To think that the looters should be ashamed of themselves

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I think that the protests are fully justified, and support them, but imo looting is ridiculous. Using the horrific death of someone as an excuse to steal?? This is not what George Floyd would have wanted. Probably quite the opposite.

OK Flax how do experiences not in anyway inform and direct reaction?

I didn't say they don't.

But people do react differently to similar experiences, obviously

Flax do you see your posts are showing you to be an apologist?

I'd rather discuss events than your personal opinions of me. If that's OK with you

It's awful. In no circumstances is it acceptable to steal, set fire to buildings, destroy people's businesses.

It's also not acceptable to kneel on someones neck till they die.

Both are dreadful, and neither justify the other.

Actually I think one explains or gives rise to the other

@Flaxmeadow

The police seem to be the main instigators of violence. They maced a child ffs.

They did not deliberately mace a child, mace can be spread over a wide area, and what kind of parent takes a child to a street protest anyway? Especially one that obviously has the potential to erupt into violence

My family took me to Poll Tax protests.

No-one got maced at it. It isn't obligatory to mace protesters, whatever they're protesting.

There is a clear and documented disparity, on a national scale, in both the UK and US, in the spread of wealth between white and black people.

The reasons for this are long, complex and ultimately all return to the oppression of people of colour, by white people.

After generations of systematic poverty, in a capitalist culture, where your success is measured by your wealth and possessions; where the media has glorified wealth and expensive 'things'; where people are taught that they are lesser, deserve to be poor, told it's their own fault for a lack of education and good employment anyway; wheren people are actively discriminated against...

Well then, when tensions flair and there are protests, it leads to rioting and looting. People taking the things they have never been worthy of, or good enough for - both so they can posses the item and as punishment against the world that denied it them. It's a known and heavily studied situation I thought? I was taught so years ago in a level sociology.

They have been deliberately doing all sorts of things.
Driving cars at people.
Shoving over people who are just standing there.
Firing rubber bullets into people's homes.
Trampling people with horses.

Anyone see the video where they arrest a black man in a mall, I think it is, he wasn't doing anything. And he was an FBI agent, so he gave them what for.

Imagine the privilege of clutching your pearls at looting but consistently overlooking the far more severe injustices that have lead to the looting.

For those reasons I find the looting awful, but no more awful than the situation that created them. It's cause and effect. I can empathise with it. I'm white, I've never been discriminated against for my colour; I have because of my background and assumptions about me though and, fuck me, I've wanted to set fire to the world. Had everyone I knew felt the same, and after an act of such shocking brutality, then who knows what could have happened...

Poll Tax protests.

More famously known as the Poll Tax Riots

Imagine the privilege of clutching your pearls at looting but consistently overlooking the far more severe injustices that have lead to the looting.

Imagine discussing looting in a topic specifically about... looting

@PennyNotSoWise

I was just looking at some pictures. The police seem to be the main instigators of violence. They maced a child ffs.

They are. I've seen a video compilation of the brutality from the police, it's fucking unbelievable. Literally approaching people who weren't anywhere near them and shoving them forcefully to the floor. I saw a woman standing quietly and still get deliberately maced. They've blinded a journalist, Linda Tirado, in one eye with a rubber bullet. In another clip the police were taking aim and firing at a camera crew who were miles away from them, and at least EIGHT police officers piled on to ONE black man who was on the ground.

A protester was interviewed on BBC news this morning and said he's seen people being arrested and restrained in the same way that killed George Floyd.

I can see who the real thugs are here, and it's not the protesters.

All of this.

@Flaxmeadow

Poll Tax protests.

More famously known as the Poll Tax Riots

Your point is? They did not all turn into riots, did they? I wonder if the different approaches of different police forces might have played a part in that.

I wonder if the different approaches of different police forces might have played a part in that

I think part of the problem in the USA, but by no means all of it, is the idea of "lethal force" or "deadly force" and it relates to gun control.

A USA citizen can use deadly force, this is allowed in law. That someone, anyone, can kill someone else to protect themselves, or their property? But of course this is open to interpretation. This also applies to the police. That a police officer can use it the same as any other civilian can. This is all tied up in the constitution and the crazed attitudes around it, specifically around guns.

Here we have "reasonable force". There is a difference because it's a lot rarer in Europe for someone to be in possession of a firearm

I'm not saying it necessarily relates to what happened in this specific case. But I do think it makes the police in the USA more militarised. More like an army who see themselves as fighting some kind of war. Not good

Imagine not even being prepared to look at the privilege you have due to the colour of your skin

Imagine being in a discussion forum and assuming the colour of the other posters skin, and also continually firing off personal remarks, instead of debating the issues

Flax feel free to say you are a POC. We welcome all. Even with playbook retorts

Im asking you again. Can you please stop making this about me. Thanks.

If you want to debate the posts I've made around the issues raised, then that would be great.

I would like your view on imaging a black mother teaching her child how not be potentially killed by the Police

I do not live in the USA, so would find that hard to imagine, but I don't deny that is an awful situation that many mothers in the USA do find themselves in. I agree with you

@UmmH I'm happy to debate, as I'm happy to explain my point.

I'm white, middle class and middle aged. I don't have any black friends or family, and I cannot imagine what it must be like to experience racism once, let alone every day. Apart from the 1980s when I protested against Apartheid alongside everyone else, my exposure to the politics of being a POC is zero.

It doesn't make me a racist; if I saw a black person being abused I would speak up, and the other way round. It just makes me not-black. I can chose to live my life in peaceful ignorance if I choose.

There are millions of people like me. We think what happened to George Floyd was abhorrent and cannot be excused. We also look at looters (of all skin colours) and it turns us 'off'. We stop being interested in the politics of it, we stop wanting to know more, why should we educate ourselves on the problems when we just see yobs using a murder as an excuse to nick some trainers, and people defending them.

The Brooklyn protesters defending the Target store knew the damage to the protest message, as well as the downstream damage to the local economy. If you want people to be 'anti-racist' not just 'not racist' then you need to understand the optics from both sides and try to engage rather than starting from a position of hate and presumption.

The focus on looting is a real red herring, isn't it?

Yes it is and it is meant to be. The use of Agents Provocateur to discredit protestors and distract focus has a long and proven history, but people like the OP will continue to be distracted because it's easier than addressing the real issue.