How did I miss this story? (Ahmaud Arbery shooting in Georgia)[MERGED] (6 Viewers)

but you do realize that you jumped to conclusions about what we don't know just like you cautioned against, yes?
Hahaha.....that is true.

However, short of being there when it happened and part of the investigation, you don’t know.

But you are correct, I made an assumption you didn’t know, while you could have been there in the inside and in the know.

Honestly, it was the broad stroke “whites gonna white” that irked me.....just as it does every time anyone relates a single act to a race of people.

We all know there’s complete idiots in all groups.

It doesn’t represent the group.....you just have to take every single person at face value.
 
ok, good, i'm glad you're wading into this territory bc i think you're les likely to take offense (not bc others are more easily offended but bc they might perceive the question from me as attacking and ths get defensive and i don't think you would)
ANYWAY
where do bystanders fit in with this?

eg, we've seen dozens of videos of Karens verbally attacking families of hispanic descent in Walmarts or the like, and you usually see 20-30 people gathered around, some taking videos, but not intervening - where do the bystanders fall on the racist <> normal, decent fold continuum?

it's essentially the same question that comes up when someone talks about bad cops - saying the % of bad cops is tiny. the retort is obvious bc clearly there are some 'not bad' cops who let the bad cops operate

are bystanders enablers or just a neutral party?

Well, here's where my elitism will be clearly displayed and offend some folks even though this is totally a joke:

Clearly, if they're at Walmart they're racist.

But on a serious note, people are likely genetically predisposed to be afraid of those who are different. When you see someone different whose being accosted for whatever, it's instinctive to assume they're deserving of it. That doesn't make you a racist though it may make you instinctively wrong.

Fixing that requires intellect and discipline and a conscious effort to teach our instincts they're wrong. Inherent bias isn't racism, but it sure can be manifested as such.
 
Well, here's where my elitism will be clearly displayed and offend some folks even though this is totally a joke:

Clearly, if they're at Walmart they're racist.

But on a serious note, people are likely genetically predisposed to be afraid of those who are different. When you see someone different whose being accosted for whatever, it's instinctive to assume they're deserving of it. That doesn't make you a racist though it may make you instinctively wrong.

Fixing that requires intellect and discipline and a conscious effort to teach our instincts they're wrong. Inherent bias isn't racism, but it sure can be manifested as such.

Being instinctively afraid of someone who looks different is a far cry from hunting him down and killing him
 
I don't know if this is a universal standard for determining if an act is a hate crime, but I am very familiar with what is established by the Clery Act


If we are using the standards of the Clery Act, you would not be able to determine if this was a hate crime just by the act alone....it would take investigation into the background of the two men who did it

However, I am all for whatever gives these two the maximum penalty allowed by law
I don't like 'hate' crime legislation. It's too difficult to prove and administer it seems. Plus everyone starts developing their own internal decisions on if it's a hate crime or not leading to a feeling that justice isn't working or being served properly.

I prefer to keep it simple in was it a crime or not. The reason someone committed a crime might seem to matter, but they rarely do if justice is truly blind. We might feel bad for a guy that steals a loaf of bread to feed his family, but we can't allow that as where do you draw the line? A hamburger? A cow? A bank?

I believe the same thing works in reverse. Let the trial happen and the judge/jury determine outcome and sentence. There's a reason why sentences are often variable. A judge can give the full sentence or the minimum. That's good enough for me.
 
I would imagine this was a racist act.
But I’m not in the head of the two loonies, so I don’t know. Neither do you. Or anyone except the two loonies.

Therefore the only people qualified to say if this is racist are those two, that’s it.

not entirely true

Nikole Hannah Jones, who knows a helluva lot more about the legacy of racism in the country than either of us, has talked about this notion that "racism (or racist) acts only exist inside the head of the potentially racist in question"

She frames it as an act of racism and talks about how - within the structure of racism in the country - it becomes a racist act. There's a focus on the act, rather than the individual - and I think your post is a good illustration as to why.

If you think that this act can never be known to be racist, because we can never know if these individuals are racist, then how do we have a conversation about racism in the country? We can't. It becomes psychoanalysis and really not efficient nor illustrative to discuss race.

Instead, the argument is that if the situation and its conclusion are reliably predictable or expected according to racist institutions in play, then the act is fairly discussed and analyzed as a racist act. Now, this doesn't have any legal binding, mind you. It's primarily for understanding and talking about how racism operates in this country on a daily basis.

So, while this might be a bit presumptive, I'd say that if we applied that to this case, what would we see that is the product of the legacy of racist practices and policies in the context of the country/area.

Black guy running through a white neighborhood being seen as a 'criminal'? Definitely qualifies.
Two white guys feeling as if the life of a visible minority worth less than a nonviolent/nonthreatening offense? Yes.
The treatment by the law apparatus, investigator, etc treating this as a less than case or demonstrating some preferential treatment by the white killers? Yes.
History of law enforcement and harassment of the black guy by - in this case - one of his murderers? Yes.
The post-event treatment and publicity of the 'trespassing' accusations with video that might not even be the guy (the 'they all look alike') as mitigating the 'deservedness'? Yes.
The reflection of this event in the experiences of a *lot* of blacks, much more broadly, in neighborhoods similarly profiled? Yes.
The desensitized, synecdoche-esque treatment of his physical body? Absolutely.
The 'forgiveness' of the other white people caught on camera at the same property in question? Yes.

And so on.

There are a ton of flags here. And I think discussing it as a racist act is absolutely reasonable. It fits so many well-established criteria of racist acts and practices and attitudes - like, a lot - that discussing as a racist event is absolutely merited.

This isn't about 'convicting' the two individuals as 'racist' as much as it needs to become a vehicle by which society improves.

Because if we stop the discussion every time 'what's in his head?' comes up, we'll never discuss it. And that's definitely what some people would rather, but it's not at all constructive. And it would let a *lot* of guilty people and acts go free.

But, more importantly, to do so would show people of color that we don't care about them or their discrimination or the indignities and suspicion they live with day by day. We show all sorts of compassion for the 'mentality' or 'psyche' of these individuals who commit the acts, but we end up ignoring the 'mentality' and 'psyche' of people who experience it directly or communally - and that's not even close to fair. It results in alienation of the people to whom we should be paying the *most* attention in the wake of something like this.

How much are we talking about these two individuals?

How much are we talking about the victim? His family? The mistreatment and subjugation of blacks, esp by whites in areas they are told 'you don't belong'? How much are we discussing the legacy of racism that leads to situations like this?

Not a whole lot.

Because people, too often, want to talk about whether or not two white dudes are racist - to do that, I think we're missing a much more important point.
 
Being instinctively afraid of someone who looks different is a far cry from hunting him down and killing him
but does it make you more likely to rationalize the hunter?

this whole rivulet of the thread has been about whether 2 almost certainly racist, murders are indicative of the group that they almost certainly identify with or are they an aberrant outlier and all other white people are race loving hippies

the poster who brought the "only 2 guys and maybe not racist" into the thread wanted the small sample size to somehow prove that the larger pool of white people were not indicated and i was pointing that if the 2 yokels didn't prove anything negative about wypipo, it equally did not prove anything positive either

i guess i want to make the statement that if you are not doing good than you can't claim to be good - so whereas bystanders aren't doing 'bad' per se, they are not doing good when the opportunity presents itself
so at the very least, the idea that the yokels fall well outside 'us decent folk' is a bit muddy, and certainly nothing that has and FACTS to back it up
 
but does it make you more likely to rationalize the hunter?

this whole rivulet of the thread has been about whether 2 almost certainly racist, murders are indicative of the group that they almost certainly identify with or are they an aberrant outlier and all other white people are race loving hippies

the poster who brought the "only 2 guys and maybe not racist" into the thread wanted the small sample size to somehow prove that the larger pool of white people were not indicated and i was pointing that if the 2 yokels didn't prove anything negative about wypipo, it equally did not prove anything positive either

i guess i want to make the statement that if you are not doing good than you can't claim to be good - so whereas bystanders aren't doing 'bad' per se, they are not doing good when the opportunity presents itself
so at the very least, the idea that the yokels fall well outside 'us decent folk' is a bit muddy, and certainly nothing that has and FACTS to back it up

it doesn't make me rationalize the hunter because if we allow our actions to be guided solely by instinct we are no better than animals (philosophically speaking). I brought up the Clery Act earlier because it was an attempt at an objective set of criteria for proving an action was racist. Unless we find a manifesto, we certainly can't say with 100% certainty, but I would certainly be willing to convict on it being a racist crime based on what I have seen so far if I were on the jury

to the bolded part, it isn't about being a negative statement versus a positive one. IMO not being racist isn't a positive....its more of a neutral. I am not doing anything positive by not being racist. It's just the way it should be. Twice in my life I have had a gun pointed at me and both times the guy who did it was black....one of those times the gun was pressed against my temple while a second black man pressed a gun against my wife's head and threatened to blow her brains out. Should I extract something about black people in general based on those incidents (especially the second one)? I don't assume that black people are out to get me because of those incidents and it isn't the job of other black people to do something about those individuals.

and your argument about bystanders isn't right either...there are complicated psychological factors that occur in an individual's brain during a crisis situation. I don't know that I am necessarily understanding your point about bystanders tho. But you are bringing up this idea of 'good' and that is a very relative term. People have different ideas of 'good' and how much 'good' different actions represent
 
Same guy.

2017.

This is the way a cop should handle it......very calm during a potentially tense situation.

Not a good look for Mr. Arbery.

 
Same guy.

2017.

This is the way a cop should handle it......very calm during a potentially tense situation.

Not a good look for Mr. Arbery.


I'm 99.9% sure if that was me just chilling and rapping in my car on my day off, they would have waved to me and went about their merry way. There was no legitimate reason for them to be bothering Arbery. He had no weapons on him and they had no probable cause. Smh.
 
Same guy.

2017.

This is the way a cop should handle it......very calm during a potentially tense situation.

Not a good look for Mr. Arbery.


that just makes the cops look like asshats

and naturally, the old ‘drug activity area’ and ‘smelled marijuana’ justification is used
 
Same guy.

2017.

This is the way a cop should handle it......very calm during a potentially tense situation.

Not a good look for Mr. Arbery.


I'm trying to imagine scenarios where an officer of the law attempts to use a taser on someone but later that person is allowed to leave.

Here's the article with video. Doesn't seem necessary to shoot that taser.

 
I'm 99.9% sure if that was me just chilling and rapping in my car on my day off, they would have waved to me and went about their merry way. There was no legitimate reason for them to be bothering Arbery. He had no weapons on him and they had no probable cause. Smh.


that just makes the cops look like asshats

and naturally, the old ‘drug activity area’ and ‘smelled marijuana’ justification is used

I disagree. I think it shows professionalism from the first cop, the second cop appears to be more of a meathead.

You put “drug activity area” in quotes.....I’m assuming that would be a bias as I’m guessing you haven’t been to that park in Brunswick GA to know whether it’s drug infested or not.

If it is a suspected drug area, and a lone car is parked far away from any parking lot, in that area, I would expect the police to at least check it out.

And when you do check it out, if the person becomes highly agitated and cussing, well the police do have a job.

It’s just my opinion, but I thought the first cop handled it well. Not so much for Mr. Arbery’s reaction.

Again, my opinion.
 
I disagree. I think it shows professionalism from the first cop, the second cop appears to be more of a meathead.

You put “drug activity area” in quotes.....I’m assuming that would be a bias as I’m guessing you haven’t been to that park in Brunswick GA to know whether it’s drug infested or not.

If it is a suspected drug area, and a lone car is parked far away from any parking lot, in that area, I would expect the police to at least check it out.

And when you do check it out, if the person becomes highly agitated and cussing, well the police do have a job.

It’s just my opinion, but I thought the first cop handled it well. Not so much for Mr. Arbery’s reaction.

Again, my opinion.

Hell, I'd be highly agitated too if cops were bothering me without any sort of probable cause.
 
I'm trying to imagine scenarios where an officer of the law attempts to use a taser on someone but later that person is allowed to leave.

Here's the article with video. Doesn't seem necessary to shoot that taser.


Not only was it not necessary, that's assault in my book.
 
I'm 99.9% sure if that was me just chilling and rapping in my car on my day off, they would have waved to me and went about their merry way. There was no legitimate reason for them to be bothering Arbery. He had no weapons on him and they had no probable cause. Smh.

You are right they had no probable cause. Probable cause is for search. They did not search the vehicle. They allowed him to leave. Why would you “smh” when that the law as it’s written.

I would assume you don’t know the law as it pertains to probable cause and suspicion, though maybe you do.

Asking what you are doing/asking for ID is appropriate anytime there is anything deemed suspicious.

A car parked in a known drug area, way far away from a street or parking lot....is proper for suspicion....not probable cause....which is what they did.
 

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