well-temperedforum.groupee.net The Well-Tempered Forum Off Key Maybe “Defund the police” is an expression of privilegePage 1 2
Go | New | Find | Notify | Tools | Reply | |
| Maybe “Defund the police” is an expression of privilege | Login/Join |
Has Achieved Nirvana |
But what about the ordinary citizens who live in high crime areas? Some black lawmakers are speaking out. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/0...News&pgtype=Homepage
| ||
|
| Shut up and play your guitar! Minor Deity  |
A more idiotic name for a movement, I cannot imagine. Are there some municipalities that are seriously getting rid of their police departments? If so, then they are even more idiotic. | |||
|
| Never Offline |
Of course, wokeness is the political leaning most correlated with being a high status privileged person. Those who can afford to devote their identity to a fetishization of their own guilt around their privilege are in fact privileged, who'da thunk it. It gets dangerous when those sorts of imbeciles, in their idiotic virtue signalling, apply their broken psyches to the task of helping the disadvantaged by removing the protection of the police from them. | |||
|
| Has Achieved Nirvana |
If only we had a national movement focused on black lives that had some sway with left-of-center institutions and municipal legislatures. Then maybe we'd move a bit more cautiously and intelligently on police reform rather than slash budgets on faith.
| |||
|
Has Achieved Nirvana |
I saw an interesting interview of Cornell West on Democracy Now the other day. The interview touched on these subjects. I might see if I can find it. Is Cornell West privileged? Of course. Name me a tenured professor at Princeton who isn't? TBH, academics and other upper-middle class professionals are a privileged group. Is this a secret? My question is why is it not OK for black people to act as spokespersons for black people when white people do (speak for white people) ad nauseum? Black people aren't coming to attack us 'good' middle class white folk. I don't think that's what these conflagrations indicate. | |||
|
| Has Achieved Nirvana |
I don’t really get the question. My point isn’t about spokespeople so much as understanding that there are trade offs involved and that the price of underpolicing is measured in human suffering and deaths, both of which fall heavily on the black community. I don’t think most of the current dialog reflects that. It seems to me that many of the people who get social approval through expression of the more extreme positions will be largely protected from the downsides of those positions should they actually be implemented. Seeing these saner voices among the people with the most skin in the game strikes me as great news.
| |||
|
| Has Achieved Nirvana |
More blacks than whites in Minneapolis say the police force shouldn't be reduced. 
| |||
|
| Never Offline |
Something tells me that the white folk who think that way would not be difficult to convince otherwise, should they learn that the black folk do not agree. In other words, it's not really their opinion. It's just what they think they're supposed to say. | |||
|
| Has Achieved Nirvana |
That part beyond the 'in other words' seems like the least charitable interpretation. Why not 'if white liberals heard directly from blacks in high-crime areas what their concerns were about reduced policing, many would change their minds'.
| |||
|
| "I've got morons on my team." Mitt Romney Minor Deity  |
Why do you presume they would change their minds on the basis of polling information of this sort? That presumes that the "white liberal" activists have the welfare of lower-income people in high-crime (often minority) areas as their #1 priority. I would venture an alternative and much more cynical idea. That activists often have their own interests in focus. Not that they don't care about their supposed charges, but maintaining their own power may exert an important tug on what they say and advocate. Maintaining that power/authority might not be perfectly correlated, or even highly correlated, with the measured interests of the black community. | |||
|
| Does This Avatar Make My Butt Look Big? Minor Deity  |
I think there are two problems. First, officers treat blacks with tremendous disrespect. This has nothing to do with defunding. The problems range from speaking rudely, treating people as though they are used to police interactions and so aren't entitled to an explanation and don't have rights that must be respected, and blacks are inherently dangerous. Stopping these behaviors will not let criminals run free. Second, officers will have to stop displaying the sMe values of a street gang. This loyalty no matter what attitude, a toxic culture where those who do the wrong thing run the show, where scores are settled with a beating . . . It's a problem because good officers are afraid to speak up. Diverting police resources is a separate issue. | |||
|
| Never Offline |
A distinction without a difference? I am talking about the class of people who's political identity is tightly wound up in a solidarity with the oppressed. Of course such people are forced to cede their opinions to those they are in solidarity with. Otherwise their identities are meaningless. | |||
|
| Pinta & the Santa Maria Has Achieved Nirvana  |
I agree, "defund" the police is a stupid, stupid title for what is essentially a call for more training, a more diverse suite of responses, a recognition that part of the role of the police should be to protect and serve communities. The whole discussion of who is woke, who is or is not showing their privilege, who is or is not entitled to have opinions about racism, police brutality, what have you drives me nuts. It's a distraction. Because in my opinion, there should be no question that we are a racist society, that the racism is systemic, and that as hard as we may try, at some level we in the majority will never "get it." Not getting it isn't limited to racist situations, either. Men don't "get" what it's like to live in a sexist world. Rich don't get what it's like to live hand-to-mouth. All of this is true. But for the past few months, we have been focussed about, talking about race. That doesn't mean the other problems disappeared, or they never existed. It means we're not talking about them right now. To me, the ultimate expression of privilege at this point in time is to refuse to acknowledge that the conversation today is about race, and try to turn it into something else. It's not about gender, sexual orientation, socioeconomic standing, ageism, body shaming, or any of an unfortunately long list of problems. Not right now. Those problems are important as well, and we will need to address them. But talking about race, right now, doesn't mean that the other problems have gone away, or are unimportant. What-aboutisms are simply deflections. It was and remains privilege, in my opinion, to continue to twist Kaepernick's kneeling at a football game away from police violence against blacks, which was why he did it, and redefine it as anti-flag, anti-American and/or anti-"supporting the troops." We have to do better. I'm off to put on my flak jacket now.  | |||
|
| Unrepentant Dork Gadfly  |
Very well said!
| |||
|
| Never Offline |
Right this is what I'm talking about. Armed with that belief, there is no reasonable way to have an opinion that differs from the oppressed. As I worded it originally, a majority person who believes this way is 'supposed' to say whatever the oppressed people say. Because the majority person is incapable of understanding the issues sufficiently to have their own opinion. | |||
|
| Powered by Social Strata | Page 1 2 |
 | Please Wait. Your request is being processed... |
|
well-temperedforum.groupee.net The Well-Tempered Forum Off Key Maybe “Defund the police” is an expression of privilege