Not a riot
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@LuFins-Dad said in Not a riot:
@George-K When did the term thugs become racist? If anything, I visualize big. hulking white guys, probably Italian. Nothing racist...
No, those are wise guys.
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Google’s take.
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Seriously? It was originally a racist term, but had nothing to do with African Americans but Indians. Thugs were members of the Indian Murder/Robbery Cult in India. Over time, though, it came to mean any brutish and hulking criminal.
At some point, the rap culture started adopting the word in a slightly different context.
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Hooligan is derived from Hoolihan, a well known Irish surname. Saynomore.
Vandals - well, I think we all know where they came from. Bloody Jerry's at it again.
The best they could come up with to insult my national group was something involving citrus fruit, presumably because we'd been Yanking their chain and they just bally well got tired of it, dontyaknow!
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The notion that this only happens to people of a certain color and when the cop is of a certain color is one of the great non-sequiturs of our society. And none of our most important pop culture influencers are interested in thinking too critically about that aspect of it. But the fact is that it is perfectly plausible that this would have happened had Mr Floyd had white skin. And it is beyond plausible, certain even, that a video of such an incident would not have been seen or discussed by anybody.
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Meanwhile, all of our most virtuous messaging of the pop culture elite like Mr Obama, continues to cement the notion in everybody's heads that we have a permanent victim culture in America. And none of our most virtuous folk are particularly interested in doing any hard thinking about what exactly that idea does to people who are born into it.
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@Horace said in Not a riot:
The notion that this only happens to people of a certain color and when the cop is of a certain color is one of the great non-sequiturs of our society. And none of our most important pop culture influencers are interested in thinking too critically about that aspect of it. But the fact is that it is perfectly plausible that this would have happened had Mr Floyd had white skin. And it is beyond plausible, certain even, that a video of such an incident would not have been seen or discussed by anybody.
I made the same basic point elsewhere on this forum. The problem isn't Racism, it's Police Brutality against anybody and everybody.
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I saw you mention that elsewhere. I didn't cite you because It's a pretty common (and true) notion, just totally ignored by the pop culture messagers who want nothing more than to foment the notion that racism is everywhere and the most important thing ever.
Where I differ is in the notion that police brutality (regardless of skin color) is a huge and imminent societal problem. Especially when the proof of having fixed it, is the total absence of anecdote about police brutality.
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Good starting point is don't get belligerent with cops. There are two sides to this equation. Letting your anger, righteous or not, put you in the position where this could happen is the first mistake. Cops are on edge not because they are all racist but because experience tells them that certain belligerent behaviors are likely to escalate and they have to keep control of the situation.
That is just one side of the story but one that is all too infrequently told. There cannot be any excuse for kneeling on a man's neck to keep him down.