I'm sorry, I don't agree. If the action required in the States is so specific that these protests can't help other minorities they're totally ******, police brutality is police brutality and racism is racism. Police are killings trending upward and police killings of minorities trending upward is exactly why the US need these protests. The black community will be, and for whatever reason generally are, the most vocal minority but this is bigger than just one race and I would be amazed if other minorities weren't in support of it when from my interpretation the majority of White people are.
I dont have a problem with you disagreeing, course, but i do have a problem with you making a statement and presenting as facts/revealed thruths when you haven't presented evidence to support them.
Allow me to illustrate with an example. You imply that the problem is police brutality towards a specific minority (blacks) in the US and then state that the police killings are trending upwards.
So which is the problem we are discussing? is it 1) Racism and targetting of the of police towards blacks (and related brutality) or 2) police brutality regardless of any social, economic, racial, gender or ethnic classification? You cant have it both ways. Again, diagnosing the problems is fundamental, and in order to do that you need to precisely define the problem.
And here is the kicker: if it is a) then the evidence provided by Steve clearly shows the trend is
not going upwards and if it is b), then why bring race to the table at all?
Either way, i see incongruences.
The above is (i hope) what i consider mostly fact-based and the interpretation of those facts. Let me give you a couple of questions that are going through my mind when i read your posts. Why is an Irish living in Ireland so concerned with this? Why does it matter when it happens in the US and not the rest of the world? I can guarantee you, 100%, without an iota of doubt that worse, 10x times worse things happen related to both racism and police brutality in pretty much every longitude and latitude.
2 weeks ago the police killed a guy who went for a walk in Argentina. Did you post about it? Give me 10 minutes and i can find a brutality case from the last two months in the continent of your choosing.
What is so special about this case for people outside the US that makes it stand head and shoulders above the rest?
In April 2019 Venezuelan security forces purposedly drove armoured vehicles into a crowd. Could you point me out to your posts in outrage? How many protests did you organize about that? How many rallies did you attend to?
If police brutality is so important, I'd like to see coherence in your actions, and if your interest lies only in police brutality in the US, i'd like to know why.
This is an important question, a relevant one. Coherence and congruence are very, very important.
In general, I wouldn't have a problem with protest (course) but we are in a global pandemic and I happen to have both doctors in the family as well as members of a high-risk group regarding covid, therefore i am reasonably well informed about the how it spreads and the potential consequences of it spreading. We all have to make sacrifices, some more than others.
People have stopped going to shelters, to work, visiting their loved ones, going to see their sister's newborn baby at the hospital/house. There are people who, sadly but understandably, couldn't even say goodbye to their deceased.
Given that, asking them to delay, postpone, or find other ways to protest sounds quite reasonable to me.
By supporting the protest you are implicitly saying their right to protest is more important than other people's right to work, educate yourself in school or attend a funeral.
Again, this is an exceptional circumstance that requires extraordinary solutions.
Another 1st world example: In the Netherlands bars/cafes have all been closed for months. They have received money from the government to pay mostly salaries, but utilities, taxes and rent still come down (mostly to the owners/operators). The owners did not like the measure one bit, not one tiny bit, but they understood where it was coming from and abided by it. Not only that but after the bars were opened a lot of restrictions apply which limit their income generation (they can host about 1/3 of the people they used to) and they have to pay the costs to adjust their places to comply with the new rules. Again, they do not like it, they are desperate, but they still understand. Two days after that there is a massive BLM rally in a landmark square where social distancing is not respected and even the mayor attends. Every single bar owner, waiter/waitress, bartender, cook, food/beverages producer/distributor felt like a bloody idiot, and rightly so.
This is, epidemiology speaking, a group issue. Either you have a mega strict quarantine with harsh enforcement or you can lighten things a bit and expect (hope) people will behave in a reasonable and cautious manner. When they don't they are fist fvcking everyone else who did. It's a loud "i don't care what you did for society, i want to do as i please, and i can get away with it"
I don't support that. I cant.
The fact radicals (again, not you) have a standard response, when you bring the sanitary issue to the table, that ranges from "you are a racist" to "you are a racist" only adds insult to injury. It's as if they (not you) are immune to facts, common sense, and rational thought. They are not far away from people who are against vaccines. Health flat-earthers, but more dangerous, because their actions have a direct impact on others
