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The Lounge / Re: Louisiana
« on: December 02, 2014, 08:40:16 AM »This is telling. African-Americans are not foreign. I know exactly what you mean though. A lot of white people do have this mentality. They literally say things like "such and such neighborhood is like a third world country."
You see why Black people would be so upset by this? They are as American as American gets and they're still being treated by the cops as if the cops are European colonialists in Africa, along the lines of a famous (but false) quote "The natives are restless."
I'm not implying these neighborhoods aren't part of America, but a different part of America a lot of people aren't exposed to. Texas is different from California, Chinatown is different from Tucson. This country is too big and diverse to be one thing but...
Your right a lot of people view the ghettos in a different light than from what they view the rest of America. Whatever bad shit happens in the ghettos, as long as it stays in the ghetto, it's their problem, like it's not something that is happening all across America. Something bad happens in 'mainstream' America the news are trying to fix it for weeks.
I would say that Officer Wilson's assertion that he felt "fear" and was claiming to being overpowered was the sub-conscious cue for a lot of people. How could a 6'4" tall police officer be that fearful of another unarmed 6'4" man? Only in the cultural context of white people's fear of black anger.
Which again, your statement is so telling: "I'm sure as a white boy in blue in a neighborhood like Ferguson is tough. There is so much pent up hatred by a few members of these communities for such people."
White people feel their fear is justified, and jurors sympathize with the white police officer over that. They are not empathizing with black people's fear of the police in the same way.
All that stuff is beyond me honestly, like I said earlier I don't think things are as cut and dry as a lot of people like to believe. I don't really get what it means to be black or white in , cause for fucking sure most people don't know what it means to be yellow and consider yourself American(that's a headache in itself). I do wish people could have more open discussions on the matter instead rushing to jump one one side whenever something happens between a white person and black person. In my experience dealing with people of all types of backgrounds, cultures, and races(perks of moving a lot and living in DC), most people are to busy with their lives to care about trivial shit like that and that's a good thing.