At the risk of regretting asking, has anyone actually found any evidence that directly links George Floyd's death to being racially motivated? And by evidence I mean something other than "he was a black guy, at least one of the four cops was white, so how dare you come to any other conclusion."
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I'm more interested in whether there is any history of this particular cop that implies he was a racist asshole, as opposed to just a maliciously negligent one
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· 4 years ago
As a cop he had 18 complaints on him and got suspended a couple of times for using excessive force or turning his dash/body cam off during arrests. He also shot 3 people that supposedly had guns, including one that was fleeing. And apparently he is a pretty distant and cold person according to his ex wife and neighbours
Doesn't say anything about him being racist but how he his a general person
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Edited 4 years ago
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· 4 years ago
To my knowledge, a lot of the response is also to how the cop received no punishment for a good while before he went viral, how the sentencing was initially much lighter and didn't include the other police, and how none of the cops tried to shut off the video or reacted in any way that would suggest they feared any punishment at committing or abetting murder. Given the track record of the U.S., and the dichotomy between how police generally treat Blacks vs Whites, all of it points to the system being -at best- racist enough to tolerate such gross negligence when inflicted on a Black man. To the protestors -and to acknowledge my own biases here, me- the idea that the man wouldn't have been immediately stopped by his colleagues and/or jailed/fired if Floyd was white is hard to believe. As far as I understand, the issue is not so much the crime itself as much as it is the fact that it went unpunished for so long, and that such a response would likely not have occured for a White person.
Ty for your responses. I knew the one cop at least had multiple violations in the past - however I don't know the details of them.
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However, now I have to wonder if these infractions were not specifically against Black people.
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If he wasn't targetting black people in the past specifically, and if he also previously got off with lighter punishments than necessary, this would imply to me the exact opposite of "suppress the black people." Rather, it implies corruption of the police in general.
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IF (if if if) that is the case, than making this about racism is a racist act in and of itself as it bears the implication that, because the cop is white he is therefore racist.
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Making it a race issue if (if if if) it's not also distracts from the real problem at hand in this situation, and simply creates more division where it does not need to be
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What an exhausting world we live in
It's also ignoring the fact that, in order for the cop to be arrested immediately, regardless of the crime, the situation would have involved either:
-a bystander trying to call the cops to report cops "arresting" a person
-the other cops arresting or reporting one another
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In either scenario the cops they would have been trying to get in contact with would likely know the cops involved in the murder. Regardless of race, this drastically lessens the chance that any arrests would actually happen.
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Not that that means race had nothing to do with the entire debacle, or that it wasn't a possible factor in the delay. But I haven't seen anything that says that was what was actually going on here, and there are other possible conclusions that could be drawn
I have done no research so I apologize if this has been brought up before. I would just like to add that generally with these things there are extensive internal investigations and reviews that go on, which could have had something to do with the time delay between the occurrence and the actual sentencing.
Don't apologize. Everything is important on the road to understanding. And I'm glad people are offering up civil dialogue - I was honestly expecting this to go tits up on the first comment haha
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· 4 years ago
White people can point rifles at LEO'S and storm government buildings with no consequences. Unarmed black men get shot with 15 seconds.
Black men are 7 times more likely to be shot while running away, when compared to whites running away.
Black men receive longer sentences for the same crime. They are arrested when whites get warnings. In psychological tests respondents rate black teens as looking older and more threatening.
@xvarnah from my own research, prosecutors are also looking to see if there was a more personal grudge regarding Floyd and the cop, as they both worked as security for the same business at roughly the same time, though they are unsure if the two ever interacted. It would provide a motive, though.
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· 4 years ago
Here's something important to think about, do those cops seem nervous when they are murdering Floyd? Or do they seem more like they believe there will be no consequences to their actions?
@jdudkiewicz You are applying speculation and statistics from other occurrence as if they should be applied indiscriminately to all instances of black deaths. Which, as I said before, is a form of racism in it's own right. It is implying that, because the man who died was black, that automatically means everyone involved in this are racist. Just because it is a possibility does not mean it should be taken as fact without evidence. It is so far looking far more likely that it is corruption in a less specific manner.
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Taking things as fact without evidence is exactly how you end up with people being convicted of crimes they didn't commit, and the eventual devaluing of words like "racism" in general.
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I'm more interested in whether there is any history of this particular cop that implies he was a racist asshole, as opposed to just a maliciously negligent one
Doesn't say anything about him being racist but how he his a general person
.
However, now I have to wonder if these infractions were not specifically against Black people.
.
If he wasn't targetting black people in the past specifically, and if he also previously got off with lighter punishments than necessary, this would imply to me the exact opposite of "suppress the black people." Rather, it implies corruption of the police in general.
.
IF (if if if) that is the case, than making this about racism is a racist act in and of itself as it bears the implication that, because the cop is white he is therefore racist.
.
Making it a race issue if (if if if) it's not also distracts from the real problem at hand in this situation, and simply creates more division where it does not need to be
.
What an exhausting world we live in
-a bystander trying to call the cops to report cops "arresting" a person
-the other cops arresting or reporting one another
.
In either scenario the cops they would have been trying to get in contact with would likely know the cops involved in the murder. Regardless of race, this drastically lessens the chance that any arrests would actually happen.
.
Not that that means race had nothing to do with the entire debacle, or that it wasn't a possible factor in the delay. But I haven't seen anything that says that was what was actually going on here, and there are other possible conclusions that could be drawn
Black men are 7 times more likely to be shot while running away, when compared to whites running away.
Black men receive longer sentences for the same crime. They are arrested when whites get warnings. In psychological tests respondents rate black teens as looking older and more threatening.
.
Taking things as fact without evidence is exactly how you end up with people being convicted of crimes they didn't commit, and the eventual devaluing of words like "racism" in general.
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