Police Body Cam Footage No Longer Public In NC

Fun fact: the idea of a hierarchy where in poor rural white people were still considered superior to black people was one of the driving forces of sustaining racism in the good old days. Wealthy people in the South recognized that a combined force of poor whites and blacks would be a problem, so they helped facilitate racial animosity between the groups so poor white people could always say "I may be poor but at least I'm not black" (they didn't say black, they said something else).

Tarnsman said:

Wealthy people in the South recognized that a combined force of poor whites and blacks would be a problem, so they helped facilitate racial animosity between the groups so poor white people could always say "I may be poor but at least I'm not black" (they didn't say black, they said something else).

The sad thing is, people are still falling for it and blaming one another on the bottom rung rather than placing the blame (and thus the pressure) where it belongs.

Doomkid said:

What's the point of this sweeping, baseless claim? The situation is different in every individual case, this issue essentially cannot benefit from this kind of generalisation.

dew said:

Having to keep your hands on the wheel when the cops stop you for a routine check, because a bad movement gets you shot? Jeeeezus. Definitely blame the guy that gets shot!

Unfortunately blaming the victim is a subtly insidious line of thought that many people do but aren't even aware. It happens in rape cases often, someone says something completely callous in some bad show of appeasement.

"Well that is a really bad neighborhood.."
"No one should ever drink that much.."
"What was she doing out that late anyway?"

Not entirely too far removed from "Well if they had just done what the cops ask..." Like cops can't and shouldn't be bothered to be held responsible for their actions. This is literally the first thing out of many people's mouths regarding these shootings. Not overtly offensive on the surface, but looking just under and you get a really distorted picture of fear that prohibits questioning their judgement or authority, which in many cases is absolutely abused. It has nothing to do with 'creating a situation where a cop has to use his snap judgement' it's often an intimidation factor to make people completely blank-out on their own rights..the right to drive a car while being a black person, for instance.

LittleInferno said:

What do you guys think you are winning????? A Lamborghini and 40 bimbos?

Hey great, you know, every single one of your posts in this thread has been worthless. You don't get to determine when a thread is no longer viable for discussion, so kindly fuck off.

Arctangent said:

Do you refer to yourself in the second person, or something?

Wow. Wow. I point out that your racist white privilege garbage is racist and get called a racist for it. Cognitive dissonance at its most transparent.

insanoflex312 said:

Wow. Wow. I point out that your racist white privilege garbage is racist and get called a racist for it. Cognitive dissonance at its most transparent.

It's pretty frustrating when someone doesn't have a worthwhile response so they just resort to mindless, offtopic retorts that have nothing to do with the subject matter. It just kills the discussion dead and benefits no one, but it's unfortunately an all too common tactic. Not just on little message boards, either. You see this kind of crap in politics all the time. It benefits no one.

insanoflex312 said:

Wow. Wow. I point out that your racist white privilege garbage is racist and get called a racist for it. Cognitive dissonance at its most transparent.

No, I was calling you out on putting words into my mouth. Which you're still doing.

*deleted*

The NC ruling is garbage, always-on body cams are absolutely necessary in our current social climate. The ruling is a massive step backwards.

EDIT: I'm also pretty sick of reading about "malfunctioning body cams" in some cases recently. How conveinient, it happened to malfunction right before you pulled a gun on someone! That kind of dodgy behaviour definitely needs to be more closely monitored from within the police force. There's currently almost zero police accountability, which is just disgraceful.

Arctangent said:

No, I was calling you out on putting words into my mouth. Which you're still doing.

You literally said white privilege is a thing outside of wealth on the bottom of page 3. Insanoflex then directly responded to the your claims about white privilege. He may have extrapolated a tiny bit, but that's hardly putting words in your mouth. He responded directly to what you said.

He pretty much said that I was basically saying that if someone gives a guy a piece of bread, anything that guys accomplishes is now less relevant because of that.

If that's not putting words in my mouth, then I don't know what is.

White What privilege?

You know what would be a real privilege? Not being told by idiots like pureslime on a daily basis that I'm privileged when I have a hard enough time paying my bills or being accused of racism whenever I say that a black guy shot by police just might have deserved it because of his actions.

Also...don't post videos of innocent black people getting shot by police and ask me why they deserved it. Truly innocent people who are gunned down by the police are victims, whether or not race played a role.

I'm not stupid. Of course there are some racist officers who should be stripped of their badges. There is racism everywhere and it would be nice if there was a way to destroy it. But anti-police riots and a "fuck the police" culture is not the way to do it.

Arctangent said:

He pretty much said that I was basically saying that if someone gives a guy a piece of bread, anything that guys accomplishes is now less relevant because of that.

If that's not putting words in my mouth, then I don't know what is.

It was more that your claim that white people benefit solely from being white could clearly be read as "making something out of your life is less impressive if you did it with that white privilege on your side". It belittles the achievements of poor white people, because after all, they're white - The system is on their side, man!

It takes a lot of mental gymnastics to claim that white privlege is real and simultaneously claim that escaping poverty isn't easier just because you're white. The fact is, escaping poverty is extremely difficult no matter what colour your skin is.

I think that's called "seeing the glass half-empty."

It shouldn't be seen as less impressive for a white person to accomplish something. Rather, it should be seen as more impressive when a minority does it. Same thing? Only if you go up to random, average-looking people in the street and call them worthless for not being amazing. Because here's the thing: the privilege establishes white Americans as the baseline. They're not below the bar in effort needed, they are the bar. And the bar for going from rags to riches is pretty damn high, so it's hardly not impressive to do that.

Also, I don't know why you guys seem to equate "easier" to "capable of doing it through nothing but masturbating while lazing on a couch daily." Tearing down a mountain with a pickaxe is far, far easier than doing so with your bare hands. Yet, it would be absurd to think that you could just hit the mountain thrice with a pick and be done. Having an advantage or not, you still have a lot of work to do ... or a real need to question why you're trying to tear down a mountain in the first place.

Privileges exists. The problem is trying to create some sort of hierarchy to judge someone (as in an individual) by it because people are way more modular than that. There are privileges for everything, even disadvantaged people have it. Being black has a set of advantages and disadvantages. Being white has a set of advantages and disadvantages. I'm sure if you took average White Guy A and average Black Guy B and compared them side by side, on average the white guy is going to have more advantages and less disadvantages than the black guy. There is nothing wrong with acknowledging that as long as you don't use it to make some sweeping generalization about the lives of people you don't know.

But I don't think anyone is trying to seriously argue that Oprah or Beyonce has less privilege than some white guy living in rural West Virginia. I mean maybe they are...

I think I'm just frustrated by this idea that white people as a whole owe black people as a whole something, and I fully understand that isn't an idea you're pushing, but it's just unfortunate we're still falling into that "point fingers at each other on the bottom" mentality that the powerful want us to stay in. Bringing up white privlege is far less relevant than bringing up rich privilege, but I see the former discussed exponentially more than the latter, which is disproportionate to the actual problems that we as a society face.

I'd imagine it's because exponentially more people can use knowledge of white privilege than rich privilege. After all, there's far, far more white people than rich people, and what to take away from white privilege doesn't really require any sort of position in life; it's just a behavioral thing, to aid minorities and to push away racists. And that's something far more people are capable are doing than aiding the poor, which requires far more changes in both the societal and political systems that are deeply ingrained to how the nation works.

Arctangent said:

I'd imagine it's because exponentially more people can use knowledge of white privilege than rich privilege

I'd argue the opposite because as this thread demonstrates, good luck convincing someone struggling to pay their bills that they are privileged. In fact all it seems to do as of late is increase animosity between the two races and make people less likely to engage in a dialogue.

Arctangent said:

I'd imagine it's because exponentially more people can use knowledge of white privilege than rich privilege. After all, there's far, far more white people than rich people, and what to take away from white privilege doesn't really require any sort of position in life; it's just a behavioral thing, to aid minorities and to push away racists. And that's something far more people are capable are doing than aiding the poor, which requires far more changes in both the societal and political systems that are deeply ingrained to how the nation works.

The only privilege I'm aware of is that if a cop pulls me over if I happen to visit the U.S., I'd be slightly less likely to be murdered in cold blood. Hardly some big privilege and hardly something I feel "responsible" for just because I was born with a certain skin pigmentation. I can't think of a single thing in my life that was handed to me just because I'm white.

I've been picked on by police, I've been mistreated by authority. This idea that the common white man needs to "accept responsibility" is frankly hogwash as there's little we can do beyond treating people with respect. Conversely, there's a lot a rich person could do. They have the ability to accuse assets with ease. It would take exponentially less time for a rich person to find a position in the government and actually work to change this shit. It doesn't even have to go that far - my point is that pointing the finger at people who can't do jack about the issue isn't going to get us anywhere, so how about we hold the wealthy people shaking hands with the lawmakers responsible, as if they were under enough pressure, they would actually have the means to change things. Harping on about white privlege will not get us anywhere and will certainly not help relations between the common black man and the common white man.

Band together and put the pressure where it belongs - that's what we need to do. As a relatively poor white man, I can't do shit to stop systemic oppression, but if we all come together and state loud and clear the the people with power need to make changes or be overthrown, we might actually get a little fire burning under the asses of the people who see us as mere pawns.

Doomkid said:

The only privilege I'm aware of is that if a cop pulls me over if I happen to visit the U.S., I'd be slightly less likely to be murdered in cold blood. Hardly some big privilege

People often overstate the effects of privilege when it comes to people of low socio-economic status but not dying? That is a pretty big deal.

It's worth noting that you aren't really the type of person who really needs it rattled at. You already understand that, while black people aren't actually being outright crushed under tank treads 24/7 and you can listen to other people talk without hearing a racist comment between every other word, their livelihood is less than that of the equivalent white person, even if only slightly so in some contexts. The main targets of the whole thing are the people who genuinely believe that minorities are better off than white people in America. Which, well, I know full well you've seen people like that here, and they certainly aren't a niche unique to Doomworld.

Arctangent said:

It's worth noting that you aren't really the type of person who really needs it rattled at. You already understand that, while black people aren't actually being outright crushed under tank treads 24/7 and you can listen to other people talk without hearing a racist comment between every other word, their livelihood is less than that of the equivalent white person, even if only slightly so in some contexts. The main targets of the whole thing are the people who genuinely believe that minorities are better off than white people in America. Which, well, I know full well you've seen people like that here, and they certainly aren't a niche unique to Doomworld.

I think I disagree to an extent. You really can't generalize privilege. Its really, really isn't white people as a whole have more privilege than black people, even if system somehow favors white people. I known it seems like a subtle distinction, but its important because the all or nothing attitude is creating the hostilities in the first place. So its not "white people are have a better livelihood than blacks." But rather, in some areas, white people seem to have it better than blacks for whatever reason. I'd also like to add that in some case that everyone fails to acknowledge, certain black people have been given benefits for being black.

Tarnsman said:

People often overstate the effects of privilege when it comes to people of low socio-economic status but not dying? That is a pretty big deal.

Sorry for how unclear my post was - I agree entirely, it's just a sad state of affairs when my human rights being slightly less trampled by unruly cops is considered a privlege or a thing to be thankful for. The fact that anyone has to feel scared of police officers even when they haven't done a single wrong thing is flat out disgusting.

Arctangent said:

The main targets of the whole thing are the people who genuinely believe that minorities are better off than white people in America. Which, well, I know full well you've seen people like that here, and they certainly aren't a niche unique to Doomworld.

I agree that anyone who genuinely thinks that way is being wilfully ignorant, but I also think we could get people of this mindset on the side of logic and justice if we harped on less about racism and more about classism, that's all. I think it's more relevant and would also be more effective in uniting the common man.

ITT: TraceOfSpades doesn't understand the concept of white privilege and gets really really mad at the idea of having to face reality.

Arctangent said:

No, I was calling you out on putting words into my mouth. Which you're still doing.

I should have made clear I was addressing Pureslime

IMO calling it privilege is a bad idea: a privilege is an undeserved right. So calling it "white privilege", instead of saying that black people should be treated as well as white people are, says that white people should be treated as poorly as black people are...

I'm sure you'd have less white people objecting to it if instead of "white privilege" it was called "minority handicap".

Gez said:

So your opinion is basically this:
http://i.imgur.com/abUqsRG.jpg
But sincerely, not as satire?

No I don't believe that, there's has always been racial and ethnic tension to some degree throughout the world. But I do think things were less hostile and divided before some of the recent high profile cases. It wasn't this bad in the 90s(still was considerable racial tension), there was less of it in the 2000s, but since Obama's second term, it has really exploded. Imho

Older people I speak to say it is worse than the 1960s in terms of racial tension.

Everyone has different levels of privilege. That is kind of how humanity works. If I have a family, I treat them better than I treat strangers. I arbitrarily give them more benefits than I give others. They are privileged. It is really the same thing but on a larger scale, whites get more privilege because they are the primary demographic in this white run nation. There is really nothing unnatural about it at all.

Pointing that out doesn't win arguments either, just like calling someone (or being) a racist doesn't win (or make you lose) an argument either. "Oh you, you're privileged! / Racist!" .. so? That person is opened about their biases and you're still trying to hide them in an attempt at appearing unbiased.

Apparently BLM has made their list of demands, it all kinda seems reasonable. Though, I am not a fan of BLM in general, I do still think the police go overboard way too much and some of these things would be helpful.

http://www.puckermob.com/lifestyle/black-lives-matter-just-delivered-their-10-point-manifesto-and-this-is-what-they-want

Doomkid said:

The sad thing is, people are still falling for it and blaming one another on the bottom rung rather than placing the blame (and thus the pressure) where it belongs.

Corrupt Politicians?

PureSlime said:

ITT: TraceOfSpades doesn't understand the concept of white privilege and gets really really mad at the idea of having to face reality.

ITT: Poor people get upset at the notion that they are privileged.

Here is the problem. Imagine tomorrow the NFL wanted to create absolute parity. So they looked around the league and realized that teams like the Jacksonville Jaguars are disadvantaged due to years of poor roster construction, poor coaching (failing schools), lack luster fan interest (general apathy towards their problems), and a small market preventing them from attracting better free agents (the ghetto), as well as not getting nearly as many favorable calls as teams like the Packers or the Patriots (police bias). So the NFL decides that every game Jacksonville is going to get an automatic 14 point lead to start the game so that maybe they can win more games and maybe in the future have a base to stand on their own. No one is going to care about the long term systemic issues that keep Jacksonville (or Cleveland or Oakland) in the gutter, they're going to care that they're getting 14 "undeserved" points. Especially if they're fans of teams like Dallas which have been mediocre for years despite having privilege.

And before you say, "how dare you compare complex racial dynamics to sports teams," have you seen the current political discourse? People are basically treating it like it's sports and there are absolute sides and you have to pick one and crush everyone not in that side. (See the fucking hug thread and what that turned into)

Tarnsman, I think we've long since passed that point, given all the people who are black in high positions of power. That includes Congress, the Supreme Court, CEO's, and the President of the United States. What's keeping them back at this point? If anything, this idea that being successful as a black man means you're a traitor to your race is what's keeping people down. We need to dispel with this silly notion that black people have to stay in black neighbors and talk and act a certain way, and the people perpetuating that aren't the ones you may think. Every time a Black Conservative is called an Uncle Tom or traitor to race, it sends the message that black people have to act or think a certain way or else they're not black enough.

MetroidJunkie said:

Tarnsman, I think we've long since passed that point, given all the people who are black in high positions of power. That includes Congress, the Supreme Court, CEO's, and the President of the United States. What's keeping them back at this point? If anything, this idea that being successful as a black man means you're a traitor to your race is what's keeping people down. We need to dispel with this silly notion that black people have to stay in black neighbors and talk and act a certain way, and the people perpetuating that aren't the ones you may think. Every time a Black Conservative is called an Uncle Tom or traitor to race, it sends the message that black people have to act or think a certain way or else they're not black enough.

Here is a speech that one of the only two black senators (he's a Republican) gave yesterday on racial discrimination he has faced as a *US Senator*. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKgYgqGfeIE

The fact that there are plenty of powerful black people does not change the experience for the normal black person. It's easy to say "just leave the ghetto" but when you're poor you can't just move. Do you really think getting out of the ghetto isn't a goal for most of the people living there?