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            Parrakeet June 1, 2020 at 6:53pm

            Poverty and lack of opportunity are the culprit.  Gee Even Elvis Presley sang "In the Ghettos". USA  has needed an overall for a long time. They are brain washed to believe they are the land of the free hand on heart. .They will tell you their country is the best in the world and the land of opportunity. They don't even report news that is past their shores . Yes I've been to Disneyland 5 times and Universal Studios once. 
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              Kramerica > Parrakeet June 2, 2020 at 10:00am

              

              Yes well Elvis sung about Clambakes and Blue Suede Shoes as well....

              Poverty and lack of opportunity are not the culprit there any more than they are in countless countries all over the world - infact in the massive majority of cases - it's far, far worse elsewhere. Have a look at what is going on in other parts of the world - such as Africa, South America, Asia, The Middle East, Europe and Oceania - the US is a walk in the park compared to some of the shit that's going on outside of our western bubble. You say America doesn't report what's outside their border or social interest - no western country does - 150 kids get blown up in Pakistan but we lead our news with a footy player and a prostitute.

              As far as America's ACTUAL social issues go Brett Allen is bang on. Alot of the other bullshit in this blog is just statistics or incidents being used incorrectly to make an arguement. What's happening RIGHT NOW is a bunch of people are using a despicable act as an excuse for violence and theft - the people engaging in that shit aren't any better than the police who killed a man.

              Remember that time Martin Luther King starting looting business and bashing people?
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                Prof. Daz > Kramerica June 4, 2020 at 10:08am

                

                Kram, respectfully, I think you're wrong. I agree looting and violence cannot be condoned. 

                But to basically say protesters need to behave themselves is to implicitly deny there is a history. At what point is enough enough? Notably, you capitalize "right now", as if all that matters is right now and every act of social insurrection is to be judged according to the daily happenings. So when the French peasants rose up against aristocratic land-owners who had taxed them to oblivion, we interpret a beheading through the lens of the mornings events and not hundreds of years of inequality? When a HK protester throws a brick at police we ask whether they might have missed their wheaties and not whether they think their society had become a police state?
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                  Kramerica > Prof. Daz June 4, 2020 at 12:19pm

                  

                  No, what I meant by right now was that, at present, much of the protesting has simply degenerated into, or been overtaken by, vandalism and looting. There are plenty of people ruining private property, stealing private property and laughing away while their doing it. People grabbing piles of stolen propertyand taking it home (they're not sticking around to protest) while others smash in shop fronts. That's not protesting and there's no excuse for it. Plenty of these grubs are white - I'm not saying in any way that it's a race issue.

                  It's LA all over again.

                  Why is it OK to steal and ruin a fellow human being's property and livelihood in the name of race? Would President Obama condone it? or MLK?

                  You mention A HK protester lobbing a brick at police - go for it - that's very different to violent destruction and theft of private property.

                  I know there are huge issues in The States and it's horrific - but violent acts won't solve anything - it never has. It will actually make it worse. Just watch.

                   

                   
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                    Prof. Daz > Kramerica June 4, 2020 at 8:21pm

                    

                    Kram, maybe the violence in the protests will make it worse; maybe it won't. 
                    What we do know is that the whole thing shows a  society that features a whole (black) population totally fed up, with some more violent about it than others, plus a large population sympathetic with the blacks and their experience,  plus conservatives protecting private property and myopic enough to have that as the big issue, and then piling in is the far right who have got in there stoking the violence along and then blaming the left for the violence. 
                    Overall, a massively fractured society, that will either listen to internal discontent or it won't. No one can deny the last two points. 
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          Prof. Daz > Kramerica June 4, 2020 at 9:51am

          I have lived in the US. I can tell you it can be racially divided and there are no go zones. It's drugs, it's poverty, and it's race. Race can't be extracted from the story. End of story
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          Sir Col "THE NODDY MUSHROOM" June 1, 2020 at 7:10pm

          AND I wear the tag with pride Frankie.

          BUT - you left out Conspirator - got to be a conspiracy theory in there somewhere.
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          Prof. Daz June 4, 2020 at 10:09am

          No, Fong, what we say is that if you are a racist we won't excuse you just because you say all the cool kids you know are racist
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        Prof. Daz > Sir Col "THE NODDY MUSHROOM" June 4, 2020 at 9:35am

        Col, calling it as it is does not save one from being a racist. 
        In Wiz's comment, he points out known discrepancies: we know blacks commit many crimes on blacks and we rarely see white looting in response to black on white crime. 
        But there can be OTHER explanations for those facts other than systemic racism in American NOT existing. Wiz is a racist for trying to white-wash the systemic racism of the US and it's effects from the causal story. Instead it is, as Wiz said, a matter of blacks not being that smart. 
        
        

        Col, as you said, the environment of the child shapes the child. And many US blacks grew up under discrimination and inequality and we are seeing that long history play out. 
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      MeelK > SuperEel 22 June 1, 2020 at 5:12pm

      Super I think there is a lot of truth in what you say, but I'd like to ask one question about a line you typed:

      "They're protesting because a black person can't walk down the street without being seen as a threat."

      Do you think anything the protesters are doing right now is helping to change that mentality?

      Given the gun ownership laws in the US, if I were a cop I'd be looking at every single person walking down the street as a threat.

      And none of what I'm saying here is trying to justify what that cop did. The footage of the incident is horrible to watch.