Motorin'

I don't think Brees would have angered anyone if he had said, "I can never see myself taking a knee... This is what the anthem means to me, and it will always mean that... But I respect that other people see it differently than I do." What seems to have made people angry was to suggest that taking a knee dishonors his grandfathers and the men who fought in WWII.

I don't agree with any of the destructiveness that has been happening. I think the whole phrase is, "a few bad apples spoil the bunch." I think all cops have a tough job, and most of them want to protect and serve. But I think the laws and culture of policing are setup to protect, intentionally or not, to protect the bad cops. And I've seen enough retaliation and punishment against the preverbal good cop for speaking out against the actions of the bad cop to believe that the system needs to be reformed.

It's just a few bad apples.

The people working for these legal reforms are not the same individuals asking for to defund the police. Also many cities around the country are taking down Confederate statues.

There are two main asks. Federal Legislation that sets a minimum standard for the use of lethal force and lifting removing qualified immunity, and an the establishment of an outside review board to investigate police criminality in order to remove the inherent conflict of interest within the DA's office. Of course defunding the police will never happen. It's like asking for a million when WGA minimum would be a win.

Black Lives Matter doesn't exist to win popularity contests. It has actually policy goals, and those goals are being taken up around the county.

The part where white people deny that black people have legitimate pain and legitimate grievances. Pretty much every black person in America watched the George Floyd murder and said "that could have been me. And I could be the next George Floyd." I can not fathom how Obama saying, "if I had a son, he would look like Trayvon Martin" would anger you. Unless you thought that black people have no legitimate pain and grievance with the way they are treated and perceived in society.

The fact that you think that means you just might be part of the problem.

It's going to get better.

The very concept of race is the problem. The idea of "Whiteness" didn't come into existence as a category until the 17th century, and it was used to justify hierarchy as aristocracies began colonizing the "non-white" and therefore "inferior" world. The very idea of a "white people" is racist. Not one of us are from the nation of Whiteness, speaks the language of Whiteness. We celebrate our varied heritages. St. Patties day, Italian Festivals, Greek Festivals ect ect ect.... And we should celebrate our many heritages. But show me one celebration of "white pride" that isn't about white supremacy?

I agree with the first statement. I think at every increment forward there's been push back, including now. First it was the idea that it was just one bad officer that killed George Floyd but not indicative of any systemic issue within the structure of policing. It has now expanded to 'it was four bad police officers,' but four bad cops aren't indicative of a problem with the system itself. What then of the county Medical Examiner finding "no physical findings that support a diagnosis of traumatic asphyxia or strangulation...?” At the very least there is a perception of systemic bias. If in fact the Medical Examiner overlooked evidence of asphyxia to save Chauvin from 1st degree murder charges was it just one bad ME? As far as your criticism of critical theory, much longer conversation needed. I think it's pretty clear that there is a major anti-capitalist ideology at the heart of the riots. I don't agree with any of the looting and destruction. These people are not going to get the ideological endgame they want even if they cause maximum carnage. That doesn't mean that their aren't legitimate criticisms of capitalism that have positive solutions working within a framework of laws rather than anarchistic lawlessness.

I thought that too at first. As sick and inhuman as that video was to see, those guys were wearing the uniforms worn by Hennepin EMS https://www.hennepinhealthcare.org/hennepinems/

Structural racism doesn't have anything to do you you an as individual, it's about policy structures. As it pertains to wealth in present day America, the most egregious form of structural racism occurred after WWII and lasted for about 50 years. Access to low interest, federally insured home mortgages allowed tens of millions of working class white families to own homes, accrue equity in those homes and pass that on to the next generation. This program literally generated 10's of billions dollars of wealth for mostly white families. Maybe your grandparents or parents didn't benefit from home ownership and build modest wealth. But most white families were able to, and there was nothing they did that was wrong! But access to the same low interest federal mortgage programs were denied to working black families. The polices were racist, and persisted into the 90's.

Are you open to the possibility that we all benefited from structural racism without knowing it was happening?

Holy *****. I just learned that the police bombed a black neighborhood in Philadelphia in 1985 in a standoff with a black extremist group. https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2015/05/18/407665820/why-did-we-forget-the-move-bombing https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/may/10/move-1985-bombing-reconciliation-philadelphia#img-2

So it wasn't actually circulated by an MSNBC reporter, just someone looking to stir up more *****.

Which MSNBC reporter circulated it?

No, I mean MSNBC didn't use that clip. Some dick edited it to make it look like that.

That's a fake.

So here's a purported copy of the Trump / Epstein affidavits in the southern district of NY. Anyone else watch the new Epstein series on Netflix? https://www.scribd.com/doc/316341058/Donald-Trump-Jeffrey-Epstein-Rape-Lawsuit-and-Affidavits

All of the rioters are black? That's bull####.

The rules were setup requiring people receiving assistance to maintain poverty in order to keep receiving housing, food and health insurance. It didn't have to be that way, the rules could have helped people get ahead. And there were several government subsidized programs that helped several generations of Americans do just that. After WWII the government subsidized and insured low interest mortgages for tens of million of American families who were able to own a home, build equity and pass it on to their children. Tens of billions of dollars of wealth were created through home ownership for working class white America. This program was denied to working and middle class black people for 50 years following WWII. Instead they were redlined into housing projects.

Not going to argue with that. The rules of the welfare state that LBJ instituted were incredibly racist.

It's encouraging that some police officers are acknowledging that they need to be part of the solution. https://www.forbes.com/sites/lisettevoytko/2020/05/31/in-some-cities-police-officers-joined-protesters-marching-against-brutality/amp/

Richard Nixon was one of the architects of advancing a racist agenda by denying the existance of racism.