Originally Posted by Jack_ (Post 8795933)

The evidence and facts actually stack up against your pretend argument, but you know that already

Originally Posted by LeatherTrumpet (Post 8795929)

i stick with evidence and fact not mass hysteria and mob justice

If you cant deal with that , tough

Originally Posted by Maru (Post 8798535)

This is #2 for us. We went through it with the first time with Goforth. My husband works for the Sheriff's Office and is a detention officer doing CIRT for the Mental Health Unit at the jail. I have another close family in the same building as well and we know a bunch that are on the streets.

The gas station where the Goforth shooting occurred is a place our close friend frequented while on patrol and it very easily could've been him. The Goforth's lived down the road and we are in the same district. It affected a lot of people in the community here so there was a huge outpouring of support from the community, which helps. We are still reeling from Goforth. These conversations sadly have become daily for us. There is high turnover right now where my husband is stationed so he is working insane hours. So some days he works 16 hour shifts and he's doing 2-3 of those a week. The turnover was bad before, but it's even worse now. I worry about him pumping gas or walking into a store with his uniform on.

You can understand how so much hate and vitriol is being spread if you listen/read our national mainstream media. Most of you are in the UK, so you don't know about our insanely outrageous media coverage. For example, with our local media Houston floods like crazy and we are no stranger to natural disasters, but as soon as water starts to enter people's homes, there's a helicopter, a crew and a phone call with a local neighbor describing the flowing water situation and a photo from Twitter of the cat floating away on a couch plastered all over the net and TV. Everything is sensationalized and over-hyped. It is embarrassingly excess.

National media is basically tabloids disguised as real news on TV 24/7. It is 95% entertainment, 4.9% headlines, .1% facts. 100% of the coverage is Donald Trump, BLM, evil law enforcement, dead people, mass shootings and constant coverage of celebrity deaths (like Anna Nicole Smith, who cares :shrug:). Donald Trump gets more coverage than the superbowl. A racist self-absorbed prick's opinion is more important than delivering the facts around majorly important issues. Ok.

If you listened to national media all day you would think our society has gone insane, but it's a major distortion of life here that people eat it up because it adds color and meaning to their otherwise mundane lives. Disenfranchised people want other people to blame. Businesses want other parties to be responsible for their failures. The public hear that actual effort won't fix the issues, but getting attention and promoting violence will (by suggesting people will arm themselves or go to the streets). The internet is a little better (depends on the station) because people read for content but even lately that's become more filler... thanks to Facebook cutting off the stream of cash flow to smaller outfits and ad-blockers.

Also, there is an high likelihood that the candidates and organizations pay a ton of people to post on websites which further adds to the distortions and vulgar sensationalism. Go on the Daily Mail and see how many people are turning unrelated news into conversations about Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump in comments section. If you click on some of them, you'll notice some of their posting histories are highly suspect. (also who has the money or time to care about spending all day commenting on news sites about politicians? Seriously.) Why would the media filter out those commentors if they're contributing to click rates? The same reason Facebook will have dead people follow brands, paid sponsorship.

That means for every much needed discussion about racism, you have an overly inciteful commentor writing "coded" messages towards in very particular personas in to distort the public's perception. Mix in a few actual crazies and it looks like the country is going seriously to pot and then legitimately people read these commenters thinking they are real posters and become really angry.

This kind of "sponsorship" is now common on social media. Let's not forget too the online media who have "guest bloggers" posting articles from a very biased POV.

"Are online comments full of paid lies?"
http://www.computerworld.com/article...aid-lies-.html


"Paid Commenters Hired By Fox News To Spread Right Wing Talking Points Across The Net"
http://addictinginfo.org/2013/10/27/...lood-internet/

Facebook will make your dead friend "like" stuff.

"Why are dead people liking stuff on Facebook"
http://readwrite.com/2012/12/11/why-...f-on-facebook/

"FB fans aren’t seeing your posts (and how to fix it)"
http://alwaysupward.com/blog/fb-fans...how-to-fix-it/



Let's not forget the filter bubble by way of Google through way of Personalized Search results... i.e. we generally only see views we agree with

Filter Bubble - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filter_bubble



So Americans on social media popularize the issues, even though not all social media websites are playing fair in publishing them. The media then dissects this into a persona, neglecting most of the facts and only picking it apart for entertainment/sensation value and then uses a baiting headline to incite reactions and then self-aggrandizing groups or political figuers such as the NRA, NAACP, Tea Party, Donald Trump, etc polarize the issues further to get attention and control perception because who cares about facts when they can push their platform and make $$$. Lather, rinse, repeat.

That last bit is the most important part and has gotten really out of control in the US the past several years. The media is becoming more and more nationalist and comments/retweets on my Twitter are starting to read like obituaries. We're not as dire as the media portrays, but it's the media that gives a platform to much of the vitriol that incites the violence. It started to get really bad after 9/11, we massively over-reacted to it politically and militarily and the media has been riding on a polarized public ever since.

Oh and voter apathy among minorities and moderates does not help. I was shocked to read Brexit voting population percentage was 70%+.... that would be a miracle here. We are lucky to get more than 50% of the population to vote in a general election. Far far less in a primary.

Originally Posted by Munchkins (Post 8795302)

Why am i not surprised many are using this as an excuse to completely discredit the blacklivesmatter movement and tar them all with the same brush
This was exactly the situation they needed, so they could exploit
Yes this is a tragedy, but this does not discredit the amount of police brutality towards POC in America. Both are tragic
Seeing many now trying to label blacklivesmatter as an extremist movement is just tragic

Originally Posted by microscope (Post 8797911)

Isn't it usually the case that when a police officer arrests or assaults or kills a black man or woman, they tend to play the race card straight away. They say "You killed him/her coz he/she was black". They say "You picked on him/her and arrested him/her coz he/she was black". They seem to interpret the situation the way that they see it through their rose-tinted spectacles, as if they can mind-read or something!!

Generally any police officer will arrest, assault or kill a man or a women who they believe is breaking the law and may be a danger to others, regardless of skin colour. The only racism is in the eye of the beholder or spectator who is black themselves and thinks every non-black police officer is racist.

The black man who went out with premeditated murder on his mind is nothing more than a murdering scumbag than needs a torturous type of capital punishment to make him suffer. I have no sympathy for him whatsoever or any other vigilante types who go after police officers who are out there risking their lives every day to save other people, just because they get it into their heads that their arresting actions are always racially motivated.

Originally Posted by Ninastar (Post 8798204)

What I find strange is that more white people have actually been killed by cops than any other race this year, yet no one seems to be protesting over that? :shrug:

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/n...gs-us-database

Originally Posted by microscope (Post 8797911)

Isn't it usually the case that when a police officer arrests or assaults or kills a black man or woman, they tend to play the race card straight away. They say "You killed him/her coz he/she was black". They say "You picked on him/her and arrested him/her coz he/she was black". They seem to interpret the situation the way that they see it through their rose-tinted spectacles, as if they can mind-read or something!!

Generally any police officer will arrest, assault or kill a man or a women who they believe is breaking the law and may be a danger to others, regardless of skin colour. The only racism is in the eye of the beholder or spectator who is black themselves and thinks every non-black police officer is racist.

The black man who went out with premeditated murder on his mind is nothing more than a murdering scumbag than needs a torturous type of capital punishment to make him suffer. I have no sympathy for him whatsoever or any other vigilante types who go after police officers who are out there risking their lives every day to save other people, just because they get it into their heads that their arresting actions are always racially motivated.

Originally Posted by Ammi (Post 8798713)

..it's not really the volume of those killed by the police though, Caitlin...whether there have been more white people than black people..?...it's whether those white people were 'justifiably' killed and whether there was no alternative because of the threat they were being at the time ...it seems that sadly too often, black people are killed by the police when there have been alternatives to loss of life in those situations...so that would be the comparison to make...

Originally Posted by Ninastar (Post 8798728)

We wouldn't know whether they were 'justifiably' killed or not though, because no one kicks up a fuss about it when they are white.

This sounds like I'm one of those 'WHITE LIVES MATTER!!!!!!!!' people but I'm not. I hate those people.

I'm just saying that I don't think its a race thing like people claim it is. If it was, there would be far, far many more POC killed than white people.

Perhaps we do need to look more into who we do employ as a police officer. But again, its a tricky one, we will never know how difficult it is to be an officer. I once watched this and I thought it was pretty interesting.

Originally Posted by Northern Monkey (Post 8794857)

Well why don't they just make their slogan 'black lives matter too' to stop any confusion?Having a slogan like that which implies that only black lives matter is bound to cause controversy.
Some of these blm people actually do think that only black lives matter and are racist.Those are the ones who give blm the bad reputation they have and detract from their cause.Most black people are killed by other black people but they don't go protesting over that.

Originally Posted by Munchkins (Post 8795302)

Why am i not surprised many are using this as an excuse to completely discredit the blacklivesmatter movement and tar them all with the same brush
This was exactly the situation they needed, so they could exploit
Yes this is a tragedy, but this does not discredit the amount of police brutality towards POC in America. Both are tragic
Seeing many now trying to label blacklivesmatter as an extremist movement is just tragic

Originally Posted by Ammi (Post 8798713)

..it's not really the volume of those killed by the police though, Caitlin...whether there have been more white people than black people..?...it's whether those white people were 'justifiably' killed and whether there was no alternative because of the threat they were being at the time ...it seems that sadly too often, black people are killed by the police when there have been alternatives to loss of life in those situations...so that would be the comparison to make...

Originally Posted by Ammi (Post 8798713)

..it's not really the volume of those killed by the police though, Caitlin...whether there have been more white people than black people..?...it's whether those white people were 'justifiably' killed and whether there was no alternative because of the threat they were being at the time ...it seems that sadly too often, black people are killed by the police when there have been alternatives to loss of life in those situations...so that would be the comparison to make...

Originally Posted by Maru (Post 8798535)

This is #2 for us. We went through it with the first time with Goforth. My husband works for the Sheriff's Office and is a detention officer doing CIRT for the Mental Health Unit at the jail. I have another close family in the same building as well and we know a bunch that are on the streets.

The gas station where the Goforth shooting occurred is a place our close friend frequented while on patrol and it very easily could've been him. The Goforth's lived down the road and we are in the same district. It affected a lot of people in the community here so there was a huge outpouring of support from the community, which helps. We are still reeling from Goforth. These conversations sadly have become daily for us. There is high turnover right now where my husband is stationed so he is working insane hours. So some days he works 16 hour shifts and he's doing 2-3 of those a week. The turnover was bad before, but it's even worse now. I worry about him pumping gas or walking into a store with his uniform on.

You can understand how so much hate and vitriol is being spread if you listen/read our national mainstream media. Most of you are in the UK, so you don't know about our insanely outrageous media coverage. For example, with our local media Houston floods like crazy and we are no stranger to natural disasters, but as soon as water starts to enter people's homes, there's a helicopter, a crew and a phone call with a local neighbor describing the flowing water situation and a photo from Twitter of the cat floating away on a couch plastered all over the net and TV. Everything is sensationalized and over-hyped. It is embarrassingly excess.

National media is basically tabloids disguised as real news on TV 24/7. It is 95% entertainment, 4.9% headlines, .1% facts. 100% of the coverage is Donald Trump, BLM, evil law enforcement, dead people, mass shootings and constant coverage of celebrity deaths (like Anna Nicole Smith, who cares :shrug:). Donald Trump gets more coverage than the superbowl. A racist self-absorbed prick's opinion is more important than delivering the facts around majorly important issues. Ok.

If you listened to national media all day you would think our society has gone insane, but it's a major distortion of life here that people eat it up because it adds color and meaning to their otherwise mundane lives. Disenfranchised people want other people to blame. Businesses want other parties to be responsible for their failures. The public hear that actual effort won't fix the issues, but getting attention and promoting violence will (by suggesting people will arm themselves or go to the streets). The internet is a little better (depends on the station) because people read for content but even lately that's become more filler... thanks to Facebook cutting off the stream of cash flow to smaller outfits and ad-blockers.

Also, there is an high likelihood that the candidates and organizations pay a ton of people to post on websites which further adds to the distortions and vulgar sensationalism. Go on the Daily Mail and see how many people are turning unrelated news into conversations about Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump in comments section. If you click on some of them, you'll notice some of their posting histories are highly suspect. (also who has the money or time to care about spending all day commenting on news sites about politicians? Seriously.) Why would the media filter out those commentors if they're contributing to click rates? The same reason Facebook will have dead people follow brands, paid sponsorship.

That means for every much needed discussion about racism, you have an overly inciteful commentor writing "coded" messages towards in very particular personas in to distort the public's perception. Mix in a few actual crazies and it looks like the country is going seriously to pot and then legitimately people read these commenters thinking they are real posters and become really angry.

This kind of "sponsorship" is now common on social media. Let's not forget too the online media who have "guest bloggers" posting articles from a very biased POV.

"Are online comments full of paid lies?"
http://www.computerworld.com/article...aid-lies-.html


"Paid Commenters Hired By Fox News To Spread Right Wing Talking Points Across The Net"
http://addictinginfo.org/2013/10/27/...lood-internet/

Facebook will make your dead friend "like" stuff.

"Why are dead people liking stuff on Facebook"
http://readwrite.com/2012/12/11/why-...f-on-facebook/

"FB fans aren’t seeing your posts (and how to fix it)"
http://alwaysupward.com/blog/fb-fans...how-to-fix-it/



Let's not forget the filter bubble by way of Google through way of Personalized Search results... i.e. we generally only see views we agree with

Filter Bubble - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filter_bubble



So Americans on social media popularize the issues, even though not all social media websites are playing fair in publishing them. The media then dissects this into a persona, neglecting most of the facts and only picking it apart for entertainment/sensation value and then uses a baiting headline to incite reactions and then self-aggrandizing groups or political figuers such as the NRA, NAACP, Tea Party, Donald Trump, etc polarize the issues further to get attention and control perception because who cares about facts when they can push their platform and make $$$. Lather, rinse, repeat.

That last bit is the most important part and has gotten really out of control in the US the past several years. The media is becoming more and more nationalist and comments/retweets on my Twitter are starting to read like obituaries. We're not as dire as the media portrays, but it's the media that gives a platform to much of the vitriol that incites the violence. It started to get really bad after 9/11, we massively over-reacted to it politically and militarily and the media has been riding on a polarized public ever since.

Oh and voter apathy among minorities and moderates does not help. I was shocked to read Brexit voting population percentage was 70%+.... that would be a miracle here. We are lucky to get more than 50% of the population to vote in a general election. Far far less in a primary.

Originally Posted by Ithinkiloveyoutoo (Post 8798784)

And that is it. People don't seem to get it.
PS- I am skeptical about the numbers we are presented with in terms of deaths. There was a percentage that Trump shouted out which turned out to be false. So it really needs to be paid attention to, who is releasing these numbers.

Originally Posted by Ninastar (Post 8798728)

We wouldn't know whether they were 'justifiably' killed or not though, because no one kicks up a fuss about it when they are white.

This sounds like I'm one of those 'WHITE LIVES MATTER!!!!!!!!' people but I'm not. I hate those people.

I'm just saying that I don't think its a race thing like people claim it is. If it was, there would be far, far many more POC killed than white people.

Perhaps we do need to look more into who we do employ as a police officer. But again, its a tricky one, we will never know how difficult it is to be an officer. I once watched this and I thought it was pretty interesting.

Originally Posted by Ninastar (Post 8798204)

What I find strange is that more white people have actually been killed by cops than any other race this year, yet no one seems to be protesting over that? :shrug:

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/n...gs-us-database