When the looting starts, the shooting starts.

[Annamaria14]

Can you believe that Trump has just tweeted this comment? He is talking about the protests about George Floyd's death. He has also called the protestors "thugs".

Twitter has put a warning on his twitter post, saying that it "glorifies violence". It is also racist!

The "historical context" is a reference to the late 1960s, when the phrase "when the looting starts, the shooting starts" was coined by Miami Police Chief Walter Headley, in reference to his aggressive policing policies in black neighbourhoods.

It would be if anyone said it, yes, but I've not seen anyone do so on here

That is exactly what @lonelyfemale has implied.

But that is what people are saying Puzzled

They are insisting that any resistance to oppression be non-violent. 'Violence won't improve anything' and all that.

Ergo, black people should put up with racial violence and never respond in kind.

I do find that sanctimonious, yes. We might all hope, in an ideal world, that oppression can be eliminated non-violently, and sometimes it can. But that is not realistic most of the time.

Well if you don't steal, loot or use fake money to buy things you won't get shot.

He deserves to die over a counterfeit $10 bill?

You do know that people can be given a counterfeit bill and not know it right? Do you think the average person can tell when they have received a counterfeit bill? I work in retail and we only check £50 notes and the same was done in dollars in the States from what I remember working there. There was no need for four police officers to handle an unarmed, handcuffed man who was on his back on the ground and definitely no reason to put a leg on his neck and continue to hold it there while he is begging for his life. Even if it was an excuse, are you saying four police officers couldn’t handle a handcuffed man?

Utterly ridiculous.

I reckon Trump is hoping to incite a near state of civil war, and ride into a second term on the back of it. My DS lives over there and she said she and her similar leaning friends and family are very worried that he is setting things up to have a platform to dispute the election vote (if it doesn't go his way) by setting the seeds now around fraudulent voting and that he may just refuse to yield power if and when the time comes. Given what we have seen of the "man" over the past few years absolutely nothing would surprise me

"Thug" is an example of two nations divided by a common language. Derived from the Thuggee, Indian criminal gangs, it was originally racist in British usage but soon became more class-based and applied to young males from less fortunate backgrounds.

In the US, it has a specific implication that it refers to young black urban males who dress in a particular manner.

Regards Twit-turd, what will they do when Trumpy misgenders someone?

Does anyone here watch Orange is the new black?

When Poussey was killed by the correctional officer doing the same (but on her back), black people were rightly using it as a discussion about brutality towards black people. They were told by vocal right wing white people to shut up as ‘it’s only tv’ and it led to complaints because it painted white people in a negative way. Just as Malorie Blackman has received a huge amount of abuse from some white people after watching noughts and crosses, oh the irony.

@lonelyfemale

Well if you don't steal, loot or use fake money to buy things you won't get shot. The police officer has probably heard every excuse under the sun from suspects as to why he shouldn't arrest them ans if he was resisting arrest then that would raise suspicion further.

I hardly think stealing, looting or using fake money (especially in these circumstances) should be punished by death.

It's important to remember that looting happens when the state has screwed up its policing so badly it's led to massive civil unrest.

That's not to excuse looting, but looting doesn't happen in your suburban shopping mall on a quiet Saturday afternoon when all's well with the world. It happens against a backdrop of violent protests, arson - first targetted at buildings seen as "part of the problem" (police stations etc.) then getting more widespread. It doesn't come out of nowhere.

Incidentally, one of the videos I saw of the looting of the Target store, one of the looters was a white woman. Making off with a couple of table lamps. Which for me underlined (a) that the looting is being carried out by a range of people from a range of demographics and (b) it's an opportunistic thing - and a somewhat tragic thing. I mean, who in their right mind (and I mean that quite literally, because I think a kind of collective insanity takes hold during civil unrest) would risk being shot by police for a couple of crappy table lamps which probably retail for about 10 bucks each?

I watched a little of this on the news last night.

What happened was truly horrific and the protests are perfectly justified but when looting is involved it takes the focus off what has happened and somehow lessens the incident.

Why would you do that?

The store owners didn’t cause the guys death. Why are they punishing the store owners

Trump thrives on hate so yes I could see he wants to use it as electioneering.

In part to get over CV19 shambles

Fake notes are sometimes hard to spot. It’s very easy to get one, I work in a large business handling a lot of cash. It’s as simple as this, somebody pays with a fair note then I give it back in change! That’s more than likely how George came into procession of it.

What happened to George is absolutely disgusting, if they ever go to arrest those cops I very much doubt they’ll sit on their necks until they die, and they’ve killed someone. But they do this to a man for a much lesser crime.

People are looting because they are angry, they have every right to be. They’ve killed someone and they are still free, of me or anybody on this thread did that we’d be banged up within the hour

He certainly can unite people. You may not like the fact, but he can - he unites the worst instincts in people

He can appeal to his base. That isn’t uniting a country. Uniting a country is appealing to all people across the political divide to put party politics aside and work for the greater good of a nation.

My heart is breaking for the people of America now. They are one of the few nations with a worse government than us, and the racial hatred is terrifying.

For every one of those protestors, I'll bet there's a mother and children, or an elderly person scared out of their wits. It's dreadful!

That racist thug Trump should make it known that if a police officer murders someone - it's still murder and they will be tried and punished for it.

Trump is a menace but he is sadly a reflection of what a lot of Americans feel, which is why despite his lies and disgraceful behaviour he is still seen as leader for many.

As far as the march- I went to a number back in the 80's and whilst they did sometimes descend into violence, there wasn't looting on the scale seen now days.
The organisers need to do something and condone this behaviour as it destroys the meaning of the march and rather makes the outsider believe the stereotypes and that the March is nothing but a reason to steal

Well if you don't steal, loot or use fake money to buy things you won't get shot

You do realise how similar to the ubiquitous "look what you made me do" phrase used by domestic violence perpetrators - don't you?

i dont see how looting your locak community will help black lives but hes scummy to tweet that im not surprised anymoree by him

"CaraDune Fri 29-May-20 11:08:13 He was narrowly elected - in fact he got slightly less than half of the popular vote, but won the electoral college. So you certainly can't say of the American public as a whole that they chose him to run their country."

Don't split hairs - he was elected - whether a narrow vote or not, based of the system in the US he was elected president. In the same way that the Conservatives were elected in the UK but didn't get most of the votes previous to last election (again due to our first past the post system here).

So therefore he runs the country based on the way the voting system works there! Seriously did you really need that spelling out! Some people purposely ignorant

Trump will stop at nothing to stay in power

The "forgery" was him passing, possibly unknowingly, a forged $10 note?

Christ sake, I just knew his murder would be over a load of nonsense.

People are insisting that any resistance to oppression be non-violent. 'Violence won't improve anything' and all that
Ergo, black people should put up with racial violence and never respond in kind

I get the rationale, but honestly don't feel this is the same as suggesting black people should "just take whatever violence and brutality is dished out". It's not that I think senseless violence is somehow okay for the police but not for the black community - I don't believe it's ever appropriate for anyone

FWIW the PP who said that stress and tension make it very easy to trigger people into irrational behaviour was correct, but the assertion's a worrying gift to the type of racist who tries to paint the entire black community as irrational anyway

Trump will stop at nothing to stay in power

THIS

Because once he's out - all hell will descend on him

I suspect Johnson is the same.

*What happened was truly horrific and the protests are perfectly justified but when looting is involved it takes the focus off what has happened and somehow lessens the incident.

Why would you do that?

The store owners didn’t cause the guys death. Why are they punishing the store owners*

There will always be people that take advantage of these types of situations.

I find it interesting when people riot, loot and destroy property over a sports game no one seems to ask them why they did it and it is only a blip in the news about it yet when people riot over actual injustices, it lessens the injustice.

Need I don't want to derail the thread with this, but my problem was your post read to me (it may not have been your intention) as if the Americans deserved what they got because they'd voted for it - I was merely pointing out that the Americans en masse did not vote as one block (in the 98% turnout reminiscent of old Eastern Block countries) for this - at least half of them didn't. Totally agree that our system works the same way. Just pointing out that you should never say of a whole country "well they brought it on themselves."

@dreamingbohemian

Anyone who says violent protests don't change anything needs to learn some history.

American Revolution? French Revolution? Haitian Revolution? Bolshevik Revolution? Ring any bells?

The civil rights movement in the US included a lot of non-violent protest, yes (or we should say, non-violent on the part of the protesters, who often ended up being beaten half to death). But the violence and riots were also important motivating factors for change.

It's so incredibly sanctimonious to say people should just take whatever violence and brutality is dished out on them.

And those violent revolutions worked out so well, didn't they? The first got you the American Civil War (contrary to popular mythology, not remotely about slavery), Vietnam, and Trump. The last got you Stalin, the Nuclear Arms Race, and Putin. And Haiti is the poorest nation in the western world. Violence might change things, but does it improve anything?

But also it is disingenuous to suggest that an armed and organised struggle (and I'm not arguing whether that is right or wrong) is the same thing as mindless violence that brings harm to everybody - black, white and everything in between.

For those that think that rioting is the way to go, one simple question - what positive outcome do you expect it to achieve. Any positive outcome? Will black people be any more free, any less exploited, any safer, any better educated or better off? If they wish to organise a revolution, then that requires more than a few days of mindless violence that achieves a new tv for the apartment....

@GabsAlot

i dont see how looting your locak community will help black lives but hes scummy to tweet that im not surprised anymoree by him

In the last mass riots, it was shown that any "looting" was predominantly done by out of towners. I'm sure you weren't aware of that, but I want to make you aware that the media spin of "why are those crazy Black people looting themselves" is just a cynical narrative designed to distract and detract from the racist murders that sparked the protest in the first place.