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

[Montmorency]

In the case of systemic racism throughout the criminal justice system, the evidence is stark and clear.

You and Montmorency need to learn brevity. Both your last posts are tldr. Honestly - get an editor, learn some pith.

But in brevity much of the substance I intend to relay may be lost, and then what's the point? For example, what's the TLDR of the article I reposted? That there are a lotta white power troglodytes in the deep places of the country. That's pithy, but does it even bear saying? Meanwhile all the little details and points that give texture (at least) languish in the lacuna.

Aren't you tired of this Bandera squabble?

He was no angel, you are right. BUT: he spent most of his life before WWII in the Polish prison ans during WWII in the concentration camp. Mass killer from prison?

Then, to call someone a war criminal you should have a court's decision. The trial that could have done it was the Nuremberg trial. Neither UPA nor Bandera were found guilty of war crimes there.

Besides this dramatically thinning the ranks of history's war criminals - almost none have ever been tried and convicted - I again notice you are more charitable to Bandera, who apparently never had the disgrace to be associated with alleged intent to defraud with counterfeit currency. Why are you so comparatively charitable here?

Evaluation is always subjective. For some people Putin is a god, for others a devil.

So? Is he more or less of a god or a devil than you, and if there is no answer to the question then what is there ever to discuss?

People of other races than white in the USSR could be counted on the fingers of a hand. How can you find racist practices in a country with virtually monorace? It is like to try to calculate the number of car accidents in a village where there are no car owners.

Leaving aside the ethnic hierarchies of "white" that put Russians above all the rest and counting Jews as white (which Russians, Ukrainians, and the like certainly did not), you conspicuously erase all the Tatars, Kazakhs, Uzbeks, Koreans, Siberian tribes, etc.

Like, Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and Siberia are famously ethnically-diverse - do you think we're that ignorant here as to take your assertion for granted?

But even if every single Soviet citizen had been a ethnic Russian with alabaster skin, and the Soviet government had no intermediaries to the outside world other than other white Europeans, that would not preclude Soviet people from holding racist attitudes that could manifest into practice if given the opportunity.

The latter needs a proof. But even if he did I don't see how it bears on racism. Xenophobia - perhaps, but racism?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish...on_of_the_NKVD

What is the distinction you're making between racism and xenophobia here, which are generally seen to overlap almost completely? It's especially strange in light of the fact that these genocidal actions were taken against internal populations subject to the state. Stalin could not be said to be more "xenophobic" toward Kalmyks than Hitler was toward German Jews or Euro-Americans were toward African-Americans.

I offered a possible usage of Africa, you gave your take on the issue. I don't see why yours is better than mine. Even if we accept your view that Chukovsky was painting Africa as a dangerous place, why is it racist? Is saying that Queens/Harlem a dangerous place racist? I am more inclined to think that calling Africa a dangerous place is more like "everywhere outside our Soviet Motherland is dangerous".

Your take was incoherent.

Because they're the same exact ideas that had currency throughout Europe at the time, and these ideas dehumanized Africans as animalistic, childlike, unintelligent, etc.

I repeat: as long as can remember myself a Soviet kid teachers and TV were talking my ears off with stories of poor Africans who were oppressed by capitalists from Europe and poor black Americans who were tortured by KKK. And the mission of Soviet country and all its citizens is to help them in all possible ways. So talking of racism in the USSR as a part of ideology is ridiculous.

I never referred to Marxist-Leninist dogma on paper, which as you said proclaimed the equality of people, but to culture and government in practice. Emphasizing the helplessness and subordinacy of a people and your role as their savior is not the pinnacle of anti-racism by the way.

As long as crimes and brutality are concerned it shouldn't. A murderer should always be a murderer. If you implicate race OJ Simpson isn't found to be one.

So what would you have done about the unfair and oppressive treatment of black people at all points in the justice and carceral systems, as well as the systemic practices and conditions that leave them more liable to be preyed upon by the former? If it satisfies you to see millions of black men tormented because one celebrity was not convicted, that is a wholly disproportionate set of priorities and one I suspect you would not apply to white people.

I can use "black lives matter" only if after this sentence comes a continuation like "as well as other lives do".

That's the whole point. If it helps, modify to slogan to read "Black Lives Matter Too."

Can I apply this conclusion and advice to yourself?

Only if you believe everyone is right and no one is wrong.

I support it when a black deserves it. Not just because he is black. Otherwise it is like on March 8 people of the USSR congratulated women on being women.

The point being that the racist host conflated kneeling in solidarity and in protest of injustice with kneeling as an expression of fealty toward black supremacy, or of celebration of a particular person. For such people there can only be one hierarchy or another.

Men are congratulated for being men every day. Didn't they teach you about the whole premise of bringing attention to women for even a day? Not surprising you would be dismissive toward both non-whites and women, as these issues tend to be correlated.

Doesn't it reek of collective responsibility? If some policemen (especially black ones) had nothing to do with the crime and moreover condemned it why should they be fired? And can they sue the city and be reinstalled in their jobs?

Collective responsibility? As a government institution of course there is collective responsibility, and this type of excuse was laughed out of the room in Nuremberg I might add.

In a very concrete sense too there is collective responsibility, as corrupt or violent police cannot persist in their positions without the active encouragement, training, and support of other police and their leadership: the sergeants, the detectives, the captains, the chiefs, the commissioners, the arbitrators, the prosecutors, the police unions, even the city governments. Bad cops are not bad apples, they are the natural product of a whole rotten orchard.

The police who have nothing to do with police crimes and moreover condemn them tend to be forced out of their jobs as police. It's a kind of selection effect, and it's the meaning behind the Thin Blue Line.

Here's a recent article on the Minneapolis police reform process (Samurai, you might be interested in this one.).
https://www.minnpost.com/metro/2020/...ce-department/
I am not sure what kind of valid legal complaint they could have, as their agencies would only be terminated following modification of the city charter by popular referendum. The city charter currently mandates the establishment of a police force.

I have my own joys and sorrows to pay events in the USA more than a cursory attention. As probably you do about events in Ukraine or anywhere else outside the US.

That's fine, but I don't make a point of offering awfully tone-deaf and ignorant comments about ongoing social conflicts in Ukraine.

if you pick up a week old debate don't expect me to react to 29 (!!!) comments of yours

??

[Gilrandir]

Besides this dramatically thinning the ranks of history's war criminals - almost none have ever been tried and convicted - I again notice you are more charitable to Bandera, who apparently never had the disgrace to be associated with alleged intent to defraud with counterfeit currency. Why are you so comparatively charitable here?

It has nothing to do with charity. I pay attnetion to the facts that are overlooked by the lopsided presentation. If only the good is stressed I remind of the bad and vice versa as I did with the national hero of Ukraine Bohdan Khmelnytsky. I could say a few unpleasnat words about Volodymyr the Great and Yaroslav the Wise whose portraits are on Ukrainian money, btw.

So? Is he more or less of a god or a devil than you, and if there is no answer to the question then what is there ever to discuss?

Attitudes. You may have failed to notice but this forum (as probably all social media) is about expressing attitudes.

Leaving aside the ethnic hierarchies of "white" that put Russians above all the rest and counting Jews as white (which Russians, Ukrainians, and the like certainly did not), you conspicuously erase all the Tatars, Kazakhs, Uzbeks, Koreans, Siberian tribes, etc.

Like, Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and Siberia are famously ethnically-diverse - do you think we're that ignorant here as to take your assertion for granted?

But even if every single Soviet citizen had been a ethnic Russian with alabaster skin, and the Soviet government had no intermediaries to the outside world other than other white Europeans, that would not preclude Soviet people from holding racist attitudes that could manifest into practice if given the opportunity.

Since officially all Soviet people were brethern supposed to converge into a pan-ethnic entity one of these days racist attitudes were never shaped into "Kazakhs shouldn't be accepted to Universities" or "Let's not hire him because he is an Uzbek". Moreover, in national republics it could be vice versa with stressing prevalence of local nations over Russians.

What is the distinction you're making between racism and xenophobia here, which are generally seen to overlap almost completely? It's especially strange in light of the fact that these genocidal actions were taken against internal populations subject to the state. Stalin could not be said to be more "xenophobic" toward Kalmyks than Hitler was toward German Jews or Euro-Americans were toward African-Americans.

Classically, xenophobia is the fear or hatred of that which is perceived to be foreign or strange. Not necesserily of other race. And for the Soviet people all foreigners were supposed to be capitalists' agents dreaming of destroying the most beautiful country in the world. And internal populations were "our home traitors or foreing spies" that have to be dealt with.

Because they're the same exact ideas that had currency throughout Europe at the time, and these ideas dehumanized Africans as animalistic, childlike, unintelligent, etc.

With no interent in eveidence, Soviet people who were separated from Europe and the rest of the world by the iron curtain were unaware of current ideological trends elsewhere. Even if it was otherwise with Chukovsky the ideological pressure of the Party and severe censorship wouldn't permit him to publish anything that was at odds with the official policy of the Party especially propagating racism in children's verses.

By the way, I watched Trip to America again the other day and noticed some characters giving derogatory remarks about Africa. Was it racism? Or if they were blacks it wasn't? Just arrogance of Americans as to the poor uncultured areas? The same could be said of Chukovsky's verses, in my view.

So what would you have done about the unfair and oppressive treatment of black people at all points in the justice and carceral systems, as well as the systemic practices and conditions that leave them more liable to be preyed upon by the former? If it satisfies you to see millions of black men tormented because one celebrity was not convicted, that is a wholly disproportionate set of priorities and one I suspect you would not apply to white people.

No torments satisfy me. But I again pay attention to the facts which differ from the general tendency.

That's the whole point. If it helps, modify to slogan to read "Black Lives Matter Too."

That's a perfect idea. But I can't modify slogans of a political movement. If BLM supporters do it I would welcome the change. But would they? I doubt.

The police who have nothing to do with police crimes and moreover condemn them tend to be forced out of their jobs as police.

So can we surmise that 12%+ of cops who are black and aren't forced of their jobs nationwide are in agreement with racist practices exercised by their PDs?

That's fine, but I don't make a point of offering awfully tone-deaf and ignorant comments about ongoing social conflicts in Ukraine.

I express my take on the issue. You may qualify it as you like. Being emotionally invested impacts your objectivity (if it is attainable in such issues). Like when I criticized Trump my comments didn't seem to you tone-deaf and ignorant. How come? Not because they chime with your attitude?

[ReluctantSamurai]

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/07/u...e-abolish.html

Protesters’ cries to defund or abolish the police are often not meant literally. Rather, they are demands to rethink a law enforcement system from the ground up and to grapple with deeply ingrained issues, including employing officers who do not live in the city they police — as is done in Minneapolis — and sending armed officers to respond to situations that turn out not to be crimes, as when a mentally ill person is in distress.

If you have never experienced what is is like to actually know the officers who are policing you, and have them as neighbors, my experience with a pilot project on the east side of Detroit shows that in-city or in-neighborhood officers is extremely important.

As part of a larger project to overhaul the DPD in 2013, the East English Village section of Detroit began deploying NPO's (Neighborhood Police Officers) to patrol the nearly 2100 homes in the district. These were part of the DPD, and were trained at the Detroit Police Training Academy. It was required that they live in the district, and they were allowed to purchase homes foreclosed by the city at a reduced price, if they so desired.

EEV held regular monthly meetings to discuss Village events and as a way to get to know other residents of the community. The NPO's (there were 3) were always present at the meetings, and people could discuss local problems with them and arrive at solutions. It wasn't long before you knew them by name, and they knew yours. Folks almost always brought baked goods or other food items for the NPO's, even though the Village provided food for the meeting. The first time I saw this I thought, who does that? The captain from the 5th Precinct attended quarterly with reports on crime rates, types of crimes, etc. I lived in EEV for 6 years, and every year drug related crimes, as well as violent crimes decreased y-o-y. This is not to say everything in Detroit is smelling like roses, because there are still large swaths of the city that could be used as a set for filming an episode of The Walking Dead. But it's a start, and other areas of the city are now trying out the same approach.

An anecdotal story as to how integrated the NPO's became: EEV sponsors various friendly competitions amongst homeowners, and one of them is a landscaping contest. The only award is street bragging rights, and a plaque awarding 1st, 2d, or 3d in the competition. Several blocks down my street lived an elderly woman with the proverbial 'green thumb'. Impeccable yard full of colorful flowers, shrubs and trees. Of course she always took 1st, but nobody grumbled...the place was a beautiful reflection of the community.

Unfortunately, it's a big city, and bad big-city things happen. Some kids decided to have a little "fun" at her expense, and tore up the yard one evening, ripping out a lot of shrubbery and destroyed her flower beds. In response, EEV folks got together on a weekend, and repaired/replanted her entire yard with the Village footing the bill for the new plants and shrubs. Every one of those NPO's showed up at one time or another over the weekend to put in some work. Again, who does that?

Anyway, Idaho will probably be bitching this is tl:dr, so enough BTW, all the NPO's are black, and so is the district captain.

[ReluctantSamurai]

A follow-up on the "Ken & Karen" story from St. Louis:

https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/...0225dd287.html

[Montmorency]

Of interest:
https://www.hcn.org/issues/52.7/publ...ing-the-police

Mobile, community-based crisis programs employ first responders that are not police to address disturbances where crimes are not being committed. One of the nation’s longest-running examples is CAHOOTS — Crisis Assistance Helping Out On The Streets — in Eugene, Oregon. CAHOOTS has inspired similar programs in other cities in the region, including the Denver Alliance for Street Health Response, Mobile Assistance Community Responders of Oakland and Portland Street Response in Oregon.

Such programs take police out of the equation when someone is going through a mental health crisis, struggling with substance abuse, or experiencing homelessness. When police show up, situations can escalate, and the use of force can be disproportionate, especially towards Black people; a 2016 study estimated that 20% to 50% of fatal encounters with law enforcement involved someone with a mental illness. Advocates say the CAHOOTS model shows those encounters aren’t inevitable: Less than 1% of the calls that CAHOOTS responds to need police assistance. The CAHOOTS system relies on trauma-informed de-escalation and harm reduction, which reduces calls to police, averts harmful arrest-release-repeat cycles, and prevents violent police encounters.

THE WHITE BIRD CLINIC in Eugene started CAHOOTS 31 years ago as an alternative for people who felt alienated or disenfranchised from systems that had failed them, CAHOOTS Operations Coordinator Tim Black said in an interview. “We’re there to listen, we’re there to empathize, and we’re there to really reflect on what they’re going through,” and to discuss ways to access resources to help them. CAHOOTS — a free, 24/7 community service — is funded by Eugene and neighboring Springfield at a cost of around $2 million, equal to just over 2% of their police departments’ annual budgets. The program is currently fundraising to expand and make up for COVID-19-related budget cuts.

Under the model, instead of police, a medic and a mental health worker are dispatched for calls such as welfare checks or potential overdoses. In 2017, such teams answered 17% of the Eugene Police Department’s overall call volume. This has saved the city, on average, $8.5 million each year from 2014-2017, according to the White Bird Clinic.

hough CAHOOTS uses the police department’s central dispatch, it is distinct from the department. Employees do not carry guns or wear uniforms; instead, they wear casual hoodies and drive vans with a dove painted on the side. CAHOOTS’ methods are designed to prevent escalation, Black said. “If an officer enters that situation with power, with authority, with that uniform and a command presence, that situation is really likely to escalate.”

It’s a false assumption that people experiencing a mental health crisis will respond violently, Black said, and a police response is often unnecessary. CAHOOTS fielded over 24,000 calls last year; less than 1% of them needed assistance from police, and no one has ever been seriously injured.

CAHOOTS differs from other mental health partnerships with the police in important ways: Staff employ “unconditional positive regard,” a phrase from psychology that means complete support and acceptance for the people they encounter, and the organization is run as a “consensus collective,” rather than a hierarchy. Every employee’s voice carries equal weight.

Each crisis worker completes 500 hours of training in areas including medical care, conflict resolution and crisis counseling. Around 60% of CAHOOTS’ patients are homeless, and about 30% have severe or persistent mental illness. “The patient that we’re serving is the expert in their situation,” Black said. “They know that we’re a voluntary resource and that we’re not going to take their rights away just because we’ve shown up on scene.”

It has nothing to do with charity. I pay attnetion to the facts that are overlooked by the lopsided presentation.

That's not how you're presenting. You interposed yourself to redirect attention from malgovernance and racial repression to the mixed record of a murdered man. To do this implies that you believe the latter should be emphasized in place of the former.

Attitudes. You may have failed to notice but this forum (as probably all social media) is about expressing attitudes.

OK, but why and whence? Are we here reproducing irritable gestures lacking mental ingredients? It's impossible to say, but I like to assume that if I believed 'Trump is awful in every way but ultimately there is no philosophical justification for that belief' I wouldn't bother to post about it.

Since officially all Soviet people were brethern supposed to converge into a pan-ethnic entity one of these days racist attitudes were never shaped into "Kazakhs shouldn't be accepted to Universities" or "Let's not hire him because he is an Uzbek". Moreover, in national republics it could be vice versa with stressing prevalence of local nations over Russians.

Classically, xenophobia is the fear or hatred of that which is perceived to be foreign or strange. Not necesserily of other race. And for the Soviet people all foreigners were supposed to be capitalists' agents dreaming of destroying the most beautiful country in the world. And internal populations were "our home traitors or foreing spies" that have to be dealt with.

They could be deviationists, spies, saboteurs, (((rootless cosmopolitans)))...

These labels and the force behind them were applied in an ethnically-discriminatory way as a general practice, but time and again it was constructed as an essentially ethnic disturbance against the state. Perpetually with non-Russians or Turkic peoples, but of course:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhdanov_Doctrine
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish...cist_Committee
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctors%27_plot

With no interent in eveidence, Soviet people who were separated from Europe and the rest of the world by the iron curtain were unaware of current ideological trends elsewhere.

The Soviet people were not so shut off from Europe that they abraded away the entire cultural and intellectual influence of the 19th century - indeed, the opposite was the case. The Soviet government was intensely interested in promulgating cultural products of Europe in the domains of art, architecture, literature, language, music, etc. In any case we are speaking of widespread ideas so common and basic that they were not much questioned, like the concept of marriage.

Even if it was otherwise with Chukovsky the ideological pressure of the Party and severe censorship wouldn't permit him to publish anything that was at odds with the official policy of the Party especially propagating racism in children's verses.

You beg the question in assuming party functionaries would be non-racist in identifying racism.

So far, you've been leaning on the excuses that the author had no choice but to wax poetic about the savagery of Africa (and that this would be non-racist in any case), that Russians were too isolated to have a concept of anti-African racism, or that the writings could not by any Scottish definition be racist if the Soviet government permitted their publication. Do you really not see the problem here?

By the way, I watched Trip to America again the other day and noticed some characters giving derogatory remarks about Africa. Was it racism? Or if they were blacks it wasn't? Just arrogance of Americans as to the poor uncultured areas? The same could be said of Chukovsky's verses, in my view.

If you mean Eddie Murphy's Coming to America, I haven't seen it since I was a small child so I can't comment on what you heard. But, where would black Americans get racist ideas about Africa (or themselves) from? From white Americans.

No torments satisfy me. But I again pay attention to the facts which differ from the general tendency.

It's tempting to rephrase that as, 'prefer alternative facts that dispense the need to grapple with racial conflict.' You've taken the time to emphasize an individual victim's crimes, challenge the idea of the presence of racism in policing, defend police outside the set of those in the act of committing egregious crimes, deprioritize black lives in the context of those lives being at issue, and... plus some of the most far-fetched Soviet revisionism I've ever encountered.

But you're recalcitrant toward the question of advancing racial equality in the US or elsewhere.

What does it all amount to?

That's a perfect idea. But I can't modify slogans of a political movement. If BLM supporters do it I would welcome the change. But would they? I doubt.

If only they had formed a collective council to issue dogma proclaiming the most promising strategy to orient the movement around satisfying the intuitions of the, uhhhh, racially-skeptical. Maybe they assumed people of good will could work it out independently.

There are so many easily-digestible images, skits, videos breaking the Lives issue down, but here's this one.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1278796654443888641

So can we surmise that 12%+ of cops who are black and aren't forced of their jobs nationwide are in agreement with racist practices exercised by their PDs?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omert%C3%A0

I express my take on the issue. You may qualify it as you like. Being emotionally invested impacts your objectivity (if it is attainable in such issues). Like when I criticized Trump my comments didn't seem to you tone-deaf and ignorant. How come? Not because they chime with your attitude?

I don't recall you criticizing Trump, but it is possible that I take issue with meritless, incorrect, or otherwise objectionable comments and don't take issue with comments that are not such.

If I told you that Ukraine is a country that exists, what complaint would you raise? None, and moreover it would be beneath your notice for response. In telling you though that Ukraine is the manor of a Martian grandee populated by cow-human hybrids, I would be offending any number of perspectives at a staggering level.

TLDR: Wrong is not due any tribute paid to right.

[Gilrandir]

That's not how you're presenting. You interposed yourself to redirect attention from malgovernance and racial repression to the mixed record of a murdered man. To do this implies that you believe the latter should be emphasized in place of the former.

That's your impression. I speak of no emphasis but of awareness of negative sides which being emotionally invested many Americans tend to overlook or intentionally downplay.

OK, but why and whence? Are we here reproducing irritable gestures lacking mental ingredients?

Even if mental ingredients are aplenty still communicating in the social media is about exchanging personal attitudes mostly.

These labels and the force behind them were applied in an ethnically-discriminatory way as a general practice, but time and again it was constructed as an essentially ethnic disturbance against the state.

Ethnic! Not racial. Ethnic-focused purges were often aimed at white people who were deemed to differ politically (like the Baltic peoples and Ukrainians deported to Syberia).

The Soviet people were not so shut off from Europe that they abraded away the entire cultural and intellectual influence of the 19th century - indeed, the opposite was the case. The Soviet government was intensely interested in promulgating cultural products of Europe in the domains of art, architecture, literature, language, music, etc. In any case we are speaking of widespread ideas so common and basic that they were not much questioned, like the concept of marriage.

This is totally wrong. Soviet authotities were interested in separating the USSR from the rest of the world and creating an entirely new society with entirely new ideology, art, literature, science and even language (see Newspeak) that had nothing to do whatsoever with the practices of rotten capitalism. And if any person working in these spheres was spotted bringing in чуждые веяния and преклонения перед Западом he was at best censured and at worst incarcerated or shot.

You beg the question in assuming party functionaries would be non-racist in identifying racism.

Since anti-racism was a part of official ideology and party functionaries were acutely alert to any (even imaginary) deviations from it I believe my statement holds.

So far, you've been leaning on the excuses that the author had no choice but to wax poetic about the savagery of Africa (and that this would be non-racist in any case), that Russians were too isolated to have a concept of anti-African racism, or that the writings could not by any Scottish definition be racist if the Soviet government permitted their publication. Do you really not see the problem here?

I don't. I wasn't leaning on excuses. I offered plenty of assumptions why Africa was used in the verse and some of them (or all of them taken together) might have served as a plausible explanation. For you, it is easier to explain it by racism (insulting the Scottish along the way), and get done with it. Yet neither you nor me will get down to the core since it is only Chukovsky himself or the people who were deep in his counsels may offer the answer.

If you mean Eddie Murphy's Coming to America, I haven't seen it since I was a small child so I can't comment on what you heard. But, where would black Americans get racist ideas about Africa (or themselves) from? From white Americans.

So American blacks humiliating African blacks is racism? Wouldn't xenophobia be a better fit?

And speaking of racism in movies. I can name plenty of films where the main/super hero is white, as well as many movies (often the same) where the archvillain is white. I also can recall a fair number of movies where the good guy is black (Equalizer, Blade, Book of Eli, all of Dwayne Johnson movies - even the black Hercules seemed appropriate to the director), but somehow the archvillain can never be black (the only exception I can think of is Demolition Man). Isn't that racist?

You've taken the time to emphasize an individual victim's crimes, challenge the idea of the presence of racism in policing,

I never said it was absent, I was surprised at how the black cops can participate in it.

defend police outside the set of those in the act of committing egregious crimes,

Why should good policemen be punihsed if they didn't do anything worth condemnation?

deprioritize black lives in the context of those lives being at issue,

You have suggested Black Lives Matter Too so you depriotized black lives yourself putting them on par with other lives. Which I totally agree with.

and... plus some of the most far-fetched Soviet revisionism I've ever encountered.

You consider explaining official Soviet ideology revisionism? Way to go.

But you're recalcitrant toward the question of advancing racial equality in the US or elsewhere.

If you read my posts again you would definitely see my basic tenet: all people should get equal treatment and be equally punished for whatever crime they committed. If you call this recalcitrance... Carry on!

What does it all amount to?

Arbitrary assumptions, based on misinterpretations and subsequent witchhunt.

If only they had formed a collective council to issue dogma proclaiming the most promising strategy to orient the movement around satisfying the intuitions of the, uhhhh, racially-skeptical. Maybe they assumed people of good will could work it out independently.

To be branded racist as that NBA announcer and get ostracized?

I don't recall you criticizing Trump, but it is possible that I take issue with meritless, incorrect, or otherwise objectionable comments and don't take issue with comments that are not such.

You are right. I didn't criticize him. I mocked him. But since this seems to be the attitude of ALL the people on these boards no one batted an eyelid. That's how attitudes in social media work.

In telling you though that Ukraine is the manor of a Martian grandee populated by cow-human hybrids, I would be offending any number of perspectives at a staggering level.

Judging from the percentage of Zelensky's supporters I would have to agree to this. Ruefully.

[ReluctantSamurai]

The broken link on the above "Ken & Karen" story has been fixed.

[Montmorency]

More evidence that the 2020 BLM protest wave is the biggest in American history. If the Women's March of 2017 had been the distinction-holder with at least 1% of the population participating, the BLM protests may have involved well over 5% of the population. That could be literally unprecedented in American history.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/...rowd-size.html

The protests may also be benefitting from a country that is more conditioned to protesting. The adversarial stance that the Trump administration has taken on issues like guns, climate change and immigration has led to more protests than under any other presidency since the Cold War.

More than 40 percent of counties in the United States — at least 1,360 — have had a protest. Unlike with past Black Lives Matter protests, nearly 95 percent of counties that had a protest recently are majority white, and nearly three-quarters of the counties are more than 75 percent white.

So this is what now, the top 5 protest movements in American history all under Trump?



Vstavaj strana ogromnaja

This is totally wrong. Soviet authotities were interested in separating the USSR from the rest of the world and creating an entirely new society with entirely new ideology, art, literature, science and even language (see Newspeak) that had nothing to do whatsoever with the practices of rotten capitalism. And if any person working in these spheres was spotted bringing in чуждые веяния and преклонения перед Западом he was at best censured and at worst incarcerated or shot.

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. 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. The assumptions popularly disseminated a hundred years ago haven't changed that much.

Another example of Western influence:

Since anti-racism was a part of official ideology and party functionaries were acutely alert to any (even imaginary) deviations from it I believe my statement holds.

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).

I don't. I wasn't leaning on excuses. I offered plenty of assumptions why Africa was used in the verse and some of them (or all of them taken together) might have served as a plausible explanation. For you, it is easier to explain it by racism (insulting the Scottish along the way), and get done with it. Yet neither you nor me will get down to the core since it is only Chukovsky himself or the people who were deep in his counsels may offer the answer.

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.

So American blacks humiliating African blacks is racism? Wouldn't xenophobia be a better fit?

An African American personally bullying a black African as such could be xenophobic, but the derogatory discourse itself around Africa is not something African Americans invented.

And speaking of racism in movies. I can name plenty of films where the main/super hero is white, as well as many movies (often the same) where the archvillain is white. I also can recall a fair number of movies where the good guy is black (Equalizer, Blade, Book of Eli, all of Dwayne Johnson movies - even the black Hercules seemed appropriate to the director), but somehow the archvillain can never be black (the only exception I can think of is Demolition Man). Isn't that racist?

You don't know much about American cinema if you think black villains are uncommon. Even worse if you think there ought to be a racial 'balance' in villains, or that this would preclude or remedy racism. Next tell me what you think of the ways characters are framed.

Why should good policemen be punihsed if they didn't do anything worth condemnation?

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

If an institution is defective then it will, as I belabor, concertively corrupt someone who was "good" coming in because the actors all work toward the same goals and norms. If these are self-serving and harmful to the general public, then it is impossible to persist within the institution without acceding to and becoming implicated in these practices. Good cops would have intervened against their colleague Chauvin and confidently brought him up for misconduct, rather than acting the cheerful accomplice.

But there is a common track for identifying those who can be reabsorbed or rehabilitated into reconstructed institutions. With police for example, one method that has been used in various times and places is to allow them to reapply for work in the new agencies, submitting to thorough review of their records and heightened recruitment standards. If they don't make the cut, they can't say they weren't given a chance.

You have suggested Black Lives Matter Too so you depriotized black lives yourself putting them on par with other lives. Which I totally agree with.

Your problem is that you defensively interpret "Black Lives Matter" as 'putting blacks above me', but the meaning is quite plain in that 'you are not above blacks'. It's an invitation (especially to complacent whites) to give some attention to the onerous burdens placed on them by a stubbornly-supremacist society. It's really simple.

You consider explaining official Soviet ideology revisionism? Way to go.

Не говори ерунды.

To be branded racist as that NBA announcer and get ostracized?

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.