Torn n Frayed wrote:Don't get it twisted now, most of Twoism here supports the 'movement' it's just me the out spoken person. Why is it so hard for criminals to follow the orders of the authorities? Why are you defending POS who really are evil at heart and would jump at the chance to rob you and beat the ever living shit out of you? I know I know BLM!!!! But so do those who follow the rules and obey the law. It's suck this is all happening, for sure and it's all planned out. I could link a whole shit load of videos of these animals beating and robbing innocent people, but I won't. 9!!! unarmed BLACK men were killed last year, way way WAY less then unarmed whites. I DON'T CARE ABOUT FUCKING CRIMINALS. FOLLOW THE GODDAMN RULES AND YOU WILL LIVE. Why is that so hard to understand.
So, this is a bad post.
Let's start with the facts. Did police kill 9 unarmed black men last year? Does that number not seem a bit... low? It should, because it is. You don't give a source of where you get the figure of 9 but there have been several people making stories based on the database collated by the Washington Post which is online and searchable with little tags, and they've come up with similar numbers so I'm going to start there. Just know, that even using this source, the figure of 9 is only true if you count "men" as "men over 30". If you count all males, that number becomes 13.
Though it's possible that the figure of 9 was what it showed when whoever cited it did so, it's compiled after the fact by a newspaper, and it only captures what data it can get access to. That relies heavily on police departments accurately reporting use of lethal force. I think it's pretty obvious that the real figure will be higher. but let's be charitable and say for the sake of argument that it's accurate.
Some things about this database as it relates to Black Lives Matter. Firstly, it's strictly talking about shootings. It doesn't include other forms of killing, such as beating, tasering, death by vehicle and unexplained deaths in custody. It wouldn't include the death of George Floyd, for instance, where he was killed by prolonged kneeling on his neck. It doesn't account for non-fatal but nontheless excessive displays of force. It's also selective on the other side where it counts "officers" that are actively on duty. Off duty cops are not included in its figures, (nor would it include armed vigilanties effectively deputised by the police by being allowed to roam freely with assault weapons while action is going on such as that kid in Kenosha just the other day, but again, lets be honest and keep it to just the cops).
The other thing that figure is not telling you is what PROPORTION of the population it's representing. Yes, when you look at shootings of unarmed men in that database, the NUMBER for white men is higher than black men. But black people count for 13% of the population. There are just way more white people in America. When you adjust for that, you see that you are WAY more likely to be killed by a cop if you're black. You know, let alone harassed, made the target of suspicion or any of that, just killed. Like, it feels like that should be an obvious thing, but it feels like some people just don't get it. Like, I'm white, I'm not going to speak to what it feels like to be a racial minority in the US, but enough people have been making their voices heard about that. You don't need the numbers to get the message. The numbers are cold and uncaring. But they do support what people are quite rightly saying when you look at them honestly. You don't even need to look particularly hard, it actually takes a certain amount of calculated dishonesty to twist them in a way that reads any other way.
Which, kinda brings me to where I think you got the numbers from. See in trying to work that out - you don't say where you saw -
like I said, I see some people making stories that quote lowball figures like "8". And it's not a surprise who it is. I could go off on this, you all know I like to bang this drum but I'm not going to this time because I don't want to bring my personal political beefs into a story that's not mine. But again, look a bit beyond. You know? If you're gonna read that shit then just do a cursory google afterwards, do some fact checking. Gonna leave that point there.
Last thing. I've zeroed in on that "9" because it's easy to pick apart a bad statistic coldly, like I'm not affected by it, and you know, it makes me angry and sick, all of this does, but I'm still a spectator to it. I'm not the one at the sharp end of this story. But I don't want to ignore everything around the "9" in your post, because I have to think, how do you get like this? How do you buy into the fact that if they're killed by cops, they MUST be criminals? Even when you're talking about people that maybe are breaking the law in some cases, that makes them POS? Makes them "evil at heart"? If they're not following the rules, that makes them "animals"? Look at what you're writing here. Look at how you're saying it. You are talking about people, with their own life, families, people that love them, and that they love. You don't know their situation. You don't know what makes someone feel like they have to "break some rules" as if rule breaking was justification for a summary execution.
We are all humans deserving of equal dignity and born with rights that extend beyond any human authority. The second you let someone convince you that a human being deserved to die because they weren't following that authority's rules that day is when you sell your soul.
