Former British Colony in Downward Spiral of Ethnic Violence, State Security Impunity

[Gilrandir]

I'm not even going to pursue whatever equivocation you're engaging in, but the Soviet Union was very much a place where classical history, Italian opera, and Shakespeare were elevated.

To be elevated doesn't mean that the same practices were encouraged if Soviet writers or artists were engaged in them. And, among foreign writers and artists only those were elevated who were against bourgeois society and rotten capitalism.

Aside from their own colonial engagements in the East, everything Russians knew of indigenous peoples of the wider world was filtered through the writings of racist Europeans.

As I have said, the Soviet people were supposed to spurn racist ideology of the capitalist world.

Another example of Western influence:

I don't know why you think it is an influence of Western racists, but Cook being murdered by the local tribes of a Pacific island is a historic fact. Why is it racist? It seems to me you see racism where there is none. According to your view, any mentioning of a crime conducted by non-whites is racist. "Harlem is a dangerous place to visit" is also a racist statement?

There is no reason to believe they were acutely alert to deviations from anti-racism even as you would define it (which does not hew to the typical usage).

If you say there isn't, it is your opinion. If I say there is it is my opinion. I don't see why your suppositions are better than mine.

If oral expressions of intent were the only form of communication or learning then we wouldn't have a civilization. Hard to believe a student of literary analysis could say something like that. We can read the words he author wrote and take their meaning both literally and in historical and cultural context.

Interpretations are always arbitrary, as the Shelob tunnel feminist reading shows.

You don't know much about American cinema if you think black villains are uncommon.

And yet you don't exemplify.

Even worse if you think there ought to be a racial 'balance' in villains, or that this would preclude or remedy racism.

Judging from my observations, movie makers seem to hold this point of view. Or they are afraid to be stigmatized as racists.

Why should good Communists be punished by Ukraine breaking away from USSR if they didn't do anything worth condemnation? Red herring.

They were not punished. They stopped being party members since the Communist party was proclaimed illegal.

Policemen being fired is different from being not a party member any more.

Не говори ерунды.

This is an unbeatable argument. And besides, I don't believe intimacy between us has reached the stage when we can say ты to each other.

All Lives Matter is a racist slogan whose universal usage is to disingenuously belittle non-whites. Everyone already agrees that "All Lives Matter." Not everyone agrees that black lives matter as well. This inconsistency is at the heart of racism.

So "all people are equal" is also a xenophobic/racist/poor-discriminating slogan?

If cops are largely racists then their brutality ought to be directed towards other non-white communities. The slogan "Black Lives Matter" singles out one of them disregading Hispanic or Asians. From this perspective the slogan can be considered racist.

[ReluctantSamurai]

Sturmabteilung making a comeback?

https://www.opb.org/news/article/fed...nd-protesters/

Federal law enforcement officers have been using unmarked vehicles to drive around downtown Portland and detain protesters since at least July 14. Personal accounts and multiple videos posted online show the officers driving up to people, detaining individuals with no explanation of why they are being arrested, and driving off.

Officers from the U.S. Marshals Special Operations Group and Customs and Border Protection’s BORTAC, have been sent to Portland to protect federal property during the recent protests against racism and police brutality. But interviews conducted by OPB show officers are also detaining people on Portland streets who aren’t near federal property, nor is it clear that all of the people being arrested have engaged in criminal activity.

This week, Trump has repeatedly spoken out about what he calls lawlessness in the city. He praised the role of federal law enforcement officers in Portland and alluded to increasing their presence in cities nationwide. Speaking to Fox News on Thursday, Acting U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Mark Morgan called the protesters criminals. “I don’t want to get ahead of the president and his announcement,” Morgan said, “but the Department of Justice is going to be involved in this, DHS is going to be involved in this; and we’re really going to take a stand across the board. And we’re going to do what needs to be done to protect the men and women of this country.”

So....Chad Wolf as the new Ernst Röhm ?

[Strike For The South]

What is going on in Portland is insane. The word fascism has been overwrought in our current age, but this is a textbook case of what it looks like. No badges, no uniforms, no words. The men come in and take you. If this was a scene in Hong Kong the usual suspects would be bloviating about tyranny(which this is).

I am also concerned with the local response. The Portland mayor emphatically stated he didn't want them there and wouldn't take a meeting with them, whoever "they" are. So I guess these LEOs will simply operate with impunity, while the mayor tut-tuts them on twitter? Is this leadership? Do nothing works great when you're Joe Biden and cruising to an easy win. It works less great when you are a mayor.

On my worst days, it looks like Hawley 2024 and our very own Pacto del olvido. I hate it.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Was it marxist socialism or cultural socialism that he referred to?

Limbaugh conflates the two, almost with abandon. Marxism and Communism are defined by the CCCP and the PRC. He sees socialism as a slightly watered down version of this that will seek to recreate the same systems he grew up loathing in the 60's and 70's.

[Montmorency]

Strike, what do you think of this: Asheville, North Carolina (Blue Ridge Mountains!), has committed through a unanimous city council vote to pursuing a program of reparations for Black Americans. The first of its kind?

The measure was unanimously approved by the Asheville City Council on Tuesday night, but it stopped short of stipulating direct payments, which are usually associated with reparations. City leaders said their goal was to help create generational wealth for Black people, who have been hurt by income, educational and health care disparities. Councilman Keith Young, who is one of two Black members on the Council, was one of the measure’s chief proponents. He said during the group’s meeting that systemic change was long overdue.

“Hundreds of years of Black blood spilled that basically fills the cup that we drink from today,” Mr. Young said.

William A. Darity Jr., a professor of public policy at Duke University in Durham, N.C., wrote in an email on Wednesday night that he was “deeply skeptical about local or piecemeal actions to address various forms of racial inequality being labeled ‘reparations.’”

For reparations to be effective, he wrote, they would have to close the pretax racial wealth disparity in the United States, which would cost about $10 to $12 trillion — three to four times more than total state and municipal spending.

Darity may be correct, but small-scale proof of concept can only help the cause of national reparations. The trial policy argument was a common one for implementing Medicare for All on a state level, but where the latter have all been abandoned, it should be much easier to implement watered-down reparations by locality than universal health coverage by locality.

The text of the city council resolution:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

RESOLUTION SUPPORTING COMMUNITY REPARATIONS FOR BLACK ASHEVILLE
WHEREAS, Black People have been unjustly Enslaved; and
WHEREAS, Black People have been unjustly Segregated; and
WHEREAS, Black people have been unjustly Incarcerated; and
WHEREAS, Black People have been denied housing through racist practices in the
private realty market, including redlining, steering, blockbusting, denial of mortgages, and
gentrification; and
WHEREAS, Black People have been denied housing, displaced and inadequately
housed by government housing policies that include discriminatory VA/FHA practices, Urban
Renewal, and a variety of local and federal “affordable” housing programs; and
WHEREAS, Black People have been consistently and widely impoverished by
discriminatory wages paid in every sector of the local economy regardless of credentials and
experience; and
WHEREAS, Black People have experienced disproportionate unemployment rates and
reduced opportunities to fully participate in the local job market; and
WHEREAS, Black People have been systematically excluded from historic and present
private economic development and community investments and, therefore, black-owned
businesses have not received the benefits of these investments; and
WHEREAS, Black people have been segregated from mainstream education and within
present day school programs that include AG, AP, and Honors; and
WHEREAS, Black students have experienced the denial of education through
admission, retention and graduation rates of every level of education in WNC and through
discriminatory disciplinary practices; and
WHEREAS, Black People historically and presently receive inadequate, if not
detrimental, health care as exemplified by disproportionate morbidities and mortality rates that
result from the generational trauma of systemic racism, discriminatory treatment by medical
professionals, and discriminatory medical practices such as involuntary sterilizations, denial of
adequate testing, denial of preventative and curative procedures; and
WHEREAS, Black People have been unjustly targeted by law enforcement and criminal
justice procedures, incarcerated at disproportionate rates and subsequently excluded from full
participation in the benefits of citizenship that include voting, employment, housing and health
care; and

WHEREAS, Black People have disproportionately been forced to reside in, adjacent to,
or near Brown Zones and other toxic sites that negatively impact their health and property; and
WHEREAS, Black People have disproportionately been limited to the confined routes of
travel provided by public transportation; and
WHEREAS, Black People have disproportionately suffered from the isolation of food
deserts and childcare deserts;
WHEREAS, systemic racism was created over centuries and will take time to dismantle;
WHEREAS, state and federal governments have a responsibility to adopt programs,
policies, and funding to address reparations;
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF
ASHEVILLE THAT:
The City Council of the CIty of Asheville:
(1) apologizes and makes amends for its participation in and sanctioning of the
Enslavement of Black People;
(2) apologizes and makes amends for its enforcement of segregation and its
accompanying discriminatory practices;
(3) apologizes and makes amends for carrying out an urban renewal program that
destroyed multiple, successful black communities;
(4) calls on other organizations and institutions in Asheville that have advanced and
benefitted from racial inequity to join the city in its apologies and invites them to address racism
within their own structures and programs and to work with the city to more comprehensively
address systemic racism;
(5) calls on the State of North Carolina and the federal government to initiate
policymaking and provide funding for reparations at the state and national levels;
(6) directs the City Manager to establish a process within the next year to
develop short, medium and long term recommendations to specifically address the creation of
generational wealth and to boost economic mobility and opportunity in the black community;
(7) fully supports its equity department, staff and its work, and encourages the city
manager to utilize their talents when forming policy and programs that will establish the creation
of generational wealth and address reparations due in the black community as mentioned
above;
(8) seeks to establish within the next year, a new commission empowered to make short,
medium and long term recommendations that will make significant progress toward repairing
the damage caused by public and private systemic Racism. Other local government community

organizations may also be invited to have representation on the Commission.The task of the
Community Reparations Commission is to issue a report in a timely manner for consideration by
the City and other participating community groups for incorporation into their respective short
and long term priorities and plans. Accountability for achieving equity will be enforced in the
appropriate offices. The report and the resulting budgetary and programmatic priorities may
include but not be limited to increasing minority homeownership and access to other affordable
housing, increasing minority business ownership and career opportunities, strategies to grow
equity and generational wealth, closing the gaps in health care, education, employment and
pay, neighborhood safety and fairness within criminal justice;
(9) calls on the city manager to give, at minimum, a bi-annual update to the city council
on the progress of work performed pursuant to this resolution.

Limbaugh conflates the two, almost with abandon. Marxism and Communism are defined by the CCCP and the PRC. He sees socialism as a slightly watered down version of this that will seek to recreate the same systems he grew up loathing in the 60's and 70's.

The Trump-era fashion is that Democrat = KKK and liberal = socialist (the old standby) but socialist = fascist, therefore Democrats are KKK fascist commies (but the OG Confederate iteration of the KKK definitely weren't fascist). There is genuinely a fatal caliber of doublethink on the far right, which acts as a filter somewhat like the way Nigerian Prince scam emails do, but damn if it won't put us under (at least Nigerian Princes are just in it for personal enrichment).

As I have said, the Soviet people were supposed to spurn racist ideology of the capitalist world.

They were supposed to achieve a communistic society in a few generations too. Brezhnev had his "actually-existing socialism," you venture to introduce the even less plausible 'actually-existing anti-racism' to the record.

I don't know why you think it is an influence of Western racists, but Cook being murdered by the local tribes of a Pacific island is a historic fact. Why is it racist? It seems to me you see racism where there is none. According to your view, any mentioning of a crime conducted by non-whites is racist.

The underlying trope of 'those Pacific Island tribes are a bunch of cannibal savages' is one that developed over centuries of violent Western imperialism. Hence the apocryphal lurid stories of Europeans, such as Captain Cook, being devoured in those damp, distant jungles. That's what it is and where it comes from. You really don't see the common threads here?

"Harlem is a dangerous place to visit" is also a racist statement?

Have you examined why you believe this to be a true statement? Anyway, come visit and there's a 99.9% chance nothing untoward will befall you (unless you come attired as Bruce Willis from Die Hard 3).

If you say there isn't, it is your opinion. If I say there is it is my opinion. I don't see why your suppositions are better than mine.

Interpretations are always arbitrary, as the Shelob tunnel feminist reading shows.

Facts and Logic vs. Relativism

And yet you don't exemplify.

See: most productions featuring crime in urban settings, anything from Baby Driver to Live and Let Die. There have also often been scenes like this:



As The Wire is famous for, nuanced portrayal of black villains or anti-heroes is possible, but execution matters and the trope of black violence or criminality is a common one throughout American cinema (to the point where a lot of foreigners - let alone other Americans - seem to form their preconceptions of African Americans based on Hollywood).

Judging from my observations, movie makers seem to hold this point of view. Or they are afraid to be stigmatized as racists.

Alternatively, film studios don't see a compelling need to make every bad character black or organize the production around the core principle that they need to portray black villains, which would be Birth of a Nation-tier racism.

Returning to the point, trends in characterization matter, and a distaste for seeing black actors in major or non-stereotypical roles says more about the viewer than the product or industry.

They were not punished. They stopped being party members since the Communist party was proclaimed illegal.

Policemen being fired is different from being not a party member any more.

They lost their jobs and positions (ostensibly) through no direct fault of their own. The point of the comparison is first that there's no reason to prioritize the career trajectories of a few people in developing necessary social and political reforms and second that people don't warrant lessened scrutiny for their participation in intolerable institutions; rather the opposite.

But by the by my impression is that ex-Communist apparatchiks came to dominate post-Soviet business and politics anyway, so maybe y'all would have liked to be more judgmental.

This is an unbeatable argument.

No, that was in the preceding posts.

And besides, I don't believe intimacy between us has reached the stage when we can say ты to each other.

Attitudes differ, but it figures you would be uptight about honorifics.

So "all people are equal" is also a xenophobic/racist/poor-discriminating slogan?

If you say "all people are equal so let's realize that ideal for marginalized peoples today," no. It's a question of hypocrisy.

If cops are largely racists then their brutality ought to be directed towards other non-white communities. The slogan "Black Lives Matter" singles out one of them disregading Hispanic or Asians. From this perspective the slogan can be considered racist.

The first sentence is correct. The second misconstrues what is actually going on, which is that BLM is both a particularistic cause associated with Black liberation and an umbrella movement coagulating a variety of parallel POC (or BIPOC if you prefer) causes. You'll see plenty of Brown Lives Matter and Native Lives Matter and so on at BLM demonstrations.

[Pannonian]

What is going on in Portland is insane. The word fascism has been overwrought in our current age, but this is a textbook case of what it looks like. No badges, no uniforms, no words. The men come in and take you. If this was a scene in Hong Kong the usual suspects would be bloviating about tyranny(which this is).

I am also concerned with the local response. The Portland mayor emphatically stated he didn't want them there and wouldn't take a meeting with them, whoever "they" are. So I guess these LEOs will simply operate with impunity, while the mayor tut-tuts them on twitter? Is this leadership? Do nothing works great when you're Joe Biden and cruising to an easy win. It works less great when you are a mayor.

On my worst days, it looks like Hawley 2024 and our very own Pacto del olvido. I hate it.

Over on this side of the water, the UK government has declared that it seeks to bar the judiciary from making political rulings. What political rulings means goodness knows, but it means the judiciary will be overruled by the government as the latter sees fit.

[Gilrandir]

The underlying trope of 'those Pacific Island tribes are a bunch of cannibal savages' is one that developed over centuries of violent Western imperialism. Hence the apocryphal lurid stories of Europeans, such as Captain Cook, being devoured in those damp, distant jungles. That's what it is and where it comes from. You really don't see the common threads here?

So Cook wasn't murdered in the jungle? It seems like whenever a crime or musconduct by non-whites is registered you would like to speak nothing of it because mentioning it is racist.

Have you examined why you believe this to be a true statement? Anyway, come visit and there's a 99.9% chance nothing untoward will befall you (unless you come attired as Bruce Willis from Die Hard 3).

https://maps.nyc.gov/crime/

Harlem isn't marked on the map but I believe it is around the Harlem river north of Manhattan and south of the Bronx.

https://www.google.com/maps/@40.8143646,-73.9381323,13z

The intensity of color shows a greater level of crime there than in the surrounding areas.

See: most productions featuring crime in urban settings, anything from Baby Driver to Live and Let Die. There have also often been scenes like this:



As The Wire is famous for, nuanced portrayal of black villains or anti-heroes is possible, but execution matters and the trope of black violence or criminality is a common one throughout American cinema (to the point where a lot of foreigners - let alone other Americans - seem to form their preconceptions of African Americans based on Hollywood).

I don't claim there are no black villains in the movies. I speak of ARCHVILLAINS like Terminator (the first one), all those Superman/Spiderman/Batman/Whateverman movies, Total recall, Jurassic park, Matrix, Marvel Universe, Die hard series, - in a word, anywhere where there is one character who epitomizes the evil. He is never black.

They lost their jobs and positions (ostensibly) through no direct fault of their own. The point of the comparison is first that there's no reason to prioritize the career trajectories of a few people in developing necessary social and political reforms and second that people don't warrant lessened scrutiny for their participation in intolerable institutions; rather the opposite.

Something like that (called люстрация) happened in Ukraine after 2014 when people who held official positions under Yanukovych were fired and forbidden to take such positions for some years (from 5 to 10). The same was done to the old милиция personnel. Later a lion's share of them filed suits and were restored in their positions/rights, moreover a compensation was paid to them.

I believe that in the litigous and lawyer-rich American society policemen who were fired through no fault of theirs can do the same.

But by the by my impression is that ex-Communist apparatchiks came to dominate post-Soviet business and politics anyway, so maybe y'all would have liked to be more judgmental.

See люстрация above.

Attitudes differ, but it figures you would be uptight about honorifics.

I don't know how much you are aware of the difference in usage between ты and вы, but I prefer the latter if we speak of people who hardly know each other.

[ReluctantSamurai]

So a small follow-up on the recent Gestapo-like activities in Portland, Oregon:

https://www.aclu.org/other/constitut...W7oY_42kMMyI2I

The Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution protects Americans from random and arbitrary stops and searches.
According to the government, however, these basic constitutional principles do not apply fully at our borders. For example, at border crossings (also called "ports of entry"), federal authorities do not need a warrant or even suspicion of wrongdoing to justify conducting what courts have called "routine search," such as searching luggage or a vehicle.
Even in places far removed from the border, deep into the interior of the country, immigration officials enjoy broad—though not limitless—powers. Specifically, federal regulations give U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) authority to operate within 100 miles of any U.S. "external boundary."
In this 100-mile zone, Border Patrol agents have certain additional authorities. For instance, Border Patrol can operate immigration checkpoints.
Border Patrol, nevertheless, cannot pull anyone over without "reasonable suspicion" of an immigration violation or crime (reasonable suspicion is more than just a "hunch"). Similarly, Border Patrol cannot search vehicles in the 100-mile zone without a warrant or "probable cause" (a reasonable belief, based on the circumstances, that an immigration violation or crime has likely occurred).
In practice, Border Patrol agents routinely ignore or misunderstand the limits of their legal authority in the course of individual stops, resulting in violations of the constitutional rights of innocent people. These problems are compounded by inadequate training for Border Patrol agents, a lack of oversight by CBP and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and the consistent failure of CBP to hold agents accountable for abuse. No matter what CBP officers and Border Patrol agents think, our Constitution applies throughout the United States, including within this “100-mile border zone.”

For example, Border Patrol, according to news reports, operates approximately 170 interior checkpoints throughout the country (the actual number in operation at any given time is not publicly known). The ACLU believes that these checkpoints amount to dragnet, suspicionless stops that cannot be reconciled with Fourth Amendment protections. The Supreme Court has upheld the use of immigration checkpoints, but only insofar as the stops consist only of a brief and limited inquiry into residence status. Checkpoints cannot be primarily used for drug-search or general law enforcement efforts. In practice, however, Border Patrol agents often do not limit themselves to brief immigration inquiries and regularly conduct criminal investigations and illegal searches at checkpoints. The Border Patrol also frequently pulls over motorists in "roving patrol" stops, often without any suspicion that an immigration violation has occurred.

Distance from Portland, Oregon to the Pacific Ocean......80 miles.

[Montmorency]

So Cook wasn't murdered in the jungle? It seems like whenever a crime or musconduct by non-whites is registered you would like to speak nothing of it because mentioning it is racist.

Attributing crimes and cannibalism to "savages" = racism. It's a narrative that emerges from a chauvinistic worldview, and it was disseminated around the white world as such in the context of the wider system of racial conventions.

There was no cannibalism, and Cook was killed in self-defense.

https://maps.nyc.gov/crime/

Harlem isn't marked on the map but I believe it is around the Harlem river north of Manhattan and south of the Bronx.

https://www.google.com/maps/@40.8143646,-73.9381323,13z

The intensity of color shows a greater level of crime there than in the surrounding areas.

Your proposition was that Harlem is a dangerous place to visit. Don't rely on stereotypes.

I don't claim there are no black villains in the movies. I speak of ARCHVILLAINS like Terminator (the first one), all those Superman/Spiderman/Batman/Whateverman movies, Total recall, Jurassic park, Matrix, Marvel Universe, Die hard series, - in a word, anywhere where there is one character who epitomizes the evil. He is never black.

I don't watch superhero movies, but I suppose black supervillains are unusual. The only one I can think of is Killmonger from Black Panther. You find he paucity of black supervillains or other characters in these movies complimentary to black people?

Something like that (called люстрация) happened in Ukraine after 2014 when people who held official positions under Yanukovych were fired and forbidden to take such positions for some years (from 5 to 10). The same was done to the old милиция personnel. Later a lion's share of them filed suits and were restored in their positions/rights, moreover a compensation was paid to them.

I believe that in the litigous and lawyer-rich American society policemen who were fired through no fault of theirs can do the same.

The bold is a fundamental misunderstanding of the American relationship to labor, as though police departments are like French automobile plants.

What standing would severed police have to litigate? An officer fired as an individual has recourse to whatever protections and reviews are in their contract, but at a large scale personnel reorganization is conducted by all employers with few constraints. (Under private employers in right-to-work states with non-unionized workforces, there are effectively no protections for the employee.) If a city wants to reduce employment in their police force according to some criteria, let alone disband police by democratic mandate, you'll have to be a lot more specific as to what legal limitations you think would apply.

If you would like to do the research, study the previous instances in American history where police departments have been subject to mass liquidation and tell me whether there's any case law arising from the courts in those instances. I don't think you'll find anything relevant to your supposition that those affected enjoy exorbitant privilege to their positions.

I don't know how much you are aware of the difference in usage between ты and вы, but I prefer the latter if we speak of people who hardly know each other.

I have a different and probably more limited context of usage than you do, but I only ever met one person who insisted on marking that boundary with me.

So a small follow-up on the recent Gestapo-like activities in Portland, Oregon:

https://www.aclu.org/other/constitut...W7oY_42kMMyI2I

Distance from Portland, Oregon to the Pacific Ocean......80 miles.

It's basically just a form of harassment, since as I read it the federal agents weren't really arresting people and would release a detainee as soon as they demanded it.

It's directly adjacent to "disappearing" dissidents though, a step or two below.

[ReluctantSamurai]

It's basically just a form of harassment, since as I read it the federal agents weren't really arresting people and would release a detainee as soon as they demanded it.

That's unclear:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...ts-trump-mayor

Federal officers have charged at least 13 people with crimes related to the protests, Oregon Public Broadcasting reported on Thursday. Some have been detained by the federal courthouse, the scene of protests. Others were grabbed blocks away.

No comment on whether all were released or not. But FINALLY, the mayor of Portland, and Governor Kate Brown are getting sufficiently pissed off to threaten a lawsuit against the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Marshals Service, Customs and Border Protection, and Federal Protection Service. Should get interesting.

[Gilrandir]

Attributing crimes and cannibalism to "savages" = racism. It's a narrative that emerges from a chauvinistic worldview, and it was disseminated around the white world as such in the context of the wider system of racial conventions.

I see. Shakespeare was a racist because the only non-white character in his plays strangled his wife. (If it had happened in demoratic America OJ Thello undoubtedly would have been acquitted on a simple ground that he was a Moor). Harper Lee and Margaret Mitchel were racists because the black women in their novels were servants cooking for the disgusting white. The same is true of Kipling with the ship cook in Captains Courageous. Moreover, he also brought forth the image of a native (evidenlty non-white) boy who was a savage educated by animals. Haggard the racist in his Fair Margaret made his chief villain a person with Moorish blood and in King Solomon's mines he generally showed how dangerous it was for white people to go treasure-hunting in Africa (almost like Chukovsky). Jules Verne harped on the old theme of a black cook in The mysterious island and in A captain at fifteen he depicted Africa as a place were black people could be sold to slavery. Hardened racist! And if we remember Tolkien with his DARK lord Sauron from the BLACK land of Mordor and Morgoth The BLACK foe! And Conan Doyle who depicted a black hound of the Baskervilles!

There are people (like Freud) who see sex behind every motif. Others attribute what bad is happening around them to different conspiracies - of Jews, Masons, oil magnates, chauvinistic pigs, World Government, the Illuminated... You see a racist around each corner and behind each tree and discern racism in all words and actions. Looking good! Rock on!

The Russians are coming. The Russians are coming. They're right around. I've seen Russian soldiers.

There was no cannibalism, and Cook was killed in self-defense.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Cook:
Tensions rose, and a number of quarrels broke out between the Europeans and Hawaiians at Kealakekua Bay. An unknown group of Hawaiians took one of Cook's small boats. The evening when the cutter was taken, the people had become "insolent" even with threats to fire upon them. Cook attempted to kidnap and ransom the King of Hawaiʻi, Kalaniʻōpuʻu.

The following day, 14 February 1779, Cook marched through the village to retrieve the king. Cook took the king (aliʻi nui) by his own hand and led him willingly away. One of Kalaniʻōpuʻu's favourite wives, Kanekapolei, and two chiefs approached the group as they were heading to the boats. They pleaded with the king not to go. An old kahuna (priest), chanting rapidly while holding out a coconut, attempted to distract Cook and his men as a large crowd began to form at the shore. The king began to understand that Cook was his enemy. As Cook turned his back to help launch the boats, he was struck on the head by the villagers and then stabbed to death as he fell on his face in the surf. He was first struck on the head with a club by a chief named Kalaimanokahoʻowaha or Kanaʻina (namesake of Charles Kana'ina) and then stabbed by one of the king's attendants, Nuaa.The Hawaiians carried his body away towards the back of the town, still visible to the ship through their spyglass. Four marines, Corporal James Thomas, Private Theophilus Hinks, Private Thomas Fatchett and Private John Allen, were also killed and two others were wounded in the confrontation.


No cannibalism but no self-defense either. Just a brawl. Or is it racist to call it a brawl and not self-defense if non-whites were one of the sides?

As for the cannibalism hype, it might have been prompted by the treatment of Cook's body. Being disembowled and dismembered suggests preparations for further meal.

Your proposition was that Harlem is a dangerous place to visit. Don't rely on stereotypes.

A high number of committed crimes makes a place dangerous to visit. It is not a stereotype but a fact underpinned by official statistics. And you offered a personal guarantee that people were safe there. As you put it,

Facts and Logic vs. Relativism

. Hm... a tough choice!

I don't watch superhero movies, but I suppose black supervillains are unusual. The only one I can think of is Killmonger from Black Panther.

The bolded is a key word here.

You find he paucity of black supervillains or other characters in these movies complimentary to black people?

No. I find it the result of inner censorship by movie makers. They are afraid to do it and earn the repute of a racist. You would certainly be the one to deal around such charges.

I base my supposition on the tendencies that I observe in Hollywood. A couple of years ago there was an Oscar boycott by black actors when it turned out that there were no black nominees. That's a srtange logic to me when professionalism and quality are superseded by racial considerations, like "There MUST be black nominees even if the judges didn't find their performance adequate. Just because there must be racial balance in the industry".

The bold is a fundamental misunderstanding of the American relationship to labor, as though police departments are like French automobile plants.

What standing would severed police have to litigate? An officer fired as an individual has recourse to whatever protections and reviews are in their contract, but at a large scale personnel reorganization is conducted by all employers with few constraints. (Under private employers in right-to-work states with non-unionized workforces, there are effectively no protections for the employee.) If a city wants to reduce employment in their police force according to some criteria, let alone disband police by democratic mandate, you'll have to be a lot more specific as to what legal limitations you think would apply.

If you would like to do the research, study the previous instances in American history where police departments have been subject to mass liquidation and tell me whether there's any case law arising from the courts in those instances. I don't think you'll find anything relevant to your supposition that those affected enjoy exorbitant privilege to their positions.

It is not a misunderstanding, but perhaps the underestimation of the astuteness of lawyers who concoct contracts. In Ukraine all restorations and compensations are possible because legal procedures and stipulations weren't in strict obeyance to the law. In the litigous and lawyer-rich American society lawyers have learned to do their job well without incurring possible law suits.

I have a different and probably more limited context of usage than you do, but I only ever met one person who insisted on marking that boundary with me.

I don't know about the relations between you and the people you met and how many is one out of the unknown number. A possible explanation that it happened only once is that strangers are naturally polite and don't want to express dissatisfaction to a person who isn't well aware of the said differences (as they might presume).

Once my family had an American visitor who could speak Russian fairly well. She addressed each of my parents as ты, although she was more than twice as young as them and saw them for the first time. I was shocked (as well as they, I believe) but she was our guest so we didn't mention it.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

However benign the intent, "The Poet of Empire" was most certainly a racist (a lot of his racism may well have been a product of systemic factors rather than animus, but none-the-less racism). Asking the USA to "Take up the White Man's Burden" can hardly be construed as anything BUT racist, however benign the intent in terms of furthering the lot of individuals. Nor would "Gunga Din" have worked at all as an ironic statement without a presumptive sense of innate superiority to the sepoy underpinning it.

[Montmorency]

I see. Shakespeare was a racist because the only non-white character in his plays strangled his wife. (If it had happened in demoratic America OJ Thello undoubtedly would have been acquitted on a simple ground that he was a Moor). Harper Lee and Margaret Mitchel were racists because the black women in their novels were servants cooking for the disgusting white. The same is true of Kipling with the ship cook in Captains Courageous. Moreover, he also brought forth the image of a native (evidenlty non-white) boy who was a savage educated by animals. Haggard the racist in his Fair Margaret made his chief villain a person with Moorish blood and in King Solomon's mines he generally showed how dangerous it was for white people to go treasure-hunting in Africa (almost like Chukovsky). Jules Verne harped on the old theme of a black cook in The mysterious island and in A captain at fifteen he depicted Africa as a place were black people could be sold to slavery. Hardened racist! And if we remember Tolkien with his DARK lord Sauron from the BLACK land of Mordor and Morgoth The BLACK foe! And Conan Doyle who depicted a black hound of the Baskervilles!

*sigh*

You're completely uninterested in objectively examining your assumptions or the assumptions of others that you share.

There are people (like Freud) who see sex behind every motif. Others attribute what bad is happening around them to different conspiracies - of Jews, Masons, oil magnates, chauvinistic pigs, World Government, the Illuminated... You see a racist around each corner and behind each tree and discern racism in all words and actions. Looking good! Rock on!

Despite your obscurantist attitude, if we can agree racism exists we can discern it.

The Russians are coming. The Russians are coming. They're right around. I've seen Russian soldiers.

How apropos of you to post that, seemingly unironically.

No cannibalism but no self-defense either. Just a brawl. Or is it racist to call it a brawl and not self-defense if non-whites were one of the sides?

As the accounts have it, Cook tried to attack and abduct Hawaiians. They fought back. It would be nice if there were no avarice on anyone's part and differences could be negotiated out, but that wasn't on offer.

As for the cannibalism hype, it might have been prompted by the treatment of Cook's body. Being disembowled and dismembered suggests preparations for further meal.

The Europeans didn't care what was actually going on, they just neatly slotted it into the pre-existing frameworks they had developed for non-Europeans. And they turned it into very well-developed ideology.

A high number of committed crimes makes a place dangerous to visit. It is not a stereotype but a fact underpinned by official statistics. And you offered a personal guarantee that people were safe there. As you put it, .

A high number of crimes compared to what? Dangerous compared to what? You're not basing your position on facts here.

No. I find it the result of inner censorship by movie makers. They are afraid to do it and earn the repute of a racist. You would certainly be the one to deal around such charges.

You'd have to be really committed to not engaging with my position if you think that.

That you imagine an absence of black major characters is a sign of inner censorship rather than a manifestation of the white-dominated society we live in, is just the problem. You come at it totally backwards.

I base my supposition on the tendencies that I observe in Hollywood. A couple of years ago there was an Oscar boycott by black actors when it turned out that there were no black nominees. That's a srtange logic to me when professionalism and quality are superseded by racial considerations, like "There MUST be black nominees even if the judges didn't find their performance adequate. Just because there must be racial balance in the industry".

Why do you assume that professionalism and quality are considerations normally taken into account, or that their evaluation is unquestionable? Why do you trust the overwhelmingly old white male judges? Is it because they're old white males, and you don't think that their intuitions should be gainsayed?

[rory_20_uk]

However benign the intent, "The Poet of Empire" was most certainly a racist (a lot of his racism may well have been a product of systemic factors rather than animus, but none-the-less racism). Asking the USA to "Take up the White Man's Burden" can hardly be construed as anything BUT racist, however benign the intent in terms of furthering the lot of individuals. Nor would "Gunga Din" have worked at all as an ironic statement without a presumptive sense of innate superiority to the sepoy underpinning it.

Is it OK to point out that almost everyone was and still is racist? Be that the Japanese (who very firmly hold themselves as a "race"), Chinese, Indian, European (oh dear - I'm now conflating geography with ethnicity - I'm gong to hell! Should I say caucasian, or white or just sign up to the nearest correction course), Arab or indeed one of the large number of others I've not listed? There never was, never has been and might never be a time when everyone didn't judge others on their skin tone, their nationality, their culture and their religion. And few times when most didn't either view themselves as better than others or at the very least hostile to outsiders. And the closer you zoom into an area the more divisions there are - I view myself coming from the Westcountry, Coming from Devon, I equally view Cornwall as a bunch of traitors who should be treated in the same manner as was done in the Highland Clearance and of course Totness is a bunch of deviants.

Those who built empires invariably engaged in cultural appropriation and suppression, iconoclasty and historical revisionism. Be that God's will, the superior culture or as members of a master race. They raped, pillaged, brutalised, stole and generally behaved as utter bastards because they won. Depending on the era depended on the thickness of the veneer over these simple facts. And over time, often another lot came along who did the same to them. Almost every invention was invented by people who had probably done some pretty crappy things. Every explorer equally did what it took to survive. And on it goes.

Since approximately 1900, we have slowly being trying to create a fable that there is a "right" way that everything should be done, starting with codes for warfare (mainly enforced on the loosers) and now ending up with deleting anyone and everyone in history who wouldn't be welcome at a UN summit in Geneva.

At the very least, can we not just have some sort of disclaimer that says "Anything that occurred more than one month ago should be viewed with the understanding it is probably morally suspect and would not be acceptable now; any person or event that is in any way viewed positively is not ignoring the fact that the individual or event probably had many other bad facets to it and a positive statement is not condoning all that the person or event said, thought or did and viewing things in terms of the time they lived in no way condones anything".

If nothing will stand up to close examination (and frankly, it probably won't) we can either just accept the reality of the world or else must live in the constant "now" where things just are since knowing anything more about it will only lead to celebrating the Fallen.

[Gilrandir]

Despite your obscurantist attitude, if we can agree racism exists we can discern it.

I might as well call your attitude conspiracy-mania.

A high number of crimes compared to what? Dangerous compared to what? You're not basing your position on facts here.

You have definitely failed to look at the map I linked to. I'll do it again:

https://maps.nyc.gov/crime/

Or is this map compiled by racist municipal authorities who aim to gainsay what Montmorency thinks of safe Harlem?

That you imagine an absence of black major characters is a sign of inner censorship rather than a manifestation of the white-dominated society we live in, is just the problem. You come at it totally backwards.

We are returning to the start of this argument. I wasn't speaking of major characters in general. I claimed that black SUPERHEROES were in evidence, but not black SUPERVILLAINS. It would be indeed a manifestation of the white-dominated society we live in if Hollywood spawned movies with black supervillains to show the society's stereotypes. Since it is the opposite I consider my explanation still holds.

As the accounts have it, Cook tried to attack and abduct Hawaiians. They fought back. It would be nice if there were no avarice on anyone's part and differences could be negotiated out, but that wasn't on offer.

I cited wikipedia that gave reasons why Cook tried to kidnap a Hawaiian chief. The kidnapping grew into a the brawl. Cause the brawl it was. No self-defense smoke-screen will serve.

The Europeans didn't care what was actually going on, they just neatly slotted it into the pre-existing frameworks they had developed for non-Europeans. And they turned it into very well-developed ideology.

I see it as a natural functioning of human mind. In pragmatics it is called presupposition when people interpret a message going by background knowledge. It is the information shared by the participants and taken for granted. Taking things for granted is a presupposition.

For example:
Statement: He has recovered.
Presupposition: He had been sick.

Presuppositions aren't always correct though:
Statement: The current king of France is bald.
Presupposition: France is ruled by a king.

Sometimes they are more complex:
Statement 1: He loves reading.
Statement 2: He bought a couple of books on Friday.
Presupposition: He will spend his weekened reading.

In this case presupposition may also be wrong because he may use books as a gift for his parents, as a prop under a table's leg or even as a fuel for his Sunday barbecue party. Yet the first presupposition seems the most likely.

The same I believe happened to the Cook story:

Statement 1: Hawaiians are known to be cannibals.
Statement 2: Cook's body after he had been murdered was disembowled and dismembered.
Presupposition: They were going to eat him and they actually did it.

So it was more like a natural thing to expect than racism. Especially if cannibalism was a kind of honoring the dead.
http://dawlishchronicles.blogspot.co...a%20in%201779.

Cannibalism appears to have been a ceremonial practice for the Hawaiians, associated with veneration for the dead, and the traditional preserving of the bones of chiefs. Portions of Captain Cook’s body were delivered to Lieutenant James King after his death at Kealakekua in 1779. This gesture was likely honorably meant, other portions having been allotted to important chiefs and priests. Kamehameha was rumored to have claimed Cook’s hair, the possession of which would have increased his own mana, or power and prestige.

BTW, the bolded was echoed in Vysotsky's song:

Но есть, однако же, еще предположенье,
Что Кука съели из большого уваженья.
Что всех науськивал колдун - хитрец и злюка:
- Ату, ребята! хватайте Кука!

Кто уплетет его без соли и без лука,
Тот сильным, смелым, добрым будет, вроде Кука!-

Why do you assume that professionalism and quality are considerations normally taken into account, or that their evaluation is unquestionable? Why do you trust the overwhelmingly old white male judges? Is it because they're old white males, and you don't think that their intuitions should be gainsayed?

I see. It's like when one tries to fire an employee because of his inadequate performance, lousy work ethic and rudeness to colleagues and he says: "You have fired me because I'm black."

You suggest appointing ANY black nominee just to maintain racial balance?

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Rory:

Good post, and I agree with all of your points. I started my adult life with just as many of the structural racist (and other ist) hang-ups as most in my generation. I am working to get rid of the notions that are, on reflection, patently silly in the face of evidence and logic. I will be engaged in this project until my death and it will almost certainly be incomplete at that time. I suspect this is true of a lot of folks.

Any number of cultures, persons, and even those who are "minorities" targeted by the ism in question have such views and structural "legacy code" by which they are influenced.

As a history buff, I am fully ready to judge past societies and individuals by modern idealized (and they are, as you rightly note, often honored in the breach) standards of conduct and morality -- But I simply cannot dismiss noting in parallel how well they conformed or didn't to the expected standards of THEIR day. Expecting a Sumerian merchant to refuse to work merchants who had slaves in their work gangs would be patently silly. It simply would not have occurred to either party to question the validity of slaves as a concept -- much less to push for reform. At the same time, I CAN decry the stultifying effects of chattel slavery on the intellectual and economic development of Sumeria and other ancient cultures.

[Montmorency]

[ReluctantSamurai]

"Illustrated by Chad Wolf".

Oh how the world turns:

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-eu...t-dictatorship

Interesting about face by Lukashenko on Trump. First in 2016:

https://tass.com/world/912974?%3Futm...=fark_tass.com

"Trump is a hardline pro-Amercian patriot, he is sure to put the US above all." "And we should think where our place will be, taking this policy into consideration," the Belarusian president noted. "He has no obligations concerning you and us, he didn’t promise anything," Lukashenko added.

Then in 2018:

https://www.belarus.by/en/press-cent...000084481.html

I view U.S President Donald Trump as an extraordinary politician, although I do not agree with everything he does, Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko said in an interview to Belarus 1 TV channel, BelTA has learned.

And earlier this year:

https://www.detroitnews.com/story/ne...pect/41137861/

Lukashenko raised the prospect of forging deeper ties with the U.S. as he prepares for talks with Putin on Friday amid tensions with Russia over energy prices and closer political integration. While he doesn’t consider “the Americans are such great friends of ours,” the era of frosty relations between Belarus and the U.S. is at an end, Lukashenko said. “We are establishing relations with the greatest empire, the leading country in the world,” he said.

Greatest empire?

[Montmorency]

I might as well call your attitude conspiracy-mania.

It's not a conspiracy, it's reflexive defensiveness.

You have definitely failed to look at the map I linked to. I'll do it again:

https://maps.nyc.gov/crime/

Or is this map compiled by racist municipal authorities who aim to gainsay what Montmorency thinks of safe Harlem?

You made the racist assumption that this map entails your proposition that Harlem is dangerous, which it objectively cannot. You just took that for granted because of all the Hollywood scenes like the one I linked from National Lampoon, that inculcate the idea among foreigners and natives alike that black people = danger and that if you enter черный район then grievous bodily harm is imminent.

They're just movies.

We are returning to the start of this argument. I wasn't speaking of major characters in general. I claimed that black SUPERHEROES were in evidence, but not black SUPERVILLAINS. It would be indeed a manifestation of the white-dominated society we live in if Hollywood spawned movies with black supervillains to show the society's stereotypes. Since it is the opposite I consider my explanation still holds.

You believe Hollywood self-censors from producing powerful black characters with ambitious goals and authority, while it is more comfortable with black petty criminals and thugs, because it's overly-concerned with appearing racist. You're working too hard to arrive at the opposite of the most plausible appraisal.

I cited wikipedia that gave reasons why Cook tried to kidnap a Hawaiian chief. The kidnapping grew into a the brawl. Cause the brawl it was. No self-defense smoke-screen will serve.

So, then, you wouldn't be opposed to the Kentucky protesters abducting the White Panic couple from their lawn.

Once again we see the differential consideration afforded.

Statement 1: Hawaiians are known to be cannibals.

It is a problem that the Europeans believed this in the first place, and were willing to spread the rumor, and even more willing in future generations to accept its veracity and judge the Hawaiians against it.

I see. It's like when one tries to fire an employee because of his inadequate performance, lousy work ethic and rudeness to colleagues and he says: "You have fired me because I'm black."

You suggest appointing ANY black nominee just to maintain racial balance?

On the contrary, it is like assuming that any fired employee who is black must have been fired for cause. After all, you know how those blacks are...

Is it OK to point out that almost everyone was and still is racist? Be that the Japanese (who very firmly hold themselves as a "race"), Chinese, Indian, European (oh dear - I'm now conflating geography with ethnicity - I'm gong to hell! Should I say caucasian, or white or just sign up to the nearest correction course), Arab or indeed one of the large number of others I've not listed? There never was, never has been and might never be a time when everyone didn't judge others on their skin tone, their nationality, their culture and their religion. And few times when most didn't either view themselves as better than others or at the very least hostile to outsiders. And the closer you zoom into an area the more divisions there are - I view myself coming from the Westcountry, Coming from Devon, I equally view Cornwall as a bunch of traitors who should be treated in the same manner as was done in the Highland Clearance and of course Totness is a bunch of deviants.

Those who built empires invariably engaged in cultural appropriation and suppression, iconoclasty and historical revisionism. Be that God's will, the superior culture or as members of a master race. They raped, pillaged, brutalised, stole and generally behaved as utter bastards because they won. Depending on the era depended on the thickness of the veneer over these simple facts. And over time, often another lot came along who did the same to them. Almost every invention was invented by people who had probably done some pretty crappy things. Every explorer equally did what it took to survive. And on it goes.

Since approximately 1900, we have slowly being trying to create a fable that there is a "right" way that everything should be done, starting with codes for warfare (mainly enforced on the loosers) and now ending up with deleting anyone and everyone in history who wouldn't be welcome at a UN summit in Geneva.

At the very least, can we not just have some sort of disclaimer that says "Anything that occurred more than one month ago should be viewed with the understanding it is probably morally suspect and would not be acceptable now; any person or event that is in any way viewed positively is not ignoring the fact that the individual or event probably had many other bad facets to it and a positive statement is not condoning all that the person or event said, thought or did and viewing things in terms of the time they lived in no way condones anything".

If nothing will stand up to close examination (and frankly, it probably won't) we can either just accept the reality of the world or else must live in the constant "now" where things just are since knowing anything more about it will only lead to celebrating the Fallen.

We could improve things somewhat. (Happy, Idaho?)

Rory:

Good post, and I agree with all of your points. I started my adult life with just as many of the structural racist (and other ist) hang-ups as most in my generation. I am working to get rid of the notions that are, on reflection, patently silly in the face of evidence and logic. I will be engaged in this project until my death and it will almost certainly be incomplete at that time. I suspect this is true of a lot of folks.

Any number of cultures, persons, and even those who are "minorities" targeted by the ism in question have such views and structural "legacy code" by which they are influenced.

As a history buff, I am fully ready to judge past societies and individuals by modern idealized (and they are, as you rightly note, often honored in the breach) standards of conduct and morality -- But I simply cannot dismiss noting in parallel how well they conformed or didn't to the expected standards of THEIR day. Expecting a Sumerian merchant to refuse to work merchants who had slaves in their work gangs would be patently silly. It simply would not have occurred to either party to question the validity of slaves as a concept -- much less to push for reform. At the same time, I CAN decry the stultifying effects of chattel slavery on the intellectual and economic development of Sumeria and other ancient cultures.

Good post. But I wouldn't even be so sure everyone saw slavery uncritically in X time period, even before modern times. Leaving aside the lack of documentation or common literacy, social values shape not just thought but the parameters of acceptable discourse. This was one of the major thematic arcs of "Huckleberry Finn", wasn't it? Sex, in general, is a big one always, though that's changing; we understand that people had all sorts of diverse ideas and preoccupations about sex long before they could converse openly about their experiences.

Life for people like this is challenging! Some members here would probably hate to have her in the Backroom.

Lydia Maria Francis Child (born Lydia Maria Francis) (February 11, 1802 – October 20, 1880), was an American abolitionist, women's rights activist, Native American rights activist, novelist, journalist, and opponent of American expansionism.

Her journals, both fiction and domestic manuals, reached wide audiences from the 1820s through the 1850s. At times she shocked her audience as she tried to take on issues of both male dominance and white supremacy in some of her stories.

For what shouldn't even be a controversial example, imagine traveling back in time anywhere and sampling peasants on the following question: "Is it really cool for kings and bandits to pillage anybody they please?" Laws, ethical codes of conduct, and popular standards of leadership didn't just materialize out of nowhere one day.

There are many millions of people today who condone slavery. The safest bet is to project multifarious worldviews onto past societies, just as we acknowledge the existence of similar in the present.

[Gilrandir]

It's not a conspiracy, it's reflexive defensiveness.

You see, each of us believes his stance sober and measured and the opponent's stance unworthy. Let's stop at that because we evidently fail to prove the opposite to each other.

You made the racist assumption that this map entails your proposition that Harlem is dangerous, which it objectively cannot. You just took that for granted because of all the Hollywood scenes like the one I linked from National Lampoon, that inculcate the idea among foreigners and natives alike that black people = danger and that if you enter черный район then grievous bodily harm is imminent.
They're just movies.

They are. But they seem to reflect the entreched stereotype that turned out (it appears quite surprisingly for you) to be underpinned by the official data on the map. If you call official data racist for me to make my assumption then

You're working too hard to arrive at the opposite of the most plausible appraisal.

Funny that I think the same of your attempts to see racism everywhere instead of the most plausible appraisals.

So, then, you wouldn't be opposed to the Kentucky protesters abducting the White Panic couple from their lawn.

I wouldn't if the White Panic couple had done some harm to the protesters (like the Hawaiians did when they stole a boat from Cook's crew).

It is a problem that the Europeans believed this in the first place, and were willing to spread the rumor, and even more willing in future generations to accept its veracity and judge the Hawaiians against it.

This problem doesn't cancel the way presuppositions work. Which what evidently happened in the Cook story. So no racism, just natural expectations.

[Montmorency]

You see, each of us believes his stance sober and measured and the opponent's stance unworthy. Let's stop at that because we evidently fail to prove the opposite to each other.

OK, but that's not an excuse.

They are. But they seem to reflect the entreched stereotype that turned out (it appears quite surprisingly for you) to be underpinned by the official data on the map. If you call official data racist for me to make my assumption then

Leaving aside the question of how the data is constructed, let me break this down for you:

1. You stated that Harlem is dangerous. (Dangerous to be in, to live in, whatever it is.)
2. You chose Harlem because it is internationally famous as a black/Latino neighborhood.
3. You offered a city crime map as support for your statement.
4. You did not identify what evidence was present in the source to support your statement.

The link presents a precinct map of NYC with "Crimes"/1000 residents per precinct. Taking this as a measure of "danger" simpliciter, with no further definition - as one might naively do from the perspective you offered the link in - I set the time range of the tool to its maximum, Jan. 2019 through June 2020. Averaging the precincts that roughly compose the Greater Harlem area, we get 30.7 crimes per 1000 residents in 1.5 years. Comparing to the precincts that coincide with wealthy commercial hub Midtown Manhattan, the equivalent figure is 75.2 crimes per 1000 residents in 1.5 years.

By your crude measure, or at least the one presupposed beneath the innuendo, the area within a mile radius of the Bank of America tower is more than twice as "dangerous" as Harlem.

Let's face it, a black neighborhood being black is sufficient information for you to declare it dangerous. A descriptive term is available in the vernacular to apply to this sort of prejudice.

I wouldn't if the White Panic couple had done some harm to the protesters (like the Hawaiians did when they stole a boat from Cook's crew).

Captain Cook introduced diseases to the natives, stole from them, threatened them with guns, and tried to abduct their leader.

But some of them stole a dinghy, so.

Funny that I think the same of your attempts to see racism everywhere instead of the most plausible appraisals.

You're clearly willing to deny the reality of a disparate many well-known things, so I could see it as more a manifestation of oppositional contrarianism.

This problem doesn't cancel the way presuppositions work. Which what evidently happened in the Cook story. So no racism, just natural expectations.

Whether an expectation is "natural" - itself debatable - is separate from whether it is racist. I mark your comfort in normalizing the expectation that 'of course they would think the savages were a bunch of violent cannibals.' That you share the mindset of the explorers cannot exculpate it.

[Gilrandir]

OK, but that's not an excuse.

Your behavior is getting obnoxious. You present yourself as a supercilious judge who can dismiss or call the culprit (as he deems him) at will.

Leaving aside the question of how the data is constructed, let me break this down for you:

1. You stated that Harlem is dangerous. (Dangerous to be in, to live in, whatever it is.)
2. You chose Harlem because it is internationally famous as a black/Latino neighborhood.
3. You offered a city crime map as support for your statement.
4. You did not identify what evidence was present in the source to support your statement.

The link presents a precinct map of NYC with "Crimes"/1000 residents per precinct. Taking this as a measure of "danger" simpliciter, with no further definition - as one might naively do from the perspective you offered the link in - I set the time range of the tool to its maximum, Jan. 2019 through June 2020. Averaging the precincts that roughly compose the Greater Harlem area, we get 30.7 crimes per 1000 residents in 1.5 years. Comparing to the precincts that coincide with wealthy commercial hub Midtown Manhattan, the equivalent figure is 75.2 crimes per 1000 residents in 1.5 years.

By your crude measure, or at least the one presupposed beneath the innuendo, the area within a mile radius of the Bank of America tower is more than twice as "dangerous" as Harlem.

Let's face it, a black neighborhood being black is sufficient information for you to declare it dangerous. A descriptive term is available in the vernacular to apply to this sort of prejudice.

I see. The high number of crimes detected in South precinct of Manhattan makes the average greater than in Harlem (although the figure I arrived at was something like 54, but not 75 as you claim). But the intensity of color of both neighborhoods on the map is the same (with the exception of the notorious South precinct) which shows that both of them are dangerous places to visit. Which in no way cancels my claim that Harlem is dangerous. Moreover, if you view crime categories you will see that murders, rapes, and assults are greater in number in Harlem. So your statement that Harlem is 99% safe is an arbitrary one. Harlem and Manhattan are two most/equally dangerous neighborhoods of NYC.

Captain Cook introduced diseases to the natives, stole from them, threatened them with guns, and tried to abduct their leader.

But some of them stole a dinghy, so.

I'm 100% sure that Cook came to the Hawaii with the ultimate mission to spread diseases. You might as well start hating the Chinese for COVID. Waaaait a moment... Donnie boy, is that you?

As for other things that you mention, they did happen. But you stress only those that fit with your agenda disregarding the others or deeming them inessential.

So I may make the conclusion that you made about me:

You're clearly willing to deny the reality of a disparate many well-known things, so I could see it as more a manifestation of oppositional contrarianism.

Whether an expectation is "natural" - itself debatable - is separate from whether it is racist. I mark your comfort in normalizing the expectation that 'of course they would think the savages were a bunch of violent cannibals.' That you share the mindset of the explorers cannot exculpate it.

So the savages weren't violent? Or they weren't cannibals? And your counterarguments will start with "Yes, but it happened because the Europeans...."?

So I mark your insistence in explaining everything by racism.

As I have said, emotional investment precludes from seeing a real picture. Especially if you repeatedly bang your head against the wall.

[a completely inoffensive name]

Warning: Graphic Violence.

Kid holding boombox gets shot in the head (beanbag) by Federal troops.

Is there anyone willing to defend this behavior?

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Warning: Graphic Violence.

Kid holding boombox gets shot in the head (beanbag) by Federal troops.

Is there anyone willing to defend this behavior?

I tend to use "troops" to indicate military/armed forces. These were 'agents' of a homeland security task force. Way too flipping militarized, I would say, but not troops as I would label such.

And that was assault/punitive(sadistic?) -- the bean bag rounds are supposed to be fired low and that was not a rushed shot during some attack. Who is staffing this inane effort?

[Montmorency]

Your behavior is getting obnoxious. You present yourself as a supercilious judge who can dismiss or call the culprit (as he deems him) at will.

From my perspective, you're saying increasingly-stupid with zero reflection, and it's hard to talk to someone in that situation. Like, the beats of our discussion are some of the most basic there is, not abstruse metaphysics or applied mechanics or, more pertinently, a detailed contention of practical social responsibilities. It's like being in the position of having to explain that water is wet but hearing that no, water is green and dry like dry wine!

But the intensity of color of both neighborhoods on the map is the same (with the exception of the notorious South precinct) which shows that both of them are dangerous places to visit.

No, it does not. The color on a map does not make a place dangerous to visit. This is a categorically spurious statement. Are you reading this back to yourself as you write? And if you came up to any New Yorker with that "notorious South precinct" drivel they would - well, I would like to say they would laugh in your face, but contrary to another common stereotype New Yorkers are not especially rude with strangers. In all honesty they might earnestly try to correct your illusions of the most trafficked, most policed, and wealthiest areas of the city being unsafe, the saps.

although the figure I arrived at was something like 54, but not 75 as you claim

Both Greater Harlem and Midtown Manhattan comprise 5 precincts, if that helps.

Moreover, if you view crime categories you will see that murders, rapes, and assults are greater in number in Harlem.

There have been murders, rapes, and assaults in any area you are familiar with. Does that make it dangerous? If not, why not?

For reference, in 1990, when one could more reasonably call the area dangerous, the murder rate in Harlem was more than 10X what it is today.

Harlem and Manhattan are two most/equally dangerous neighborhoods of NYC.

Not only are neither dangerous (and no New Yorker who would consider Harlem dangerous would also think of Midtown as dangerous), the affluent residents of Midtown are generally safer than residents of Harlem, whereas you as a tourist would more likely be accosted or face property loss in Midtown than in Harlem, as tourists aggregate in the former - along with the people who target them for scams and petty theft or robbery. (Though Harlem is increasingly a tourist draw these days.)

In doubling down you're producing more and more outrageously-wrong statements.

So your statement that Harlem is 99% safe is an arbitrary one.

One could arbitrarily claim that Ukraine is a dangerous "place" on account of the thousands of murders that occur there. Or perhaps you could pop out and steal a neighbor's car, thus making your neighborhood dangerous by some mysterious accounting. If deferring to the Economist's rankings (which at least have the virtue of attempting to develop rational metrics) New York is one of the safest big cities in the world.

Your usage of the word "dangerous" is arbitrary. You offer no concept of danger other than colors on a map or a catalogue of undifferentiated Crime-with-a-capital-C, and I suspect you came into this thinking a purely intuitive utterance unburdened by substance would communicate something agreed-upon to me and pass beneath comment, and when I didn't respond as expected you cast about for some way to associate Harlem with crime without thinking through the argument. The problem is I don't hold the premise that Black/Urban = Scary, and I am interested in useful truths. In reality, things like one's risk of being violently victimized or suffering an infrastructure, industrial, or traffic accident - what I would relate to "danger" over an aggregate measure of tax fraud and graffiti - is overwhelmingly dictated by one's demographic status, hyperlocal geography, social networks, and lifestyle. These can be empirically assessed and aren't captured by motivated and essentialist reasoning.

Let's take the time though to unravel just how confused your approach is. It can either designate almost any urban space as dangerous, which would be meaningless, or you can introduce ad hoc adjustments to arrive at any predetermined conclusion, which would also be meaningless. Again constraining ourselves to the crime map, I can focus on murders as it makes no difference in your framework and it's a convenient simplification for the exercise. In 2019 there were 24 murders in Greater Harlem, for a population of ~297000, making the murder rate 8.1/100K inhabitants. According to the US Census Bureau Estimate, the population of New York in 2019 was 8.337 million, with 319 murders according to the NYPD, producing a murder rate of 3.8/100K inhabitants. That would, in precise language, make Harlem in 2019 a place with about twice the murder rate of New York as a whole in 2019.

Referring to Wikipedia's list of countries by intentional homicide rates for comparison (which, to be clear, does not offer a valid or informative point of comparison, but we don't care about such things here), Harlem's 2019 murder rate is roughly Russia's intentional homicide rate in 2018, and New York's 2019 murder rate is roughly Pakistan's intentional homicide rate in 2018. Unless "danger" is synonymous with "official count of criminal killings," this does not mean that Harlem is as safe or dangerous as Russia, or even that Pakistan is in some sense safer than Russia. It would be a further escalation of idiotism to glance at the other numbers listed on the Wiki page and confidently declare that Ukraine is exactly 1.25 times as DaNgErOuS as the United States, and exactly 2.59 times as dAngERoSu as Belarus - or that Ukraine is three-fourths as dnnghhreRhoHoo as Harlem.

So we can glean nothing but gibberish from your non-existent parameters; if you intend to communicate something more informative, don't double down on an instinct that would maneuver you to rate Syria as among the safest countries on the planet. If you want to say a place is dangerous, explain what you mean and supply evidence. If there was never anything more to this than enforcing a presupposition of perceived notoriousness of 'notoriously'-black neighborhoods, just drop it outright.

I'm 100% sure that Cook came to the Hawaii with the ultimate mission to spread diseases.

Disease, of disparate impact between populations, was a direct harm suffered by the natives from encountering the explorers, among the other harms listed (which included explicit aggression). For some reason, these harms are dismissed as irrelevant but the temporary harm to Europeans of the non-violent larceny of a rowboat becomes the nub of the story. The worldview you're presenting is that the intent of European people is paramount in assessing them, and even if they had an evil intent then those who bear that intent somehow had it coming anyway, such as if they dared to resist the Europeans in any fashion. Regardless of the facts of the situation, whites are thus always insulated from fault.

As for other things that you mention, they did happen. But you stress only those that fit with your agenda disregarding the others or deeming them inessential.

A neutral observer who treats the Hawaiians and Europeans as fungible human units cannot make the judgments you take for granted. To designate Cook the justified hero or victim of the story is to make a value judgement elevating his person or mission over the objectively damaged interests of a great number of people.

So the savages weren't violent? Or they weren't cannibals?

They were no more violent or cannibal than the Europeans, and furthermore were not the instigators of conflict. The explorers didn't apprehend these facts, or didn't have an interest in affirming them. Fair enough, the whole lot were a band of rough mercenaries far from comfort or restraint - what's to gainsay a flattering lie or two? The problem is that lies became civilizational dogma, and you don't care to move past that perspective, passed on to you tenth-hand, to arrive at the "real picture." What's your attachment to old propaganda?

Let's review what has happened with this line of discussion.

I pointed out that racist ideas about indigenous peoples filtered their way throughout European cultures in early modernity and became accepted wisdoms embedded in a coherent supremacist ideology. After trying to sustain the false claim that people within the Soviet Union had erased all knowledge and ideas from before 1917, you denied that a Soviet-era song relied on any racist ideas because they referenced true history, even though it was not true history but a prejudicial trope introduced by bad actors that had filtered its way throughout the modern European canon about 'what those savages are like.' A normal thing to do at this point would be to acknowledge one's mistakes and update one's priors.

As I have said, emotional investment precludes from seeing a real picture.

This is possible. How can we assess whether someone has succumbed to an emotional investment that precludes them from seeing the real picture? Well, one might trap themselves into making an increasingly-preposterous array of false statements (howlers), deny any potential of wrong beliefs in themselves, evade major points of the discussion, and plaintively accuse the other party of conspiracism and delusion. They might also display a lack of self-awareness.

[Gilrandir]

So, let's draw a bottomline of our debate by reiterating its highlights:

Is Africa a dangerous place to visit?

(starting from 8.48)

It is, but mentioning it is racist.

Is Harlem a dangerous place to visit?
Ditto. Besides, other neighborhoods are equally dangerous and you(meaing me) misinterpert the official data. Better look at Ukraine which is even more dangerous.

Are disparaging remarks made about Africa by black Americans racist?
Yes. But it happens because whites teach blacks to say that and the latter are too pure and naive souls to discern the guiles of the white aimed at propagating racism.

Are all people equal?
It is a racist slogan. Some people's lives matter more than other people's lives.

Does burying a hardened criminal in a golden casket mean venerating him?
No, it's a whim of the family and the sponsor, which has nothing to do venerating him.

Were BLM protests accompanied by looting and rioting?
Mentioning it is racist since it besmears their noble cause.

Is kissing black men's boots by whites racist?
No, it is an individual fact that proves nothing, nutjobs are numerous among all races. But were it the other way around it would be flagrant racism.

Was "deliberate repeated geographic mistake" by a black American student racist?
No, it is a sign of Americans' ignorance/self-centeredness. But if you had responded in the same manner it would have been glaring racism because there are four centuries of slavery behind him.

Was acquitting OJ Simpson just because he was black racist?
No, it is an individual fact that proves nothing. Instead, there are hundreds of cases when black people are incarcerated for nothing. But if a white man were acquitted on the same reason it would be racism.

Are black cops responsible for the racism in police departments?
They resist it but unfortunately they keep the code of honor of the organization.

Is the absence of Oscar black nominees racist?
Yes, they should have found ANY black actor to nominate him to keep the racial balance.

Why are black supervillains as good as absent from movies?
It is a disparate fact that has nothing to do with racism, who cares why it happens.

Were natives of the Pacific cannibals?
They were, but putting it this way is racist. Instead, we should say that native tribes had unique cultural rites of honoring the murdered enemies (killed exclusively in self-defense). These rites were intentionally misinterpreted by European racists to show their supremacy over savages.

Besides, my manner of holding discussion is inadequate which is explained by my evidently obscurantist ideology.

Have I missed anything?

[edyzmedieval]

Gentlemen, let me remind you - at all times, arguments & discussion should be done in a civil, elegant, educated and sophisticated manner.

[Montmorency]

Is Africa a dangerous place to visit?

(starting from 8.48)

It is, but mentioning it is racist.

Naturally I watched the video, and noted some neat narrative devices. They begin by showing a blonde Russian lady variously riding in a Bentley, passing a suburb of mansions and the gleaming modern high-rises of the city of Johannesburg, remarking on how clean and "civilized" it looks, and discussing the commodity wealth of the area in gold and diamonds, before going silent and running a spooky montage of a descent into decrepit Rock Bottom. With the camera variously in the Bentley with the Russian lady, or ahead capturing their movement. Next, a clip show reminds us that under apartheid this part of the city used to be White (а тёмнокожим вход бил запрещен); the black Africans were consigned to shantytowns. With that context, the clip you want me to see plays out as follows:

Set scene with another blonde Russian lady walking down a street with the cameraman two meters ahead. She begins by turning to look directly at her soon-to-be assailant. As she passes him, he comes up and grabs her, saying "Stop, I'm taking the money." The cameraman immediately charges towards them to - get closeups of both their faces and get a steady shot of their brief struggle. The subject runs down the street, and the assailant follows along at a jog that the camera can keep pace with. 5 seconds later they all stop, and the tearful woman gives the guy... $2; he grabs it without looking and walks off. 30 seconds later, a white guy in a van - ostensibly a stranger - pulls up and carries them away.

You should be more discerning about the authenticity of content in entertainment vlogging that happens to align with your preconceptions. That said, I would readily admit that Johannesburg is more dangerous than New York City. But Africa and visiting Africa was never a topic in this thread, unless I have forgotten a step of its winding course. To be clear, Harlem is not Africa, no matter how many black people might live there. Or - wait, I remember now, you're saying an early-20th century poem with maximum Dark Continent energy

«Африка ужасна,
Да-да-да!
Африка опасна,
Да-да-да!
Не ходите в Африку,
Дети, никогда!»

Africa is awful,
yes-yes-yes!
Africa is dangerous,
yes-yes-yes!
Don't go to Africa,
children, never!

was not based on racist premises because Africa really is dangerous, which you propose to demonstrate with a staged scene involving an African mugger (does he go by Barmaley?) attacking a blonde Russian woman in 2017.

Ask yourself why you're so invested in going out of your way to sustain the trope of Danger accompanying Black spaces around the world. We know crime exists in Africa, there is no need to dramatize it with the stock characters of blonde white damsel and black brute. It's not rational.

По его словам, сейчас туризм везде как равноопасен, так и равнобезопасен.

Is Harlem a dangerous place to visit?
Ditto. Besides, other neighborhoods are equally dangerous and you(meaing me) misinterpert the official data. Better look at Ukraine which is even more dangerous.

No criteria of danger were offered or assessed other than the existence of crime. Whatever implicit criteria that could be inferred were not validated; there was no basis for taking them as a measure of danger in any sense. If applied, to apply such a measure consistently would produce absurd and useless results in terms of protecting oneself. If not applied consistently but with special pleading, the output would be even worse. I specifically chose Midtown for comparison because anyone who knows something about New York would recognize the absurdity of painting it as an unsafe place. That you walked right into that without a second thought was shocking to me.


But it's not intrinsically wrong to think that Harlem is dangerous, or that any part of New York or anywhere else is dangerous. That is to say, danger as a genuine subjective concept here is difficult to contest. It doesn't have to mean anything useful or usable or sensible. For all I know, you think Ukraine and Kiev and wherever you live are dangerous places. Maybe you think big cities are automatically dangerous, or maybe a particular geography can be defined as dangerous if more than one or two violent crimes have occurred there. I can't really contest a personal sentiment like that, nor would I be interested in doing so. I'm even sure someone out there operates on constant fear no matter where they go, such that nowhere isn't dangerous for them.

But in the final estimation, you've boxed yourself in. You could submit Ukraine as a dangerous country and Kiev a dangerous city, but then it would have seemed motivated to name Harlem out of all the other "dangerous" places in the world. You could submit that Ukraine and Kiev are not dangerous places according to some internal calibration you maintain in contradiction to the spurious appeals you tried to pass by me, while maintaining that Harlem simply must be dangerous for some mysterious reason, but that would reveal the root of this exercise as a pretense to conjure purely stereotypical imagery - in the context of a discussion of racial politics.

Remember that I did not hypnotize you or otherwise induce you to say what you've said. I hope you'll come to see the irony in uncritically endorsing multiple racially-biased tropes toward the project of denying that there are racist tropes.

Are all people equal?
It is a racist slogan. Some people's lives matter more than other people's lives.

I thought we agreed that the problem was in hypocritically denying the equality of Black people. If the slogan of the moment were "all people are equal," one could complain that it doesn't center the experience of Black people, but it would not be considered as objectionable as the real counterslogan, which is that contrary to Black Lives Matter, "All Lives Matter."

Does burying a hardened criminal in a golden casket mean venerating him?
No, it's a whim of the family and the sponsor, which has nothing to do venerating him.

"Hardened criminal" and "venerating" are very charged subjective assessments, and it was always strange that you would feel so strongly about them.

Were BLM protests accompanied by looting and rioting?
Mentioning it is racist since it besmears their noble cause.

What is your point in mentioning them? Others discussed the issue in the thread.

Is kissing black men's boots by whites racist?
No, it is an individual fact that proves nothing, nutjobs are numerous among all races. But were it the other way around it would be flagrant racism.

I wish you had as profound a reaction about the endless parade of white boots on black necks as you did about the very existence of a black hate group.

Was "deliberate repeated geographic mistake" by a black American student racist?
No, it is a sign of Americans' ignorance/self-centeredness. But if you had responded in the same manner it would have been glaring racism because there are four centuries of slavery behind him.

What is the contrast that you are envisioning here? The closest parallel (far-fetched may it be) I can imagine is: A black Cameroonian or Namibian visiting America and being persistently mislabeled as Nigerian, or respectively South African, by a white American, with the latter as well as other Americans tending to give more care to other African nationalities. But in reality most Americans (of any ethnicity) do not have a masterful grip of African nationalities, Americans do have a tendency to lump Eastern European (especially ex-Soviet) countries in with Russia, and Americans do have a tendency to mind the distinctions between Western European countries. Context strikes again, even if you don't want to acknowledge it, and that context includes a distinction between your personal slight as a Ukrainian visitor to a foreign country, born of lingering learned habits of US-Soviet rivalry, and the universal, material, black experience of oppression. The black American enjoys his Americanness, but the white Ukrainian enjoys his whiteness.

(The guy who insisted on calling you Russian against your wishes was still being an ass, of course.)

Was acquitting OJ Simpson just because he was black racist?

He was not acquitted just because he was black and it's bizarre that you think that.

No, it is an individual fact that proves nothing. Instead, there are hundreds of cases when black people are incarcerated for nothing.

IF it were the case that OJ Simpson were acquitted just for being black - and it is not - to state your observation in bold is to instantly refute your emotional premise that we should be concerned about the racial implications of OJ's acquittal.

Unless you felt it a matter of lesser disgrace for a hundred innocent black defendants be deprived of their rights than one guilty black defendant go free.

But if a white man were acquitted on the same reason it would be racism.

Would you care to read about "white privilege?" You might answer some of your questions.

To put it in a way Idaho might approve of: If you're black, you can be made to suffer for being black. If you're white, you will never suffer for being white. (Being reminded of this fact is not a form of suffering.)

Is the absence of Oscar black nominees racist?
Yes, they should have found ANY black actor to nominate him to keep the racial balance.

You will of course have a hard time finding someone to endorse these red herrings, but the system of (predominantly old white male) elites controlling the distribution of prestige to actors and creators is demonstrably racially biased, and it should be obvious in principle why it would be so.

Why are black supervillains as good as absent from movies?
It is a disparate fact that has nothing to do with racism, who cares why it happens.

You believe Hollywood self-censors from producing powerful black characters with ambitious goals and authority, while it is more comfortable with black petty criminals and thugs, because it's overly-concerned with appearing racist. You're working too hard to arrive at the opposite of the most plausible appraisal.

Were natives of the Pacific cannibals?
They were, but putting it this way is racist. Instead, we should say that native tribes had unique cultural rites of honoring the murdered enemies (killed exclusively in self-defense). These rites were intentionally misinterpreted by European racists to show their supremacy over savages.

They generally weren't, and lying about it is racist - but much worse to sustain the lie years down the line when you have the opportunity to learn otherwise. Even worse than that to insist that they were cannibals when you are directly, repeatedly, informed that they were not. That is even worse than a Ukrainian being called a Russian. At least no one denigrated you for what those savages in Leningrad did, the way they murdered their own people for the flavor.

Besides, my manner of holding discussion is inadequate which is explained by my evidently obscurantist ideology.

At some point you should really account for the barrage of false statements, misrepresentations, and red herrings you've leveled. It's kind of insulting.

Have I missed anything?

A lot. Stop picking battles where you are increasingly and undeniably wrong. From your perspective you're frustrated that I talk so much and (to you) opaquely about racism, but your reactions consistently demonstrate why the conversation is so important and relevant. Do better.

[Gilrandir]

Naturally I watched the video, and noted some neat narrative devices. They begin by showing a blonde Russian lady variously riding in a Bentley, passing a suburb of mansions and the gleaming modern high-rises of the city of Johannesburg, remarking on how clean and "civilized" it looks, and discussing the commodity wealth of the area in gold and diamonds, before going silent and running a spooky montage of a descent into decrepit Rock Bottom. With the camera variously in the Bentley with the Russian lady, or ahead capturing their movement. Next, a clip show reminds us that under apartheid this part of the city used to be White (а тёмнокожим вход бил запрещен); the black Africans were consigned to shantytowns. With that context, the clip you want me to see plays out as follows:

Set scene with another blonde Russian lady walking down a street with the cameraman two meters ahead. She begins by turning to look directly at her soon-to-be assailant. As she passes him, he comes up and grabs her, saying "Stop, I'm taking the money." The cameraman immediately charges towards them to - get closeups of both their faces and get a steady shot of their brief struggle. The subject runs down the street, and the assailant follows along at a jog that the camera can keep pace with. 5 seconds later they all stop, and the tearful woman gives the guy... $2; he grabs it without looking and walks off. 30 seconds later, a white guy in a van - ostensibly a stranger - pulls up and carries them away.

You should be more discerning about the authenticity of content in entertainment vlogging that happens to align with your preconceptions.

1. All women in the video (I suspect you are biased against the blondes) are not Russian. They are Ukrainian. Speaking Russian. And they are not random vloggers. It is a TV travel show with ten years of history behind it. Called Орел и Решка. Google it.

2. You summary of the video: it was a staged one and even if not, - 2$!!! C'mon, man, white blondes in Africa shouldn't be misers! What about being scared as hell when a guy rushes at her and grabs her at tries to take away her things? Nah, a white blonde should have known better than to go past an unassuming local.

That said, I would readily admit that Johannesburg is more dangerous than New York City. But Africa and visiting Africa was never a topic in this thread, unless I have forgotten a step of its winding course. To be clear, Harlem is not Africa, no matter how many black people might live there. Or - wait, I remember now, you're saying an early-20th century poem with maximum Dark Continent energy



was not based on racist premises because Africa really is dangerous, which you propose to demonstrate with a staged scene involving an African mugger (does he go by Barmaley?) attacking a blonde Russian woman in 2017.

Ask yourself why you're so invested in going out of your way to sustain the trope of Danger accompanying Black spaces around the world. We know crime exists in Africa, there is no need to dramatize it with the stock characters of blonde white damsel and black brute. It's not rational.






No criteria of danger were offered or assessed other than the existence of crime. Whatever implicit criteria that could be inferred were not validated; there was no basis for taking them as a measure of danger in any sense. If applied, to apply such a measure consistently would produce absurd and useless results in terms of protecting oneself. If not applied consistently but with special pleading, the output would be even worse. I specifically chose Midtown for comparison because anyone who knows something about New York would recognize the absurdity of painting it as an unsafe place. That you walked right into that without a second thought was shocking to me.


But it's not intrinsically wrong to think that Harlem is dangerous, or that any part of New York or anywhere else is dangerous. That is to say, danger as a genuine subjective concept here is difficult to contest. It doesn't have to mean anything useful or usable or sensible. For all I know, you think Ukraine and Kiev and wherever you live are dangerous places. Maybe you think big cities are automatically dangerous, or maybe a particular geography can be defined as dangerous if more than one or two violent crimes have occurred there. I can't really contest a personal sentiment like that, nor would I be interested in doing so. I'm even sure someone out there operates on constant fear no matter where they go, such that nowhere isn't dangerous for them.

But in the final estimation, you've boxed yourself in. You could submit Ukraine as a dangerous country and Kiev a dangerous city, but then it would have seemed motivated to name Harlem out of all the other "dangerous" places in the world. You could submit that Ukraine and Kiev are not dangerous places according to some internal calibration you maintain in contradiction to the spurious appeals you tried to pass by me, while maintaining that Harlem simply must be dangerous for some mysterious reason, but that would reveal the root of this exercise as a pretense to conjure purely stereotypical imagery - in the context of a discussion of racial politics.

A short rundown of your stance: there are a lot of dangerous places in the world (including Kyiv and Ukraine - I agree, why not?), but you can't mention some of them (Africa and Harlem) not to sound racist.

What is your point in mentioning them? Others discussed the issue in the thread.

Because many people tend to play them down not to sound racist.

I wish you had as profound a reaction about the endless parade of white boots on black necks as you did about the very existence of a black hate group.

You intentionally try to put into my mouth words that I never said or forget what I did say. I more than once repeated my stance on ANY boots on ANY necks. But you choose to see what fits with your

very charged subjective assessments

The black American enjoys his Americanness, but the white Ukrainian enjoys his whiteness.

*sigh* Again a

very charged subjective assessment

The white Ukrainian enjoys nothing. He resents obtuse arrogance. Which he never responded to in kind.

He was not acquitted just because he was black and it's bizarre that you think that.
IF it were the case that OJ Simpson were acquitted just for being black - and it is not - to state your observation in bold is to instantly refute your emotional premise that we should be concerned about the racial implications of OJ's acquittal.

It is true, his race wasn't the reason for acquittal. Yet race factored greatly into the verdict, which it shouldn't. That is why we should be concerned about the racial implications of OJ's acquittal. You seem to be concerned about the racial implications of all other events - from children's doggerels to cannibalism. Not about OJ, somehow.

Unless you felt it a matter of lesser disgrace for a hundred innocent black defendants be deprived of their rights than one guilty black defendant go free.

It is a matter of disgrace if a single gulity person should be acquitted. Race doesn't matter. For you it seems it does - because there are four centuries of slavery behind them. So you try to weigh up hundreds against smaller numbers. The counting doesn't matter. The guilt does.

To put it in a way Idaho might approve of: If you're black, you can be made to suffer for being black. If you're white, you will never suffer for being white. (Being reminded of this fact is not a form of suffering.)

That's doublethink at its best: you can't remind blacks about their skin color which you can very well do with whites.

You will of course have a hard time finding someone to endorse these red herrings, but the system of (predominantly old white male) elites controlling the distribution of prestige to actors and creators is demonstrably racially biased, and it should be obvious in principle why it would be so.

You believe Hollywood self-censors from producing powerful black characters with ambitious goals and authority, while it is more comfortable with black petty criminals and thugs, because it's overly-concerned with appearing racist. You're working too hard to arrive at the opposite of the most plausible appraisal.

I see. My arguments are always either red herring or working too hard. Except that they aren't arguments but facts.

Your arguments are a paragon of objectivity and are never far-fetched. Rock on.

They generally weren't, and lying about it is racist - but much worse to sustain the lie years down the line when you have the opportunity to learn otherwise. Even worse than that to insist that they were cannibals when you are directly, repeatedly, informed that they were not.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_cannibalism

Cannibalism was practised in New Guinea and in parts of the Solomon Islands, and flesh markets existed in some parts of Melanesia. Fiji was once known as the "Cannibal Isles". Cannibalism has been well documented in much of the world, including Fiji , the Amazon Basin, the Congo, and the Māori people of New Zealand.


Now what that would be -

the barrage of false statements, misrepresentations, and red herrings

, white supremacy, racism, obscurantism or simple lying? Are you still insulted by stark facts?

Stop picking battles where you are increasingly and undeniably wrong.

Isn't the bold a

very charged subjective assessment

?

A translation of this stement of yours:
Being on a moral high ground (as you think) gives you unmitigated temerity to be right even before the debate starts. Something like "Don't you dare to question the correctness of my opinion".

From your perspective you're frustrated that I talk so much and (to you) opaquely about racism, but your reactions consistently demonstrate why the conversation is so important and relevant.

The importance and relevance are gauged agaisnt the result. The latter boils down to my realizing after tons of words even more that being emotionally invested you tend to see one side of the story only, get angry at people who try to dispute your attitude, and simplify the versatility of motifs by reducing them to racism. Is this what you have been trying to prove? Hardly.

Do better.

This is not the first attempt to try to sound teacher-like to me. Do differently.

[Viking]

If you're white, you will never suffer for being white.

Of course you can. Generally speaking, it seems that most of the time when inter-ethnic relations are discussed in a US-aware context, meta perspectives are thrown out of the window.