You’re saying the white people are lying?
That Syria picture is incredible.
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Listened to Deray on the BS podcast. While I intuitively thought some of the stats were bad backfitting and agree w/ that critique, the point of focusing on these eight is that they can be changed by a supposedly “liberal” mayor like DeBlasio, Garcetti, etc in short order. The other changes Deray wants are in police union contracts protected by law that can only be renegotiated periodically (like 4 to 6 years), statutory law, etc.
When BS asked Deray why things haven’t gotten better since the BLM started in 2014 his answer was we demanded change but had no idea what the machinery of government looked like or operated, and without that they didn’t even know what specific changes to fight for. Police union contracts aren’t even public record so Deray spent years requesting, FOIA’ing and suing just to get access to them. So when those contracts are up, Deray advocates for change way beyond these eight.
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Nope. Saying I felt completely safe during my interactions. That said, the more bars on a cops sleeve, the longer it took to end the encounter. If you’re white and not doing anything to escalate, you got no worries.
Buffalo’s (black) mayor is on Rachel Maddow’s show. Mealy-mouthed piece of shit still defending these fuckwad cops. Fuck this guy.
ETA He did at least call out the police union at the end, that’s…something I guess. But you can tell he really likes being the mayor and wants to keep being the mayor so he’s gonna keep fuckin that cop chicken.
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The Army brass has warned Trump they will disobey orders to mow down protestors. That’s my reading of this amazing letter sent to all troops.
A message to the Army community about civil unrest
By U.S. Army June 3, 2020
Dear Soldiers, Civilians, Family members and Soldiers for Life:
Over the past week, the country has suffered an explosion of frustration over the racial divisions that still plague us as Americans. And because your Army is a reflection of American society, those divisions live in the Army as well. We feel the frustration and anger. We felt it this week while traveling through the nation’s capital with the DC National Guard. We feel it, even though we can never fully understand the frustration and life experiences of people of color, in or out of uniform. But we do understand the importance of taking care of people, and of treating every person with dignity and respect.
Our ability to defend this country from all enemies, foreign and domestic, is founded upon a sacred trust with the American people. Racial division erodes that trust. Though we all aspire to live by the Army values of loyalty, duty, respect, selfless service, honor, integrity, and personal courage, the Army has sometimes fallen short. Because just as we reflect the best of America, we reflect its imperfections as well. We need to work harder to earn the trust of mothers and fathers who hesitate to hand their sons and daughters into our care. How we respond to the anger that has ignited will chart the course of that trust.
Every Soldier and Department of the Army Civilian swears an oath to support and defend the Constitution. That includes the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. We will continue to support and defend those rights, and we will continue to protect Americans, whether from enemies of the United States overseas, from COVID-19 at home, or from violence in our communities that threatens to drown out the voices begging us to listen. To Army leaders of all ranks, listen to your people, but don’t wait for them to come to you. Go to them. Ask the uncomfortable questions. Lead with compassion and humility, and create an environment in which people feel comfortable expressing grievances. Let us be the first to set the example. We are listening. And we will continue to put people first as long as we are leading the Army. Because people are our greatest strength.
God bless all of the people of our United States Army: our Soldiers, Families, Civilians, and Soldier for Life retirees and veterans. And God bless the United States of America.
Michael A. Grinston
Sergeant Major of the Army
James C. McConville
General, United States Army
Ryan D. McCarthy
Secretary of the Army
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We all protest in whatever way we can. 
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So i know there were some discussions the other day, including @skydiver8 specifically about universal healthcare and capitalism/racism.
I’ve been reading “How to be an Antiracist” by Ibram X. Kendi. This passage below struck me as well said and relevant to the discussion and probably encompasses what people here were trying to say about capitalism. This might not be the same thread it was discussed in but I’m too lazy to look and im about to type all this out from the book, last paragraph is the one i was thinking about but read it all:
I keep using the term “anticapitalist” as opposed to socialist or communist to include the people who publicly or privately question or loathe capitalism but do not identify as socialist or communist. I use “anticapitalist” because conservative defenders of capitalism regularly say their liberal and socialist opponents are against capitalism. They say effors to provide a safety net for all people are “anticapitalist.” They say attempts to prevent monopolies are “anticapitalist.” They say efforts that strengthen weak unions and weaken exploitative owners are “anticapitalist.” They say plans to normalize worker ownership and regulations protecting consumers, workers, and enviroments from big business are “anticapitalist.” They say laws taxing the richest more than the middle class, redistributing pilfered wealth, and guaranteeing basic incomes are “anticapitalist.” They say wars to end poverty are “anticapitalist”. They say campaigns to remove the profit motive from essential life sectors like education, healthcare, utilities, mass media, and incarceration are “anti capitalist.”
In doing so, these conservative defenders are defining capitalism. They define capitalism as the freedom to exploit people into economic ruin, the freedom to assassinate unions, the freedom to prey on unprotected consumers, workers, and enviroments; the freedom to value quarterly profits over climate change; the freedom to undermine small businesses and cushion corporations; the freedom from competition; the freedom to not pay taxes; the freedom to heave the tax burden onto the middle and lower classes; the freedom to comodify everything and everyone; the freedom to keep poor people poor and middle income people struggling to stay middle income, and make rich people richer. The history of capitalism - of world warring, classing, slave trading, enslaving, colonizing, depressing wages, and dispossessing land and labor and resoruces and rights - bears out the conservative definition of capitalism.
later on in the chapter:
To love capitalism is to end up loving racism. To love racism is to end up loving capitalism. The conjoined twins are two sides of the same destructive body. The idea that capitalism is merely free markets, competition, free trade, supplying and demanding, and private ownership of the means of production operating for a profit is whimsical and ahistorical as the white supremacist idea that calling something racist is the primary form of racism. Popular definitions of capitalism, like popular racist ideas, do not live in history or material reality. Capitalism is essentially racist; racism is essentially capitalist. They were birthed together from the same unnatural causes, and they shall one day die together from unnatural causes. Or racial capitalism will live into another epoch of theft and rapacious inequity, especially if activists naively fight the conjoined twins independently, as if they are not the same.
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Sorry, my question should’ve read like “You’re saying the white people are lying / incorrect about their feelings?”
The poll point seemed to be simply “afraid of police”.
I’m trying to imagine saying this after the past week of seeing a bunch of Karens with their eyeballs filled with tear gas and rubber bullets lodged in their foreheads and am coming to the conclusion that I must be misunderstanding something.
Deray is pretty well mistrusted among actual black activists and organizers as someone who’s blatantly in it for himself at best and someone who’s an op to water down demands for real change at worst.
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It’s always a bird…
Well, I see that you’re Listening To Black People™ but you should be aware that you’re listening to the wrong black people.
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not sure if serious…
Part of longer thread:
https://twitter.com/TanyaRayFox/status/1268588491283128320?s=19
https://twitter.com/TanyaRayFox/status/1268588495255162880?s=19
I mean, that probably isn’t what they signed up for. And they for sure didn’t think their training experience would be with sort of Vic Mackey Strike Team style unit where they respond to a passing a fake twenty and end up getting charged with accessory to murder.
And I’d like to think that in their shoes I’d put a stop to what the murderer did but shit man it’s their third day. It’s hard to say something in that situation. Let alone forcefully insist on something, which is what it probably would have taken to stop things.
Yeah I saw on Reddit he supported and did commercials for " family first " group that promoted conversion therapy in the past as well and other awful stuff.
Drew Brees definitely a POS.
https://twitter.com/AnonymeCitoyen/status/1269022650908790784?s=09
We need to step our troll game up.
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I wasn’t out there during times of civil unrest, so my experience is apples to oranges. I never took an aggressive posture with them and they never threatened me. I don’t think my original point is valid.