06-13-2020, 06:32 AM
(06-13-2020, 05:29 AM)Blazkovitz Wrote: Race as a dimension of differences between people is way overrated. I am White but I always felt I have more in common with idealistic, rational Blacks like Maggie Aderin-Pocock (the host of the BBC's Sky at Night) than with some lowlife Whites such as chavs.
It's the activist community who play up the racial tensions in America, in 2004 65% of Black Americans said the relations between Blacks and Whites are good, versus only 40% now:
https://news.gallup.com/poll/1687/Race-Relations.aspx
Don't get me wrong, I know there is real racism in America, and other parts of the developed world as well. There are many racists within the police, even Neil Tyson remarked he was stopped by cops more often than his White colleagues. There have to be reforms, but the reformers shouldn't consider the police as a whole an enemy. Good cops must triumph over the bad ones.
British blacks are often hyper-British, assimilating readily to middle-class ways good for doing well in an open society.
Events can change perspectives. Maybe the change in how people see race relations in America reflect that Americans recognize that things aren't quite as rosy as they may have seemed. And, yes, Donald Trump has exposed the sewer to us all. It's about like the toddler is proud to have pooped. Eventually it is something to not discuss in accordance with social taboos. Trump seems not to understand some of the normal constraints of American life. The killing of George Floyd makes people come to a recognition that something is terribly wrong. Because the case is sure to go to a court of law I am going to say as little as possible.
As the Romans once asked, Quis custodiet custodies? (Who watches the watchmen?) So it is with people in law enforcement. No cop really wants to watch over fellow cops. Internal affairs has a bind in that it has the police tearing at the camaraderie that makes police work tolerable. Cops do not want to see fellow cops as crooks. Taking down a drug-dealer, a child molester, a spouse-beater, an armed robber, or a rapist rarely creates any moral problem for a cop. Be honest: if the cops caught a serial arsonist you would be delighted, too, about it.
There are bad cops. Many eventual criminals seek employment as police officers. It's hard to imagine an activity that could better fit a sociopathic personality than police work as such gives one power that one can easily abuse and often get away with abusing others. Then there are those cops who fail to live up to the standards to which cops are trained. Should a choke-hold be necessary, then relax the hold often enough so that the person arrested can breathe...
I can say this: if you are looking for a career in which you can do real good for people that pays well and offers some job security without having to stay in school until one's late 20's, then police work can be right for you. If you take down a drug-dealer, a child molester, a spouse-beater, an armed robber, or a rapist, then you are doing a genuine service to Humanity. Nobody else has a job that can do that.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.