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?

Stopped and questioned by two men who were not police but white men who had decided he must be suspicious because he was black.

Who called police, and were questioned about their basis for suspicion, were told someone was being sent and, despite having no authority or basis for their suspicion, other than he was male, moving and black.

Why would he have done anything than told them to sod off, he was just jogging?

If your answer includes: he was in America, he was black, they were armed then you have missed the point!

@SkinRash seriously??

If they had no intention of shooting him then why did they have guns? And why did they ignore the police representative on the phone? Also your phrasing is interesting: it absolved the perpetrators from blame: the gun did not “go off” on its own - they SHOT an unarmed man. And they killed him. That is the reality of the situation. And they wouldn’t have been following him if he was white, because they wouldn’t have noticed anything “amiss”.

And, would you be asking those questions if the victim was white? Reeeeallly? You’ll probably say you would ask them, but I don’t think that’s true. At all.

If three men with weapons followed you, with weapons, would you have a calm conversation with them? I certainly wouldn’t wait around to have a “calm conversation”.

You’re not remaining open-minded - you’re waiting for evidence that the victim somehow “deserved what he got”. Which is a narrative that lots of people like to use against minorities of all kinds.

• Except they didn't follow to shoot him, he was asked to stop and rather than have a calm conversation about a local burglary he fought with them resulting in the gun going off twice.

Was he jogging? Or fleeing a crime?

Did he have a criminal record?

Why did he react violently when approached?

Until the full facts are released I'll remain open minded about the circumstances of the story.*

Since when can civilians take the law into their own hands and follow and confront others while being armed?

His criminal record is irrelevant.
His reason for running is also irrelevant, since the accused didn't know it either.

Don't bloody tell me that you see two armed blokes wanting to have a "chat" and you'd be all sugar and honey.

Did you even try to think logically before posting or did all rational thought stop at "black"?

If people are seriously suggesting he was gunned down in cold blood purely because he was black then that is ludicrous.

Of course it fucking happens.

Just how some people are killed simply for being women, or gay, or a certain religion etc.

Except they didn't follow to shoot him,

How do you know that? By following him with a gun, they had already prepared for that eventuality, regardless of their initial motives. Their motives, as it happened, was vigilanism at best which already wasn't going to end well.

he was asked to stop and rather than have a calm conversation about a local burglary he fought with them resulting in the gun going off twice.

If you were out on the street, minding your own business, how would you react to armed men (who were not police), stopping you and demanding to know if you were a criminal? Especially if they had already decided you were even if you protested? Would that be a 'calm discussion'?

I think that @SkinRash is saying that it was his fault he was shot. You know, for being there, and not reacting exactly as she would have done. And being suspiciously black.

Also it doesn’t matter where he lived in relation to the incident - apartheid isn’t a thing!

SkinRash, if they weren’t following him because he was black, then why were they following him?

Except they didn't follow to shoot him, he was asked to stop and rather than have a calm conversation about a local burglary he fought with them resulting in the gun going off twice.

I'll ask again. What fucking right did these 2 men have to follow him and ask him to stop and confront him armed with guns. They had no right at all.
I don't even care if that man had just robbed somewhere. He was unarmed! Shooting him was not a proportionate response to their 'suspicions'.

And this folks is why the general public shouldn't have guns.

I know America is easy to point the finger at, but the UK is still rife with racism. It really isn't very far away.

Did you even try to think logically before posting or did all rational thought stop at "black"?

No, the opposite actually. My rationale is thinking of reasons how this happened rather than just gobbling up the media's reports playing the race targeting.

The clip I saw shows two men struggling over a long gun. It certainly wasn't an assassination like how it's being portrayed here.

We don't know the full circumstances. All we know is black man was shot by two white men. Yet that's enough for everyone to quickly assume it was racist.

Where did he live in relation to the incident?

What does that matter? When a crime occurs in your local area, do you think 'oh the suspect is the same ethnicity and sex as me, I better be extra vigilant when out just in case they think it was me'? White people certainly don't ever need to worry about that...

Not ludicrous, the heart of the issue!

He lived nearby, jogged daily. Number of burgleries is moot as they had, according to the 911 call, seen him in the vicinity of a house under construction when they chose to follow him.

You may choose to ignore the evidence given by police, other people, BAME and white, who were there, and only give credence to some of the words of the father and son who shot him. That initial reaction is, in itself, part of the problem.

Their own words, recorded in the 911 calls, give an insight into their thinking.

JFC - I knew I shouldn’t have opened this thread.

The casual racism on this site never fails to depress me. I am not particularly surprised by the sheer ignorance of some posters, but it is still infuriating.

That poor man was murdered in cold blood by those two fuckers, and the narrative around their actions is already being written in a way that may well lead to their acquittal. It is sickening.

@lockeddownandcrazy You do realise police isn’t an ethnicity

No, I don’t get spat at, verbally abused or physically abused due to the job I have. I get it because I’m not white.

It's horrible. I'm glad things are better in this country although not there yet.

I listened to quite a few US podcasts and couldn't believe the stories. I think Serial did one based on the criminal justice system and it was appalling.

Or the other story about the woman that got put in prison for an alleged gaming of the school system although her reasons for moving in with her dad for her daughters education seemed reasonable to me, the fines were horrendous she lost everything and was imprisoned and then felicity huffman got a slapped wrist for much worse.

And then there are the killings, but wrapped up in the issues with policing and law I think. Too much turning a blind eye.

FFS. YANBU this was a lynching pure and simple.
Nothing has changed since Emmet Till.

SkinRash, if they weren’t following him because he was black, then why were they following him?

Are you serious? The older white guy is 65 years of age, do you believe he's gone through his life following and killing all black people he sees?

Seriously??

You don't think they were following him because something had happened that we're not all privy to at the moment?

It's easy to believe he was followed and shot deliberately because he was black and no other reason. Okay. Believe what you like I will chose to believe otherwise.

Strangely just saw the video a friend sent me - the poor guy is literally jogging down the road. The father approached him pointing a gun and there was a struggle.

The two white guys were armed to the teeth, the father was a retired cop I think so maybe killing black people came naturally to him....

Every parent of a black child (including me) in my area of London gives the country equivalent version of that talk to their black teen boys. Know their rights, but be sure not to put yourself at risk

I've had to do it in school.

Yes, it's World Book Day. Yes, you're an alien/cowboy/spaceman/soldier whatever. Yes, it's summer. But you cannot travel home with the butt of a waterpistol sticking out from your trousers. Not when you're 14. All it takes is one person to see it, make a call and you've got five Glock-17s pointed in your face and they're all screaming at you to get down. No, you can't tell them to fuck off. No, you can't argue with them like you do here. You shut up. You stay still. You do whatever they tell you. If you don't have your schoolbag with you to put it in now, I'll look after it until tomorrow - yes, I'll talk to your Mum, I'm sure she'd have something to say about it if I let you out these gates and you walked straight into a Stop & Search team with that. I am not letting you take that risk just for a waterpistol. Yes, I will tell (insert generic white boy's name) that he can't do it either, but you know full well why I'm telling you this.

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

The problem is though, it’s not a small minority in places like Georgia and it’s a very good representation of their society. Unfortunately there are lots and lots of Georgia’s around.

SkinRash, you need to give your head a wobble and look at the actual facts (white men accost a random passer-by and slaughter him like a hunted animal) rather than inventing wild hypotheticals that are based on racist stereotypes. There’s literally no way “see random black man on the street minding his own business and assume he might be doing crimes” is anything but racist. And if they had any genuine reason to suspect burglary, they would have called the police.

I keep expecting that twat Laurence Fox to pop up here!!

We’ve had a few threads about that. The consensus was that Fox is a champion of free speech and the handful of unknown black and Asian actors (I got screeched at for referring to the elected official who resigned over not being allowed to tweet decrying racism by his name rather than job title, because apparently it’s totally unreasonable to expect posters in a thread about a specific incident to know the name of the person that thread was created to attack ) who publicly condemned his comments are just “wokerati” virtue signallers something something identity politics something something shoehorn in transpeople somehow woke police yadda yadda criticising someone is denying them their right to free speech and trying to destroy their career even though Fox has had the biggest career boost of his life because of the scandal.

thats pretty much rascism against police officers by saying they are all the same then
Christ you can’t even grasp the fundamental basics of what racism is and you’re spouting off about it. I don’t think I’ve seen something so ignorant.

@SkinRash Is a fairly typical representation of someone who is pro-racism.

Yet they fail to realise that the same argument they use to say non-whites are to blame is the exact argument that is used to blame women for rape and sexual assault.

What @Skinrash has said is no different to “well she didn’t answer questions calmly when the men were waving guns in her face” and then blaming her for a resulting rape.

@skinrash no, most racist people don’t choose to follow and kill every single black person they see - most racist people also don’t shout the N word at every black person they see - however on occasion, a racist person (whether they acknowledge it or not) does something palpably racist, and that usually ends badly for the black person. Usually when the racist person is in a heightened state and/or thinks they have cause.

For example, someone might abjectly refuse to believe that a black man was shot simply because he was black. They refute the very idea that this black man might have done nothing wrong. They might argue that he didn’t live there, or that he might have a criminal record. They might absolutely refuse a reality in which he was totally and 100% innocent. Because how could a black man be innocent?

And then, this person might go back to their life believing that they don’t have racist thinking, and they were entirely in the right.

Just an example, no relation to the current situation

It's easy to believe he was followed and shot deliberately because he was black and no other reason. Okay. Believe what you like I will chose to believe otherwise.

No, it's easy to believe he was followed because he was black and therefore must have been up to nefarious activities. It's easy to believe things escalated quicker because the young man was black and the white men went in with the mentality that they had to 'protect themselves and their community'. It's easy to see the facts that black people are more likely to die in escalated circumstances that could and would have been avoided if they weren't black.