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How to Make this Moment the Turning Point for Real Change

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Re: How to Make this Moment the Turning Point for Real Change

#411

Post by syshum »

harryh wrote: post #324
syshum wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Racism is not something that could even be solved with market forces, nor would any libertarian claim such a thing. At best we would say the market gives non-racists the best chance to isolate the push back against racists History shows that if a society is racist the absolute WORST thing you can do is have a strong government, as that government will likely be filled with racists who will pass racist laws. (See The…

How do you reconcile the fact that the US government is as big as it has ever been while at the same time we have made significant progress on racial issues? Further much of that progress was driven by government mandate: The Civil Rights acts, anti-discrimination laws for employment, affirmative action, etc.

>> same time we have made significant progress on racial issues?

Have we? the current riots / protest seem to indicate not.

>Further much of that progress was driven by government mandate: The Civil Rights acts, anti-discrimination laws for employment, affirmative action, etc.

There is / was a double edge sword to many of those issues. For example more than 50% of the civil rights act was rolling back and repealing racist government laws and regulations. People seem to have this perception that the population was racist and the government saved the day when in reality the government was racist and then rolled back some (not all) of their racist policies.

So the 60's you have the Civil Rights acts, then what do we see in the 70's and 80's? The War on Drugs, and "Tough on Crime" laws that were disproportionately enforced and impacted poor and minority communities. This trend continues to today with continues sentencing disparity, mandatory minimums, and various other things that at a minimum are Class based enforcement if not outright racist enforcement of law

So I can easily reconcile my position that government is the problem because that is a factually accurate analysis of the history of law in this nation

Re: How to Make this Moment the Turning Point for Real Change

#412

Post by frogpelt »

smnrchrds wrote: post #384
frogpelt wrote: post #44

I agree with almost everything Mr. Obama wrote. But... I feel the complete opposite of “hopeful” when I see these riots, when I see people so angry they will destroy their own cities. Because it accomplishes the exact opposite of they hope it will accomplish: 1. Those who side with heavy-handed police tactics feel vindicated for their prejudices. 2. The communities of those who feel unheard and left out are torn down…

> Just using common sense tells me that if you can name off the victims it means the problem isn’t widespread or systemic across the country. > Name the police officers killed in the line of duty in the last ten years. You can’t there’s way too many. First of all, the number of people killed by US police is an order of magnitude higher than the number of police officers killed in the line of duty. I have provided sou…

I would fully expect the numbers of people killed by police to be higher than officers killed.

I don't disagree that there is a likely (especially in some places) a systemic police brutality or at least heavy-handed approach. I don't know how widespread. Probably a small minority of cops create a large majority of the problems.

And that needs to be rectified at the local level. Just like Mr. Obama said in his article.

I also believe that there a small minority of police officers who either already are prejudiced or have developed an unhealthy prejudice as a result of doing their jobs.

Because let's face it, if you get a job policing an inner city predominantly African-American community and you are not African-American, you are going to have many opportunities to develop prejudice. The obvious reason is that you are going to deal with the worst people from the community on a regular basis. It would work the same if a black police officer was assigned to work a rural, low-income white neighborhood. It's natural to start building a stereotype in your mind. In fact, it might be a self-preservation tactic.

I think one path to a solution (which once again has to be developed at the local level) is that the police need to do more in the communities than just enforce the law. If there was some community involvement it would create a trust between the police and the community. This would cause the interactions between officers and law breakers to maybe not start out with such animosity. If you knew the officer's first name and he knew yours because you had been in the community you'd be a lot less likely to have negative interaction during a traffic stop.

Re: How to Make this Moment the Turning Point for Real Change

#413

Post by anewdirection »

latortuga wrote: post #375
senderista wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Civil disobedience != violence. Illegal action is sometimes justified. Violence never is.

This is just false though. Sometimes violence is all you have left. Without violence, we wouldn't be a country. Without violence a black person would still be worth 3/5 of a white person. History shows us that violence is sometimes necessary. We arm police specifically because violence is sometimes required.

Violence was not the solution for any of the problems you mention, but the cause of a few. Maybe re-examine your rationale.

Re: How to Make this Moment the Turning Point for Real Change

#414

Post by chr1 »

tryptophan wrote: post #385
chr1 wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea about presentations is very good, but it alone won't fix the problem. We need to be able to vote for individual decisions instead of people, and we on hn are best positioned to fix the democracy https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23377423

This is a terrible idea. I don't want policy decided by which proposed law has the most "feel good points" or "best intentions" or best marketing campaign to get people to vote for it. Popular vote is a tool for demagogues and populists and will quickly lead to tyranny of the majority type situations. Whenever I vote in local elections there are some ballot initiatives, and it's ALWAYS feelgood shit like "give elderl…

Now we pick politicians based on feelgood promises they make, which they do not intend to keep. This way we avoid "tyranny of the majority" only by lying to the majority of people which cannot lead to a stable situation. If you believe the majority of the people are stupid and will vote for policies harming everyone, then we need some other mechanisms to allow different people to experiment with laws, find compromises, or give different weights to votes of different people. The current mechanism of pretending everyone has equal vote, and not allowing that vote to be heard by making voting artificially hard, will not work forever.

Re: How to Make this Moment the Turning Point for Real Change

#415

Post by softwaredoug »

Balgair wrote: post #180
softwaredoug wrote: post #38

If you haven’t learned about the US Civil War and Reconstruction, it’s required context for everything around this topic. I’d particularly recommend the recent Chernow biography on Grant and the Blight biography on Frederick Douglass. The civil war & reconstruction are the single most defining events in US history. They’re extremely relevant to today’s politics, racial justice, and identity based partisanship. In sho…

Grant is a very dense, but very good book. The period after Lincoln's death until Grant's election is nearly unbelievable. Johnson was an avowed racist and openly apologistic to southern gentry. The south and a sizable percent of the population was under armed guard and were essentially in military dictatorship under Grant. Grant was the obvious next pick for president and, wisely, was quiet about being the 'real' po…

One thing I have found is having basically a PoV character to follow through history is really useful for learning the period. Maybe its the game of thrones in me :)

Re: How to Make this Moment the Turning Point for Real Change

#416

Post by nickthemagicman »

evmar wrote: post #189
kajumix wrote: post #35

"I’ve heard some suggest that the recurrent problem of racial bias in our criminal justice system proves that only protests and direct action can bring about change, and that voting and participation in electoral politics is a waste of time. I couldn’t disagree more. The point of protest is to raise public awareness... But eventually, aspirations have to be translated into specific laws and institutional practices —…

MLK gave a speech at Silicon Valley's own Stanford and touched on this subject (the same one with the "riot is the language of the unheard" quote you might have seen circulating). https://www.crmvet.org/docs/otheram.htm See the bit starting with: "Now there's another notion that gets out, it's around everywhere. It's in the South, it's in the North, it's In California, and all over our nation. It's the notion that le…

You didn't post the most badass part.

"Even though it may be true that the law cannot change the heart, it can restrain the heartless"

I never read MLK much and just realized how awesome of an orater he was.

Re: How to Make this Moment the Turning Point for Real Change

#417

Post by Balgair »

softwaredoug wrote: post #415
Balgair wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Grant is a very dense, but very good book. The period after Lincoln's death until Grant's election is nearly unbelievable. Johnson was an avowed racist and openly apologistic to southern gentry. The south and a sizable percent of the population was under armed guard and were essentially in military dictatorship under Grant. Grant was the obvious next pick for president and, wisely, was quiet about being the 'real' po…

One thing I have found is having basically a PoV character to follow through history is really useful for learning the period. Maybe its the game of thrones in me :)

If you're looking for a great book like this, I cannot possibly recommend anything higher than Edmund Morris' The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt. Morris' writing is masterful and gripping. It seriously reads like an adventure novel.

https://www.amazon.com/Edmund-Morriss-Theodore-Roosevelt-Tri...

Re: How to Make this Moment the Turning Point for Real Change

#418

Post by evmar »

neonate wrote: post #216
evmar wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MLK gave a speech at Silicon Valley's own Stanford and touched on this subject (the same one with the "riot is the language of the unheard" quote you might have seen circulating). https://www.crmvet.org/docs/otheram.htm See the bit starting with: "Now there's another notion that gets out, it's around everywhere. It's in the South, it's in the North, it's In California, and all over our nation. It's the notion that le…

It's uncanny how perfectly of this moment many of those quotes are. Of course that's because these are very long-term issues. But it's still uncanny.

Alternatively, it's extremely sad, because it means we haven't made progress on the issues of 50 years ago.

Re: How to Make this Moment the Turning Point for Real Change

#419

Post by evmar »

nickthemagicman wrote: post #416
evmar wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MLK gave a speech at Silicon Valley's own Stanford and touched on this subject (the same one with the "riot is the language of the unheard" quote you might have seen circulating). https://www.crmvet.org/docs/otheram.htm See the bit starting with: "Now there's another notion that gets out, it's around everywhere. It's in the South, it's in the North, it's In California, and all over our nation. It's the notion that le…

You didn't post the most badass part. "Even though it may be true that the law cannot change the heart, it can restrain the heartless" I never read MLK much and just realized how awesome of an orater he was.

If you have the time to read one more thing, I recommend https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham....

Re: How to Make this Moment the Turning Point for Real Change

#420

Post by [deleted] »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #391
fzeroracer wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if you oppose both for the same reason, you should be able to recognize that they are not, in fact, the same. You're ignoring the power dynamics at play here which makes violence and excessive force by police officers far worse than arson by the rioters. If you equate all violence as being the same, then you're saying that the violence committed by the oppressed is the same as the violence committed by the oppre…

The arson targets are oppressed by definition, but often they are also part of impoverished communities. There is real concern that the few remaining grocers will cut their losses and leave rather than rebuild, creating even more food desserts. Flippantly disregarding this makes it sound as though you are happy to watch these communities burn if it means you can bring some political points home to the tribe.

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