George Floyd

[Josh]

So what you're saying is that you like the police who charged Chauvin and you're happy with their performance, and you want to see more policing like that.

Got it.

The state prosecutor charged him. Not MPD. So no...that is not what I was saying.

Ok, let me restart.

So what you're saying is that you like the state police who charged Chauvin, and you're happy with their performance, and you want to see more policing from the Minnesota State Patrol.

[Josh]

Perhaps what is needed is some rather conventional, conservative, Republican politicians.

No...that is not the solution to this problem.

Well, they've been running on a platform of smaller government, more local control, and generally are the politicians running in opposition to the people in charge of the Minneapolis Police Department.

You clearly want political changes. What do you actually want? You seem very unhappy with how Democrats have been running Minneapolis, who have had an iron grip on the city since 1973.

[joshuabgood]

The disagreement here really is...it appears to me, to be whether or not in fact systemic cultural racism exists. Whether or not "white supremacy," at times unwittingly as we are so close to it as white people, exists throughout our culture and institutions.

I say yes it does. It exists in our systems and they produce what they are designed to produce. The prison system evidences this well. I recommend you watch or read Just Mercy and then view 13 on netflix. (Or watch the video I recorded showing how the myth of American Nationalism/exceptionalism is connected to white supremacy and the empire and a culture of power. And how none of that is remotely Kingdom centric or Anabaptist.)

[ken_sylvania]

The questions that I raised are questions that prick me as well. I'm ashamed to say that in a number of situations recently, I have allowed myself to draw conclusions based on what seemed very clear evidence at first, but I have had to modify or abandon those initial conclusions once the larger story as well. This kind of a rush to judgment is not conducive to an orderly society, nor does it encourage justice, fairness and equality. As Christians we ought to be setting a better example. If we are misunderstood because of our reluctance to pass judgment, we ought not be ashamed.

[Robert]

The point is, the people closest to all the evidence, that interviewed all the suspects, have concluded murder. Not first degree, but in this case third and then second.

Are you so sure that there was not politics involved in these charges? Watch the charges in the King, Ferguson, and Baltimore cases. They all started with strong charges only to be brought down to realistic charges or charges dropped altogether.

Again, my prediction is he will be found guilty of negligent homicide and the other officers will be innocent with slaps on the wrist for not stopping it.

It never is as clear cut as the media and extremist groups try to paint it. Not in 2020. Maybe 20-40 years ago, but not today.

[joshuabgood]

We do? I don't.

Exhibit A - case in point. We don't realize the way culture/time/place influence our thinking. It's like a fish in water that doesn't know it is in water. It's the air we breath. Individualism, while a western idea, is in fact a flawed concept.

We do? I think white people, black people, and other people of all races simply get irritated when someone accuses them of racism or some other very offensive thing over and over. Which is what you keep doing.

Exhibit B - No. I am not accusing individual people of being malicious racists. I am pointing to broad systemic cultural racism. And the initial contention was that I pointed out a line of questions (with its embedded assumptions) would be experienced as more evidence of systemic racism by black people. (I already clarified that I could have been more explicit in noting what I just again described...that being, systemic racism as opposed to individual malicious racism).

As a follower of Jesus, I keep flipping through my Bible but I can't find that it talks about the origin of sin and discord to be "systemic racism" anywhere. It has other explanations that are quite clear. So why can't we focus on and talk about those things?

The Bible uses the term favoritism. We should not prefer or favor whiteness. That is white supremacy. Jesus also was notably not a respecter of persons.

I'm complicit in "systemic racism" and that if I disagree with you, it must be my "white fragility" talking.

Jesus himself was numbered with the transgressors. I haven't accused you of being racist personally. I have pointed out that our culture and its systems, prefer whiteness, and marginalize people of color. That is by definition systemic racism. White fragility refers to the discomfort white's get when they feel in these conversations they are unjustly accused of individual racism. That discomfort often results in defensiveness. There is a well-known book out on this subject that I would encourage you to read with an open mind.

In the end as I said...our difference is, whether or not systemic racism is a problem. If the video of George Floyd's murder doesn't convince you, I don't know what will. (There are hundreds of George Floyds. Some we know about and some we don't.)

[Judas Maccabeus]

The point is, the people closest to all the evidence, that interviewed all the suspects, have concluded murder. Not first degree, but in this case third and then second.

Are you so sure that there was not politics involved in these charges? Watch the charges in the King, Ferguson, and Baltimore cases. They all started with strong charges only to be brought down to realistic charges or charges dropped altogether.

Again, my prediction is he will be found guilty of negligent homicide and the other officers will be innocent with slaps on the wrist for not stopping it.

It never is as clear cut as the media and extremist groups try to paint it. Not in 2020. Maybe 20-40 years ago, but not today.

Yeah, we need to wait for the trial. In baltimore, the city district attorney in the Freddie Gray case charged one of the officers with "depraved heart murder" a charge she had likely not seen since law school. She objected when the defendants asked for a bench trial (No jury, judge decides, which at least in Maryland is the right of any defendant). Net result, based on the evidence presented, one defendant after another was acquitted, finally all charges were dropped. Thought here is that the DA thought she could sway a jury. Harder to sway a judge when you don't have the facts. If she had focused on negligence she might have gotten a plea, or won at trial. Truth is we do not know what happened in the back of that van.

The charges were largely thought to be for local political reasons. Great for an election campaign.

My fear is that the defendants will be acquitted, and we will have more "Rodney King" style violence.

Also assigning "racism" to an individual simply based on their race simply rubs me the wrong way, if it rubs ME the wrong way, how much more someone of less conciliatory leaning. I fear backlash.

J.M.

[joshuabgood]

https://www.facebook.com/thedailyshow/v ... g1NTAyNjk/

Perhaps the above video can break through cultural thinking...outrage over a gorilla being killed and acknowledging systemic issues for "one" gorilla. Hundreds of black men...still not convinced of systemic issues.

[Ken]

The point is, the people closest to all the evidence, that interviewed all the suspects, have concluded murder. Not first degree, but in this case third and then second.

Are you so sure that there was not politics involved in these charges? Watch the charges in the King, Ferguson, and Baltimore cases. They all started with strong charges only to be brought down to realistic charges or charges dropped altogether.

Again, my prediction is he will be found guilty of negligent homicide and the other officers will be innocent with slaps on the wrist for not stopping it.

It never is as clear cut as the media and extremist groups try to paint it. Not in 2020. Maybe 20-40 years ago, but not today.

I tend to agree. The officer who actually killed him will be convicted of something after a long trial with lots and lots of delays reaching perhaps into late 2021 or beyond. Probably negligent homicide which can still carry a 10-20 year sentence. I'm too lazy to look it up for MN. The wild card is if it turns out they knew each other and had some personal animosity in which case it could jump to 2nd degree. There seems to be some evidence of that.

The other officers will likely never work as cops again but are unlikely to serve time. Perhaps some sort of community service sort of sentence. Especially the young one who was only 4 days into the job and actually questioned what the other was doing.

That is probably as it should be. And far more severe consequences than would have been the case had there been no video.

[HondurasKeiser]

The state needs to maintain a monopoly on the use of force. That does extended to ensuring that its own agents remain lawful and do not go off and use force for their own ends, but at the same time, if the state abandons maintaining a monopoly on the use of force, then you can expect criminal gangs, protection rackets, and vigilantes to arise in very short order.

This is a salient point and something that I see at work here in Honduras. The state has, in effect, through corruption, malpractice and dereliction of duty, allowed its national police force to become a paper tiger with little to no real authority. In its place then have arisen all of the elements you describe (and that I bolded) in addition to private security firms that are a mandatory element of opening and maintaining a business or living in a neighborhood that isn't lower-middle class. Thus, the wealthy pay through the nose for 24-hour security both at home and at work (the uber-wealthy have private body-guards) and everyone else is subject to the vicissitudes of gang violence, vigilante patrols, war-taxes, drug lords and police shakedowns. This is what it looks like for the State to shirk its responsibility to 'bear the sword', 'punish the evildoer' and 'uphold the Good'.