To say I cannot imagine how stressful it must be to be in the USA right now

[amillionnamechangeslater000]

Lockdown in the uk has been awful. Scary, sad and uncertain. But... I cannot imagine going through this in the US!

Donald Trump, the awful killing of George Flloyd, the rioting. It must be terrifying.

And quite frankly if you’re BAME - so much worse.

No blacks, No dogs, No Irish. I remember that shit. In fact experienced it myself in Holland in advertisements for jobs - The No Irish bit. The notion is that the Irish are feckless drunks, whereas if you actually look at it, they're probably more hard-working than many other cultures.
Yes we have a penchant to drink heavily and fight someone (not me personally and genuinely not most Irish, but it gets coverage if we do), but we are grafters. In Italy, I've seen ads in the job section of local newspapers stating 'No blacks' (22 years ago, so late 90s). I was unbelieving of the prejudice in Italy when I went for a job interview as a waitress in a bar. The 'madre' spoke mainly with my boyfriend (Italian) to establish his breeding/calibre before she employed me. She was keen to establish that I wasn't Polish. During the course of the conversation she apparently used the description 'la facciacia (SP?) nera' which means 'her ugly black face' to describe a previous employee. She was speaking in a dialect I didn't really understand, so my BF told me afterwards as I didn't pick up on it. I was offered the job and took it. She was an utter cunt. She once told me to be more like 'quella bionda' (the blonde one) who flirted with the men. She basically wanted me to prostitute myself to sell more fucking coffee FFS. She had also 'found' my sunglasses (Karl Lagerfeld) which I had put on the counter on one occasion and was washing them to try to steal them. An utter cunt of a woman. Blatantly horrifically racist with a superiority complex. Nasty compared to anything that I've ever witnessed in the UK.

Fiance lives right near Baltimore and Washington D.C. It is quite scary for the people in that area, you are right OP. But in the suburban areas (at least there) things are OK and of course out in the country is largely unafected.

As for Trump, he is trying to swing this so the blame lands on the Democratic Governors of those states where riots are happening, by screaming at them to do something (when it is very difficult for them to do so) and waiting until it is past the point of no return so he can swoop in and save the day, making him the Hero

Oh and she didn't believe me that they were my fucking sunglasses! Cos I was an impoverished immigrant obvs. I was there to study Italian and they were a birthday gift from my very affluent boyfriend.

They would fight in the courtroom and the boardroom where they can really make a difference
Indeed but the urge to express their 'alpha masculinity' makes the courtroom and the boardroom very unappealing options

I can't imagine what it would be like to be bringing up a BAME son in America and having that fear every time he leaves the house, when he is in the house, when he is asleep even, that cops are going to break in and kill him because he is black and somebody else who was black might just be involved in some minor crime.

Or for that matter, seeing your BAME granddad leave the house and not know when he will be pushed off the sidewalk.

Having a disabled relative and know that if they are black, they can be killed for not magically being able to get out of the car without help.

Scary, yes, but I imagine it’s a bit like Australia and the fires earlier n the year. Remember the map that showed nearly all of Australia was in fire

I live in Australia (Adelaide). Even though there were fires not that far from me, for the most part you wouldn’t know about it living in the city and suburbs. Some areas were badly effected by smoke but it was only an issue for my area for a few days.

The whole situation was very upsetting for me and the heat nearly broke me but I was never in danger or impacted in a practical sense.

The notion in the US seems to be that if you're African American, you're likely to be guilty of something! Stats seem to bear this out. However, if you look behind the stats, the rates of arrests of African Americans for crimes they haven't committed, or in the UK even, it's just that they're arrested and charged and convicted more than their white counterparts. Not that they have in fact committed more crimes. They're just arrested and convicted more.

corythatwas the racism within the police and the brutality is towards black people especially young men. It’s not the BAME community as a whole. They are not all worried for their sons

Hispanic people are also targeted but again not to the same level.

I’ve never heard any of my extensive family who live in the states (South Asian) talk about fearing police brutality they know they are safe from this. My brother has at times revived derogatory remarks that are racist but because they have assumed he is Hispanic (you have to fit into an ethnic group similar to here how we are slotted into a class group).

Bluetongue - 30 cities in the US now have riots and looting. It's not an isolated campaign.

I actually read a thread on some website, don't think it was here, questioning whether black people were genetically predisposed to criminality. Many people agreed and quoted stats about how many blacks were convicted vs whites. You couldn't actually make this shit up.