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F Champ Receives Lifetime Ban, Racism in the FGC/USA, and Other Prevalent Social Discussions

trufenix

bye felicia
Girl. Idk what your deal is but you trying to portray me as some racist because I have opposing opinions is getting tiresome. At least if you want to label me a racist try to find concrete evidence.
If you don't want to be called a racist, don't act racist and don't post racist nonsense. Don't evade questions about racism and come up with something better than girl I'm not racist when people call you out in it.

You got options, girl
 

KingHippo

Alternative-Fact Checker
Actually, if you watch conservative news media, the overwhelming majority of the criticism focuses on policies, not the slogan. Ben Shapiro, and before you roll your eyes, please listen to the argument, states that the words Black Lives Matter are "semantically loaded" because they convey three different meanings: the first one being that black lives matter as the words suggest, the second one referring to the movement and organization Black Lives Matter, and the third one being the insinuation that America is systemically racist. Nobody in mainstream America is denying the first, but the second and third are politicized because they are political in nature and hence the arguments.
Yes, you've proved my point exactly. Ben Shapiro's job is to avoid discussing actual policy, he just wants to talk about the hidden motives of a movement and their rhetoric. The reason he doesn't is because, again, the actual policy is non controversial - there's pretty steady support for things like redistribution of bloated police budgets, removing Confederate monuments, and acknowledgment of a serious race inequality. That's why they talk around it by trying to make it seem like everything is a trojan horse for authoritarian control, as if a decentralized movement is the one exerting power and not a fed up discriminated class.

and anyone who disagrees is "right-wing in nature"
The point is that the government, aside from protecting people's rights and safety, cannot help anyone live a dignified life. Only the individual can do so.
Yes, this is a right-wing policy position, regardless of how that makes anyone feel. Would argue, however, that if secret police are disappearing people into unmarked vans and the highest ranking lawyer in the country is advocating for elected officials to be arrested because of the acts of its constituents and the President refers to 200k deaths in six months as a statistical shrug, I would say the current gov't cares little for people's rights and safety

he reality is there are alternative solutions to poverty and inequity, and before you attempt to portray the U.S. as a cruel country that ignores the poor, you may examine these data.
It's no secret that the United States' annual budget is mostly spent on Social Security and Medicaid, which are consequently its most popular and supported features. There has been a consistent effort, since it was first passed in the 30's, to dismantle it or weaken it, to the point that now Donald Trump's suspension of the collection of payroll tax will, unless rolled back, bankrupt Social Security within a few years. In addition, the US will pay $32 trillion to maintain a healthcare system that is woefully unjust and exclusionary on the basis of earnings, in a country where the minimum wage is not a liveable wage in any state. Meanwhile, the top earners in this country do not pay their fair share to help contribute to these programs. Unspeakable cruelty. It is possible to have a welfare system and also punish those who lack means, which is what this country does.
 

KingHippo

Alternative-Fact Checker
Is this supposed to be a bad thing?
Absolutely. The agenda of the Trump administration has been very clear: teachings about systemic racism and critical race theory are un-American and a threat to democracy, somehow, and if you teach this in your schools, we want to punish you for it. The Constitutionality of that act is in question, so instead the Department of Education is now threatening Princeton with a loss of federal funds for its president stating that "racist assumptions from the past are embedded in the structures," a tacit agreement that a systemic racial bias needs to be actively worked against.

The worst faith interpretation of that, as the DoE has suggested, is that Princeton is guilty of violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which states that no one can be discriminated against from entering any program with federal assistance. I don't weep for the Ivy League's pocketbooks, as they are private institutions with loads of healthy donors (and are historically exclusive), but what does upset me is that the federal money given to these institutions is done for the use of grants, loans, and scholarships that people without means use to attend these institutions.

It sets a terrible precedent, one that would inevitably be used on a school that, say, teaches aspects of the 1619 project. This administration doesn't even believe in the concept, so for them to then use the DoE as a cudgel to punish schools that acknowledge the existence of things like systemic racism and teach race theory is abhorrent. But what else to expect from an administration that investigated a university for a "Pro-Islam" bias?
 

ChaosTheory

A fat woman came into the shoe store today...
@M2Dave You follow sports. Maybe you already saw the story about Maurkice Pouncey of the Steelers. Frankly, it's refreshing but at the same time clear evidence of something we already knew: how sheeplike these athletes (and most people) are.

The short of it is the NFL is doing BLM statements, the Steelers put Antwon Rose's name on their helmets, Pouncey subsequently found out the "incident" that Rose was involved in was a drive-by shooting that resulted in two other black men shot, now he regrets it and made efforts to clarify that he didn't know about the case.

Main point being that these athletes are typically ill-informed on these incidents but just go along with it. They end up perpetuating this BLM narrative that is causing massive damage in various forms.
 

ChaosTheory

A fat woman came into the shoe store today...
Case in point... As Jason Whitlock points out: at least 54 black and brown children between 1- and 12-years-old have been killed in 2020 by gang violence. There's no BLM for that.

Police kill around a dozen unarmed black men per year. Last year I think it was either 9 or 13. That's out of 375 million police interactions. Do the math. As we've seen this year, most times these are criminals resisting arrest. And this is where BLM shows up.

I saw a video of a protester in Huntington or somewhere say something that I'll paraphrase...

"We have more pressing issues in our community. Fatherless homes, education, drugs, violence. But we want to focus on this.

It's like I was in a car accident and I've got a massive wound on my head, a broken leg, and a little cut on my arm. And the paramedic shows up and wants to work on my arm. What about this hole in my head?"
 

jokey77

Character Loyalist
I was really surprised by the perception of recent police videos. To be fair: I only watched the Jacob Blake video (by accident), because I avoid graphical content in general. - However afterwards I've read that
  • the police was called by a female, because "her boyfriend was not permitted to be on the premises, and that he'd taken her car keys";
  • when the police arrived, the guy ignored many requests to stand still, although the seriousness of the situation was signaled by weapons at hand.
In terms of racism it all comes down to a single question: What would have happened to a white man (wearing the same clothes, living in the same area and acting the same as Jacob Blake)? - My expectation is that he would have been shot as well.

This is because even here in Europe you'd but your health at risk, if you ignore police requests, act in an aggressive way and run away. - In this particular case (and with the fragmentary information available to me), the police action did not seem excessive to me.

The BLM narrative does not permit this differentiated view, which is a problem. Nothing is more dangerous than exaggerated narratives into which we try to squeeze individual cases with cramps. This again leads to polarization. We need assessments of the individual case. Just as the George Floyd case was undoubtedly an example of excessive police violence, the Jakob Blake case was not (in my opinion).

Feel free to correct me though, if a white man would have been treated differently!

That being said: I do believe that if the whole incident had taken place in Beverly Hills and the suspect was a celebrity (e.g. Will Smith), the police would have acted differently. So yes, there is some sort of discrimination. However it is not because of race, but because of social status.
 

Marlow

Premium Supporter
Premium Supporter
In terms of racism it all comes down to a single question: What would have happened to a white man (wearing the same clothes, living in the same area and acting the same as Jacob Blake)? - My expectation is that he would have been shot as well.
Statistics don't really bear that out. https://mappingpoliceviolence.org/ https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2018/05/the-57375-years-of-life-lost-to-police-violence/559835/

Feel free to correct me though, if a white man would have been treated differently!
Just recently in Kenosha we had a young white man walking around with a rifle who shot and killed multiple protesters. The police let him walk right by them. Tamir Rice was a 12 year old boy in Cleveland who was shot for holding a toy gun.

That being said: I do believe that if the whole incident had taken place in Beverly Hills and the suspect was a celebrity (e.g. Will Smith), the police would have acted differently. So yes, there is some sort of discrimination. However it is not because of race, but because of social status.
https://theathletic.com/1849574/2020/06/02/a-conversation-retired-african-american-mlb-players-on-race-baseball-america/

Torii Hunter, famous baseball player, celebrity living in Los Angeles.
Hunter: I got that wake-up call quick. I went into my place, the alarm went off for a second and I cut it off. Maybe an hour later, I see cops at my door. I open my door and say, “Is everything OK?” And they said, “Freeze!” With the guns out. You know you’re coming to Torii Hunter’s house. You already know that!

The young guy had his gun down, but the older guy had his gun, and a vein popped out of his neck. I’m on one leg. He said, “Sit the f— down!” I said, “Hey man, this is my house, calm down.” And the young guy is looking at me like, “I think I know this guy.” The other guy still had the gun. And he says, “Is anybody else in the house?” I said, “No one else is in the house. This is my house.” I didn’t say nothing about baseball. And he walked me into the house with the gun in my back, to go upstairs to get my license. And when I showed him my license, the younger guy said, “I knew that was you.” And the guy said, “Who is he?” And he said, “He plays with the Angels.” Then this guy who had the gun on me says, “Oh, I’m an Angels fan. Can you leave me tickets?”
"
 

jokey77

Character Loyalist
Just recently in Kenosha we had a young white man walking around with a rifle who shot and killed multiple protesters. The police let him walk right by them. Tamir Rice was a 12 year old boy in Cleveland who was shot for holding a toy gun.
I don't want to be disrespectful. But frankly spoken I see myself only confirmed by your post.

My point was: Narratives can blind you so that the nuances of a particular case can no longer be seen. Besides I was only talking about the Jakob Blake incident which is no example of excessive police violence (in my opinion).

My criticism is directed against the current frame of the discourse, because it does not allow to discuss cases of justified police violence. These are reinterpreted with cramp in cases of excessive police violence.

Now what did you do? - You immediately came up with statistics and anecdotes that support the narrative of a systemic problem of police violence. However they have nothing to do with a differentiated view of the specific Jakob Blake incident. You avoid this discussion.

One could call it 'whataboutism', one could call it bias.

Now the thing is: Statistically speaking, I actually do believe that POC have a harder time at police controls. Accordingly, it is more likely that such controls will (unjustifiably) get out of hand. But - again - this is not what my last post was about.

For me it is possible to acknowledge that there are cases of justified police violence (propably the Jakob Blake incident), cases of excessive police violence (propably the George Floyd incident) and there is a systemic issue with ethnic profiling (which may be partly racist and partly not).
 
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Law Hero

There is a head on a pole behind you
I was really surprised by the perception of recent police videos. To be fair: I only watched the Jacob Blake video (by accident), because I avoid graphical content in general. - However afterwards I've read that
  • the police was called by a female, because "her boyfriend was not permitted to be on the premises, and that he'd taken her car keys";
  • when the police arrived, the guy ignored many requests to stand still, although the seriousness of the situation was signaled by weapons at hand.
In terms of racism it all comes down to a single question: What would have happened to a white man (wearing the same clothes, living in the same area and acting the same as Jacob Blake)? - My expectation is that he would have been shot as well.

This is because even here in Europe you'd but your health at risk, if you ignore police requests, act in an aggressive way and run away. - In this particular case (and with the fragmentary information available to me), the police action did not seem excessive to me.

The BLM narrative does not permit this differentiated view, which is a problem. Nothing is more dangerous than exaggerated narratives into which we try to squeeze individual cases with cramps. This again leads to polarization. We need assessments of the individual case. Just as the George Floyd case was undoubtedly an example of excessive police violence, the Jakob Blake case was not (in my opinion).

Feel free to correct me though, if a white man would have been treated differently!

That being said: I do believe that if the whole incident had taken place in Beverly Hills and the suspect was a celebrity (e.g. Will Smith), the police would have acted differently. So yes, there is some sort of discrimination. However it is not because of race, but because of social status.
Although it may seem excessively simplistic, the way I see it is if you disregard instruction from the police you're attempting one of two things: to flee the scene of the crime or reach for a weapon. I don't see any gray area in this matter. Even if you're deaf, mute, and don't speak English, if a police officer is pointing a gun at you and saying something, you should remain still. Were I police officer in this situation and a suspect (violent or not) were to disobey orders to remain still, I would assume they were reaching for a weapon and act accordingly. Again, I see no excuse to do anything but remain still, especially if you're innocent.

I would also like to point out that it's less a matter of race and more of a matter of wealth or social status as you explained. As someone who has spent most of their life living in extreme poverty in the ghettos of California, I can tell you from experience that all the criminal types here are the same regardless of race. White, black, Asian, it doesn't matter, they're all equally volatile and violent. And when you're dirt poor, the police treat you all the same. I can also tell you that when living in a neighborhood full of drug addicts and criminals, when the police feel threatened, they treat you with the same amount of suspicion and aggression. And when you ask for help, they treat you with the same indifference as everyone else too.

To be clear, I'm not denying the fact that there are excessively violent or corrupt police officers. I'm not denying that there are racist officers or even organized racist groups of police officers. But I do criticize the notion that every violent altercation between the police and black people is the result of rampant racism especially in a country as incredibly large as the United States. As someone who has had altercations with police in the ghettos and in the suburbs, and who has known whites, blacks, Hmong, and Mexicans in both locations, it's more a matter of where you live and how much you make instead of skin color.
 

Marlow

Premium Supporter
Premium Supporter
My point was: Narratives can blind you so that the nuances of a particular case can no longer be seen. Besides I was only talking about the Jakob Blake incident which is no example of excessive police violence (in my opinion).

My criticism is directed against the current frame of the discourse, because it does not allow to discuss cases of justified police violence. These are reinterpreted with cramp in cases of excessive police violence.

Now what did you do? - You immediately came up with statistics and anecdotes that support the narrative of a systemic problem of police violence. However they have nothing to do with a differentiated view of the specific Jakob Blake incident. You avoid this discussion.

You asked "What would have happened to a white man (wearing the same clothes, living in the same area and acting the same as Jacob Blake)? "

Trying to answer this on a "specific" basis is almost impossible since we still don't have a complete story as to what exactly happened with Jacob Blake, and even then it's pure speculation as to what would or would not have happened if he had been white. For me it makes sense that based on historical statistical trends if Jacob Blake had been white he would likely not have been shot. That's why I linked those.

To me, it does look like excessive force. Mr. Blake wasn't running into the car, he was calmly walking. He reached in, and instead of the officers attempting some other way to restrain him, they shot him in the back. If he's white, do they immediately go with the lethal force option instead of trying something else like physically restraining him? I don't think so.

I think you're missing the forest for the trees on this one.
 

Marlow

Premium Supporter
Premium Supporter
I can tell you from experience that all the criminal types here are the same regardless of race. White, black, Asian, it doesn't matter, they're all equally volatile and violent.
If that's the case why are black men so much more likely to die at the hands of police than white men?
 

Law Hero

There is a head on a pole behind you
If that's the case why are black men so much more likely to die at the hands of police than white men?
Is there an equal amount of wealth distribution between black and white men? Are the ghettos and homeless shelters equally full of black and white men? Are there an equal amount of educated black and white men in the US?

Most violent crime happens in poorer parts of the nation, and it's no surprise to anyone that a large portion of the black community lives in poverty. So if the percent of blacks living in the US is much lower than the percent of whites, and a large portion of them are poor and/or uneducated, then why are you surprised that there are so many violent incidents involving black people and the police comparatively to whites? There are MANY factors at play in these situations, and to attempt to narrow it down to a single common denominator is just ignorant. To clarify, I'm not saying YOU'RE ignorant, just the idea that we look at these problems, chalk it up to racism, then call it a day is ridiculous.

Now, the cynic in me would also like to point out that police-on-white crime doesn't make for very exciting news coverage either. If the news played a story about a white man walking away from officers and then getting shot in the back, there would be no outrage or backlash. So the pieces that do make for "good" news will be rubbed in our faces, exaggerated, and used to cause controversy.
 

Marlow

Premium Supporter
Premium Supporter
Nothing is more dangerous than exaggerated narratives into which we try to squeeze individual cases with cramps. This again leads to polarization. We need assessments of the individual case.
Imagine you have a set of coins that you use for a coin toss, and you're trying to tell if the coins are fair or not. You can never know if your coin is fair on each individual coin toss. Maybe the balance is off, maybe how you choose to flip it is off, maybe how you choose to hold it or which side you choose to have up is skewing the results. Maybe different coins in your set are balanced differently. Either way, every toss is an individual event. Yet every individual event is hinting at some sort of statistical distribution behind the scenes.

Assessment of the individual case is fine, but it's also important to see what the individual cases reveal about the system as a whole.
 

Marlow

Premium Supporter
Premium Supporter
Is there an equal amount of wealth distribution between black and white men? Are the ghettos and homeless shelters equally full of black and white men? Are there an equal amount of educated black and white men in the US?
There's not, and that's kind of the issue. These situations are out of proportion with what we'd expect given the actual makeup of populations.

I don't think everything is as simple as "chalk it up to racism". There's a lot of issues where things like wealth/income level do come into play more (although race does play a part in wealth/income as well so it's not like the two aren't related). And regardless of the system as a whole I do think individual responsibility is important when we're looking at things on a strictly individual level. You can go case by case through pretty much anyone's life and likely find places where they could have made better choices to improve their life. But I think it's silly to only focus on the individual level when in a lot of ways we depend on people not being individuals but abiding by social norms and we depend on social institutions (court system, police, schools, government) to help provide us all with equal rights.

To put it in fighting game terms, I want a game and characters that are as balanced as possible, even while acknowledging that in many individual matches there are likely better choices I could have made during the match that would have resulted in me winning.
 

NHDR

Noob
If that's the case why are black men so much more likely to die at the hands of police than white men?
Just giving food for thought here for the sake of open discussion. I'm not a Trump supporter (not a Biden supporter either) and I do support the basic idea of BLM, which is that black lives matter. I support protesting but I don't support rioting, simply because it is inevitable that it will lead to chaos and misguided anarchy (see: many felons and people with nothing else to do in their lives looting and rioting for no reason other than they can).

So, I agree that there is racism and profiling against black people by police. Not all police, of course, but I agree its a problem. So with that said, I think there are additional reasons why black people may die at the hands of police:

1. They are not encouraged to comply and are encouraged to fear police. In both the George Floyd and Jacob Blake videos, neither of them actually stood still and remained calm. There was some level of resistance by both of them. I do think the cops in both cases were negligent and screwed up everything, but resistance from the alleged culprit does not help at all. If you are a cop and the guy you are trying to arrest resists in any way, how you can feel comfortable that he will stop at any point?

If you look at the Floyd video in particular, his friends who were in the car were also detained, but the cops were just talking to them. And even they were telling George to calm down.

The thing is, cops are in a situation where they have to make quick decisions about what to do. If they use too much force, they kill people like George Floyd, who should not be dead. If they don't use enough force, they get killed themselves (see the recent murder of Craig Johnson, where two cops tased and pepper sprayed a white dude, and he still killed one of them and the other officer is in recovery).

You have LeBron James telling the black community that they are being hunted by police, and you have a part of the culture that stresses a "snitches get stitches" mentality (I love hip-hop and grew up on it, but how does one ignore this?). These messages encourage nothing but fear and also hate towards the police.

Don't get me wrong, there are lots of corrupt cops out there, so the fear can be warranted. But is it supposed to be warranted in every case?

What happens when you fear and hate something? You get backed into a corner and you fight for survival.

2. Poverty. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy because cops might be more likely to patrol poor neighborhoods, and therefore more likely to encounter the inhabitants in an area where drugs, and petty and violent crimes may be frequent.

Using the USA as an example, there are unfortunately lots of ethnic minorities that live in poor, crime-ridden areas. Violence-based crimes are usually the ones that lead to aggressive encounters with the police and more violence. You see a lot of people getting arrested for other types of crimes, like say securities fraud and some corporate fraud, but its not as often that there's some kind of violence that follows.

Just so I'm 100000% clear, as I know text can be misinterpreted easily, I am not denying that racism can be a reason why black people are killed by police. I'm just adding some points that I think could also contribute to the analysis.

Lastly, there could be many police encounters involving black individuals that end peacefully, and those encounters could outnumber the ones that ended violently, but of course those won't be reported because nothing happened.
 

Swindle

Philanthropist & Asshole
My best haircut was given by a Black man named Jabezmond.
Thank you, Jabezmond. You a real one.

FChamp a doody
 

M2Dave

Zoning Master
Yes, this is a right-wing policy position, regardless of how that makes anyone feel.
It is not a right-wing policy position as much as it is a fact of life. As the proverb says, give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. This concept also applies to the role of government, which can either give you stuff at someone else's expense or encourage you to become educated by learning a skill or trade that has value in the private as well as public sector. The individual, not the government, is the basis for any efficient laissez-faire economy.

To continue with the proverb and the analogy, you may argue that black people were historically neither permitted to own a fish nor taught how to catch one in the first place. This argument is obviously accurate and well-taken. However, these injustices have been getting corrected since the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s. In fact, one could make the argument that there have been attempts to over-correct these injustices with programs like Affirmative Action that favor certain racial groups over others, irrespective of merit, in secondary education.

Police kill around a dozen unarmed black men per year. Last year I think it was either 9 or 13. That's out of 375 million police interactions. Do the math. As we've seen this year, most times these are criminals resisting arrest. And this is where BLM shows up.
The leadership of the Democratic Party and Black Lives Matter are neither interested in statistics nor a post-racial America. Racial issues excite their base which in turn leads to political power, similarly to how abortion and gay marriage excite the Evangelical vote for the Republican Party except that Evangelicals are considered Puritans while Black Lives Matter enjoys an approval rating of over 50%. In fact, Black Lives Matter dictates the Democratic platform on all racial issues, which is why Biden is afraid of condemning the looting and rioting of some of the BLM members.
 

KingHippo

Alternative-Fact Checker
It is not a right-wing policy position as much as it is a fact of life.
It is, quite literally, a right-wing position. From Wikipedia article of the same name:

17426

See number 5. I'm not calling you a name, I'm taking you at your word. If that causes a reactionary flinch, that's not my problem.

which is why Biden is afraid of condemning the looting and rioting of some of the BLM members.
He does this, literally, all the time. A small collection:




A more thorough list here: (https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-biden-condemn-violence/fact-check-joe-biden-has-condemned-violent-protests-in-the-last-three-months-idUSKBN25V2O1)

I'm not a Joe Biden fan, but he knows how to be a milquetoast politician. Again, I recommend you change up your media sources that are obsessed with talking points and not facts
 

ChaosTheory

A fat woman came into the shoe store today...
To me, it does look like excessive force. Mr. Blake wasn't running into the car, he was calmly walking. He reached in, and instead of the officers attempting some other way to restrain him, they shot him in the back. If he's white, do they immediately go with the lethal force option instead of trying something else like physically restraining him? I don't think so.
Why do people keep saying this? Just like with athletes and celebrities, the second video is either being ignored or they haven't seen it.

They did not immediately go with lethal force. They started with verbal commands, they attempted to physically restrain him and he wrestled with them on the ground, they tried to use tasers on him... He fought through all of that. THEN he walked to his door and reached in while continuing to ignore police orders.

Cops experience attacks with deadly weapons something like 27 times per day in America.

These guys cannot be reasonably expected to just sit back at that point and potentially allow him to pull out a firearm.