Will black lives ever matter?

[RockLock]

So another killing of a black man Ahmaud Arbery by 2 white men (Father and son) in US. They nearly got away with it calling it a citizen arrest and self defence. Father was a retired policeman.

They followed him, armed with guns and shot him.

Prosecutors tried to cover it up until the video emerged.
Ahmaud’s crime? He was going for a jog.

Will black lives ever matter?

All lives matter. There are some disgusting people in the world but the extremely small minority dose not represent society as a whole. I think you are unreasonable for thinking it dose

Murders happen all the time, over the world, white people as well as black. So yes I think YABU.

Obviously not condoning it, but you are being unreasonable to pin point your theory on this when it happens all the time to people of all different races/colour etc.

I think it's a positive that the level of public outrage has led to the killers being charged. I don't think that would have been the case 40 years ago (even if the footage was able to be as widely shared). This is one of the cases where social media is a positive force- the people carrying out these crimes can't hide from scrutiny outside their own little empires. There's a long way to go - a lot longer in some places than others.

YANBU, OP. Totally agree with you.

Suggest that those who aren’t sure/aren’t aware of the lack of importance given to black lives might like reading “Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race” and “The New Jim Crow” or “Brit(ish)”.

All great books that taught me a lot about this topic.

I truly hope they will, OP.

Murders happen all the time, over the world, white people as well as black. So yes I think YABU.

It's not just the fact that murders happen though, is it? It's about the fact that as a back person, or as a woman, or being gay, you are more likely to be murdered just for existing as that person.

Are some posters genuinely trying to deny that black people are worse off with regard to murder rates etc? Esp in America?

Some people will never understand what black people go through and the few answers already on this thread show it. No point if they're not willing to educate themselves

Yes all lives matter but at the moment in America it seems black lives matter a lot less and always have. It’s a huge problem. Nobody is saying other lives don’t matter.

I like the following analogy on this - All houses on your street matter but you expect the focus to be on the one currently burning down. It would be illogical for the fire brigade to turn up and start aiming water hoses at the houses not in imminent danger.

Sadly OP, a lot of posters on here will refuse to engage, much less accept that racism (personal and systemic ) still exists and how other races are still affected , up to and including murder.

Doing a great job overlooking the coverup of the murder as well (systemic racism) in their rush of "all lives matter" and to convince themselves this is just any run of the mill murder.

I feel sick to my stomach by some of the responses. So clueless, so ignorant. So dismissive.

YANBU.

Murders happen all the time, over the world, white people as well as black. So yes I think YABU.

Yes, but this particular person was murdered because the perpetrators thought that if a black man is running then he must be up to no good and should be confronted. If he'd been a white man out for a jog then he'd still be alive today.

You are most definitely NBU. I find it both impossible to believe and all too easy to believe.

In predominantly non-white countries white people are murdered simply for being white. It's no less tragic if the victim is black or white. Humans are evil. The human heart is naturally wicked.

YANBU at all, OP

It's heartbreaking.

So clueless, so ignorant. So dismissive
Agreed

@radiantrose this wasn’t just a run of the mill murder. It was a lynching.

YANBU OP, but seriously I think you'll be disgusted by some minimising, trivialising and racist responses that you will receive.

I hope people won’t mind me linking this clip from Grey’s Anatomy. The scene shows two parents giving their black pre-teen son “the talk”, regarding what to do if he ever gets stopped by the police. Because they know the danger he is in, as compared to a white child stopped by the police.

This episode was prompted by a true event of a young black boy being shot by police for trying to enter his own home through a window, after forgetting his keys. They didn’t even stop to ask him what was happening.

Think that would happen to a white kid in the US?

YABU to conflate a case of murder between citizens with police brutality.

Black Lives Matter was organised to highlight police brutality in the US which does have a structural racial bias against nonwhites.

This particular murder was done by two non-policemen. The fact the father was a “former police officer” is a red herring. He was acting as a private citizen when he murdered Ahmad. So this is not a BLM issue. It is an issue of endemic racism and gun crime in Georgia/US.

YANBU to despair at yet another murder of this nature happening. Ahmaud Arbery’s life and murder matters. Black lives matter.

YANBU of course but YAB a bit U for reminding me how horribly racist some people on here are