How to end systemic racism?

^bowie…always ahead of the times
such a gentleman

I love that last line where Goodman's like "Makes sense, valid point?" on why they don't want to 'get in trouble for showing black artists'

Bowie "I understand your point of view" and not at all agreeing with him
Others in the room heard laughing

Yup,..some pretty uncomfortable moments


The two most striking - other than the ending as you point out-are where Bowie responds “interesting” ..the subtext clearly “you just made my point…racist”

We all need to be like Bowie…


And I was scared of Prince which is why he was so important..

hutch wrote:where Bowie responds “interesting” ..the subtext clearly “you just made my point…racist”

We all need to be like Bowie…

yep

sweetcell wrote:

kosmo wrote:
Haven't seen it yet, but John Oliver apparently did a good job with this last night

https://youtu.be/Wf4cea5oObY

dammit kosmo, i was about to post that… made it to the last reply thinking "oh good, no one has mentioned john oliver yet"… and there you are.  THANKS.

anyhoo, oliver does talk about this some at the end of yesterday's show (a good investment of 33 minutes). the part that brought it home for me was a press conference with a police chief where he made the following point: police have become society's default means for dealing with problems that are self-imposed: lack of funding for rehab = drug problem = call the police. lack of resources for victims of domestic abuse = domestic violence[font=verdana] = call the police.  lack of mental health care = all sorts of problems[/font][font=verdana] = call the police. etc.  and the police are, in almost all cases, the wrong people to be dealing with these problems - but we send them anyways, because there is no one else to take care of the problem.[/font]

[font=verdana]so the thinking behind "defund the police" is to take budget away, but also responsibilities.  take some of that police money and put it towards affordable housing, expanded healthcare, more social intervention specialists, etc., so that you don't need as many police officers.[/font]

for a really eloquent take on "defund the police", give a listen to yesterday's editions of The Daily DC podcast.  a city councilor from Minneapolis clearly outlines why he's pushing for it:
- police are being sent to places they don't belong (why is an armed police officer called when you get into a fender-bender?  that's an insurance function, not a public safety function).  give those non-safety jobs to folks who specialize in them.
- they got suggestions from around the country about how to solve their policing problem: body cameras, new training, community policing, etc.  the problem is that they are already doing all those things and it wasn't working.
- the police union has been a brick wall against reform.  even the smallest, most token efforts at reform were consistently crushed by the union.  the city can't fire bad cops, like the one that killed george floyd (who has a record of excessive force complaints).
- the public fears the current police force, viewing it as an occupying force.  even if the police was reformed, public perception will ensure that relations would stay tense for a long time.

his conclusion was that the Minn police force is so broken that it can't be fixed.  they need to tear it down and restart, not unlike what Camden has successfully done.

Here or the Onion thread?

Lady Antebellum Change Band Name: “We Are Deeply Sorry”

So how will they answer when someone asks what the "A" stands for?

Justin wrote:
Here or the Onion thread?

Lady Antebellum Change Band Name: “We Are Deeply Sorry”

So how will they answer when someone asks what the "A" stands for?

Just day they’re the bad guy from Pretty Little Liars.

the definition of Antebellum is : occurring or existing before a particular war, especially the American Civil War.

So while this glamorizes the south before the civil war, which included widespread slavery…I still don't think it's even close to as offesive as the Confederate Flag and statues/plaques/monuments to Civil war 'heros'


in related news:
A dust-up has ensued with the fans of the Colonial Beach Bike Fest yesterday

They were set to have the headliner: Confederate Railroad
They announced yesterday they will no longer be the headliner…and the participants of the fest are up in arms how the libs are ruining everything


Now that name, in my opinion, is way more offensive than Lady Antebellum…but I think that is due to the ignorance (me included) of the definition of Antebellum. 


I am glad that Tom Petty divorced himself from the association before he died
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/tom-petty-on-past-confederate-flag-use-it-was-downright-stupid-177619/
In 1985, I released an album called Southern Accents. It began as a concept record about the South, but the concept part slipped away probably 70 percent or so into the album. I just let it go, but the Confederate flag became part of the marketing for the tour. I wish I had given it more thought. It was a downright stupid thing to do.

I used it onstage during that song, and I regretted it pretty quickly. When we toured two years later, I noticed people in the audience wearing Confederate flag bandanas and things like that. One night, someone threw one onstage. I stopped everything and gave a speech about it. I said, “Look, this was to illustrate a character. This is not who we are. Having gone through this, I would prefer it if no one would ever bring a Confederate flag to our shows again because this isn’t who we are.”

Go wrote:

hutch wrote:where Bowie responds “interesting” ..the subtext clearly “you just made my point…racist”

We all need to be like Bowie…

yep

so this is now the new response when some make a racist stament

I wonder who filmed that? Was somebody from Bowie’s team filming ?

Did the interview even run on MTV?

Was MTV filming and ran parts of interview? Probably they wouldn’t have ran this segment but someone from Bowie’s team filmed it too? And eventually it leaked?






And it obviously speaks very well of who Bowie was


I have heard he was known as somebody who really helped fellow musicians


When this interview was done Bowie was back in the spotlight and once again selling tons of records after years of releasing great stuff that hardly sold but made a huge mark on music (no doubt what he wanted)

But it’s clear everything about Let’s Dance was a play for the commercial big time and it worked..almost immediately here we find Bowie using his newfound clout to affect change..remarkable

Yes, We Mean Literally Abolish the Police: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/12/opinion/sunday/floyd-abolish-defund-police.

and this was pretty good to: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/g5pvgm/we-dont-need-cops-to-enforce-traffic-laws ;

my understanding is Mitch, of course, is not even going to discuss/consider the dem proposal


Again, these GOP @holes act all high and might on the 'fairness doctrine' they seem to think they abide by, but never really work with the other side to solve problems.  but love to say 'do nothing democrats' over and over and over

Of course police reform must happen but that’s just a piece of issue


Drive through parts of Baltimore..it’s a war zone

We need to invest trillions in creating opportunity for black people…you can even think of it as reparations if you want

There is no indication this is even on the table…


I mean what are we really talking about?police tactics?

You can eliminate all the police (and maybe we should) and parts of Brawltimore - an example- will still be the twilight zone

Many black people in America don’t stand a chance…there is little opportunity for them

hutch wrote:
I mean what are we really talking about?police tactics?

You can eliminate all the police (and maybe we should) and parts of Brawltimore - an example- will still be the twilight zone

Many black people in America don’t stand a chance…there is little opportunity for them

agreed, we need to do more, but ensuring that african americans aren't shot or choked to death seems like a reasonable place to start…

I think it all goes together honestly…


But if you want to limit it to chokeholds go for it…that’s what we are talking about today, right?


We all agree on that - at least democrats- but have you been in the bad parts of Baltimore? You can take out the police and it will devolve into gang warfare

Again, maybe we should eliminate the police..and of course police shouldn’t shoot people in back multiple times


I dare you to take a walk in parts of Baltimore

And no you can’t really start with chokeholds and police reform because that’s going to be handled state by state police department by police department etc…it’s just not something that is going to be that easy to do

Although you can do police departments in democrat controlled cities


But can the federal government pump trillions into Baltimore to clean it up? Hell yeah that we could do but I don’t hear one person talking about it

sweetcell wrote:

hutch wrote:
I mean what are we really talking about?police tactics?

You can eliminate all the police (and maybe we should) and parts of Brawltimore - an example- will still be the twilight zone

Many black people in America don’t stand a chance…there is little opportunity for them

agreed, we need to do more, but ensuring that african americans aren't shot or choked to death seems like a reasonable place to start…

so yes…I agree with sweets
it's just tactics that are on the table, but it's part of a bigger discussion that the country is having on the role of cops and use of force

I keep seeing all these stories of people in the ER/Mental Health centers having to deal with drugged/drunk/belligerent people and they never resort to choking or killing them.

What always shocks and disturbs me is that often they KNOW it's being filmed and it's usually a group of them
I'm not saying it's easy to detain a large, muscular man who may be hopped up on something, but there are techniques used all over the world to effectivly restrain an unarmed individual

hutch wrote:
And no you can’t really start with chokeholds and police reform because that’s going to be handled state by state police department by police department etc…it’s just not something that is going to be that easy to do

this is the rub that most people don't understand
18,000 independent police departments!
there is no 1 Chief of ALL Police
Maybe that's where some change needs to happen?
I'm sure that will get the GOP back to support states rights

Agree police shouldn’t abuse its powers and break the law.

Side-Nue!antz wrote:
JUST IN: “White Lives Matter” spray-painted on Arthur Ashe monument in Richmond

The real crime is how terrible that monument is. It looks like he’s beating children and holding a Bible aloft while doing it.