The US Politics |OT|

[sundin13]

Pemalite said:

sundin13 said:

Further, there is a big difference between comparing the police system to a racial group. One is a system, while the other is not. I think as such, it is neither hypocritical nor problematic to condemn the police system and not condemn a racial group due to the actions of individuals within those groups. They are fundamentally different and as such, this comparison holds no water (imo).

"Police" is an identifier to a group of individuals, it's not just a system, it's an identifier of those in the service.

African American is also an identifier to a group of individuals, yes there are differences between the two, but the logic that is used for one can be used for the other for the most part.

Either way, I am not in the business of labeling all demographics with the same colour of brush, neither should anyone else.

sundin13 said:

-In regards to the second part, I would just like to say, that while I personally disagree with the violent and destructive behaviors of some individuals involved in these protests, I do not believe that it is my right as a white man to step in and tell those who have been the victims of systematic injustice, how they are allowed to protest.

I disagree. Everyone should condemn violence.

Violence affects more than just the direct participants.

And we should be scrutinizing how people protest, there is a right and wrong way to go about things... Protesting that results in life and property lost is not appropriate, shit even legal protesting.

I disagree pretty fundamentally with that first bit to the extent that I completely fail to see your logic. It is the responsibility of the police system to regulate itself. Like, it is the responsibility of my boss to ensure that I am meeting my task in a way which meets the shared goal of the organization I work for. Similarly, there is group responsibility when an officer fails to uphold their responsibility in the police system as there is within any organization. However, for the policing system, their responsibility isn't just to a boss or shareholders, it is to the community. When an officer fails to demand change within a broken organization that is negatively impacting the community, they are failing to uphold their foundational responsibility.

None of these characteristics apply to a racial group. There is no system of responsibility linking individuals and there is no foundational responsibility. These are individuals with some shared traits, not a part of a common web with a shared purpose within a system of command and responsibility.

The comparison simply fails.

As for the second bit, maybe if this wasn't a problem that had been going on for generations I would be able to agree with you. I would like it if people protested the "right" way, however, we have largely seen that protesting the "right" way hasn't worked. More so, when someone does protest in a completely nonviolent way, they are still told "not here, not now, not like this, can't you do it in a way where we don't have to look at it". Like, I don't like violent protests, but all of this blood is on the hands of the system which has failed to implement change. I've quoted this a few times, but in the words of Martin Luther King Jr "a riot is the language of the unheard [...] And as long as America postpones justice, we stand in the position of having these recurrences of violence and riots over and over again. Social justice and progress are the absolute guarantors of riot prevention."

Telling these victims of injustice how to protest after they've been given the finger every time they've tried to protest peacefully seems entirely inappropriate to me. You do what you want, but I feel my moral responsibility in this affair is to let the people express their entirely justified rage and sorrow as they would like, and focus my efforts elsewhere.