Interesting that some people are very upset with the looting going on in these riots, while not a peep from them about the looting of the American economy that is being done by the billionaires. Both are wrong, but it seems I only hear one side of it from Trump supporters.

That is not what I believe and that is not what I have done. What I have pointed out is that it is clear that rioters are not, in fact, seeking "Justice For George", as the riots continued (and intensified) as and even after the Justice system began to do precisely that. It is probably also worth noting George's family and girlfriend came out and said that the rioters should stop, and that George would not have wanted this, and that appears not to have impacted the rioters a whit.



And, again, had that been the primary impetus behind the riots, then they would have subsided after something was done, rather than expanding and intensifying.

Instead, what actually finally caused riots to begin to subside is the arrival of overwhelming state security forces, suggesting that what - in fact - is the primary impetus of riots is the belief that they can be got away with.


100% of Trump supporters in my neighborhood could easily be members of the KKK. They hate blacks and they hate Democrats because the party tries to do help blacks.[/quote]

Uhuh. Is this the part where I say that 100% of the Democrats I know all hate America and hate Republicans because Republicans want what's good for America?

If the only possible reason you can think of why anyone looking at the 2016 election could possibly come to a different conclusion than you did is "racism", well... so much, I suppose, for the "intellectual" party of "empathy".



It depends on the bigotry. I am strongly in favor of bigotry against mosquitoes and against allowing used car salesmen to do their own car commercials. Racial bigotry quite the opposite.



I think it is foolish, arrogant, self-serving, and intellectually shallow to pretend to the notion that your side is "good" and the other all "bad" in domestic American politics. Most folks aren't trying to be evil, most folks actually believe they are pursuing moral good - the problem being that most folks disagree on what that means. Strongly Recommended Reading from another left-winger. He has a Ted Talk on the same subject, and a bunch of youtube stuff out there as well, if a book isn't your thing.



Beg the question much, or only when you have no basis for support?



Institutionalized Racism is racism that is institutionalized - that is, it is put into the rules and regulations of an institution that guides how it interacts with people. If you want to show me (for example) that the Minneapolis police department puts out rules that differentiate how cops should interact with the public based on the race of the member of the public they are interacting with, I will wholly agree that is an example of institutionalized racism. But I have not yet seen that.



It was multiple studies, but you carefully edited that part out in your reply.



Possibly. Probably a regular drum beat of high profile cases would have caused others to change their behavior (incentives matter). However, that is neither here nor there in a discussion about whether or not Qualified Immunity (which the court invented in the 198Os) and current (that is, 2020) Public Sector Union agreements keep bad public officials from facing direct personal consequences for their poor performance, up to and including abuse of the people they are nominally supposed to serve.



The coroner's report seems fairly conclusive that he didn't die of a bee sting or gunshot wound.

I guess if you don't believe racism is a problem, then we certainly hold different views of humanity.[/quote]

And, again, if the only reason you can possibly imagine for why anyone would come to a different conclusion than yourself about a complex question is "obviously they are racist", well, your narrow-mindedness is your own problem.

Are you actually worth talking to, or is this:



the sort of foolishness I'm going to see any time I engage you? Because, if you have nothing to add other than narrow-minded bigotry and dishonesty.... I've got much better things I can and probably should be doing with my time.

There are differences between "does a fantastic job of serving tens or hundreds of millions of people with products and services that improve their quality of life" and "breaks and steals other people's stuff".

I think most forget the power of images have on ordinary Americans. The Kneeling cop on George Floyd neck was a powerful one. Which probably arose sympathy for him and in the minds of most, a desire to end police brutality.

Sadly, protests followed. The protests were followed by rioting, burning, looting, now killing, it's those images that now have a lasting effect. For quite a lot, the original image of the cop's knee on the neck has been long forgotten.

But that is the way it is for most of us. We go with the latest image/s. With the latest news and events that are happening, forgetting the previous nights news and events.

Sure, some will remember the original, most will not. Images are most powerful. What they portray seems to stick with most of us until something changes. Another image takes its place.

I remember reading an article about images. How images of starving Somalia children goated the U.S. to send troops their with food and supplies to help the hungry. Then there was a battle in which we lost some of our troops. Most forgot the starving hungry kids, the new images of the troops being killed now took center stage which led to their complete withdrawal leaving behind the starving masses. Never another word was said, printed or another picture, image shown of the starving, hungry kids. The latest and last image won over all previous images.

That's life and that's the way it is. It's called reality. We may not want it to be, we can come up with reasons and excuses hoping to return to the original cause, we can shout that until our faces turn blue. But it does no good. Until a new image appears to replace the one's about the riot, those images are ingrained into most folks minds. The ones that will be remembered by most. Not the original, which has been long forgotten.

Between those two things is something we call exploitation of labor.

Those wonderful people providing all those fabulous services are paying their workers sh*t. Giving them a minimum of hours so they don't get health insurance, not paying enough that they can afford their own, and not giving them sick days when they have health issues.

Exploitation.

Do we need to even delve into the racist exploitation of Blacks over the 400 years? That was exploitation of labor too.

Yup. And the Labor Theory of Value is such utter crap that even Lenin was eventually forced to de-facto abandon it.



Maybe - it depends on what the workers earn, which is generally a function of what they do. I don't see lots of folks out there upset because Zuckerberg is a billionaire and the average salary for product designers at his company is $148,347.00 a year. Meanwhile, someone who cleans wastebaskets for a thousandiare hasn't done an appreciably worse (or less valuable) service than someone who cleans wastebaskets for a millionaire.



Wait. The government made it hugely expensive to give people more than a certain number of hours a week, and the result was that people got fewer than that number of hours a week?

My goodness. Who could have predicted such a thing.



No - mutually beneficial trade. If you don't like your job, or your hours, or your benefits, go find something else you like better. It's no one's fault but your own if you agreed to a given compensation package in return for a particular kind of labor.



Oh yeah - slavery is absolutely theft. It's exploitation, it's looting, it's whatever you want to call it.

"Riots" and "Marches" are two different things. One of the police chiefs getting looted was telling about a March that was peaceful and no problem. Then it began to grow and then all the signs hit the ground and the riot started (along with the looting). He said the change came after one of the other groups joined up. He was, however, really startled when the entire group suddenly went from being peaceful to riot and looting.

Until the marchers get over their hatred of the police and invite them in the White Supremacists and Anarchists will be able to join up and get the chaos going. I suspect that is probably not going to happen. We have seen several instances but it never seems to last. My suspicion is that the marchers would rather be yelling at the police instead of working with them to stop the crime in the interest of being able to preach their message. The fact its not happening is worrisome and a shame as, now, they are getting painted with the same brush as are the looters themselves.

It seems to me that the marchers are mostly the not voting poor that get upset and then get angry and then things kinda come apart. At that point they are REALLY pissed off! Through history there are instances of this. The Russian revolution of 1917 was like that. That happens when they have a leader who is really good at organization AND leading! So far we haven't been gifted with that - yet. Unless gov gets itself together it could, however, happen. The forces to do it are there (White Supremacists and and Anarchists - enough to loot virtually every city in the United States at the same time!) they don't yet have a single leader but, again, it can happen! I think its pretty apparent that the Supremacists and and Anarchists have been very good at planning so far. They have out thought, and overwhelmed, gov each step of the way (which has not been exactly inspiring OR entertaining!) The more time it takes for Gov to get itself together and fix the problems the more likely we are going to have a LOT more problems to fix!

Every day this goes on the window of peace closes a little more. The only good thing I can think of is that we have 5 more months to survive before we can get rid of Trump. If we fail at that then I cannot imagine what happens next. The only real assurance is that whatever that might be its not gonna be good!

I live 25-30 miles south of Atlanta. A city that is approximately 60% black, black run, mayor black, police chief black, the majority of the police are black as is the Atlanta city council along with city and county judges. Trying to improve conditions of Atlanta has been an on going process. Community outreach etc.

Yet, Atlanta is one of the cities in riot, burning of police cars, looting and vandalism. Everyone within the city of Atlanta was completely innocent of the death of George Floyd. There's no way one can equate the riot in Atlanta to racism or white supremacy. Perhaps it is a rebellion against authority, any kind of authority where race, religion etc. doesn't apply or matter. If anyplace should have stayed calm, it was Atlanta.

In 2015 you had the Baltimore riots, another city totally black run. So perhaps that doesn't matter, it doesn't matter who the city leaders are and perhaps in extension since Obama was president, that doesn't matter either. I also read in the aftermath when the Baltimore city police tried their outreach program to the black community, they were told to leave. Then the black community complained nothing was being done in their community to combat crime. Go figure.

Is there an answer? Perhaps if there is, it has to come from the grass roots, not top down. Atlanta has a program where it does try to attract police officers from the various communities and have them patrol their community. But it has meet little success. No one wants to become a police office getting around 25,000 a year. Perhaps that is part of the problem. The pay isn't high enough to attract the best and brightest.

Just some observations and a lot of I just don't understand. Particularly, why Atlanta?

White privilege will never understands black solidarity.

That's because white privilege Trump supporters can afford to buy nice things.