Discussing subconscious racism

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Good article.

Damn, and didn't I make a statement about the dog. o_O
So did I. To be fair, Christian Cooper’s sister, who published the video, also made a statement about the “poor dog” (which made me pay closer attention to how she was treating her dog...thinking she seems pathologically violent to me) and that all Amy had to do was put her dog on a leash. It was dog walkers who walked her dog sometimes, who identified Amy Cooper in the video.
 
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City officials and members of the public are calling for Amy to be arrested for filing a false report.

Meanwhile, Christian Cooper is being very gracious to Amy.

“Meanwhile, the bird watcher told the New York Daily News that he thought Amy Cooper went to a racist place, but he didn't think she deserved death threats and getting fired from her job.”

 
I don't know. I've seen quite a bit on the news sources I follow
I did not write clearly enough I actually meant not much mention on WC2. It's definitely been on the broadcast media - Don Lemon's response (CNN) last night was quite moving, IMO.
 
I don't have TV - haven't watched TV for about a year at my parents - might've actually been 4 years (US election) since I sat in front of the TV watching a channel - so I don't get the progamed discussions of the day except when I catch a headline and there's a clip. Most are about covid. I happened to go to Huffpost and it was one of the headlines beside another article I was reading about covid. It's been a long time - maybe 20 years - since we used to have the TV on for hours at a time (my dad and step mom always had it on in the background). Crappy excuse for missing it.
 
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Just wanted to comment when someone Unthread mentioned not much info about George Floyd. You must not be watching the news. Huge riots in Minneapolis for the last two nights. At least one dead. The police station burned. 150 stores at least burned and looted. And it has spread across the USA. Being compared to the Rodney King riots
 
Just wanted to comment when someone Unthread mentioned not much info about George Floyd. You must not be watching the news. Huge riots in Minneapolis for the last two nights. At least one dead. The police station burned. 150 stores at least burned and looted. And it has spread across the USA. Being compared to the Rodney King riots

I mentioned the same thing and the poster, Carolla, clarified that she meant not much had been said on here.

That point made, I don't think I have ever heard the Meng Wanzhou case discussed seriously on here and it's all over the news. And that's not a problem. I don't think the news does, or should, drive our discussions here though it can provide fodder for them.
 
Just wanted to comment when someone Unthread mentioned not much info about George Floyd. You must not be watching the news. Huge riots in Minneapolis for the last two nights. At least one dead. The police station burned. 150 stores at least burned and looted. And it has spread across the USA. Being compared to the Rodney King riots
Yes, and now they arrested the one cop for third degree murder. Not the other three.
 
Just wanted to comment when someone Unthread mentioned not much info about George Floyd. You must not be watching the news. Huge riots in Minneapolis for the last two nights. At least one dead. The police station burned. 150 stores at least burned and looted. And it has spread across the USA. Being compared to the Rodney King riots
Now I have been following it, but I was a couple of days slow to find out about the murder initially.

It seems, at least since yesterday, that there is bipartisan agreement that the police abused their power and murdered George Floyd. That's uncommon.
 
I expect we will hear more about the other officers who did nothing to intervene and have been fired too. Likely some sort of dereliction of duty Type charge. Maybe?
 
More and more layers of trauma of racism. It's difficult to watch and yet I do, with intention.

Third degree murder seems to me to be an odd charge - only 3 states even have it. This is what Wikipedia says about it -

Minnesota
Minnesota law originally defined third-degree murder solely as depraved-heart murder ("without intent to effect the death of any person, caus[ing] the death of another by perpetrating an act eminently dangerous to others and evincing a depraved mind, without regard for human life").[7][8] In 1987, an additional drug-related provision ("without intent to cause death, proximately caus[ing] the death of a human being by, directly or indirectly, unlawfully selling, giving away, bartering, delivering, exchanging, distributing, or administering a controlled substance classified in Schedule I or II") was added to the definition of third-degree murder.[7][9] Up until the early 2000s, prosecutions under that provision were rare, but they began to rise in the 2010s. Some reports linked this increase in prosecutions to the opioid epidemic in the United States.[10]

Minnesota law also defines the crime of third-degree murder of an unborn child, with the same elements of depraved mind and lack of intent to kill distinguishing it from first- or second-degree murder of an unborn child.[11][12] Both third-degree murder and third-degree murder of an unborn child are punishable by a maximum of 25 years' imprisonment.[7][12]
 
Third degree murder seems to me to be an odd charge - only 3 states even have it.

Once again demonstrating what I see as a serious flaw in their system. Criminal law should be uniform across a country. I really don't get this nonsense with states being able to make criminal law rather enforcing a national criminal code as happens here.

It is also why it is taking so long to get rid of capital punishment there. Or blue laws.
 
That's an interesting twitter thread @Mendalla. Sandy Hudson is known as a community activist & for taking strong anti-police positions. I do agree that we have a huge amount of anti-racist work to do in Canada, and in the United Church - it's not just a US thing. Evidence of that was clear within the UC at our GC43 meeting. Personally, I think CBC is doing quite a lot to broaden its racial/ethnic diversity in recent years - but there is always room for more. I think it's perhaps a bit of false logic to assume that having more black producers would have had a different result in Sandy Hudson's case. Seemed more to me that this piece had a focus & she wanted to move it in a different direction - producer's role is to keep it on track. However having lifted that issue up as Hudson did, perhaps a future piece might be done on such an issue - who knows really. Fine lines to tread with public funding & journalism - which is why Desmond Cole left some years ago.

I learned a new acronym this week - BIPOC - Black, Indigenous, People of Colour - saw it used in threads about uniting some of those groups who suffer systemic discrimination. In the US, POC is often referring to Hispanic people; here it would be a much wider context.

A UCCan friend posted this link to a useful (and long) list of resources for anyone wishing to consider racism and anti-racism further - Anti-racism resources for white people
 
As Trump hides and freaks out about Antifa (several arrests including the burning of a courthouse and kicking down monuments were opportunistic red herrings instigated by white supremacists out to make it look like it was “Antifa” - which is not even a coordinated group with one agenda or set of tactics, it’s a general term short for “anti fascist”. Everyone who values democracy should be technically anti fascist. It means you don’t like fascism. It doesn’t mean you use violence or vandalism...the more violence and vandalism used, the more fascist the authorities are going to get.)...it’s more McCarthyist by the day.

...Here’s a president calling for calm, peaceful, protest, and talking about how to affect change on the local level. Obama:



The US went through nearly the identical situation 40-50 years ago.
 
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I think my roommate went to Vancouver 2 days ago. I heard murmurs of Vancouver a few days ago and she is away (she didn’t tell me when she was leaving or coming back because she never tells me anything and information comes out in one word answers which is frustrating...but she was doing laundry and seemed to be getting ready to go somewhere. She treats me like an old “Karen” - 40 something middle aged out of touch white woman, or just old and out of touch - which maybe she’s right because that’s how I appear when we don’t talk, and I did grow up in this town - but a package came for her and was sitting in front of the door for a day, so I texted her, and asked if she’s away, and if she’s ok, and she texted yes to both). I first started thinking “what about covid?” Then realized that I think this is a really important reason to break social distancing.
 
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