Unrest in the USA at the moment

Wow, I was just in the middle of watching People vs OJ Simpson when all of this has happened. Very strange to watch the events of 1994 and have the same events unfold right now in 2020.

 

The class divide - White vs Black population.
In 2020 - It is as alive as the day of slavery era.
Make America Great!

 

I read a book called Ghettoside by Jill Leovy, which is about policing in black communities in LA and explains how the police model is broken and perpetuating disadvantage in these communities. Basically the emphasis is on 'crime prevention', which often takes the form of over-policing poor and non-white people. Rather then focus on solving crimes the emphasis is on the stats and the amount of arrests police make. If police don't meet their quotas they get questioned by the chain of command of what they've been doing because it's all about the stats.

An example of a crime prevention strategy is stop and frisk. Statistics show that drug usage is the same between black and white people in the USA. However, if you're a police officer looking to meet your quota of arrests you aren't going to be pulling over elderly women in the suburbs.
Therefore, who do you stop and frisk? Young people in the inner city (that are overwhelmingly black). You stop more black people you catch more black people with drugs. You catch a black person with a small quantity of drugs they get arrested, get a criminal record and are excluded from any non-menial job and the cycle continues. You follow the drugs you get junkies and drug dealers. You follow the money and you don't know where that will lead you. 'The war on drugs' is an abysmal policy failure.

Getting back on track Minneapolis police kill black people at a rate 13x higher than white people - a larger racial disparity than almost anywhere else in the nation. It's easy to dismiss stats as just another number but when you have a human face to it like George Floyd you can see why people are outraged. Imagine if that video was never taken? There would have been no accountability.
Police Accountability Tool — Mapping Police Violence

 

yes of course

 

It is just so horrible but the US system is definitely a two level for people of colour. I have been wondering for some years when this was likely to happen. I was in Detroit for a couple of months in the early 70s just after the worst US race riots when they had tanks in the streets and saw the outcome.

While Floyd was the trigger I think much of the build up was due to the absolute disaster of the US Covid response and the virus's larger effect on the BAME communities. Trumps actions during his presidency have emboldened the far right / left / libertarian nutters who see this as an opportunity and have added a lot of the looting and violence. It is this element that seems to keep the violence bubbling on while black leaders try to contain their constituents but they have no sway with the nutters.

 

Hmmmmm - white community? Not sure the neighbours over the road or down the street or around the corner would classify themselves as white ... but in my community we see people, not colour ... and they are all lovely people.

Aboriginal communities can be wonderful places to live. Yes, we do have a problem in this country, mainly bought about by a few squeaky white politicians (why was the Uluru Statement from the Heart never introduced for discussion? Shameful).

I have two wonderful Aboriginal (although they prefer the term First People) friends - one is older and a real bushie who can tell you the most wonderful stories ... and a 5 minute visit turns into 3 hours ... another is a young woman training to become a human rights lawyer. In a country where Aboriginal's make up a mere 2% of the population, I feel honoured to actually know them - so many Australians have no contact at all

 

Good post 2FAST4U. Those elements were all shown in 'The Wire'. The depressing thing is that failure at the systemic level of institutions doesn't necessarily require ill-intent ; apathy and collective ineptitude are enough.

 

When people have nothing to lose and see no hope for the future it's easy to see why there is so much chaos occurring.

Here's why the riots are no longer just about George Floyd

The article gives an outline of why the protests have gone beyond the death of Floyd.

"As Martin Luther King Jr pointed out more than 50 years ago, a riot is the language of the unheard. Many protesters simply want to see a start to police reform by jailing the four officers involved in the death of George Floyd. But with more and more protests breaking out across America — and across the world — the cries are getting louder and more varied.

Perhaps the closest thing to a common cause can be summed up in one word: injustice.
Justice is the word on almost all the protesters' lips and written on many of the placards they wave in the air. This is a nation where 2.3 million people are locked up in a system of corporatised incarceration, funded by the taxpayer. This is a nation where the wealth gap between white and black Americans hasn't changed in 60 years.

It's where the bottom 40 per cent of Americans own just 0.3 per cent of the wealth. And 40 million are now out of work. American taxpayers bailed out the very Wall Street bankers and traders who brought financial ruin upon them in 2008, only to see some of them hold parties and reap multi-million-dollar bonuses".

 

Brilliant summary ... I came across this that sums up somewhat how persecuted blacks are:

I have privilege as a white person because I can do all of these things without thinking twice:
I can go bird watching (#ChristianCooper)
I can go jogging (#AmaudArbery)
I can relax in the comfort of my own home (#BothemSean and #AtatianaJefferson)
I can ask for help after being in a car crash (#JonathanFerrell and #RenishaMcBride)
I can have a cellphone (#StephonClark)
I can leave a party to get to safety (#JordanEdwards)
I can play loud music (#JordanDavis)
I can sell CDs (#AltonSterling)
I can sleep (#AiyanaJones)
I can walk from the corner store (#MikeBrown)
I can play cops and robbers (#TamirRice)
I can go to church (#Charleston9)
I can walk home with Skittles (#TrayvonMartin)
I can hold a hair brush while leaving my own bachelor party (#SeanBell)
I can party on New Years (#OscarGrant)
I can get a normal traffic ticket (#SandraBland)
I can lawfully carry a weapon (#PhilandoCastile)
I can break down on a public road with car problems (#CoreyJones)
I can shop at Walmart (#JohnCrawford)
I can have a disabled vehicle (#TerrenceCrutcher)
I can read a book in my own car (#KeithScott)
I can be a 10yr old walking with our grandfather (#CliffordGlover)
I can decorate for a party (#ClaudeReese)
I can ask a cop a question (#RandyEvans)
I can cash a check in peace (#YvonneSmallwood)
I can take out my wallet (#AmadouDiallo)
I can run (#WalterScott)
I can breathe (#EricGarner)
I can live (#FreddieGray)
I can sleep in my own bed (#BreonnaTaylor)
I CAN BE ARRESTED WITHOUT THE FEAR OF BEING MURDERED (#GeorgeFloyd)
White privilege is real. Take a minute to consider a Black person’s experience today.

 

This gives me hope ... In Some Cities, Police Officers Joined Protesters Marching Against Brutality

 

This has happened many times in the USA.

For example, 55 years ago in 1965:

Watts Riots: Traffic stop was the spark that ignited days of destruction in L.A.

 

Heard a very apt expression today ... that ... the US is now at a fork in the road in their social and emotional evolution.

What we see now has been brewing for 200 years but highlighted and manifestated to an ignition point over the last three

 

Of course I don't have 'evidence', just based upon personal dealings, what I've read, and the enormity of problems in the US vs Oz.

I don't think it can be disputed that Aussies in general are more well travelled, and with that comes respect, fondness or at least appreciation for other cultures.

 

You can stop reading there and already know that it's not true!

Also, a racist saying other racists aren't racist doesn't really carry much weight.

 

I dont believe anyone on this thread has lived in US so how could they possibly know?

I think there is a better chance of finding a cure for cancer than Getting rid of the divide between black and white worldwide

Australia is no exception, we have major issues in our Aboriginal communities that no government has come close to resolving

 

There seems to be, very much, an exacerbation of events by extremists (probably on both sides) ... that has taken advantage of, what was, peaceful protests, and distorted them to their own desire to cause division and conflict

https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-...s-are-fanning-the-flames-20200601-p54y8n.html

" ... federal law enforcement officials insisted far-left groups were stoking violence. Meanwhile, experts who track extremist groups also reported seeing evidence of the far-right at work ... Investigators were also tracking online interference and looking into whether foreign agents were behind the effort. Officials have seen a surge of social media accounts with fewer than 200 followers created in the last month, a textbook sign of a disinformation campaign ...there are signs of people with other disparate motives, including anarchist graffiti, arrests of some out-of-state protesters and images circulating in extremist groups that suggest the involvement of outside groups "