Re: Corona Virus: is it the beginning of the end?
Okay, where to even begin here.
AnIdiot, thank you for saying what I wasn't going to this time. Deflection is so common now it's laughable. But I'll put that aside for now, and won't latch on.
Since when did being asleep on a university couch constitute threatening behaviour? Jesus Christ, dude. Is it a little out of the ordinary? Sure, okay, maybe. But the person is asleep on a couch, doing nothing more than taking up a little space. No blood, no drug paraphernalia, no firearms, no signs of any sort of foul play. And a white person calls the police. Reputedly the reason was because they didn't know if the black woman was even supposed to be there. Calling the cops is absolutely, 100%, no-doubt-about-it a racist act. Why didn't the white caller either 1. ask someone nearby if they recognized the black woman or 2. wake her up gently and ask her who she was? Or, hey, I'll do ya one better. Why didn't the white person just go on their way and forget the whole fucking thing? Again, since when does being asleep on a couch in a university constitute strange or suspicious behaviour? That's not suspicious, it's harmless!
I almost wish I knew you in person, just so I could catch you asleep someplace and call the cops on you. But if you're white, do you think they'd come if I said "there's a white guy asleep on this bench, officers. Please hurry."? No, me either. They ask why the hell I was calling and wasting their time. But when the "suspect" - note the quotes - is black, they can't get there fast enough.
And this is just one example. Most black people I know say that if you're in America, getting harassed by police is not a matter of "if", it's a matter of "when". That alone is more than enough to slam this case shut, but I'll keep going a little while longer.
White people get better lawyers. Ever wonder why that is? Maybe blacks have been subjected to systemic racism, which means that many of them (read: not all, by any means) can't actually afford high legal fees? Maybe judges have been historically predisposed to throw the book at blacks even when there is no precedent to do so? I'll point you at another case here. Ever heard of Cyntoia Brown? She was reputedly forced into sex with men as early as fourteen years old, and eventually killed one of the men abusing her. At sixteen, she was sentenced to mandatory life in prison after a first-degree murder charge, first chance of parole to be granted in 2057. She was released in early 2019 after massive pressure began to mount. The American justice system sentenced a black teenager to spend the rest of her life in jail because she killed a man who was abusing her. Okay, murder is bad, you'll get no argument from me there. But then, let's flip it on its ear. Brock Turner was convicted of raping a woman - dragging her behind a dumpster while she was unconscious, I should add - and because of his future as a football player, got six months in jail. Three guesses on what colour his skin was.
So now you sit here, and tell me that the United States isn't racist because it has no overtly racist laws? This is self-deception of the worst kind. Get your head out of the sand and accept that your country's got huge problems where it comes to systemic racism. Also, please familiarize yourself with the concept of systemic racism in the first place. You don't have to call a black person the n word to be a racist. You don't have to hate black people to be a racist. All you have to do is treat black people unfairly to be a racist. And guess what? Most people do it. I've done it. I haven't meant to, but I've done it. And I'm working on it, because I don't want to do it anymore. If you agree that racism is bad, you'll take my example and work on it as well. And the first step in doing that is admitting that you, and a lot of people around you to some extent, are contributing to the problem in a big way by trying to downplay it.
Stop downplaying. Stop deflecting. Stop making excuses. If your defense is "yeah but", cram it down your throat and choke on it for just a sec before speaking. I am sick and tired of white people deciding that racism is dead because it's convenient for them to believe such. And that's pretty much what you're doing.
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