly do you figure "more whites are doing it than blacks"?

#2) Again, population. If both White and Blacks committed the same number of murders, then that means blacks are 5 times more likely to murder because of their smaller population. Also, FBI statistics show Blacks are 8 times more likely to commit other violent crimes like robbery.

#3) In 2015 there were 39 deaths from "mass-shootings". In this current month of July (which isn't over yet obviously) 35 Blacks have shot and killed other blacks in Chicago. 1 city in in month murders more people than "mass-shootings" do in the entire country for the entire year. Try again.

Black people who blame white people for their problems are the true racists. How about you stop blaming whites for you problems? Stop having premarital sex? Stop committing crimes? Stop joining gangs? Stop dropping out of school? I actually went to an "academy" school that was ~95% Black. Sure there were some good students there, but most were not. Not because they weren't smart, but because they were lazy and lacked discipline. In some of the classes a group of 5-10 kids would give up and move their desks to the back of the room so that they could have a social hour and ignore what the teacher was teaching. They have no one to blame but themselves.

#BlackLiesMurder

[Beaver19]

I'm glad someone put a thought out argument on here regarding this, I'm white myself however I do disagree with you on some things, number one is black lives matter, I firmly believe many groups feel empowered by an ideal they don't fully read into and black lives matter fails to see that 90% of black killings are from other black people in crime. If black lives mattered so much wouldn't that have been brought up? Also it's like you say that black people have taken to a rough 'pride' of being from tough areas and the fact of the matter may simply be that in certain cities (which make up for the vast majority of crime statistics of all races I think we can agree there) it simply is a fact more young black people are involved in crime than other races, I'm not saying that to be racist but it's simply a statistic, I'm not saying it's because they are black or anything and there are tons of criminals that are all races but in a lot of big cities it simply is fact that most criminal activity is done by black people. Again I think it's more circumstance than anything, more that due to historical events a few generations back it has put African Americans on a harder economic plane and led to them being involved more in crime, nothing to do with the race itself.

I respect that your argument is well thought out and I hope you see some of the points in mine, you have to realize there are some black people too who take black pride too far and offend people acting like we are the ones responsible for slavery decades back (to those people you should know-the original slaves that were black you want to know how they got here? Not white man plundering Africa but OTHER black warlords selling POW's to the white men, not saying it made it right but if you want to use the slavery card your kind was the original sellers.

[ManOnFire]

I can say you did make a few good points out of the rest of the white males here denying the issue and sweeping it under the rug. However, it's actually a myth that black warlords sold their own people into slavery to whites. And honestly? Even if they did, eventually whites would've found a way to come in and overtake the warlords themselves so they could control the whole crop.

[Beaver19]

No it's not a myth, the African 'states' I guess you could call them at the time were constantly commuting barbaric acts in their time I'll spare you the details of their war but when they first encountered mass numbers of white men there was small skirmishing which is what made the whites see their value, Tabbacco and other crop goods were just booming around this time and the toughness of the African American given their natural climate would help, and it is know and with plenty of evidence and still accepted that the black slaves were sold by other black men, in fact in the late 1700's a black man bought his freedom under the British rule and won in a hearing against a white man-clearly the race had nothing to do with his standing at the time or the reason for slavery other than the fact other blacks sold him into it. The separation of races became more later on when the big name tobacco farmers began to tell people blacks were less to shift focus off of their shifty business at the

[Beaver19]

time and get the poor in America to stop fighting against the unfair flow of money and get them more scared of black people. Trust me I'm very educated on the subject, of course some piracy of shaved was done in Africa of taking slaves but most were initially prisoners of other African groups that were sold to white men. That is fact and no professor or text or any legitimized evidence saying different has ever shown up in any of my studies, which given my class work is a lot.

[AmongTheApples]

All of those statistics that you posted do not adjust for the fact that blacks only make up 12.3% of the population. In other words, in raw numbers of course there are more white people on food stamps and there are more murders are committed by whites because there are so many more whites than blacks. However, it is unbelievable that it's as close as it is. Whites make up 63% of the population and committed 2755 murders, but blacks only make up 12.3% of the population and committed 2698 murders. So despite the fact that there are so many more whites in the US than blacks, whites only commited 57 more murders than blacks. Think about that.

Secondly, according to the most recent FBI statistics, blacks again only making up 12.3% of the population killed nearly double the amount of white people in terms of raw numbers than whites killed of black people. So, if anything, the data actually suggest that black people are racist against white people and are more aggressive and violent toward white people.

What you said under shootings on police officers was just ignorant and callous. I feel sorry for anyone, regardless of race, who has their life ended at the hands of another. Those officers, just like any black person, have family and friends that they were taken away from. And they didn't have anything to do with any of the shootings. And you can't feel sorry for them?

[QuestionMan]

I doubt you'll find many people who believe that the police doesn't need reform. That being said, is BLM the best group to drive this change?
A group that has been involved in violence, murder and anti-cop chants.
Martin Luther King once said "I think for the Negro to turn to violence would be both impractical and immoral... Riots are self defeating and socially destructive"
If there was a group called Reform the Police or something along those lines that was non-violent and didn't block highways then I'd fully support them.

However by calling themselves Black Lives Matter they're being hypocritical since only the Black lives that suit their narrative matter (even though in most cases it is proven that these were violent thugs that were killed and not innocent Black men) and not the innocent children killed every day through Black on Black violence.

Again I will reiterate POLICE REFORM IS NECESSARY BUT NOT IF IT IS BASED ON A FALSE NARRATIVE. There are enough real cases and real issues that should be focused on as the justification for reform. BLM is just not the right group to push for this reform.

[ManOnFire]

Yet few people disagreed with the destructive riots of the mostly Occupy Wall Street movement, or the young white university demonstrations of the 60s. When black people form a group and are rightfully angry about injustice, it's funny to me the way white people wanna try to talk about how it's going too far because it injures their pride. The KKK has been hiding under their hoods for decades and still walking around, and I don't see white people saying how that needs to end. You're not less of a joke to me than the others.

[QuestionMan]

My problem with Occupy Wall Street was that they blocked the entrances to businesses and achieved nothing. As for the protests in the 60s those were justified and helped propel civil rights.
I find it sad that when ever I criticize BLM I always get the same response of "ol Whitey is being defensive". As I said the way the demonstration is held matters. I tell this to Hamas supporters all the time "The moment you use violence to further your cause you become my enemy regardless of what your cause is". This is why I posted the quote by Martin Luther King. He's a man I have great respect for because he used non-violence to fight for civil rights and won.

The KKK argument is honestly getting old. When was the last time they killed someone? When was the last time they committed a hate crime? It's been a long time. Their numbers have decreased significantly over the years and are nothing more than a hate group.

How many lives were lost to BLM?
#AllLivesMatter #BlueLivesMatter

[NoFcks2Give]

Not using violence to achieve a systematic infrastructural change in a government. Do you remember you social studies classes at all. That's the only way that happens. When Lyndon B. Johnson signed the civil rights acts it was because the violence against blacks was getting to a pretty bad place. So bad in some places that government interference was needed. Look up black wall street. That shit was horrendous. I try to be partial, as I like to believe to argue with any kind of proficiency it's needed, but that moment in history fucking sickens me to a depth of which I hate going. MLK was an amazing leader, but ultimately he served his purpose because he was able to mainstream the rage of his oppressor, instead of fighting them. (Still a lot of people think that somehow Blacks are inherently violent, no humans are, most lower socioeconomical nieghborhoods, white, black, Brazilian, Mexican, Slavic, Nigerian, have increased violence. Why? Ask me it's part the culture ( or lack thereof,

[NoFcks2Give]

After all we are THE disenfranchised people of America.)
Beforeanyone besets upon me a bunch of liberal "all people matter" (which is just about the most hypocritical thing any person who lives in a country that benefits from capitalism as much as we do. There are jobs here we "wont" do. That's a luxury in it of itself. I love this country. Not for the culture, not for some creed, not for its people, but because of its prowess. We are willing to kill any number of people, and as a result some of our own to ensure that you have your "freedomS". And you'll never question it, and if you do, your hypocritical. Black on black violence happens, because of... wait... for it. PROXIMITY. Poor people live on top of each other. Drug addicts on playgrounds, drug dealers in hallways of HUGE project apartment homes. Gangbangers on the corner. Sound familiar. Maybe not and thats fine, better yet I'm happy for you cause it's fucking miserable stepping on heroin vials trying to get to school.

[NoFcks2Give]

If you think you could grow up in these conditions and not be product of your environment, then that's you, but to suggest that entire communities should change the little bit of identity they have in hopes they aren't shot by those sworn to "protect and serve" them , thats just being arrogant and naive.

[NoFcks2Give]

I don't advocate violence against police, but if history repeats itself. What your telling me by your opinion is akin to Marie Antoinette telling her hungry proletarian populace "Let them eat the cake".

[QuestionMan]

@NoFcks2Give No, I'm telling them to get an education, a job and not be involved in gangs.

[QuestionMan]

The KKK is nothing more than a joke nowadays.
Just a bunch of racist idiots wearing pillow sheets over their heads.
As for Occupy Wall Street it was just a bunch of dumb kids who thought they could make the banks change. The TEA party held a similar protest against bank bailouts and was much better organized.
However I don't recall Occupy Wall Street members killing bankers so there's a big difference between them and BLM.

[NoFcks2Give]

Alton Sterling wasn't in a gang. Michael Brown was college bound. Philando Castile was a full time employee as a cook. Your talking about such a small % of people who are in gangs. You should read more lol.

[QuestionMan]

@NoFcks2Give Alton Sterling was resisting arrest and was reaching for a firearm.
Michael Brown tried to get a gun off a police officer after robbing a convenience store.
Philando Castille is the only innocent one of the three. In this case a scared cop shot him because he looked like a suspect.

[NoFcks2Give]

Michael Brown reached for his weapon, sure (and it was shoplifting, be real cops don't hunt down shoplifters, especially not in inner city streets)
Did the officer manage to prevent this from happening, while still safe in his vehicle? Yes.
What he does next is what matters. He gets out of his truck and executes him. Causality needs to fall under reason. Michael Brown should have been apprehended, of course, but there are children who shoplift get caught and the simply grounded or sentenced to community service ir their parents/guardian gets fined. This isn't about guilt and innocence, its about this thing we have here called due process (miranderizing, habeas corpus, etc.) They were citizens of the U. S. A.

P. S. the firearm fell from his waist. It's not illegal to brandish a firearm in the state of LA. Was the firearm legal? I'm not sure, but it doesn't matter, because at the time in which he was shot the officers would have had no idea if the weapon was registered)

[QuestionMan]

@NoFcks2Give Alton Sterling was on probation so him possessing a firearm was illegal.
Michael Brown charged at the officer so the cop was acting in self defence.
He was acquitted after all. I'm sure a judge would know more than me or you.

[NoFcks2Give]

Acquittal, really. One word "affluenza" , and no one here is disputing Darren Wilson's acquittal. The judge found he was not wrongful, okay, whatevs. His actions were still deplorable.

[QuestionMan]

@NoFcks2Give Darren Wilson was not some rich playboy so no this had nothing to do with affluence but with the rule of law.

[NoFcks2Give]

My point was due process is important, whether the outcome is justified or not. In both these cases, some would say the verdict was controversial.

[QuestionMan]

@NoFcks2Give The verdict wasn't controversial. A thug got killed by a cop end of story.
It's just the race baiting BLM who refuses to acknowledge Black crime that is causing the commotion.

[BigJake]

Black people need to start comporting themselves like humans when dealing with law enforcement officers. I have zero sympathy for black men who get shot while struggling with or disobeying officers' orders. Screw with cops and dead is what you will likely get. And that's not only true for black men. More white men get shot by cops on an annual basis than any other ethnic group.

Racism does now and always will exist, but it is *not* the creation or sole province of white people. Every group has its racist members. Black people are probably the most racist group in America today, because they place more emphasis on and ascribe more behaviors to ethnicity than anyone else.

A white cop pulls over a black man? No, it's not because he was speeding, it's just racism. No "black" movies get nominated at the Oscars? No, it's not because "Selma" was a horrible movie, it's just racism. The Speaker of the House employs zero black interns? No, it's not because a black Republican is rarer than a pink unicorn, it's just racism.

Not everything is about race. I would argue that almost nothing is about race in this country anymore. Money is what motivates people, not race. If Lebron James were 5'9" and unathletic, he couldn't buy his way into an NBA arena. The fact that he's a basketball god means that billionaire owners are kissing his ass and hanging on his every tweet. Why? Because he makes them money. Money talks. A black man who produces great wealth is far more powerful in this country than the whitest of white Scandinavian men who drives a bus.

So be angry and resentful of whites all you want, but you won't be helping yourselves in the long run by doing so. We don't buy into your narrative of self-pity and racial grievances rooted in events that are 100 years past. Moreover, we're not going anywhere. You're going to have to deal with us, and the more you villainize us, the more you're going to find white people turning a cold shoulder to you.

[SleepingSnorlax]

I don't know man
Some police are dorty sure but to generalize the whole entire united states force and say they are all evil is fucking ridiculous
there's no denying that there's still racism but lets be real black people a racist too... they alwayssssssss bash on white people
Weve all read the articles or saw the videos about the fbi stas where white men killed by cops is double the number of black men killed by cops
Weve all seen the videos where the people go out intentionally making the cops look bad, where if they did what they were asked to whos to say any of those cops would act like that?
Weve also all seen the videos where people will resist arrest and then kids on the internet blow up because the cop subdues them but they dont realize that resisting arrest kn any degree is ilegall and call for the cop to restrain you
BLM is a bit too hypocritical for me. They hate cops, white cops, black cops, Asian cops, latino cops. Only time you hear from them is when a black person dies

[SleepingSnorlax]

Bottom line
there's no denying that there is still racism in the police force and it does need a refom
But BLM could take a step back and look at what theyre doing

Sorry i had to post a reply cause i ran out of words

[ManOnFire]

Did you even read the whole Take? I noted that there are SOME good cops, and also noted black racism.

[SleepingSnorlax]

... i dod t say that you didn't note either of those things
I just gave you my opinion on the situation

[JustAGirl10101]

I know from my experience in a nearly all-white, private high school that whites can be unbelievably hostile toward minority groups they don't understand. Going there felt like traveling back to the pre-civil rights movement. The two black students out of the school's 600 kids were stereotyped endlessly, in addition to receiving derogatory slurs and death threats... yet their bullies were the biggest deniers of racism. Thank you for writing this Take so that people like their tormentors might realize the human qualities of everyone regardless of their skin color, and that no group is perfect, but no group is completely to blame, either.

[ManOnFire]

Thankyou for understanding.

[HonestWhiteGuy]

Oh no they got a few bad names! Now go to the same all Black school as a White kid and youd get bullied and actually beaten up daily.

I wish you had gone to an almost all Black high school so youd get a taste in reality instead of your sheltered "only Whites are bad" garbage

[dllucas2015]

@HonestWhiteGuy Well said.

[JustAGirl10101]

@dllucas2015 I'm not saying that all whites are to blame and all blacks are innocent. I'm just pointing out that the more blacks and whites take on their struggles separately the more difficulty they have understanding one another and treating each other like fellow human beings, which @HonestWhiteGuy's comment further proves. I like this take because it offers another perspective to widen many GAGers' horizons.

[chc0009]

Well, it depends on the area. There are places like South Dakota where there are hardly any blacks, so whites are more likely to be criminals and welfare recipients there. But in places with a lot of blacks like Atlanta, they have higher rates of crime and welfare.

Personally, I think that race doesn't make them like this, but environment, since most African Americans grow up in poverty without fathers, so they become angry and violent as a result.

Also, what's being overlooked is that most of the blacks who do this stuff are African American blacks. The Nigerians, Kenyans, and other African immigrants who come here, they're some of the most well-behaved and successful people here, even doing better than the Asians. My friend former boss was Kenyan who didn't like a lot of African Americans. He says that the United States of America is racist, but it offers more opportunities that he'd never have in Africa.

Let's face the ugly truth. America is racist. It always was and always will be. Being realistic, as browner people, we'll have work twice as hard as the white people to even get half of what they have. This country was founded on racism and slavery, so to beat the white man at his own game, we shouldn't use divisive stuff like BLM. And we're going to have to be twice as nice to the cops, since they'll shoot or jail browner people at higher rates for disobedience.

Being black is like play a video game of life on hard difficulty. It's sad, but it's realistic.

[Spiorad_Aisce]

A very sane take - We live in an era of soundbites and instant reaction so the discussion descends into rancour in seconds which helps the situation not one iota - Taking a step back and producing an excellent take like this with context, balance and stats is (forgive the French) "Fucking Boring Shit" much better to skip the detail and just leave a comment about black people killing cops to which someone will respond about white cops killing black people, insults will be thrown which will feed the frenzy that fuels extremists on both sides - America is divided at the moment from a bruising presidential election down to its social politics and no effort is being made to heal the ever growing wound that bleeds more blood with each incident, black/white/blue/muslim etc.

[ManOnFire]

Dude, if we could give Best Answer for Takes I would give it to you.

[FallOutBoy2001]

Great take. I work at a Boys and Girls Club, and most of the kids there are latino or black. Some of the sweetest, gentlest kids you will ever meet. Some of the white kids are the most disrespectful assholes I've ever met, and will probably wind up in jail. It makes me sad to know that a lot of the kids there are at a much higher risk of getting shot than the others.

[ManOnFire]

I've seen what you're talking about in places like that myself. The white kids can be terrible, yet the black ones will be the ones people zero in on as foul.

[FallOutBoy2001]

Yeah. I actually have a mental list of which kids I need to report as bad at the end of the day, and which kids have been good, and I find that the white kids make the bad list a lot more because they know they can get away with the shit that the black and latino kids can't

[chico800]

Uh huh. And where is this, exactly?

[HonestWhiteGuy]

Ok compare the number of White gangs to Latino and Black? What you just said doesn't add up when you look at it statistically.

[FallOutBoy2001]

@chico800 The club is in Mass.
@HonestWhiteGuy when did I start talking about gangs?

[HonestWhiteGuy]

@FallOutBoy2001 Because the real bad kids are the ones in gangs and they end up in jail most often. And more often than not they are Black/Latino not White.

If your story is true its the complete opposite of what it normally is.

[FallOutBoy2001]

@HonestWhiteGuy I never said the "bad" kids were in gangs, honestly while there are gangs not many of the kids are in them, because they're like 11 and 12.

[Philosopher_Edge]

Nice myTake, brother.

I get to tired of cop defenders and 'patriots' who are middle-aged and white who've probably never seen the outside of their little towns think they know the struggles of anyone else. I get irritated when they get mad that pictures are circulating of individuals standing on the flag. The don't understand that those people standing on the flag represent a generation of disenfranchised people who can't engage in the 'American Dream' the way whites can. They can't seem to grasp that America means different things to different people, and some people have more access to it than others, economically, educationally and socially.

Thank you, this was a great myTake.

[ManOnFire]

Wow, if we could give MHOs for Takes I think I would give it to you, man.

[Philosopher_Edge]

ha ha Thanks man.

[dudeman]

well. lets be real here you are not using statistics properly. more whites are killed by cops. thats a fact. also the rate at which whites and blacks are killed in comparable. every time a black person is stopped by a cop he has the same chances as dying as a white man. a harvard professor just did that study im sure it will be easy to find. so basically the real question is why do blacks commit so much crime? all the statistics you have shown are not well presented. yes whites commit more crime but there are five times as many whites. that means they are about 4 times less criminally on average. what you are experiencing is not hidden racism its your lack of understanding how numbers work. this is how you figure out the numbers that actually matter. just divide the numbers you present by the number of each racial groups percentage of the population and whichever number is bigger thats the group that commits more crime per capita. you're not going to like what you find because it will just show you that people are not being racist you're being dumb.

[ManOnFire]

Uh-uh. Not buyin' it. Get some more education: www.huffingtonpost.com/.../...ur-st_b_8078586.html

[dudeman]

lol huffington post. dont be an idiot. this is why nothing good will come of blm. you guys can't logic. its non existent in that entire population of people

[Starrk]

That Harvard study that you used as evidence was never peer reviewed. A study NEEDS to be reviewed by experts in the field before it can be classified as accurate.

[HonestWhiteGuy]

Yep, he's using false skewed statistics and blatantly lying and twisting the truth.

[dudeman]

@HonestWhiteGuy yeah he's twisting the truth and just giving raw data which isn't really good for any conclusion until analysis is done. he clearly did no analysis he just is a racist black.

[dllucas2015]

Hit the nail on the head.

[dudeman]

@dllucas2015 i always do. its kind of my thing.

[dllucas2015]

True lol. Hey check your messages bro.

[Nice_Guy_Last]

Man, why can't we all be friends? There are some stupid ass people with dangerous predispositions that would be stopped if only they took a damn second to listen to a word of what the other is saying. Respect is what America has lost recently. We are afraid to give it, because we don't want to be let down. But not having respect generates feelings of alienation, which furthers our lack of respect, and so on.

I may not be a cop, but I respect their job and their authority. I may not be a black person, but I respect them as people and I respect their culture. If only more people could respect, maybe things would start to change.