Looting and Rioting in Baltimore

[ktchong]

Because I love to watch the world burns.

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLrHTW-zVWk

Edited April 28, 2015 by ktchong

[ktchong]

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s64CDaHS1ss

Edited April 26, 2015 by ktchong

[Gorgon]

They can barely stop filming eachother long enough to throw a rock.

 

 

That's just not very smart.

[Valsuelm]

Because I love to see the world burns.

 

Until it's burning you I'd wager.

 

Yet another situation where the police murdered a guy, and rather than combat the problem many use the problem as an excuse to do evil themselves.

[HoonDing]

Baltimore Molotov ****tail Party.

[Walsingham]

I'm still amazed that people are so amazed by all this. 

 

In a society full of guns, the police need guns. If the police have guns then it's reasonable to expect people to get shot.

 

If people get shot it's reasonable to expect some of those people to be wrongly shot.

 

It doesn't make all the shootings wrong. Or all the cops wrong.

[PrimeJunta]

Yeah it's just funny that most of the people getting wrongly shot share a couple of particularly noticeable physical characteristics. Don't you think?

[Walsingham]

True. But while there are likely to be any number of attempts to combat racism in police culture now...

 

I wonder how many attempts there will be to combat shooting cops in popular culture.

 

Having said that I'm sure you and your naxalite fantasies enjoy seeing cops get shot, so whatever.

[Meshugger]

This reminds of the riots in London, Paris and Stockholm. Always started with the Police shooting a kid and they answer by burning down their own neighbourhoods. Of course the kid is always portraid as an angel that suffered from over-violence by the officers.

 

As for Baltimore, it's a shame. The city is quite beautiful in the city center along the Chesapeake bay.

[PrimeJunta]

True. But while there are likely to be any number of attempts to combat racism in police culture now...

 

I wonder how many attempts there will be to combat shooting cops in popular culture.

 

Having said that I'm sure you and your naxalite fantasies enjoy seeing cops get shot, so whatever.

 

I'm a Trotskyite, not a Maoist, you peon.

 

(Okay seriously: I would prefer to avoid violent revolutions unless all other options have been exhausted. They almost invariably end up falling to the counter-revolution or getting hijacked by authoritarians of one type or another. I believe gradual, democratic institutional change is the much better alternative.)

 

I would also like to have a police force that's not corrupt and has proper checks and balances in place to stop it from abusing its power. Most of the American police force is clearly not that police force. It's more like just another armed gang on the streets, except it's backed by state power. 

 

Yes, that does mean that I think a cop getting shot by a gangster is more or less the same thing as a gangster getting killed by a cop, or a gangster getting killed by another ganster. I'm not particularly outraged at that. I am outraged when cops or gansters kill innocents.

[Zoraptor]

Yeah it's just funny that most of the people getting wrongly shot share a couple of particularly noticeable physical characteristics. Don't you think?

 

This guy 'mysteriously' got his spinal column severed at some random point in custody rather than got shot so Wals' gun comment doesn't apply here anyway.

 

As for Baltimore, it's a shame. The city is quite beautiful in the city center along the Chesapeake bay.

 

I went to Baltimore and it was... interesting. Quite nice down by the waterfront then a couple of blocks away it went full The Wire location shoot (well, Homicide: Life on the Street since it was a fair while ago now) with dilapidated houses, industrial decay and all the rest.

[Meshugger]

 

Yeah it's just funny that most of the people getting wrongly shot share a couple of particularly noticeable physical characteristics. Don't you think?

 

This guy 'mysteriously' got his spinal column severed at some random point in custody rather than got shot so Wals' gun comment doesn't apply here anyway.

 

As for Baltimore, it's a shame. The city is quite beautiful in the city center along the Chesapeake bay.

 

I went to Baltimore and it was... interesting. Quite nice down by the waterfront then a couple of blocks away it went full The Wire location shoot (well, Homicide: Life on the Street since it was a fair while ago now) with dilapidated houses, industrial decay and all the rest.

 

 

Yeah, take a wrong turn and two blocks later you're in bat county. Philadelphia is similar, but not so extreme.

Edited April 27, 2015 by Meshugger

[Ineth]

Yet another situation where the police murdered a guy

 

I don't think this word means what you think it means.

[Valsuelm]

I'm still amazed that people are so amazed by all this. 

 

In a society full of guns, the police need guns. If the police have guns then it's reasonable to expect people to get shot.

 

If people get shot it's reasonable to expect some of those people to be wrongly shot.

 

It doesn't make all the shootings wrong. Or all the cops wrong.

 

In this particular situation the person wasn't shot....

 

It's unclear exactly what happened, but evidence suggests he was beaten to death, and pretty gruesomely at that.

 

And most police do not need guns.

Edited April 27, 2015 by Valsuelm

[Ineth]

Yeah it's just funny that most of the people getting wrongly shot share a couple of particularly noticeable physical characteristics. Don't you think?

 

While blacks are definitely over-represented among victims of police shootings, they do not constitute "most" of them.

 

According to mappingpoliceviolence.org:

 

"At least 1149 people were killed by police in 2014. 304 (26%) were black."

 

The percentage of African Americans among the total population nation-wide is, I believe, 14%.

 

That's a clear statistical disparity of course. Also, from various studies and sources like stop-and-frisk statistics, we do know that there is in fact some amount of anti-black racial prejudice among law enforcement agencies, and the FBI even admits it (sort of).

 

However, I'd advise progressives to pause for a moment before interpreting too much into that 26%-vs-14% disparity. Because if you ignore other possible statistical factors and cause-and-affect chains and pretend that 100% of the disparity must be due to clear-cut racism and oppression and "white privilege", how will you deal with the other statistical disparity that emerges from that same data collected by mappingpoliceviolence.org:

 

Namely that of those 1149 people killed by police in 2014, 93% were male - even though only 49% of the national population is male.

 

Is this, applying the same arguments, proof that law enforcement operates under 'female privilege' and is engaging in a targeted 'war on men'?

 

Or is it, maybe a little more complicated - both when it comes to gender, and when it comes to race.

[Meshugger]

 

Yeah it's just funny that most of the people getting wrongly shot share a couple of particularly noticeable physical characteristics. Don't you think?

 

While blacks are definitely over-represented among victims of police shootings, they do not constitute "most" of them.

 

According to mappingpoliceviolence.org:

 

"At least 1149 people were killed by police in 2014. 304 (26%) were black."

 

The percentage of African Americans among the total population nation-wide is, I believe, 14%.

 

That's a clear statistical disparity of course. Also, from various studies and sources like stop-and-frisk statistics, we do know that there is in fact some amount of anti-black racial prejudice among law enforcement agencies, and the FBI even admits it (sort of).

 

However, I'd advise progressives to pause for a moment before interpreting too much into that 26%-vs-14% disparity. Because if you ignore other possible statistical factors and cause-and-affect chains and pretend that 100% of the disparity must be due to clear-cut racism and oppression and "white privilege", how will you deal with the other statistical disparity that emerges from that same data collected by mappingpoliceviolence.org:

 

Namely that of those 1149 people killed by police in 2014, 93% were male - even though only 49% of the national population is male.

 

Is this, applying the same arguments, proof that law enforcement operates under 'female privilege' and is engaging in a targeted 'war on men'?

 

Or is it, maybe a little more complicated - both when it comes to gender, and when it comes to race.

 

 

Now you're just confusing. Who am i supposed to blame?!!

[Ineth]

Who am i supposed to blame?!!

 

Canada.

[Rosbjerg]

Yeah it's just funny that most of the people getting wrongly shot share a couple of particularly noticeable physical characteristics. Don't you think?

 

The root cause is poverty, which happens to be a cultural and historical problem for minorities. Poor people are far more likely to get in trouble with the law (and therefore get shot by the police) - and unfortunately there's a large majority of black people living in poverty.. Further compounding the issue is, that as police officers experience black people more often in criminal confrontations build conformation bias - building racism - which of course means they are more likely to assume that black people are criminals, even though that poverty is the issue and not race.. But you don't really see poverty as clearly as the colour of someones skin.

 

If we combat the underlying issue, with better and more accessible education, healthcare and integration - we also combat racism.

[PrimeJunta]

I don't think a single root cause is even identifiable. Only contributing factors. Poverty is certainly one of the incredibly bleeping huge ones when it comes to social problems in general.

 

Thing is, poverty too has causes. Ask yourself why American blacks are so much likelier to be poor than whites, and you'll be able to find a neat chain of causes going back a couple of hundred years, and more. And any chain of causes that goes so far back renders questions of justice rather problematic. I believe it would be more fruitful to focus on people alive today and what could be done to remedy the social injustices besetting us.

[Rosbjerg]

I agree, it's often a case of infinite regress once you try to assert "true" cause, but for the simplicity of a message board it often helps to be generalizing.

 

I do still believe that the most viable solution to the present problem is education, healthcare, outreach programs and a general focus on the rest of society, to get them to combat poverty in any way they can.

[PrimeJunta]

I agree, it's often a case of infinite regress once you try to assert "true" cause, but for the simplicity of a message board it often helps to be generalizing.

 

I do still believe that the most viable solution to the present problem is education, healthcare, outreach programs and a general focus on the rest of society, to get them to combat poverty in any way they can.

 

These are indispensable parts of any lasting solution, but so is addressing systemic racism. A community outreach program by the police force simply won't work if at the same time they're engaging in the shenaningans they're currently engaging in. It'll be rightly seen as an attempt to paper over the problems rather than address them.

[obyknven]

Meanwhile in Western media - everything is ok

http://youtu.be/LrHE_eXDeJg

Just Feast in Time of Plague. Murica reach new levels of bottom.

[Malcador]

Seems like the government there is not up to snuff.

[PrimeJunta]

Some context.

 

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/04/the-brutality-of-police-culture-in-baltimore/391158/

 

To serve and to protect, yes indeedy.

[Meshugger]

Some context.

 

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/04/the-brutality-of-police-culture-in-baltimore/391158/

 

To serve and to protect, yes indeedy.

 

This would never have happened if people were allowed to shoot cops.