Couple of things first. I haven't watched the video, the comments, as well as too many previous police shootings, leave no doubt in my mind there will be a racial element involved. I will watch it later when I have the chance.
Hands up as an Aussie, I have no place sitting in judgment on the amount of racism in other countries as my own has such an appalling track record (continued to this day) against our Indigenous people.
I'm glad a previous poster mentioned the officer shooting of Justine Damond. I should also clarify I've have missed many of the previous posts as I'm quite busy so in case there is some untoward reasoning I'm not aware of that. IIRC the officer was a Muslim immigrant. I am not stating this to vilify the officer in anyway, but I would like to use this case to illustrate a point.
Obviously with Justine being Australian there were quite a lot of media reports over here. What was shocking though, besides the fact of an innocent woman being shot, was the social media commentary from both sides of the political spectrum.
Let me share some examples, I'm paraphrasing here :
Usual "Alt right" comments: posters comments in" " my input below each.
"See this just goes to show they hate our women"
- Abhorrent, what could anyone say to change someone like that's mind? Prime example of most likely ingrained generational racism.
"Bet he was a "diversity" hire"
- Almost guaranteed to be a MRA, they generally love throwing out that line against women.
Progressive commentary:
"Just watch, they'll throw the book at him because he's Muslim"
- There's some validity here, but I suspect it may depend on what the political landscape is in the city. Interesting as a possible example of DARVO.
"They'll do something now a white woman's been shot"
Here's where things get interesting, I give you one of each:
"What sort of idiot goes running up to the police."
"Only somebody comfortable in their white priveledge would approach the police like that"
-Victim blaming much? I'll tell you who approaches the police like that. Somebody raised in a country where police don't shoot first and ask questions later. Sadly both seem to allude to the fact that there's a problem with the police, but are so caught up in their rhetoric they can't acknowledge it.
Is there racism involved in police shootings in the US? Of course there is there have been too many examples for people to deny it (I suspect those that do have their heads inserted up their own arses). I'm in no way trying to minimise it. But what I am trying to illustrate is that it has now almost (in my opinion as an outside observer) devolved into a political point scoring exercise.
Everytime news breaks of yet another mass shooting in the US I cringe, now sadly not only for the dreadful violence and loss of life, but because I can't help feeling both sides waiting. Paused at their keyboards, "Who is the shooter?" Waiting to assign blame to their political rivals. You can almost sense it, the feeling is so palpable. It's like some bizarre dance that goes on and on.
Yet still, the world watches and waits, watches and waits. When? When will they finally get it? So many tragedies far too many lives. Too many shootings to list. UK/Scotland made laws after Dunblane, Australia did after Port Arthur, now our Kiwi cousins after the Christchurch Mosque.
Sandy Hook happened and the world held their collective breath. Surely now? Surely? No. Sadly the gun violence rolls on unabated. Yes racism plays a part, particularly in police related shootings. But while the tit for tat, bullshit point scoring carries on, there is really is no hope for a bipartisan approach to try and solve this. That's quite possibly the real tragedy.