George Floyd

[Robert]

I agree by the way - the term "terrorism" doesn't fit here.

For me, abuse of power is the best term I can out on it right now. As more details come out, that could change.

[barnhart]

None of this is terrorism. Not rioting. Not killing George Floyd.

English is a rich language that has lots of words to denote all the many kinds of bad things that people can do, and it has those words because they’re different things with nuanced and complicated definitions because they describe nuanced and complicated things. Flattening everything into “terrorism” adds no meaning and illuminates nothing.

It's not terrorism to you. The unjustified killing of a black man, by the police, is terrorism to a segment of the population. And it falls in a legacy of state sponsored terrorism and apartheid for hundreds of years.

As a linguist, I will side with Perlerin here...

I'm with JBG I think. If this were an isolated event or even a rare event, it would not be terrorism. But it is not. It is the tail of a long system of violent oppression that has gone under different names but in the end, white men end up using deadly violence against black men with amazing frequency.

[Grace]

It's not terrorism to you. The unjustified killing of a black man, by the police, is terrorism to a segment of the population. And it falls in a legacy of state sponsored terrorism and apartheid for hundreds of years.

As a linguist, I will side with Perlerin here...

I'm with JBG I think. If this were an isolated event or even a rare event, it would not be terrorism. But it is not. It is the tail of a long system of violent oppression that has gone under different names but in the end, white men end up using deadly violence against black men with amazing frequency.

Yet from 1976 to 2005, 94 percent of black victims were killed by other African Americans, not white men.

[barnhart]

As a linguist, I will side with Perlerin here...

I'm with JBG I think. If this were an isolated event or even a rare event, it would not be terrorism. But it is not. It is the tail of a long system of violent oppression that has gone under different names but in the end, white men end up using deadly violence against black men with amazing frequency.

Yet from 1976 to 2005, 94 percent of black victims were killed by other African Americans, not white men.

This particular plague of terror is much older than 1976. I know a man my age who remembers as a child, hearing at night the screams from a white farmer beating his black "workers." Trauma has a long afterlife. I know mennonites who still talk earnestly about the persecutions of the 16th century.

[Robert]

Trauma has a long afterlife.

This is true about many things that can happen.

I could be wrong and I know I am looking at this through my eyes, but I do not see racism in this death, but abuse of power. This is why i do not call it terrorism. It would not fit the accepted definition well. It does fit into abuse of power. One who has authority misuses it and abuses those of lesser power.

If more comes out and shows the officer was racist, I can accept that, but until there is evidence of that, I will not jump to that conclusion. It is easy to see that he abused his power, for some reason. We just do not know the reason yet. We should be careful about jumping to conclusions ... unless it supports one of my conspiracy theories.

[RZehr]

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/ge ... e-n1217976

[barnhart]

I could be wrong and I know I am looking at this through my eyes, but I do not see racism in this death, but abuse of power. This is why i do not call it terrorism. It would not fit the accepted definition well. It does fit into abuse of power. One who has authority misuses it and abuses those of lesser power.

If more comes out and shows the officer was racist, I can accept that, but until there is evidence of that, I will not jump to that conclusion.

That is consistent with your working definition of racism. If racism is only malice intent, then we must consider the heart condition of every perpetrator. I am not a person of color, but I imagine they often grow weary of carefully investigating the heart of every one who acts against them. At some point action is action, data is data and dead people are dead regardless of intent.

[Pelerin]

Regardless of what you think of the War on Terror (right there is a phrase that tapped into the word’s power) and how it was conducted, who here will make the case that the rioters are of the same category as al-Qaeda? Should a SEAL team be sent in to hunt them down at all costs? Should the police who killed George Floyd be targeted in their homes with a precision bomb from a Predator drone? Does putting them (you pick which one) in the same category as al-Qaeda offer insights on how they got to where they are? Does it offer potential solutions to the problem?

Ah, well, nevermind. Apparently the answer to that question isn’t as obvious as I thought it was.

[Valerie]

I’m so sick of police brutality and senseless killing, and the “thin blue line”, the unnecessary force in restraining people, and the “stop resisting” pretense, and their freedom to lie to the public with no consequences.

I do respect our local deputies, but there is major problems in way to many police departments.

The response to this horrible tragedy is burning down businesses that have nothing to do with the death of George Floyd. How is the domestic terrorism we are seeing right now any different than police brutality?

I agree. Indeed many of those businesses serve the African American communities. Rallies can be successful but the credibility of the effort is undermined by those who use it as an excuse to steal from and destroy local businesses, a particularly loathsome form of domestic terrorism.

Police brutality had absolutely nothing to do with all the looting that was done in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.
People take opportunities to do the evil in their hearts and try to justify it or blame- a hurricane was no justification for looting- but neither is the police brutality and it certainly makes it worse the response. Why can't they see that?

[Robert]

That is consistent with your working definition of racism. If racism is only malice intent, then we must consider the heart condition of every perpetrator. I am not a person of color, but I imagine they often grow weary of carefully investigating the heart of every one who acts against them. At some point action is action, data is data and dead people are dead regardless of intent.

I hope you do not feel I am suggesting that nothing should happen to the officer. I think he should be charged with murder, or negligent homicide at the least. Maybe both. I am not a lawyer and know the exact workings of the law, but I think all the officers present should be charged with something.