Hopefully, we can all agree at this point that racism and/or bias is responsible for a growing number of deaths. What's the solution?

The article I read said there had been a lot of burglaries in the neighborhood, like that made a difference. Like you, I don't know why it took months for the prosecutor to determine that a grand jury needed to be convened.  

Update: two of the three suspects involved in the death were arrested today and charged with murder. The third person was in a second vehicle and is apparently the one who filmed the incident, or at least part of it.

Thursday, May 7th, 2020.

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That video seemed wrong to me because the car was driving down the wrong side of the road.  I didn't realize the driver was with the rednecks, nor did I know he/she had also been arrested.  I've been mothersdaying today.  This is a case that should have been handled a long time ago.  It is a weight on my heart every time I know a mother has lost a child.  There isn't always justice to be had, but this time there will be.  I believe. 

You were what I thought of first because of the jogging connection too. 

I also agree that you're spot on that if the races were reversed, the suspects would have been arrested instantly. They probably would have been roughed up in the process too. That is, if they weren't shot on sight. 

People should be mad about this. ALL people should be furious this is happening. I don't understand why they're not.

Vernā Myers has a great Ted Talk on this and contends that the way to turn things around is to showcase people of color in a positive light; that the repetition of positive association changes the unconscious bias. I feel like that could be helpful to a point, but that isn't the only solution. There has to be more that can be done.

 

  It’s a shame that less than a month after you posted this, it happened again. 

:(

There were probably more incidents that didn't get the same level of press as well. :/

We need a separate entity to specifically be police for the police.  That also has their own prosecutors as well.  

Sadly, racism has been around for as long as there have been people.  Trump is not the cause and has spoken against it. Media chooses to make it seem as if everything he does is racist.   Trump had the last Nazi from WWII arrested and deported.  Trump reinstated the federal death penalty and one of the first to go to the chair was a white supremacist racist thug. He passed crime reform, he created business opportunity zones in minority areas.....a racist does not do these things. 
This post was edited by my2cents at June 2, 2020 7:58 AM MDT

 

 Many young people consider themselves invincible and/or have an it-won’t-happen-to-me mentality. The fact that you did not have fear when you were younger is not an indication that you were in less danger then than exists in 2020. You have stated that you are older than 50, which means that your youth would have been at least 40 years ago. You have also extolled your years participating in what law enforcement circles and victimologists deem extremely high-risk: single white female out on her own away from family for the first time with little financial means and no stable living situation who had several casual sex partners and also engaged in survival sex activities on some occasions.  You may have become careful or more careful at some point in your life, but by your own writings on numerous other postings, there were time periods when that wasn’t so. 

  As for this passage that you wrote above,

 “You disagree with someone or don't like the color of his (her) skin so you blow them away?  That seems all very simple-minded thinking.”

I’m sorry but it’s confusing as to whom you are referring as having claimed that.  Would you mind citing for clarification, please?  Thank you.

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What are "survival sex activities"?   (Remember this is not Adultmug) 

 

  Survival sex can be defined as situations where a person prostitutes himself or herself not due to a drug habit or other substance abuse habit, but due to being so destitute that there is absolutely no money for food, shelter, clothing, anything. Their only choice narrows doing to trading sex in order to survive day to day. For some of them, it can be a one-time incident to hold them over until a better opportunity comes along, for others it can be a continuous or recurring incident.

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Ok. Thank you. 

JA's question was about racism and bias being responsible for an "increasing number of deaths".  I wanted to point out that anyone who thinks they can kill someone just because they don't care for their color or ideas is quilty of very simplistic thinking: I don't like someone's color or ideas therefore I can kill them.  I was trying to point out the faulty logic of such thinking. To say nothing of the self-centeredness. Because if what she writes is true then it means lots of people are guilty of such thinking.  I have had black people (a few tell me) they want to kill white people just because they are white.  Have never heard a white person admit to that.  But many white people are afraid a black person will kill them.  Which I never considered being young and putting myself in those situations where you would say I was at risk. But 40 years ago was a different time and I don't know if such thinking was very pervasive at that time.  Seems to me people were more into working together for the good of all. And white racist groups I would see about on TV were not into really killing but more into supremacy  or so I thought at the time. I was never a victim of racial violence but I have learned since then that it can happen.  On The First 48 I have seen programs (actual cases) where a young or middle aged white woman was killed by a black man for purposes of robbery or to show his superiority.  And I have read accounts and heard of the hatred some black people feel for white people in general. So putting them together I have at last chosen a lifestyle for myself where in the here and now where I feel I am not putting myself at risk. And yes it is partly based upon fear but also on self-preservation. 

I am 63.  Don't know I have "extolled" any of my years.  I have written and talked about what happened in them and tried to supply my point of view.  I never had any trouble with the law and was never arrested.  We got an IRS audit a several years ago which we believe to have been politically motivated.  But we were unable to prove that nor did we try to prove anything like that.  We were investigated and completely exonerated. 

I don't think I ever thought of myself as "invincible".  No I knew I was always vulnerable but I just went with it as far as my understanding of it at the time took me. But I did not realize I was vulnerable to as many things as I do now. 

 

  Extolled the years during which you did something is what I mean, I did not mean you extolled your age. 

  It’s not surprising that you have been exposed to some of the exact opposite utterances about who wanted to kill whom in comparison with those to which I have been exposed.  There have been some white people who have stated they wanted to kill black peoples just because they are black. In a predominantly white society such as is the United States of America, it’s not surprising either that you have never been a victim of racial violence. By percentage, it’s more likely that larger numbers of minorities are victims of racial violence than would be the majority.