Just out of curiosity, is this your theme song, lilBuddha?
Host hat on
You’ve been around long enough, @mousethief, to know that sort of thing does not belong in Purgatory. If not, go and look again at the first of the Purgatory guidelines and at Commandment 3. If you want to get into that sort of stuff you know where to take it. Host hat off
BroJames Purgatory Host
Even if I am completely wrong about the knife arch thing, study after study demonstrate that policing of BAME/POC is different to policing of white people.
“Even if I’m wrong, I’m right”.
You really do make it hard to agree with you sometimes.
Even if I am completely wrong about the knife arch thing, study after study demonstrate that policing of BAME/POC is different to policing of white people.
“Even if I’m wrong, I’m right”.
You really do make it hard to agree with you sometimes.
I based what I posted on a quote from the article I linked.
Perhaps I should phrased it differently. However, the basic point of that article is still true. Notting Hill receives attention from the police that is different to other festivals despite it being as safe as many smaller festivals. It is part of the overall pattern of treating black people differently.
I entirely agree with everything in your last post.
The media point is especially true of sub-editors and their equivalents who want eye-catching headlines. This appears to have been the case in the Metro piece. ‘Knife arch’ catches the eye, then the rest of the story, sometimes even the quotations, is back-edited to bring the terminology in the story into line with the headline.
It is important in making the case about differences in policing not to buttress it with erroneous material which inherently invites contradiction otherwise the main argument gets lost in the flurry of misinformation and its contradiction.
Further the validity of the main argument is undermined by demonstrable errors in the evidence adduced to support it. People end up saying, “If that evidence is obviously untrue, why should I believe the main claim?”
This is true in discussions about discrimination of all kinds as so many are keen not to be found guilty of prejudice.
The fucked up thing is that those disbelieving/ignoring/hiding the discrimination are not held to the same standard.
At most, reality is a bit less binary, a bit more nuanced, than the one bit that people are getting hung up on. And again, that is part of privilege. It allows one self-permission to ignore the rest of the information.
People were challenging the idea from the beginning, before they looked into it further. I'll admit that irked me and I took a quote that might be too strongly stated and repeated it.
Again, privilege allows people to take that as enough to listen no further. Not all of us have that.
Notting Hill receives attention from the police that is different to other festivals despite it being as safe as many smaller festivals. It is part of the overall pattern of treating black people differently.
The thing is, you're dismissing any and all other reasons why it may be treated differently in order to blame that treatment specifically on racism. You may be right about that, of course - the Met certainly has 'previous' on that front - but you may also be wrong. And if you're wrong, then reducing the police presence or changing their methods may actually lead to more people getting hurt.
You say it's as safe as other festivals, based on the published crime stats as linked a few times on this thread (here, for example). But safety isn't just about total crime, it's also about the type of crime that's happening, and those same stats show that knife crime happens a lot more at Notting Hill - there have been 23 stabbings there in the last three years (ibid.) compared to zero at Creamfields - I couldn't find similar data for Glastonbury but there were only 47 total offences against the person (i.e. any form of assault) there in a similar period.
Drug crime, on the other hand, was significantly higher at Glastonbury and Creamfields - a fact that probably surprises nobody.
Assuming those stats are correct then that strikes me as a valid reason to focus on knives at Notting Hill, but if the police can't do so because it may be perceived as treating black people differently then does that mean that avoiding the appearance of racism is more important than trying to stop people being stabbed?
It just feels a bit like the sort of approach that was parodied so well by Lenny Henry.
Drug crime, on the other hand, was significantly higher at Glastonbury and Creamfields - a fact that probably surprises nobody.
Arrests for drug crime were significantly higher. That is not necessarily correlated to the amount of drugs crime taking place. I'm certain I'll be on fairly solid ground if I posit the amount of cocaine used at the 5-day Royal Ascot festival would keep several county lines gangs in business for the rest of the year. And that's before you add in the brawls brought on by additional alcohol intake, for which behaviour the arrest rate was almost zero.
There is dispute as to the extent of bloodshed that occurred but no dispute that Aboriginals were excluded from their traditional land and herded into proscribed places, where they were required to stay unless they sought permission.
Not disputing that Aboriginals were the traditional occupiers or that they were wrongfully treated.
Does your view that they are the rightful owners depend on them having
Drug crime, on the other hand, was significantly higher at Glastonbury and Creamfields - a fact that probably surprises nobody.
Arrests for drug crime were significantly higher. That is not necessarily correlated to the amount of drugs crime taking place.
Point taken, though it doesn't change what I was saying in any significant manner.
Well now. You might just want to consider the differences in approaches to policing at royal Ascot, Creamfields, and the Notting Hill Carnival, and see how that could possibly affect the arrest rates. Just a suggestion.
There is dispute as to the extent of bloodshed that occurred but no dispute that Aboriginals were excluded from their traditional land and herded into proscribed places, where they were required to stay unless they sought permission.
Not disputing that Aboriginals were the traditional occupiers or that they were wrongfully treated.
But unless you take the view that they are the rightful owners only because they were wrongfully treated - that suffering maketh right - then it seems as if you're saying that they were and still are the rightful owners because they are/were the traditional occupiers.
Is that your belief ? Would you say with the same conviction that the white race are the rightful owners of the countries of northern Europe ?
I'm not just tweaking your tail here, Simon.
I'm not a white nationalist. Because such a "wogs go home" belief seems to me unjust to the individual descendants of nonwhite immigrants who have grown up here and have known no other home and have individually done no wrong. It forces on them a nonwhite racial identity (making a thing of it even if their nonwhiteness is indisputably factually true).
So I cannot agree with you, to the extent that you wish to force on your neighbours a racial "white Australian" rather than Australian identity. And discount their individual rights to their personal homeland. And hold them responsible for something done by others with the same skin colour.
There is dispute as to the extent of bloodshed that occurred but no dispute that Aboriginals were excluded from their traditional land and herded into proscribed places, where they were required to stay unless they sought permission.
Not disputing that Aboriginals were the traditional occupiers or that they were wrongfully treated.
But unless you take the view that they are the rightful owners only because they were wrongfully treated . . .
I'm not sure this argument can be taken as honest or sincere. You can't claim to believe that expelling Aboriginals from their lands is "wrongful" and then claim that it's right and correct that they no longer have those lands.
What, exactly, do you consider "wrongful" about the treatment of Australia's Aboriginal population that nonetheless is "rightful" enough to be legitimate today?
Drug crime, on the other hand, was significantly higher at Glastonbury and Creamfields - a fact that probably surprises nobody.
Arrests for drug crime were significantly higher. That is not necessarily correlated to the amount of drugs crime taking place.
Point taken, though it doesn't change what I was saying in any significant manner.
Well now. You might just want to consider the differences in approaches to policing at royal Ascot, Creamfields, and the Notting Hill Carnival, and see how that could possibly affect the arrest rates. Just a suggestion.
It suggests that either there are fewer drug takers at Ascot and Notting Hill, or that the police are less bothered about drug taking at those two events. Probably the latter.
The major difference between drug offences and stabbings is that even if no arrests are made for either crime it's quite a bit harder to hide the fact that a stabbing has taken place than that someone has taken drugs. Hence why my previous post tried to use the figures for reported stabbings rather than arrests.
My overall point is that different events can require different safety and security tactics without that being anything to do with the race of those attending. If one event has a history of drug use being the major problem then put your efforts into drug policing. If another has a history of knife crime being the major problem then put your efforts into knife policing. Spending time focusing on knife crime at the former and drug crime at the latter may well serve to give a superficial appearance of equal treatment, but in practice is a waste of resources that should be dedicated to the real problem.
You can't claim to believe that expelling Aboriginals from their lands is "wrongful" and then claim that it's right and correct that they no longer have those lands.
Russ claims to seriously believe that possession is or ought to be ten tenths of the law.
My overall point is that different events can require different safety and security tactics without that being anything to do with the race of those attending. If one event has a history of drug use being the major problem then put your efforts into drug policing. If another has a history of knife crime being the major problem then put your efforts into knife policing. Spending time focusing on knife crime at the former and drug crime at the latter may well serve to give a superficial appearance of equal treatment, but in practice is a waste of resources that should be dedicated to the real problem.
All true, but there's still a huge problem here. This argument rests on the assumptions that there is an objective view of the differences between the events and that the policing powers that be are able to take that view. Based on the history of entrenched systemic racism in both our countries, I have little faith in many people's ability to view these things objectively and no faith at all in the ability of the police to do so.
Theoretically, you're right. In reality, this doesn't really fly.
That's not really the lesson at all, which is - if you police an event with a light touch and low numbers, you arrest fewer people. Conversely, if you go in with the security arches and the sniffer dogs and the undercover drugs teams, you arrest far more people.
One event (Royal Ascot) is attended largely by white, middle and upper class people: it is largely self-policed by the racecourse using private security and stewards, even though alcohol is widely available, allowed in from offsite, and it's likely that drug use (cocaine use increases with income) is rife. Fights are a regular occurrence, sometimes involving up to a hundred people. There were, I think, 26 arrests this year.
Another event (Notting Hill carnival) is attended by a largely multi-ethnic urban middle-income and poor population. It is heavily policed by actual police, using scanners and drug squad detectives. Alcohol is widely available, and it's likely that drug use is rife. There were, 353 arrests this year (the event is some 4x larger than Ascot).
162 arrests at the carnival were for drugs (the majority of arrests). Compared with Ascot, which is zero (I think - there were some driving offences mentioned).
The problem here is how you define "the real problem". The real problem is not drug taking. It's who is taking the drugs. The real problem is not assault. It's who is doing the assaulting. At least in the eyes of the police.
This is not to minimise the horrendous damage done by knife crime. But neither am I going to minimise the link between cocaine use and knife crime, which is plain for all to see. Rich people shoving shit up their noses are criminals. Arrest those fuckers and get them into court. Perhaps you'll have fewer black kids dying - I don't know, but I'm willing to give it a go.
This is not to minimise the horrendous damage done by knife crime. But neither am I going to minimise the link between cocaine use and knife crime, which is plain for all to see. Rich people shoving shit up their noses are criminals. Arrest those fuckers and get them into court. Perhaps you'll have fewer black kids dying - I don't know, but I'm willing to give it a go.
Speaking purely for myself, what someone shoves up their nose won't hurt me but someone with a knife might. And I've always leaned towards the more libertarian "legalise it all" side of the drugs debate anyway. But that said, if your argument here is that the police are using too light a touch at Ascot rather than that they're using too heavy a touch at Notting Hill then I won't argue against you.
The problem here is how you define "the real problem". The real problem is not drug taking. It's who is taking the drugs. The real problem is not assault. It's who is doing the assaulting. At least in the eyes of the police.
In my eyes, the problem is who is being assaulted. If a group of people get drunk, start aggravating each other, and then fists start flying, my sympathy for the "victims" is rather limited. If, on the other hand, someone is punched, or stabbed, or whatever, whilst going about his lawful business, I'm more concerned.
I don't have any interest in getting involved in a punch-up, but there are a number of people who seem to view a brawl as part of a good night out. If they want to brawl with similar-minded people, and if they keep their brawl out of the way of the rest of us, how much should I care?
This is not to minimise the horrendous damage done by knife crime. But neither am I going to minimise the link between cocaine use and knife crime, which is plain for all to see. Rich people shoving shit up their noses are criminals. Arrest those fuckers and get them into court. Perhaps you'll have fewer black kids dying - I don't know, but I'm willing to give it a go.
There is a link between cocaine and knife crime precisely because cocaine is illegal. If cocaine wasn't purchased from violent criminals, I don't think I'd have much of a quarrel with whatever people shoved up their noses in private. I'd still think it's stupid (and risks a dangerous addiction which will screw up your whole life, plus that of your friends and family), but it only really troubles me because of the violent criminals that cocaine use supports.
Speaking purely for myself, what someone shoves up their nose won't hurt me but someone with a knife might. And I've always leaned towards the more libertarian "legalise it all" side of the drugs debate anyway.
When you've joined the dots that A leads to B, get back to me. There are no 'fair trade' drugs, no legal or ethical way to get them from South America to a rolled-up £50 note in the UK without them being bathed in blood. And if you think legalising something like cocaine won't unleash a new wave of slaughter, you're hopelessly mistaken - it just won't be on our shores. Chocolate is a perfectly legal commodity, traded on markets and widely consumed, and producers still use slave labour to grow and harvest it.
But that said, if your argument here is that the police are using too light a touch at Ascot rather than that they're using too heavy a touch at Notting Hill then I won't argue against you.
Yes, of course they're using too heavy policing at Notting Hill. I'm not arguing for no policing at Notting Hill, I'm not arguing for kettling the Winner's Enclosure at Ascot either, but when over half the arrests at NH are for drugs (and it'll be cannabis, mostly likely), it's because thousands of police are deployed with stop-and-search powers that they're going to use on a predominantly BME crowd, not so they can listen to the sound systems.
You can't claim to believe that expelling Aboriginals from their lands is "wrongful" and then claim that it's right and correct that they no longer have those lands.
You're not addressing the point I was making. At this point I'm neither affirming nor denying any group's traditional land rights. I'm suggesting that if you affirm traditional occupation as the basis for moral ownership then you should apply that standard consistently...
You're not addressing the point I was making. At this point I'm neither affirming nor denying any group's traditional land rights. I'm suggesting that if you affirm traditional occupation as the basis for moral ownership then you should apply that standard consistently...
We went through this on the 'other thread', and your idiosyncratic stance on ownership was shown to have no basis in any extant ethical or legal system. Move on.
If X object belongs to person A, it is theirs by right, no matter who is currently in possession of it, the current possessor's past history be damned.
You can't claim to believe that expelling Aboriginals from their lands is "wrongful" and then claim that it's right and correct that they no longer have those lands.
You're not addressing the point I was making. At this point I'm neither affirming nor denying any group's traditional land rights.
If that's the case, what's the basis for your claim that "Aboriginals were the traditional occupiers or that they were wrongfully treated"? How did wrongful treatment change into rightful possession? At what point did wrong become right? Or rights? I mean that sure sounds like you're making claims about traditional land rights. Or was that statement just meant to be a bunch of dismissive throat-clearing, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing?
And there is, of course, all the difference between going into a land as an invader and just taking stuff, or indeed just conning it off people (as Europeans did to people around the world) and emigrating and validly and fairly buying stuff. For some reason White Supremacists object to the latter more than the former. Russ goes half way and pretends they're the same thing.
Russ claims to seriously believe that possession is or ought to be ten tenths of the law.
Untrue.
Last year you were asserting the position that if a mugger removes a handbag from a woman's possession the handbag ceases morally to be the woman's property.
So, true.
Russ believes in innocent until proven guilty, at the level of each individual person.
You believe that people with whom for political reasons you sympathise should be treated as innocent by people with whom for political reasons you do not sympathise; but you don't think the principle holds vice versa - e.g. you think there's no obligation on bartenders to treat all their customers as innocent of troublemaking until proven guilty.
You're trying to confuse the issue of who the land belongs to with the question of whether the present possessors are morally guilty for occupying it.
Have a look at this response to a question by Ilhan Omar. Well worth the watching. She says Muslim legislators are constantly being to speak to issues that other people are not asked to speak to because they are Muslim. This seems to me to be an excellent example of how subtle racism works. Well meaning subtle racism. --this a very impressive person to give this thoughtful rebuke. https://twitter.com/nowthisnews/status/1153779208289751041?s=20
Have a look at this response to a question by Ilhan Omar. Well worth the watching. She says Muslim legislators are constantly being to speak to issues that other people are not asked to speak to because they are Muslim. This seems to me to be an excellent example of how subtle racism works. Well meaning subtle racism. --this a very impressive person to give this thoughtful rebuke. https://twitter.com/nowthisnews/status/1153779208289751041?s=20
Also worth pointing out that the woman asking her to speak out on FGM here, Ani Zonneveld, is also a Muslim, and amongst other things campaigns against FGM. And also that one of the most at-risk groups in the US for FGM are Somali immigrants - people who come from the same background as Representative Omar.
So while I'll agree with you that every time a Muslim does something bad, there are calls from the white majority for Muslims to condemn it, with the no-so-hidden assumption that if they don't condemn it, they must be really supporting it, I don't think that was what was going on in this particular case. So I think Rep. Omar is understandably touchy about being asked stupid token Muslim questions, and so got this one a bit wrong.
You're not addressing the point I was making. At this point I'm neither affirming nor denying any group's traditional land rights. I'm suggesting that if you affirm traditional occupation as the basis for moral ownership then you should apply that standard consistently...
Just read the High Court's decisions in Mabo, and after that those in Wik. They are both easily read by most people, even if they are not lawyers - those in Mabo particularly give the impression that they were written for general consumption.
Have a look at this response to a question by Ilhan Omar. Well worth the watching. She says Muslim legislators are constantly being to speak to issues that other people are not asked to speak to because they are Muslim. This seems to me to be an excellent example of how subtle racism works. Well meaning subtle racism. --this a very impressive person to give this thoughtful rebuke. https://twitter.com/nowthisnews/status/1153779208289751041?s=20
She is indeed impressive, especially being as she's a) relatively young, and b) a first-term Congresswoman (she had one term in the state legislature before that).
Can I say here how thrilled I am to have her as my member of Congress?
Have a look at this response to a question by Ilhan Omar. Well worth the watching. She says Muslim legislators are constantly being to speak to issues that other people are not asked to speak to because they are Muslim. This seems to me to be an excellent example of how subtle racism works. Well meaning subtle racism. --this a very impressive person to give this thoughtful rebuke. https://twitter.com/nowthisnews/status/1153779208289751041?s=20
Also worth pointing out that the woman asking her to speak out on FGM here, Ani Zonneveld, is also a Muslim, and amongst other things campaigns against FGM. And also that one of the most at-risk groups in the US for FGM are Somali immigrants - people who come from the same background as Representative Omar.
So while I'll agree with you that every time a Muslim does something bad, there are calls from the white majority for Muslims to condemn it, with the no-so-hidden assumption that if they don't condemn it, they must be really supporting it, I don't think that was what was going on in this particular case. So I think Rep. Omar is understandably touchy about being asked stupid token Muslim questions, and so got this one a bit wrong.
Having an on-air TV person in the family, the identity of the interviewer and that she might also be Muslim is actually not relevant. Interviewers have a producer who feeds questions to them. If they have a wee earpiece it's audio-teleprompting. The interviewer might have even hesitated to ask the question even due to her understanding of the issue. It's also possible that the two women knew in advance that the producer would force this question, or even that all three might have decided this was a good thing to do and to hear the congress member's response. I think it still makes the point, and makes it very well.
Having an on-air TV person in the family, the identity of the interviewer and that she might also be Muslim is actually not relevant. Interviewers have a producer who feeds questions to them. If they have a wee earpiece it's audio-teleprompting. The interviewer might have even hesitated to ask the question even due to her understanding of the issue. It's also possible that the two women knew in advance that the producer would force this question, or even that all three might have decided this was a good thing to do and to hear the congress member's response. I think it still makes the point, and makes it very well.
1. It wasn't an interview - it was a panel discussion at a conference called "Muslim Collective for Equitable Democracy".
2. There wasn't a producer, or an earpiece - Ms. Zonneveld asked her questions on her own behalf, just like all the other participants in the discussion.
3. I think the difference is in who Rep. Omar was being asked to speak to. The standard racist "you're a Muslim - will you condemn this random list of bad actions carried out by other people who are Muslims" question asks token Muslims to apologize to white non-Muslims. This question asked her to address the US Muslim community, and perhaps in particular the US Somali Muslim community, f which she is clearly a leading member - in order to encourage members of that community not to participate in FGM. The question didn't have anything to do with white non-Muslims at all.
4. Sure - I agree with her point about being continually expected to condemn anything bad that some Muslim somewhere did, or that someone claimed to do in the name of Islam - I just think she chose the wrong time to make it.
1. It wasn't an interview - it was a panel discussion at a conference called "Muslim Collective for Equitable Democracy".
<snip>
4. Sure - I agree with her point about being continually expected to condemn anything bad that some Muslim somewhere did, or that someone claimed to do in the name of Islam - I just think she chose the wrong time to make it.
I'm not sure why a panel discussion at the "Muslim Collective for Equitable Democracy" is the wrong time to make such a point. It seems relevant.
IMHO it is about time the American Public hear the Muslim--or rather, the Arab--perspective on Middle Eastern Affairs. There are Arab Christians who live in the Middle Eastern There views are very similar to their Muslim brothers and sisters on this.
Over the past few years I will be on American Christian facebook sites and they begin to trash the name A--ah. I will point out to them Middle Eastern Christians also use the term Allah when referring to God. You can almost see heads explode as people read that comment.
Great stuff Gramps. The ignorance of some people is astounding. It's the same the world over.
I also see no issues with what Omar said.
I am not sure Gramps that all Middle East Christians feel the same way. I know some coptic Christians who are extremely unhappy with their Muslim neighbors back in Egypt, and who were very happy indeed to see the back of Morsi's Government and the clampdown on the Muslim Brotherhood. I haven't spoken to them specifically about Israel, but I reckon their attitude to Muslims would colour their judgement.
I think you are broadly correct about Palestinian Christians, but I wouldn't like to say what those Christians who fled Lebannon in the 1980's might think. My guess would be that they shared the Coptic viewpoint, but I'm not confident.
Great stuff Gramps. The ignorance of some people is astounding. It's the same the world over.
I also see no issues with what Omar said.
I am not sure Gramps that all Middle East Christians feel the same way. I know some coptic Christians who are extremely unhappy with their Muslim neighbors back in Egypt, and who were very happy indeed to see the back of Morsi's Government and the clampdown on the Muslim Brotherhood. I haven't spoken to them specifically about Israel, but I reckon their attitude to Muslims would colour their judgement.
I think you are broadly correct about Palestinian Christians, but I wouldn't like to say what those Christians who fled Lebannon in the 1980's might think. My guess would be that they shared the Coptic viewpoint, but I'm not confident.
Your point about Palestinian Christians is correct. My son lived in Palestine for a year. He really feels for them. I should have been more specific.
Last year you were asserting the position that if a mugger removes a handbag from a woman's possession the handbag ceases morally to be the woman's property.
Yes we've discussed this before.
If I recall rightly, we agree that such theft is wrong and that the mugger shouldn't get away with it, and that a rapid restoration of the handbag to the woman by the mugger is a desirable outcome.
Where we differ is in how we conceive of the theft.
Your view, if I recall correctly, is that being the property of the woman is an attribute of the handbag. That this remains true in perpetuity, unless and until it is restored to the woman or her rightful heirs. That there is a moral duty on all sentient beings in the universe to recognise this moral fact and duly effect the restoration. And that such beings do wrong - even if acting innocently in ignorance - if they do anything else (such as use, trade or destroy the handbag) because only the owner has the right to do these things.
My view is that the theft is an aspect of the relationship between the mugger and the woman. That she has a moral claim on him (and he owes a moral debt to her) for both the objective value of the handbag and the subjective personal value to her of the bag and the stress of having it stolen.
Two different perspectives.
Consider 2 possible endings to the story:
A] The mugger rips the bag's lining looking for money or drugs. Finding neither, he throws bag and contents in the bin, from where they are recovered by police a few hours later. The mugger is never caught. The woman gets her property back, but no compensation or closure; every time she goes out she looks for the mugger to see if he's there waiting to do it again.
B] Informed by her description, the police catch the mugger, but the bag is not recovered. He confesses to his crimes and pays a heavy fine which is used to compensate the victims. With the money she buys a new handbag.
Which is the just resolution- the one in which the property is restored but the claim not settled, or the one where the claim is settled but the property not restored ?
It's not that possession equals right. It's that possession doesn't make right; only resolving the claim of the victim against the perpetrator can do that.
And whereas possessions can be willed to go to one's descendants (or indeed anybody else), moral claims are, I'm suggesting, not the sort of thing that can be inherited.
Russ I will get around to your post earlier. Its just that I have to think and that's difficult. My answer is likely to involve my own feeling of alienation not being a political position, the history of land rights and the attempts at legal reconciliation going on. I just have to turn it into a pretty picture and fill in the gaps.
--She trips him;
--Knocks him down;
--Sits on him;
--Using her scrunchie and her emergency set of pantyhose, she
hog-ties him;
--Calls the sanitation department to report a mess on the
sidewalk;
--Whispers "You're better than this, dude. Get your sh*t
together!";
--And does all of this without smudging her makeup or letting
go of her purse.
Other women nearby take her out for dinner.
No legal fuss or quandaries, and no handbags were lost, stolen, or damaged in the commission of this thought experiment.
A] The mugger rips the bag's lining looking for money or drugs. Finding neither, he throws bag and contents in the bin, from where they are recovered by police a few hours later. The mugger is never caught. The woman gets her property back, but no compensation or closure; every time she goes out she looks for the mugger to see if he's there waiting to do it again.
B] Informed by her description, the police catch the mugger, but the bag is not recovered. He confesses to his crimes and pays a heavy fine which is used to compensate the victims. With the money she buys a new handbag.
Which is the just resolution- the one in which the property is restored but the claim not settled, or the one where the claim is settled but the property not restored ?
Ha ha! Trick question, Russ. The correct answer, according to your past posts, is that neither of those outcomes is just. In A] the woman loses her right to her property the moment it becomes the mugger's possession so giving it back to her (damaged or not) is unjust according to you. Example B] is a form of "reparations", which you also consider unjust.
It's not that possession equals right. It's that possession doesn't make right; only resolving the claim of the victim against the perpetrator can do that.
And whereas possessions can be willed to go to one's descendants (or indeed anybody else), moral claims are, I'm suggesting, not the sort of thing that can be inherited.
If we don't have to legitimately own the things listed in our wills I'd like to will my descendants a controlling share of Microsoft stock. Does the fact that I don't legitimately possess any stock in Microsoft, let alone a controlling share, interfere with my ability to will those shares to my descendants?
No, though i do feel rather as if this thread has taken a sudden uppercut to the jaw. Seriously, maybe we could NOT relitigate the whole handbag thingy again? Unless everyone really wants to, i mean.
Truth to tell, I was more than half serious with my question about whether I dare admit to my Cherokee ancestry in public, unenrolled as i am. It was i believe on the previous page though i'm sorry i'm not on a device that will let me link to it.
No, though i do feel rather as if this thread has taken a sudden uppercut to the jaw. Seriously, maybe we could NOT relitigate the whole handbag thingy again? Unless everyone really wants to, i mean.
Truth to tell, I was more than half serious with my question about whether I dare admit to my Cherokee ancestry in public, unenrolled as i am. It was i believe on the previous page though i'm sorry i'm not on a device that will let me link to it.
Here is the link.What you say you are matters differently, depending on the circumstance.
You have Indian heritage, nothing harmful in saying this. It is what you think that means that can be potentially problematic. A person who passes for white will not experience the same treatment as one who does not. That is not about ancestry, but experience.
"what you think that means"--okay, what does THAT mean?
And passing for white--under most circumstances, my son (who is multi-racial) passes for white, but only if the people around him are a) inexperienced, b) ignorant of family or name, and c) white themselves. In practice this means he can never predict whether he can pass for white or not. So what, then do you say to him?
And what of the whole family experience?
This is truly not an easy thing to parse.
The worst racism I have experienced has been aimed at us about equally from blacks and from whites. And barring some obvious cases (e.g. Don't go to Denny's for dinner), it is surprisingly hard to tell who's going to spew it at you.
"what you think that means"--okay, what does THAT mean?
It means how you use the fact that you have Indian ancestry.
It is part of your heritage, yes. But though you might understand what your great-grandmother went through, you did not go through it yourself.
And passing for white--under most circumstances, my son (who is multi-racial) passes for white, but only if the people around him are a) inexperienced, b) ignorant of family or name, and c) white themselves. In practice this means he can never predict whether he can pass for white or not. So what, then do you say to him?
That life is complicated and how he is perceived will change how things work for him.
The worst racism I have experienced has been aimed at us about equally from blacks and from whites.
I've never understood people who've had racism thrown at them treating other groups the same way. Well, intellectually I understand the mechanisms, but it still bends my head to grok it.
I am not asking for a simple answer. I am not in fact expecting any definitive 'answers' at all. But I am wondering what will get my head bitten off, especially in view of what Warren has been put through. Am I, for instance, allowed to say the words "My family is partly Cherokee"? Or must I say only "We have Cherokee heritage"?
For what it's worth, I have never claimed to know what it means to experience my grandmother's experience, not being a complete asshole.
I am not asking for a simple answer. I am not in fact expecting any definitive 'answers' at all. But I am wondering what will get my head bitten off, especially in view of what Warren has been put through. Am I, for instance, allowed to say the words "My family is partly Cherokee"? Or must I say only "We have Cherokee heritage"?
I don't see a difference between the two. But, again, the problem isn't that, but what you think it means.
I saw an excerpt from a show about DNA tests, hosted by Henry Louis Gates Jr. In it, he was talking to two people. One a red-headed white woman, the other a black man. Both had sub-Saharan African ancestry and hers was more recent. Who do you think is more likely to be told to "Go back to Africa."? Who will be confronted by racism? She did not even know that she had black heritage. Doesn't erase her African decent, but it does mean she doesn't know what it is like to be black.
If she said "I have black ancestry, it is merely the truth. If she thinks it gives her insight into what it is like to be black, then it is a problem.
For what it's worth, I have never claimed to know what it means to experience my grandmother's experience, not being a complete asshole.
I'm not saying you did. I'm trying to explore a very confusing post you made. To me, it would seem that hearing your grandmother's experience would give you a different insight than you seem to have.
Comments
You’ve been around long enough, @mousethief, to know that sort of thing does not belong in Purgatory. If not, go and look again at the first of the Purgatory guidelines and at Commandment 3. If you want to get into that sort of stuff you know where to take it.
Host hat off
BroJames Purgatory Host
“Even if I’m wrong, I’m right”.
You really do make it hard to agree with you sometimes.
Perhaps I should phrased it differently. However, the basic point of that article is still true. Notting Hill receives attention from the police that is different to other festivals despite it being as safe as many smaller festivals. It is part of the overall pattern of treating black people differently. The fucked up thing is that those disbelieving/ignoring/hiding the discrimination are not held to the same standard.
At most, reality is a bit less binary, a bit more nuanced, than the one bit that people are getting hung up on. And again, that is part of privilege. It allows one self-permission to ignore the rest of the information.
People were challenging the idea from the beginning, before they looked into it further. I'll admit that irked me and I took a quote that might be too strongly stated and repeated it.
Again, privilege allows people to take that as enough to listen no further. Not all of us have that.
The thing is, you're dismissing any and all other reasons why it may be treated differently in order to blame that treatment specifically on racism. You may be right about that, of course - the Met certainly has 'previous' on that front - but you may also be wrong. And if you're wrong, then reducing the police presence or changing their methods may actually lead to more people getting hurt.
You say it's as safe as other festivals, based on the published crime stats as linked a few times on this thread (here, for example). But safety isn't just about total crime, it's also about the type of crime that's happening, and those same stats show that knife crime happens a lot more at Notting Hill - there have been 23 stabbings there in the last three years (ibid.) compared to zero at Creamfields - I couldn't find similar data for Glastonbury but there were only 47 total offences against the person (i.e. any form of assault) there in a similar period.
Drug crime, on the other hand, was significantly higher at Glastonbury and Creamfields - a fact that probably surprises nobody.
Assuming those stats are correct then that strikes me as a valid reason to focus on knives at Notting Hill, but if the police can't do so because it may be perceived as treating black people differently then does that mean that avoiding the appearance of racism is more important than trying to stop people being stabbed?
It just feels a bit like the sort of approach that was parodied so well by Lenny Henry.
Arrests for drug crime were significantly higher. That is not necessarily correlated to the amount of drugs crime taking place. I'm certain I'll be on fairly solid ground if I posit the amount of cocaine used at the 5-day Royal Ascot festival would keep several county lines gangs in business for the rest of the year. And that's before you add in the brawls brought on by additional alcohol intake, for which behaviour the arrest rate was almost zero.
Not disputing that Aboriginals were the traditional occupiers or that they were wrongfully treated.
Does your view that they are the rightful owners depend on them having
Point taken, though it doesn't change what I was saying in any significant manner.
Well now. You might just want to consider the differences in approaches to policing at royal Ascot, Creamfields, and the Notting Hill Carnival, and see how that could possibly affect the arrest rates. Just a suggestion.
Not disputing that Aboriginals were the traditional occupiers or that they were wrongfully treated.
But unless you take the view that they are the rightful owners only because they were wrongfully treated - that suffering maketh right - then it seems as if you're saying that they were and still are the rightful owners because they are/were the traditional occupiers.
Is that your belief ? Would you say with the same conviction that the white race are the rightful owners of the countries of northern Europe ?
I'm not just tweaking your tail here, Simon.
I'm not a white nationalist. Because such a "wogs go home" belief seems to me unjust to the individual descendants of nonwhite immigrants who have grown up here and have known no other home and have individually done no wrong. It forces on them a nonwhite racial identity (making a thing of it even if their nonwhiteness is indisputably factually true).
So I cannot agree with you, to the extent that you wish to force on your neighbours a racial "white Australian" rather than Australian identity. And discount their individual rights to their personal homeland. And hold them responsible for something done by others with the same skin colour.
Does that make any sense to you ?
I'm not sure this argument can be taken as honest or sincere. You can't claim to believe that expelling Aboriginals from their lands is "wrongful" and then claim that it's right and correct that they no longer have those lands.
What, exactly, do you consider "wrongful" about the treatment of Australia's Aboriginal population that nonetheless is "rightful" enough to be legitimate today?
It suggests that either there are fewer drug takers at Ascot and Notting Hill, or that the police are less bothered about drug taking at those two events. Probably the latter.
The major difference between drug offences and stabbings is that even if no arrests are made for either crime it's quite a bit harder to hide the fact that a stabbing has taken place than that someone has taken drugs. Hence why my previous post tried to use the figures for reported stabbings rather than arrests.
My overall point is that different events can require different safety and security tactics without that being anything to do with the race of those attending. If one event has a history of drug use being the major problem then put your efforts into drug policing. If another has a history of knife crime being the major problem then put your efforts into knife policing. Spending time focusing on knife crime at the former and drug crime at the latter may well serve to give a superficial appearance of equal treatment, but in practice is a waste of resources that should be dedicated to the real problem.
All true, but there's still a huge problem here. This argument rests on the assumptions that there is an objective view of the differences between the events and that the policing powers that be are able to take that view. Based on the history of entrenched systemic racism in both our countries, I have little faith in many people's ability to view these things objectively and no faith at all in the ability of the police to do so.
Theoretically, you're right. In reality, this doesn't really fly.
One event (Royal Ascot) is attended largely by white, middle and upper class people: it is largely self-policed by the racecourse using private security and stewards, even though alcohol is widely available, allowed in from offsite, and it's likely that drug use (cocaine use increases with income) is rife. Fights are a regular occurrence, sometimes involving up to a hundred people. There were, I think, 26 arrests this year.
Another event (Notting Hill carnival) is attended by a largely multi-ethnic urban middle-income and poor population. It is heavily policed by actual police, using scanners and drug squad detectives. Alcohol is widely available, and it's likely that drug use is rife. There were, 353 arrests this year (the event is some 4x larger than Ascot).
162 arrests at the carnival were for drugs (the majority of arrests). Compared with Ascot, which is zero (I think - there were some driving offences mentioned).
The problem here is how you define "the real problem". The real problem is not drug taking. It's who is taking the drugs. The real problem is not assault. It's who is doing the assaulting. At least in the eyes of the police.
This is not to minimise the horrendous damage done by knife crime. But neither am I going to minimise the link between cocaine use and knife crime, which is plain for all to see. Rich people shoving shit up their noses are criminals. Arrest those fuckers and get them into court. Perhaps you'll have fewer black kids dying - I don't know, but I'm willing to give it a go.
Speaking purely for myself, what someone shoves up their nose won't hurt me but someone with a knife might. And I've always leaned towards the more libertarian "legalise it all" side of the drugs debate anyway. But that said, if your argument here is that the police are using too light a touch at Ascot rather than that they're using too heavy a touch at Notting Hill then I won't argue against you.
In my eyes, the problem is who is being assaulted. If a group of people get drunk, start aggravating each other, and then fists start flying, my sympathy for the "victims" is rather limited. If, on the other hand, someone is punched, or stabbed, or whatever, whilst going about his lawful business, I'm more concerned.
I don't have any interest in getting involved in a punch-up, but there are a number of people who seem to view a brawl as part of a good night out. If they want to brawl with similar-minded people, and if they keep their brawl out of the way of the rest of us, how much should I care?
There is a link between cocaine and knife crime precisely because cocaine is illegal. If cocaine wasn't purchased from violent criminals, I don't think I'd have much of a quarrel with whatever people shoved up their noses in private. I'd still think it's stupid (and risks a dangerous addiction which will screw up your whole life, plus that of your friends and family), but it only really troubles me because of the violent criminals that cocaine use supports.
When you've joined the dots that A leads to B, get back to me. There are no 'fair trade' drugs, no legal or ethical way to get them from South America to a rolled-up £50 note in the UK without them being bathed in blood. And if you think legalising something like cocaine won't unleash a new wave of slaughter, you're hopelessly mistaken - it just won't be on our shores. Chocolate is a perfectly legal commodity, traded on markets and widely consumed, and producers still use slave labour to grow and harvest it.
Yes, of course they're using too heavy policing at Notting Hill. I'm not arguing for no policing at Notting Hill, I'm not arguing for kettling the Winner's Enclosure at Ascot either, but when over half the arrests at NH are for drugs (and it'll be cannabis, mostly likely), it's because thousands of police are deployed with stop-and-search powers that they're going to use on a predominantly BME crowd, not so they can listen to the sound systems.
Untrue.
Russ believes in innocent until proven guilty, at the level of each individual person.
And it thus follows that possession is innocent possession until the guilt of the individual is proven.
You're not addressing the point I was making. At this point I'm neither affirming nor denying any group's traditional land rights. I'm suggesting that if you affirm traditional occupation as the basis for moral ownership then you should apply that standard consistently...
We went through this on the 'other thread', and your idiosyncratic stance on ownership was shown to have no basis in any extant ethical or legal system. Move on.
If that's the case, what's the basis for your claim that "Aboriginals were the traditional occupiers or that they were wrongfully treated"? How did wrongful treatment change into rightful possession? At what point did wrong become right? Or rights? I mean that sure sounds like you're making claims about traditional land rights. Or was that statement just meant to be a bunch of dismissive throat-clearing, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing?
So, true.
You believe that people with whom for political reasons you sympathise should be treated as innocent by people with whom for political reasons you do not sympathise; but you don't think the principle holds vice versa - e.g. you think there's no obligation on bartenders to treat all their customers as innocent of troublemaking until proven guilty.
You're trying to confuse the issue of who the land belongs to with the question of whether the present possessors are morally guilty for occupying it.
https://twitter.com/nowthisnews/status/1153779208289751041?s=20
Also worth pointing out that the woman asking her to speak out on FGM here, Ani Zonneveld, is also a Muslim, and amongst other things campaigns against FGM. And also that one of the most at-risk groups in the US for FGM are Somali immigrants - people who come from the same background as Representative Omar.
So while I'll agree with you that every time a Muslim does something bad, there are calls from the white majority for Muslims to condemn it, with the no-so-hidden assumption that if they don't condemn it, they must be really supporting it, I don't think that was what was going on in this particular case. So I think Rep. Omar is understandably touchy about being asked stupid token Muslim questions, and so got this one a bit wrong.
Just read the High Court's decisions in Mabo, and after that those in Wik. They are both easily read by most people, even if they are not lawyers - those in Mabo particularly give the impression that they were written for general consumption.
She is indeed impressive, especially being as she's a) relatively young, and b) a first-term Congresswoman (she had one term in the state legislature before that).
Can I say here how thrilled I am to have her as my member of Congress?
Having an on-air TV person in the family, the identity of the interviewer and that she might also be Muslim is actually not relevant. Interviewers have a producer who feeds questions to them. If they have a wee earpiece it's audio-teleprompting. The interviewer might have even hesitated to ask the question even due to her understanding of the issue. It's also possible that the two women knew in advance that the producer would force this question, or even that all three might have decided this was a good thing to do and to hear the congress member's response. I think it still makes the point, and makes it very well.
1. It wasn't an interview - it was a panel discussion at a conference called "Muslim Collective for Equitable Democracy".
2. There wasn't a producer, or an earpiece - Ms. Zonneveld asked her questions on her own behalf, just like all the other participants in the discussion.
3. I think the difference is in who Rep. Omar was being asked to speak to. The standard racist "you're a Muslim - will you condemn this random list of bad actions carried out by other people who are Muslims" question asks token Muslims to apologize to white non-Muslims. This question asked her to address the US Muslim community, and perhaps in particular the US Somali Muslim community, f which she is clearly a leading member - in order to encourage members of that community not to participate in FGM. The question didn't have anything to do with white non-Muslims at all.
4. Sure - I agree with her point about being continually expected to condemn anything bad that some Muslim somewhere did, or that someone claimed to do in the name of Islam - I just think she chose the wrong time to make it.
I'm not sure why a panel discussion at the "Muslim Collective for Equitable Democracy" is the wrong time to make such a point. It seems relevant.
Over the past few years I will be on American Christian facebook sites and they begin to trash the name A--ah. I will point out to them Middle Eastern Christians also use the term Allah when referring to God. You can almost see heads explode as people read that comment.
I also see no issues with what Omar said.
I am not sure Gramps that all Middle East Christians feel the same way. I know some coptic Christians who are extremely unhappy with their Muslim neighbors back in Egypt, and who were very happy indeed to see the back of Morsi's Government and the clampdown on the Muslim Brotherhood. I haven't spoken to them specifically about Israel, but I reckon their attitude to Muslims would colour their judgement.
I think you are broadly correct about Palestinian Christians, but I wouldn't like to say what those Christians who fled Lebannon in the 1980's might think. My guess would be that they shared the Coptic viewpoint, but I'm not confident.
Your point about Palestinian Christians is correct. My son lived in Palestine for a year. He really feels for them. I should have been more specific.
Yes we've discussed this before.
If I recall rightly, we agree that such theft is wrong and that the mugger shouldn't get away with it, and that a rapid restoration of the handbag to the woman by the mugger is a desirable outcome.
Where we differ is in how we conceive of the theft.
Your view, if I recall correctly, is that being the property of the woman is an attribute of the handbag. That this remains true in perpetuity, unless and until it is restored to the woman or her rightful heirs. That there is a moral duty on all sentient beings in the universe to recognise this moral fact and duly effect the restoration. And that such beings do wrong - even if acting innocently in ignorance - if they do anything else (such as use, trade or destroy the handbag) because only the owner has the right to do these things.
My view is that the theft is an aspect of the relationship between the mugger and the woman. That she has a moral claim on him (and he owes a moral debt to her) for both the objective value of the handbag and the subjective personal value to her of the bag and the stress of having it stolen.
Two different perspectives.
Consider 2 possible endings to the story:
A] The mugger rips the bag's lining looking for money or drugs. Finding neither, he throws bag and contents in the bin, from where they are recovered by police a few hours later. The mugger is never caught. The woman gets her property back, but no compensation or closure; every time she goes out she looks for the mugger to see if he's there waiting to do it again.
B] Informed by her description, the police catch the mugger, but the bag is not recovered. He confesses to his crimes and pays a heavy fine which is used to compensate the victims. With the money she buys a new handbag.
Which is the just resolution- the one in which the property is restored but the claim not settled, or the one where the claim is settled but the property not restored ?
It's not that possession equals right. It's that possession doesn't make right; only resolving the claim of the victim against the perpetrator can do that.
And whereas possessions can be willed to go to one's descendants (or indeed anybody else), moral claims are, I'm suggesting, not the sort of thing that can be inherited.
C) As the mugger moves to attack the woman,
--She trips him;
--Knocks him down;
--Sits on him;
--Using her scrunchie and her emergency set of pantyhose, she
hog-ties him;
--Calls the sanitation department to report a mess on the
sidewalk;
--Whispers "You're better than this, dude. Get your sh*t
together!";
--And does all of this without smudging her makeup or letting
go of her purse.
Other women nearby take her out for dinner.
No legal fuss or quandaries, and no handbags were lost, stolen, or damaged in the commission of this thought experiment.
Ha ha! Trick question, Russ. The correct answer, according to your past posts, is that neither of those outcomes is just. In A] the woman loses her right to her property the moment it becomes the mugger's possession so giving it back to her (damaged or not) is unjust according to you. Example B] is a form of "reparations", which you also consider unjust.
If we don't have to legitimately own the things listed in our wills I'd like to will my descendants a controlling share of Microsoft stock. Does the fact that I don't legitimately possess any stock in Microsoft, let alone a controlling share, interfere with my ability to will those shares to my descendants?
Yup!
Truth to tell, I was more than half serious with my question about whether I dare admit to my Cherokee ancestry in public, unenrolled as i am. It was i believe on the previous page though i'm sorry i'm not on a device that will let me link to it.
You have Indian heritage, nothing harmful in saying this. It is what you think that means that can be potentially problematic. A person who passes for white will not experience the same treatment as one who does not. That is not about ancestry, but experience.
And passing for white--under most circumstances, my son (who is multi-racial) passes for white, but only if the people around him are a) inexperienced, b) ignorant of family or name, and c) white themselves. In practice this means he can never predict whether he can pass for white or not. So what, then do you say to him?
And what of the whole family experience?
This is truly not an easy thing to parse.
The worst racism I have experienced has been aimed at us about equally from blacks and from whites. And barring some obvious cases (e.g. Don't go to Denny's for dinner), it is surprisingly hard to tell who's going to spew it at you.
It means how you use the fact that you have Indian ancestry.
It is part of your heritage, yes. But though you might understand what your great-grandmother went through, you did not go through it yourself. That life is complicated and how he is perceived will change how things work for him. You know what your great gran experienced growing up, but you do not know what it feels like to experience it. No, it isn't. But it appears that you are asking for a simple answer and the straight fact is that there is not one. I've never understood people who've had racism thrown at them treating other groups the same way. Well, intellectually I understand the mechanisms, but it still bends my head to grok it.
For what it's worth, I have never claimed to know what it means to experience my grandmother's experience, not being a complete asshole.
I saw an excerpt from a show about DNA tests, hosted by Henry Louis Gates Jr. In it, he was talking to two people. One a red-headed white woman, the other a black man. Both had sub-Saharan African ancestry and hers was more recent. Who do you think is more likely to be told to "Go back to Africa."? Who will be confronted by racism? She did not even know that she had black heritage. Doesn't erase her African decent, but it does mean she doesn't know what it is like to be black.
If she said "I have black ancestry, it is merely the truth. If she thinks it gives her insight into what it is like to be black, then it is a problem.
I'm not saying you did. I'm trying to explore a very confusing post you made. To me, it would seem that hearing your grandmother's experience would give you a different insight than you seem to have.
FYI: I posted a response to you, right after your ancestry post, and a link that may or may not be helpful.
FWIW, YMMV.