The Shooting Gallery: Police Violence MEGATHREAD

[garbon]

It seems overegged.

[The Brain]

Maybe I'm missing the point, but my impression is that a main difference between slavery in North America and enslavement of Hungarians by Ottomans is that one still has profound effects on the formerly enslaved today. At least I'm not aware of Hungarians currently living as sizable  disadvantaged minority in a Turkish dominated country.

Of course. If black people had no problems in the US the whole slavery thing would largely just be a historical curiosity for nerds to talk about.

You think race and racism exist now? Good, then it's possible to have a discussion about how to end racism.

[The Larch]

It seems overegged.

I had a similar feeling, it seemed a bit strange going from "bastard cop" to woke agent of change, a bit too much of a "Paul falls from his horse on the way to Damascus".

[grumbler]

Maybe I'm missing the point, but my impression is that a main difference between slavery in North America and enslavement of Hungarians by Ottomans is that one still has profound effects on the formerly enslaved today. At least I'm not aware of Hungarians currently living as sizable  disadvantaged minority in a Turkish dominated country.

Of course. If black people had no problems in the US the whole slavery thing would largely just be a historical curiosity for nerds to talk about.

Having said that I am sure Hungarian Nationalists use that to show the world is against Hungary, it would probably still be used the same way.

Yes, the chattel slavery thing only really worked if the slave-owning class could make up this new concept of "race" and then convince the simple-minded that it really existed.  If people believed that races exist, then they could believe that people could and should be treated differently on the basis of their supposed "race."  Ottoman slavery existed on a different basis: that non-Muslims, regardless of their skin colors, were subject to enslavement if they did not live under the Sultan's protection.

The Ottomans, like people everywhere, weaseled out of many of the restrictions on enslaving people, but they didn't base slavery on the fiction of "race" and so former slaves (and even many existing slaves) did not receive the treatment that former slaves received in the US.  The problem in the US was the belief in race, not the slavery.

[grumbler]

It seems overegged.

I had a similar feeling, it seemed a bit strange going from "bastard cop" to woke agent of change, a bit too much of a "Paul falls from his horse on the way to Damascus".

Except that he concedes that it took him years to decide to come forward, so hardly a "Paul falls from his horse on the way to Damascus."

This essay has been kicking around in my head for years now and I've never felt confident enough to write it.

I agree that we should take this all with a grain of salt (just like all primary sources), but his story does conform to the outside facts as we know them.  His  prescriptions are worth discussing, at least.

[Berkut]

Some people argue that the US/white people owe a debt to descendants of slaves for the sins of slavery and the sins of Jim Crow, if not in money terms then in at least in terms of feelings of responsibility and guilt.  I say that responsibility should be extended to include black African slavers.  And, incidentally, narrowed down in the US to include only those who benefited from, participated in, and fought for slavery, and participated and supported Jim Crow, and exclude those who shed blood to end it.  Which, coincidentally, as a descendent on my father's side of Scotch-Irish indentured servants who settled in the north, leaves me completely off the hook.

I think that's why the christian language of guilt is not helpful. I am happy to talk about sin, because, at least, in the Christian tradition, it's also universal.

The US, as a polity - that is, as an actual State - was indeed complicit in the maintaining of a system of racial inequality that has had considerable consequences upon a large proportion of people it now claims to be its citizens. Because race is something no single individual controls, "guilt", if you insist, is inevitably shared. Your ancestors may not have directly participated in the slave trade, but they benefited necessarily from advantages granted white people, and denied black people (or Indigenous people). The list of these advantages is well-known - from immunity from prosecution for violence committed, to the worth of testimonies, to access to education, etc. etc. These advantages have been perpetuated for centuries, continue to be, and have compounded themselves to the extent that the current population of black Americans still, by most quantifiable measure, does exceptionally poorly when compared to white.

Is this a problem? I believe it is. I believe the source of that problem lies precisely in that "original sin". It's not like, say, the Roman Empire, which obviously no longer exist: the US is still there, and it still claims to be the same polity that existed since 1783. My personal guilt, or responsibility, or that of my ancestors, is ultimately irrelevant. It is, and ought to be, a show of solidarity for the current, existing polity of the United States, to repair that historical injustice that *has still considerable consequences to this day*. Because you are a citizen of the United States, you are inevitably bound by this injustice. It has nothing to do with guilt. The same way that, for historical reasons, the US bound itself to France and the UK, and to their fate, and when it declared war on Germany, sent Americans to die for France and the UK regardless of their personal preferences, or their individual ancestry.

Excellent post.

I don't know why this is so hard to get through to people. It does along with the concept of white privilege.

It isn't about YOU! It is about the delta between what those with privilege experience and what those without. It isn't about guilt, or blame, or even resposibility, not really. It is about simply recognizing the consequences of our collective decisions, what that has resulted in today, and the gap between how things are, and how things ought to be, and what can be done to close it.

[Tamas]

Some people argue that the US/white people owe a debt to descendants of slaves for the sins of slavery and the sins of Jim Crow, if not in money terms then in at least in terms of feelings of responsibility and guilt.  I say that responsibility should be extended to include black African slavers.  And, incidentally, narrowed down in the US to include only those who benefited from, participated in, and fought for slavery, and participated and supported Jim Crow, and exclude those who shed blood to end it.  Which, coincidentally, as a descendent on my father's side of Scotch-Irish indentured servants who settled in the north, leaves me completely off the hook.

I think that's why the christian language of guilt is not helpful. I am happy to talk about sin, because, at least, in the Christian tradition, it's also universal.

The US, as a polity - that is, as an actual State - was indeed complicit in the maintaining of a system of racial inequality that has had considerable consequences upon a large proportion of people it now claims to be its citizens. Because race is something no single individual controls, "guilt", if you insist, is inevitably shared. Your ancestors may not have directly participated in the slave trade, but they benefited necessarily from advantages granted white people, and denied black people (or Indigenous people). The list of these advantages is well-known - from immunity from prosecution for violence committed, to the worth of testimonies, to access to education, etc. etc. These advantages have been perpetuated for centuries, continue to be, and have compounded themselves to the extent that the current population of black Americans still, by most quantifiable measure, does exceptionally poorly when compared to white.

Is this a problem? I believe it is. I believe the source of that problem lies precisely in that "original sin". It's not like, say, the Roman Empire, which obviously no longer exist: the US is still there, and it still claims to be the same polity that existed since 1783. My personal guilt, or responsibility, or that of my ancestors, is ultimately irrelevant. It is, and ought to be, a show of solidarity for the current, existing polity of the United States, to repair that historical injustice that *has still considerable consequences to this day*. Because you are a citizen of the United States, you are inevitably bound by this injustice. It has nothing to do with guilt. The same way that, for historical reasons, the US bound itself to France and the UK, and to their fate, and when it declared war on Germany, sent Americans to die for France and the UK regardless of their personal preferences, or their individual ancestry.

Excellent post.

I don't know why this is so hard to get through to people. It does along with the concept of white privilege.

It isn't about YOU! It is about the delta between what those with privilege experience and what those without. It isn't about guilt, or blame, or even resposibility, not really. It is about simply recognizing the consequences of our collective decisions, what that has resulted in today, and the gap between how things are, and how things ought to be, and what can be done to close it.

Great posts, both.

[Valmy]

You think race and racism exist now? Good, then it's possible to have a discussion about how to end racism.

I never thought racism didn't exist. I just thought it was wrong and based on pseudo-science garbage. You might think it is correct and based on facts but I am glad we both agree it should be ended.

[The Brain]

You think race and racism exist now? Good, then it's possible to have a discussion about how to end racism.

I never thought racism didn't exist. I just thought it was wrong and based on pseudo-science garbage. You might think it is correct and based on facts but I am glad we both agree it should be ended.

You said that race didn't exist. Without race it's hard to have racism. See the dictionary definitions of race and racism I described. Please don't make completely groundless claims that I think racism is correct. Honestly, I expected better from you.

[grumbler]

It's ironic how some people think that the existence of racism proves that races exist, but would reject the idea that the existence of theism proves that gods exist.

The belief in something (even your own belief) says nothing about the existence of the subject f your belief.

[Threviel]

Yeah Brainy, WTF?

[PDH]

Race obviously exists biologically.  However, the race is all Homo Sapiens sapiens since that is the unit that fits the definition.  If anything, the expressed phenotypes displayed onto regional groups could be characterized as "sub-races" (however that is problematic due to cultural desire to rank things), but by that definition Northern Europeans are the sub-race.

All H. Sapiens sapiens can breed with viable breeding offspring.  No regional phenotypes cannot breed with other H Sapiens sapiens (there are, of course individual problems), so it is one race biologically.

Now, this obviously differs from the social definition of human races, but as that has no biological foundations, that idea (even if in a dictionary) must be a cultural construct and not a biological science finding.

[grumbler]

Race obviously exists biologically.  However, the race is all Homo Sapiens sapiens since that is the unit that fits the definition.  If anything, the expressed phenotypes displayed onto regional groups could be characterized as "sub-races" (however that is problematic due to cultural desire to rank things), but by that definition Northern Europeans are the sub-race.

If race "obviously exists biologically," then why don't biologists see it?  Some use the term informally, but not scientifically.

If race "obviously exists biologically," then how many races are there? 

If race "obviously exists biologically," then does every human belong to a race?  If so, how do we reliably tell to which race a person belongs, especially when they have ancestors that are "obviously... biologically" of different races?  And if everyone does NOT belong to a race, how do we distinguish between those who do belong to a race and those that do not?

If "Northern Europeans are the sub-race," then do people change race as they move about the world?  IS garbon now racially a Northern European because he lives in Northern Europe?  If sub-race doesn't change when we move, then the people who originally moved to Northern Europe kept their sub-racial identity, did they not?  And your concept of races and subraces means that people are born into the race of their parents, no?

All H. Sapiens sapiens can breed with viable breeding offspring.  No regional phenotypes cannot breed with other H Sapiens sapiens (there are, of course individual problems), so it is one race biologically.

That is the definition of a species, not a race.

Now, this obviously differs from the social definition of human races, but as that has no biological foundations, that idea (even if in a dictionary) must be a cultural construct and not a biological science finding.

Biological use of the term "race" is informal and ill-defined (much like the cultural use of the term).

Now, none of these comments are meant for serious discussion, because they are silly on the face of them.  I ask them to show how logically indefensible the concept of separate human races is.  Genetics exists, and people inherit genes from their parents, and so resemble them, and if a group of people remain in an area and intermarry, those traits will be shared and become more common, but that doesn't create races, and increased travel is making that kind of genetic pooling less and less common anyway.

Race exists as a social construct, but it shouldn't.  Where it isn't useless except to help explain racism, it is harmful.

[The Brain]

Sigh. As I have posted before, from a dictionary:

Race (noun) a group, especially of people, with particular similar physical characteristics, who are considered as belonging to the same type, or the fact of belonging to such a group

Racism (noun) the belief that some races are better than others, or the unfair treatment of someone because of his or her race

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/race
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/racism

THE VERY DEFINITION OF RACE INCLUDES THE "CONSIDERED AS BELONGING TO THE SAME TYPE" ASPECT. You'd have to live in an alternative universe to claim that there are no such groups. In this very thread people have talked about blacks, whites etc. Those groups exist, and it is bizarre to claim that they don't. I don't know if y'all are collectively trolling me. People may, in the future, stop considering different groups of people to belong to the same type, but to claim that we are there today is insane.

If race doesn't exist then racism makes no sense. How do you treat someone unfairly because of their race if race doesn't exist?

I know that grumbler has a weird position on these matters, even if his Marty-level "analogy" is new. The rest of you though? You actually don't think blacks get treated differently from whites in the US when it comes to for instance cop interactions?

[PDH]

Grumbler, my point is that biologically, the term "race" is a concept that is used, defined, and makes sense.  However, also in my point was that for the concept to work, it has to be all H. Sapiens as a "race."  The concept of "sub-race" is used to describe phenotypes expressed over time in regional variance that in no way affect the larger "race" as they are not genetically different - they can breed, have viable offspring, etc.

My joke, of course, was that the "whites" are (if the idea of "sub-race" is to be used) is the sub-race to the traced mitochondrial origins that comes from Africa.

Every H. Sapiens alive is a member of a race.  One race.  Any idea of separate races is a social construct.