Black Lives Matter, Racism: A Conservative Perspective (Larry Elder Interview)

[Voice of Reason 10,298]

Mistakes happen, in ANY job. Pilots crash airplanes. Cooks burn a dish. Tellers short-change their customers. One mistake by a cop, while obviously tragic in its own right, does not mean all cops are evil. Read the stats above if you would like to put it in perspective.

What happens if you don't struggle and don't fight but still end up shot by police?

http://gawker.com/video-shows-unarmed-black-man-pleading-with-arms-raised-1784004594

[smilesammich 10,727]

exaggerated sigh.

[yuna628 9,676]

I like how it's implied here that if we're all good boys and girls and do as we're told and don't fight back, that no shot will be fired, we won't die, and we won't even be arrested for committing no wrong. Yet when an officer defies all logic, it's merely a tragic mistake. If it is a mistake, then it is one that happens far too often and needs to be examined by police and their powerful unions to correct such 'mistakes'.

[JayJayH 546]

i honestly feel that the main reason why blm is scapegoated is because the media on the right has made it their agenda to silence them. it's bullying played out on the big screen as a means to dictate the national conversation on our clear problem with police brutality. they don't deviate from the talking point; support for blm equals support for cop killers. this talking point goes hand in hand with the 'obama has brought about the most racially tense years the us has ever seen!' shame and fear. definitely keeps away sympathetic ears.

of course, when steve king goes spouting white supremacy on television, like grand wizard dragon of modern day racism there was nothing. crickets. if i were republican i'd want to put than foul man down and disassociate publicly asap. i haven't really seen that happen.

I agree that they are scapegoated to an extent. Saying the murders of the cops in Dallas for example is at the "hands of BLM" is a little like saying Donald Trump is to blame if a Trump supporter were to commit a crime against an illegal immigrant. One thing I don't really understand is how it is that "the media on the right has made it their agenda to silence" BLM. Initially, BLM enjoyed fairly widespread support, even among many conservative groups who saw combating police brutality as a legitimate common goal. If they have been silenced on the right, it's due to shattered credibility.

BLM's loss of support didn't happen until combating police brutality became a distinctly black cause. People were ridiculed, some even forced to resign from positions, for using the hashtag #AllLivesMatter, often with nothing but good intentions. Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton were asked in a presidential debate whether "black lives matter, or all lives matter." I understand that focusing on black lives following police shootings of unarmed black teenagers isn't necessarily racist, but as far as racial tension goes, no side has been more divisive than the political left in recent years. What I miss is a unifying campaign from BLM.

Rather than trying to appeal to Americans from all backgrounds who are concerned with police brutality, BLM politicized and became part of the larger social justice crowd where words like "privilege", "whiteness" and "institutional racism" are held to be universal truths, not to be questioned. I understand that black Americans have historically faced injustices that help explain socioeconomic disparities still in existence today. What I don't understand is how identity politics are supposed to help.

So while BLM has never gone out and publicly asked supporters to kill cops, I'm still in awe at how easily their racial undertones are dismissed and even embraced. Honestly, BLM would have likely gotten a whole lot more support if they had embraced the #AllLivesMatter hashtag and capitalized on it, rather than turn the movement strictly into a racial one.

Edited July 21, 2016 by JayJayH

[Voice of Reason 10,298]

Again, check the actual stats. Less than 1/100th of one percent. Hardly a rampant problem.

Now don't get me wrong, one accidental shooting is two too many. One innocent getting killed is a tragedy of the highest order, and when it happens, it needs to be investigated. If it was accidental, then so be it. The officer will have to live for the rest of his/her life with that on their conscience. Not something I would want to live with. May even ruin their life. But if they are found to have used excessive force, they need to at least lose their job, and not be allowed to serve as even a security guard with a gun, or go to jail. Murder is murder, even if one is on duty.

I like how it's implied here that if we're all good boys and girls and do as we're told and don't fight back, that no shot will be fired, we won't die, and we won't even be arrested for committing no wrong. Yet when an officer defies all logic, it's merely a tragic mistake. If it is a mistake, then it is one that happens far too often and needs to be examined by police and their powerful unions to correct such 'mistakes'.

[Ebunoluwa 6,136]

Here is a yet another perfect example of total compliance and a shooting.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3700527/Unarmed-Florida-therapist-hands-shot-police-calming-autistic-patient-revealed-object-believed-gun-toy-truck.html

[Ebunoluwa 6,136]

I agree that they are scapegoated to an extent. Saying the murders of the cops in Dallas for example is at the "hands of BLM" is a little like saying Donald Trump is to blame if a Trump supporter were to commit a crime against an illegal immigrant. One thing I don't really understand is how it is that "the media on the right has made it their agenda to silence" BLM. Initially, BLM enjoyed fairly widespread support, even among many conservative groups who saw combating police brutality as a legitimate common goal. If they have been silenced on the right, it's due to shattered credibility.

BLM's loss of support didn't happen until combating police brutality became a distinctly black cause. People were ridiculed, some even forced to resign from positions, for using the hashtag #AllLivesMatter, often with nothing but good intentions. Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton were asked in a presidential debate whether "black lives matter, or all lives matter." I understand that focusing on black lives following police shootings of unarmed black teenagers isn't necessarily racist, but as far as racial tension goes, no side has been more divisive than the political left in recent years. What I miss is a unifying campaign from BLM.

Rather than trying to appeal to Americans from all backgrounds who are concerned with police brutality, BLM politicized and became part of the larger social justice crowd where words like "privilege", "whiteness" and "institutional racism" are held to be universal truths, not to be questioned. I understand that black Americans have historically faced injustices that help explain socioeconomic disparities still in existence today. What I don't understand is how identity politics are supposed to help.

So while BLM has never gone out and publicly asked supporters to kill cops, I'm still in awe at how easily their racial undertones are dismissed and even embraced. Honestly, BLM would have likely gotten a whole lot more support if they had embraced the #AllLivesMatter hashtag and capitalized on it, rather than turn the movement strictly into a racial one.

The identity movement, not politics, helps by pointing out that black people get shot even when fully complying.

BLM has not turned it into a strictly racial movement. You got it backwards. BLM is facing a bully and saying no more.

Cause and effect.

It's like the bully is now complaining when he finally has to face the music and is now whining that he is being held accountable.

[Ebunoluwa 6,136]

If you are white and it is not happening to you and you don't worry when your black teenager goes out the door or your

husband drives to work, then keep on skipping down the yellow brick road and sit down and be quiet.
Those that worry have a reason and if you don't get it then you just don't get it and that doesn't make it any less of a reality.

Political identity as you call it or movement worked in the civil rights era and it will work again because it is not finished. Period.

Edited July 21, 2016 by Ebunoluwa

[smilesammich 10,727]

Rather than trying to appeal to Americans from all backgrounds who are concerned with police brutality, BLM politicized and became part of the larger social justice crowd where words like "privilege", "whiteness" and "institutional racism" are held to be universal truths, not to be questioned. I understand that black Americans have historically faced injustices that help explain socioeconomic disparities still in existence today. What I don't understand is how identity politics are supposed to help.

So while BLM has never gone out and publicly asked supporters to kill cops, I'm still in awe at how easily their racial undertones are dismissed and even embraced. Honestly, BLM would have likely gotten a whole lot more support if they had embraced the #AllLivesMatter hashtag and capitalized on it, rather than turn the movement strictly into a racial one.

i don't think it matters if you understand why..black lives matter, sociologists, anthropologists etc.. use the terminology they do. there's a reason why the us has historically taken issue with groups formed to support black empowerment. there's a reason why on one hand you have the call for the black community to join together to 'fix' their ills and on the other hand you reserve the right to admonish those attemtping to do just that. those that are still hung up on not getting their #alllivesmatter hashtag are quite simply uncomfortable with not being in control of the conversation,or at minimum, on consult.

[JayJayH 546]

The identity movement, not politics, helps by pointing out that black people get shot even when fully complying.

BLM has not turned it into a strictly racial movement. You got it backwards. BLM is facing a bully and saying no more.

Cause and effect.

It's like the bully is now complaining when he finally has to face the music and is now whining that he is being held accountable.

If you are white and it is not happening to you and you don't worry when your black teenager goes out the door or your

husband drives to work, then keep on skipping down the yellow brick road and sit down and be quiet.

Those that worry have a reason and if you don't get it then you just don't get it and that doesn't make it any less of a reality.

Political identity as you call it or movement worked in the civil rights era and it will work again because it is not finished. Period.

The civil rights era was through and through about race, and only race. Institutional racism wasn't just an undeniable fact, it was the law of the land in the entire southern portion of the country. Segregation in the south had no socioeconomic roots. It had nothing to do with anything other than race.

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-fresno-shooting-20160721-snap-story.html

"Noble, a 19-year-old “country boy,” was unarmed when he was shot and killed following a traffic stop."

Where is the national outcry?

http://time.com/4404987/police-violence/

"The men in these cases were white, not black, and yet all three were killed by police officers under circumstances that would almost surely have elicited indignant protest nationwide if they were black."

How would you like me to protest this? #All /WhiteEverySingleLifeMatters? Or is it just simply not a problem unless the victim was black?

i don't think it matters if you understand why..black lives matter, sociologists, anthropologists etc.. use the terminology they do. there's a reason why the us has historically taken issue with groups formed to support black empowerment. there's a reason why on one hand you have the call for the black community to join together to 'fix' their ills and on the other hand you reserve the right to admonish those attemtping to do just that. those that are still hung up on not getting their #alllivesmatter hashtag are quite simply uncomfortable with not being in control of the conversation,or at minimum, on consult.

I'm not advocating for anyone to fix "their" ills. I oppose any notion of being people lumped into "groups" based on the color of their skin, period. Frankly, I'm not even sure what good the phrase " community" brings to the table. Are people some sort of homogeneous group of humans who think alike based solely on their skin color? Does "the black community" represent Sheriff David Clarke? Does it represent Ben Carson? Kanye West? Or is it a phrase used to describe the interests of "most" black people?

Nor am I advocating for anyone to actually use the hashtag #alllivesmatter. I get the meaning behind #blacklivesmatter, I really do. I recognize that certain police jurisdictions in the U.S. struggles with racial biases among some officers. Against black Americans particularly in cities with large socioeconomic disparities between black citizens and i.e. Asian or white citizens. Chicago is an example. Honolulu is not. The same could be said for Bakersfield, CA, where Hispanics top the list (not blacks), yet, few Hispanics are shot by police in New Orleans.

My problem is with people ostracizing, ridiculing and publicly shaming anyone for uttering the phrase "all lives matter." Think about it, prior to the Michael Brown case, at what point in history would the phrase "all lives matter" somehow mean you had anything but good intentions? Further, my problem is the popular narrative of black people, and black people only, being murdered in large numbers by an inherently racist police force. This just simply has no basis in reality in a country of over 300 million people. The fact is that while virtually all police shootings in 2016 of unarmed black men receive widespread media attention, similar shootings of unarmed white or even Hispanic teenagers receive little to no attention outside of local news.

For a group that calls for "inclusion", what BLM really has done by its racial undertones and divisively politicizing the multiple issues is to turn a serious problem into an "us vs. them" issue.

Edited July 22, 2016 by JayJayH

[smilesammich 10,727]

I'm not advocating for anyone to fix "their" ills. I oppose any notion of being people lumped into "groups" based on the color of their skin, period. Frankly, I'm not even sure what good the phrase " community" brings to the table. Are people some sort of homogeneous group of humans who think alike based solely on their skin color? Does "the black community" represent Sheriff David Clarke? Does it represent Ben Carson? Kanye West? Or is it a phrase used to describe the interests of "most" black people?

Nor am I advocating for anyone to actually use the hashtag #alllivesmatter. I get the meaning behind #blacklivesmatter, I really do. I recognize that certain police jurisdictions in the U.S. struggles with racial biases among some officers. Against black Americans particularly in cities with large socioeconomic disparities between black citizens and i.e. Asian or white citizens. Chicago is an example. Honolulu is not. The same could be said for Bakersfield, CA, where Hispanics top the list (not blacks), yet, few Hispanics are shot by police in New Orleans.

My problem is with people ostracizing, ridiculing and publicly shaming anyone for uttering the phrase "all lives matter." Think about it, prior to the Michael Brown case, at what point in history would the phrase "all lives matter" somehow mean you had anything but good intentions? Further, my problem is the popular narrative of black people, and black people only, being murdered in large numbers by an inherently racist police force. This just simply has no basis in reality in a country of over 300 million people. The fact is that while virtually all police shootings in 2016 of unarmed black men receive widespread media attention, similar shootings of unarmed white or even Hispanic teenagers receive little to no attention outside of local news.

For a group that calls for "inclusion", what BLM really has done by its racial undertones and divisively politicizing the multiple issues is to turn a serious problem into an "us vs. them" issue.

i agree with this:

“It’s this interesting thing that people are frustrated that black people are focusing on the unique trauma that black people are facing in this country,” he said. “And I would never go to a breast cancer rally and yell out colon cancer matters. And that’s what people are doing here. They are frustrated by the fact that people are focusing on the inequity in justice specially targeted to black people.”

“I think of ‘All Lives Matter’ as a distraction technique,” he concluded.

http://usuncut.com/black-lives-matter/deray-mckesson-blm-clever-analogy/

[OriZ 3,157]

The problem is breast cancer isn't really that much more of an issue than colon cancer(I'm talking about this hypothetical example, not the actual cancer), and so the breast cancer rally peeps are just trying to be louder than everyone else, and everyone else instead of starting a colon cancer rally and being even more divisive, just want to tell them that ALL cancers matter.

[smilesammich 10,727]

The problem is breast cancer isn't really that much more of an issue than colon cancer(I'm talking about this hypothetical example, not the actual cancer), and so the breast cancer rally peeps are just trying to be louder than everyone else, and everyone else instead of starting a colon cancer rally and being even more divisive, just want to tell them that ALL cancers matter.

the point is no one goes to a fundraising rally for breast cancer and starts shouting about colon cancer. do you know anyone who has done this? why would you feel the need to tell the breast cancer awareness fund that colon cancer matters?

do you know anyone that has shown up to say, a meeting to educate about kids drowning in in-ground pools and taken over the mic to go on about kids who die in car accidents?

[Teddy B 17,252]

#allcolonsmatter

[The Nature Boy 7,659]

i agree with this:

http://usuncut.com/black-lives-matter/deray-mckesson-blm-clever-analogy/

You almost bumped a tire out of the ditch