BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Helen
Date: 25 Jun 20 - 04:39 PM

pfr, I agree with what you said on 24 Jun 20 - 11:17 PM.

I just re-read an article from Oz ABC News:

How to learn from Indigenous people about the Black Lives Matter movement in Australia

I also remember hearing an African-American woman say on TV a few years ago that the white people who think they are not racist can be worse than the straight-out racists. I don't remember her exact words and I doubt whether I could find the reference, but from memory she was saying it is because their intentions are good but they don't necessarily question their own knowledge/understanding or actions enough.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 25 Jun 20 - 12:40 PM

I've just found out a new Documentary was about to be released before lockdown difficulties,
examining the late 1970s UK Rock Against Racism movement..

This was the turning point in my own teenage life,
as with so many of my small town provincial teen contemporaries,
when we were made aware that we did not have to be culturally institutionalized racists by default...

WE could all shake off all the conditioning and progress positively out of that narrow mindset...

https://www.modernfilms.com/whiteriot

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 25 Jun 20 - 11:52 AM

Forgot to mention, I'm in Charlottesville.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 25 Jun 20 - 11:52 AM

Lemme say this about that.

I participated in a trans/queer BLM thing yesterday. The tone was *radically* different from the BLM thing I tried to participate in back when the movement started... That one was angry, bleak, and threatening. This one was joyous, inclusive, and celebratory. I think we may, as Americans, have turned a corner towards unity. It was grand and glorious.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 25 Jun 20 - 11:49 AM

Mods - can you please put back Donuel's response to my post.

---

It's a non-sequitur when the original complaint was removed. A portion of it said pfr calmly described a type of liberal I too found pretentious if not detrimental to the cause. I encountered a few watching the Women's march. The rest can stay hidden, since it responded to a deleted post.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: keberoxu
Date: 25 Jun 20 - 10:20 AM

Change is happening, indeed --
although it is always
a change too late,
that somebody has to pay the cost with their own life
for the rest of us to get on with the change,
that is the tragedy of it.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 24 Jun 20 - 11:17 PM

As an individual white anti racist, I believe the sensible thing for me to do
is offer support and solidarity as an ally of BLM.

To calmly confront antagonistic racism when I encounter it.

But otherwise keep my mouth shut, and not be one of those ego driven white liberals,
who push to the front taking over centre stage of protests
in a most patronising and paternalistic manner..

Seems like there's been too many of them on the media and internet recently...

They make themselves look like useful idiot stereotypes the reactionaries can exploit for evil purposes,
and in so doing,
undermine the credibility of a far too serious cause.

Just the 'imho' of an insomniac...

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 24 Jun 20 - 05:05 PM

https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/a-high-tech-lynching-how-kavanaugh-took-a-page-from-the-thomas-playbook/

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 24 Jun 20 - 04:17 PM

Allow me to introduce George, a black man in his 60's, no not Floyd.
He knows exactly why he is racist and he knows why. Which makes him innocent of abject deliberate life taking hate. But he is angry.
He remembers every slur, look and beating. He knows why he was the only one to receive an 'all but dissertation'.
He went to his uncle's funeral who was shot by a policeman. Uncle Ben was sitting in his 18 year old Pontiac at a McDonald's drive thru under suspicion of driving a stolen vehicle. The hamburgers for his grand children never made it home. He has trusted a white man or two but has been disappointed too many times to count. When white people talk he hears a language that whites do not hear themselves.
George expcts a little change to come his way but knows it will be clawed back later to some unknown degree. Just like Obama followed by Trump.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 24 Jun 20 - 04:10 PM

Thomas wasn't lynched. Watch your rhetoric. Makes things worse, misusing inflammatory words

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 24 Jun 20 - 03:26 PM

40 years ago Thomas Farmer said everyone is racist,
but only those who actually know why are innocent of abject deliberate life taking hate.
So this is why I introduce you to Karen who is white and will tell you she does not have a racist bone in her body but has trouble with thugs taking over her streets or taking away her Aunt Jemima Pancake flour. "Afterall Aunt Jemima was a slave who was freed and made a successful business". Karen has even been heard speaking about welfare people being takers.
Karen sympathized with Justice Thomas being lynched by the media as well as Bret Kavanaugh. Karen accepts it as normal that Hurricane Katrina killed and stranded mostly blacks because it hit their neihborhood. The same is true of the pandemic because of the jobs blacks choose. Karen says she cares and knows all about MLK.
Karen was never called a nigger or Aunt Jemima or lost her kids or husband to a policeman. Karen was never red lined, she doesn't even know what it is. There is alot Karen doesn't know. Just like everyone here there is alot you don't know about 400 years of oppression and racism. Who blames you? How can you possibly know what you don't know?

I don't know what or how my whiteness saved my life in this culture, but I know that still makes me a participant in racism as well as a racist without knowingly practicing racism. Thomas Farmer said 40 years ago "everyone is a racist". Yes even you.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Mossback
Date: 24 Jun 20 - 12:06 PM

but I am tiiired of it.

So are ca. 70% of murricans.

Take it up with the Trump Cult (formerly the now defunct Republican Party).

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 24 Jun 20 - 12:03 PM

I am speaking of disarming the high capacity military stuff, the Humvees and such - the tactical military gear. There was a thing in the local news about some kind of bomb-proof tank vehicle given to the Fort Worth police in the last year.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 24 Jun 20 - 11:53 AM

Hmmm. Not sure I'm for *disarming* the cops, but de-*militarizing* yes. Cops should be civilians, guardians not warriors.

In fact I am really tired of war being the only metaphor... Fight drug abuse, war on terror[ism, anyway] etc. Where is Heal, or Cure? Where is Treat, or even Help?

I know murricans are all about violence being a first resort, but I am tiiired of it.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 24 Jun 20 - 11:20 AM

SRS, whilst I agree about disarming the police, it ain’t gonna happen until something is done about a draconian reduction of civilian gun-ownership. That surely is a self-evident truth?

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 24 Jun 20 - 09:40 AM

Rayshard Brooks' funeral was yesterday. If George Floyd's death was the period at the end of an all-too-long sentence about police brutality, Brooks' death was in that space before the next sentence begins.

Reverend Dr. Bernice A. King, daughter of the late civil rights leader and CEO of The Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change, also spoke at the service.

"We really should not be here today, this should not have happened to Rayshard," King said Tuesday. She called for police reform so that officers cannot "continue to hide behind badges" when using deadly force.

This is where cities and states need to step up into the space provided and enact legislation that shifts all of the dollars going to police into community programs intended to help people the police have never been equipped to work with. And to take away all of that militaristic hardware and firepower from the hands of an under-educated and under-trained group who, many of them, fancy themselves some kind of urban police warriors.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 24 Jun 20 - 12:17 AM

I don't know Bottoms, but I know Susan Rice has a lot of familiarity with federal government and how the White House is supposed to work. As does Harris, Warren, Duckworth - that office needs to be filled by someone who knows how to work with the federal system and what the rules and ethics are.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: mg
Date: 23 Jun 20 - 11:51 PM

change on the way. i think we will have an acting president who is a Black woman...I am hoping Keisha Lance Bottoms with Kamala Harris for AG. I think Biden needs to name them immediately and not dawdle. I don't get too passionate about politicians but the few minutes I have observed for KLB especially during violence impressed me as very few have ever impressed me. I think she is presidential, which is really what we are talking about. This is just a gut reaction. I have done some reading etc. but not enough.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 23 Jun 20 - 09:48 PM

Walkaround
The sign said "Go Slow"
And lord knows you tried to follow
Such a hard case with a soft face
You gave us a taste,
But a mistake's disgrace could grow
and your path to walk narrow.
Stop looking back and open your eyes

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 23 Jun 20 - 08:50 PM

I couldn't agree more. Soft faces, hard cases...

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 23 Jun 20 - 06:02 PM

WAV, every post you try to put up in this thread about Black Lives Matter is trying to change the subject to the importance of white lives. You're the "All Lives Matter" response that doesn't understand what the conversation is about. The last one was to post a story about a "disgraceful" murder of whites by someone of "African Origin."

You are tone deaf on this subject and refuse to try to understand it. Your poems are dated and off topic and posting links here seems to be the only way to drive traffic to your site. No wonder Amos didn't give you any slack.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 23 Jun 20 - 04:44 PM

Straying into Indian Territory when this thread is about Black Lives Matter. And I'm not going anywhere WAV wants to try to misdirect.

Meanwhile, in the death of George Floyd, four weeks later the Minneapolis Police Union has finally spoken.

In an interview Monday with CNN, union officials said they are being unfairly vilified by critics of the Minneapolis police department, and blasted local elected officials who have called for major reform of the department, even as union representatives offered little by way of specific policing reforms they would be willing to support.

"We have become scapegoats in this," said Bob Kroll, police union president, adding, "the people to blame lays squarely (sic) on the shoulders of our political leadership."

Minneapolis became a flashpoint for criminal justice reform advocates after Floyd was killed during an encounter with at least four of the city's police officers. In eyewitness video footage of the incident, former officer Derek Chauvin was seen pressing his knee to the Black man's neck for nearly eight minutes as Floyd lost consciousness.

Chauvin was charged by prosecutors with second-degree murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. The three other officers were charged with aiding and abetting second-degree murder, and aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter.
Asked by CNN about what went through his mind as he watched the video of Floyd being killed, police union representative Rich Walker said he was "horrified."

"I don't know what was going through Officer Chauvin's mind, but I can say that I don't agree with how it ended," said Walker. "And to this day I still believe that Mr. Floyd should still be here."
Those comments were echoed by Kroll; however, he stopped short of indicating what he thinks should happen to Chauvin -- instead insisting that he did not want to pass judgment on the former officer.

"There was a firefighter at the scene saying, you know, 'check him, check him'. The light should have went (sic) off to do that, but we're not going to pass judgment," Kroll said. "The justice system is going to prevail."

It sounds like a lot of squirming to point the finger at political leaders (who do have responsibility) and the fire fighter who said "check him" (should he have pushed the officer off and checked sooner?) - nevermind that the unions have things set up so responsible officers are rarely charged. I'm a big supporter of unions, but clearly these aren't in place just to negotiate salaries and health benefits.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 23 Jun 20 - 04:39 PM

I just had post removed very similar to what Twitter and Facebook have accepted - could a moderator please let me know if it was removed by mistake and, if so, I shall re-post it here.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: keberoxu
Date: 23 Jun 20 - 03:31 PM

To be exact, it was the Supreme Court --
the judicial branch --
in 1832: state of Georgia versus the Cherokee nation.
Gold had been found on Cherokee land, so Georgia wanted the land.

Chief Justice John Marshall did not have long to live when
this case came to the Supreme Court, and he ruled that
treaties were violated by the state of Georgia seizing the land.
It was then -- this is apocryphal, but much quoted --
that President Jackson said,
"John Marshall has made his decision,
now let him enforce it."

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 23 Jun 20 - 03:29 PM

Sorry? What shit are you trying to stir, ABCD?

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: An Buachaill Caol Dubh
Date: 23 Jun 20 - 03:25 PM

So, just about forty years before your President Grant's "war of extermination" against the indigenous peoples?

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: keberoxu
Date: 23 Jun 20 - 03:19 PM

Yes, I remember what I learned about 'Old Hickory' Jackson,
and what I learned referenced American Indians
(an unavoidable component of African-American bloodlines).

There was a resolution or decision arrived at by either
the legislative or judicial branch regarding
the government's mistreatment of American Indians,
and when it came to President Jackson, he said something
to the effect of ,
Well, you're entitled to your opinion,
and you can decide what you want to decide --
now, let's see you ENFORCE it ...

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 23 Jun 20 - 01:48 PM

A typical trip made by Jackson was by horseback from Tennesee to Niagrara Falls. Trump wouldn't last 10 miles by horseback, but neither could the horse.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 23 Jun 20 - 01:36 PM

The only thing Trump shares with Jackson is racism
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/donald-trump-andrew-jackson

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 23 Jun 20 - 12:40 PM

Andrew Jackson should have been one of the first removed. And then if there are any around still of the first President Johnson (Abraham Lincoln's VP Andrew Johnson) he definitely needs to go.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 23 Jun 20 - 07:27 AM

At the White House, Demonstrators tried to remove the Andrew Jackson Statue in LaFayette park. Police defended the statue but it now has been painted with the word killer.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: gillymor
Date: 22 Jun 20 - 08:14 AM

This inspired rant by Gary Chambers Jr. before the Baton Rouge school board regarding the renaming of Robert E. Lee High School is well worth a look, along with the accompanying story at CNN.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 21 Jun 20 - 02:35 PM

... that she discussed no longer using the term "slave," but instead using "enslaved persons."

How long before "enslaved person" is rejected in favour of "person of enslavement"?

DC

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 21 Jun 20 - 01:48 PM

Annoying to you, perhaps, but important to an African American woman. Who gets a vote in this.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 21 Jun 20 - 12:24 PM

"Enslaved person" is annoying and redundant, but it is common down here too.

Scrabble players are apparently trying to define the word jew as a slur. It can only be a slur if you consider being jewish as awful. Sigh.

Eskimo pies are also to be renamed. Anybody read Cheaper By The Dozen?

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 21 Jun 20 - 11:47 AM

Terry Gross interviewed Rhiannon Giddens in 2017 and it was repeated on June 19, 2020.

Today's first guest is singer and songwriter Rhiannon Giddens, who has devoted much of her career to finding and interpreting music from the African American tradition. She grew up in the South in North Carolina. Her mother is African American. Her father is white. He sang classical music. Giddens studied opera at Oberlin, but she found her musical identity after graduation, when she started playing string-band music from the African-American tradition, songs from the 1920s and '30s. She co-founded the band The Carolina Chocolate Drops and also released several solo albums.

Her latest album, "There Is No Other," is a collaboration with Italian multi-instrumentalist Francesco Turrisi. It was released last year. Her solo album before that, "Freedom Highway," included songs she wrote based on slave narratives. That album from 2017 also included a song called "Better Get It Right The First Time," which sadly couldn't be more timely. She wrote it in respones to police shootings of young black men who weren't committing crimes.

Terry Gross interviewed Rhiannon Giddens when that album was released, and Giddens brought her banjo to the studio to accompany herself while singing some songs. But before we revisit their conversation, let's hear a track from "Freedom Highway." The song is called "Come Love Come" and was inspired by slave narratives.

I think it was in this interview that she discussed no longer using the term "slave," but instead using "enslaved persons."

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Mossback
Date: 21 Jun 20 - 09:59 AM

Perfectly good term with a health pedigree, what's annoying about it ?


Sigh.

By definition, slaves were not paid. They were property.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 21 Jun 20 - 04:03 AM

"Slave wages"
Perfectly good term with a health pedigree, what's annoying about it ?
TRY HERE
OR HERE
HERE TOO
AND THE WEST BENEFITS
Perfect term, I think
Jim

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 20 Jun 20 - 10:27 PM

wage slaves...

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Mossback
Date: 20 Jun 20 - 06:28 PM

"Slave wages" is a contradiction in terms, and one of the more annoying ones.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 20 Jun 20 - 05:39 PM

Sugar Plantations around the world were slave enterprises from the Americas to French Guyana and even OZ. European sweet tooths were insatiable.

IMO slave wages like minimum wage is still with us.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Helen
Date: 20 Jun 20 - 04:43 PM

Donuel, unfortunately this is not true: "Chattel slavery was never implemented in Australia and slavery was never legally sanctioned"

After our Prime Minister
Scott Morrison's 'no slavery' comment he was reminded about a practice known as blackbirding in Australia.

"As many as 62,500 South Sea Islanders were brought to Australia to work on farms from 1863 to 1904

"Their descendants are calling for the Prime Minister to learn more about the history of slavery"

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 20 Jun 20 - 03:50 PM

Cream of Wheat, too. I never even noticed that it had a person on the box, let alone that they were whoever they are. But I have also never purchased that inedible product. And I thought Mrs. Butterworth was just fat, not of a particular skin color. And fat.
There was a kid in my collège Mermoz when I was in Abidjan whose name was Dury. They called him Oncle Benz, but the reference had to be explained to me (Dury is pronounced like Du riz [some rice], and I had never heard of Uncle Ben's.
What's white and crawls up your leg? Uncle Ben's perverted rice.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 20 Jun 20 - 02:51 PM

"At least Blacks weren't hunted for sport in the U.S"
Not for port maybe - doesn't mean the killers didn't enjoy it
CALIFORNIA GENOCIDE
Jim

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: gillymor
Date: 20 Jun 20 - 02:43 PM

Re health care in the U.S., one of trump's major initiatives has been to eliminate The Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare), which ironically proved to be very popular with much of his working class supporters as the ACA made it possible for many of them to afford decent health care. Now with the virus and extremely high unemployment they're going to need it more than ever. During the 2016 campaign trump promised to replace the ACA with something even better, so far bupkus, not even a nod in that direction. The funding was redirected to the wealthy in the form of massive tax cuts.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Mossback
Date: 20 Jun 20 - 10:20 AM

the US has a longer road of oppression to correct.

Longer (1619 instead of 1788) but hardly worse.

At least Blacks weren't hunted for sport in the U.S. See Robert Hughes, The Fatal Shore.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 20 Jun 20 - 09:11 AM

Chattel slavery was never implemented in Australia and slavery was never legally sanctioned, so indeed the US has a longer road of oppression to correct.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Helen
Date: 19 Jun 20 - 06:52 PM

Oh yes, and I forgot to mention our health care system.

I read an article which said that a man in the U.S. has been hit with a hospital bill for $1.1 million after over 60 days of treatment for COVID 19.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Helen
Date: 19 Jun 20 - 06:44 PM

Mrrzy, I didn't get your reference earlier to Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben but there was an article in Oz ABC News about the brand names. Now I get it.

What worries me is whether the marketing people will decide to not use African-American people at all in their ads, so the Black people will become even less present in advertising and risk becoming more invisible in perceptions of what is a "normal" social mix.

It's a social minefield, I think.

Australia has a long, long way to go in reaching equality and recognition of our First Nations people, so I know we are not beyond blame as a society, but there are some deeply embedded social expectations and protections in our society which appear to be sadly lacking in the U.S.

For a start, in Oz there are a whole host of laws against discrimination, and racial, ethnic or homophobic vilification, and there are stringent police procedures and protocols, etc etc. Yes, those protections are violated at times, much more than they should be, but the government takes proactive steps to safeguard these protections, and also although there are some media outlets which like stirring up trouble, our national broadcasting network is fair, balanced, and factual, and sometimes can determinedly and persistently push the politicians and people in power into very sticky corners if they are not doing the right thing.

So, there are rules and accepted processes but they are not just empty words on paper, stored on a dusty shelf - most of the time.

I know we can do better, and it's time we pulled out all the stops to sort out the constitution around First Nations peoples rights, but compared to how far the U.S. has to go, we're a bit further up the road to a balanced and fair society, in my opinion.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 19 Jun 20 - 06:27 PM

OMG The bottom has dropped out of the antique black lawn jocky market.
Eric Trump is bound to lose millions.