Are You Showing Support for Black Lives Matter in Second Life?

[Beth Macbain]

22 minutes ago, FairreLilette said:

So, this is BLM against police brutality...where do I fit in Janet?  I'm not sure as I'm not Black.

I just found this huge list of resources. I agree - it can be hard to know the right thing to do, especially when we are trying to make sure we don't do the wrong thing. 

Maybe it'll help a little - Take Action: A List of Ways You Can Stand In Solidarity with the Black Community

[Janet Voxel]

Just now, Beth Macbain said:

I just found this huge list of resources. I agree - it can be hard to know the right thing to do, especially when we are trying to make sure we don't do the wrong thing. 

Maybe it'll help a little - Take Action: A List of Ways You Can Stand In Solidarity with the Black Community

Thank you,  that's an awesome resource.

From a black person to a white person, I really appreciate your support in this.

 

[Ceka Cianci]

4 minutes ago, Aethelwine said:

https://www.buzzfeed.com/lukebailey/lets-talk-about-bacon

American bacon is what streaky bacon?

You are weird.

That's just bacon that a lot of people get at the supermarket..if you want good bacon from people that know bacon..

Farmers are the ones to talk too..a lot of supermarket bacon in America is streaky because soon as a hog starts to breed the meat turns more fatty and streaky..

The good bacon isn't and is much more meaty and lean

This is why piglets are de-rocky-mountain-oystered.. I know this because it was one of the first questions I asked when we had to do it when I was younger..

OMG dad why are we cutting those off?!!\o/

hehehehe

 

[lHorizonl]

33 minutes ago, Janet Voxel said:

Dear White People: We really appreciate the help and support from you in this struggle.

Signed- A black person

 

- and another one!

[Love Zhaoying]

1 hour ago, Sylvia Tamalyn said:

I just hate it when elderly people throw themselves backward onto the sidewalk and crack their heads open and bleed all over the place and get admitted to the hospital just to make the police look bad. 

You know, that is an Antifa tactic, because they want everyone to look like fascists who just happen to be brutal jack-booted thug stormtroopers posing as police..

[FairreLilette]

20 minutes ago, Janet Voxel said:

Love how I'm being appointed the spokeswoman. 

This issue has already been clouded and will continue to be attempted to be clouded further. That doesn't seem to be a concern for other people, if you can relate in some way. That's a start.

If you're wondering where you fit in as a non-black person, the first thing you should do is ask yourself, do you care about this issue? If no, then that's your answer. If yes, start by listening and paying attention to what is going on. If your answer is "I know whats going on...but what can I doooooo?" The first thing you can do pick up the phone or shoot an email to your congressman or senator, you're likely going to get a voice mail. Takes a couple of minutes to do and again, you've done something. You do what ever you feel you are able to do; that's not for me to answer. You don't have to join a protest or wear a t-shirt in SL. You do what you're able to do.

 

Sorry, didn't mean to appoint you spokesperson but I needed advice.  It's excellent advice.  Thank you very much!   

[Nadia Chatterbox]

21 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

Dano, the point is that racism is a white problem. In fact, really, we are the problem. We're not merely providing "help and support," like some sort of benevolent imperialists, to people who are struggling -- we are trying to fix ourselves. Black's don't "owe" us thanks for that.

So much this.  We're struggling because the majority has made us struggle for years.   They've put in roadblock on top of roadblock.  Why should we thank the ones who realize that some of their people are *keep it clean, stupid*  douches?

36 minutes ago, Janet Voxel said:

Dear White People: We really appreciate the help and support from you in this struggle.

Signed- A black person

 

And,  another.  I'm extremely appreciative, and somewhat surprised at the support in the US and other countries.   Watching the protests, I see LOTS of white people marching and helping and supporting.   And, I've not seen one person that said "GTFOH, we don't want your help"  other than one person here who says she is speaking for herself.  Even Rev Al said this was a much different movement from before.

[Ceka Cianci]

Someone was telling me about that conspiracy theory at work the night before last..

I got all like I was really interested just to see how deep the rabbit hole went..

it went from,them two knowing each other before as bouncers or something like that, to the whole scene being staged, to him having a twin brother ,which i kinda got lost on that part because the guy telling me got so excited that he forgot to tell me about what the twin brother had to do with it.. and some guy in a mask that looked like him in the background at his own funeral..

I was like, Holy Cow!!\o/  well I gotta go get some tea and process all this..

 

I tell you, there are some story teller at work I swear..hehehe

 

 

Edited June 9, 2020 by Ceka Cianci

[Aethelwine]

Talking of Tea this happened on Twitter

 

 

[Janet Voxel]

3 minutes ago, Aethelwine said:

Talking of Tea this happened on Twitter

 

 

That's why I love twitter!

[Beth Macbain]

32 minutes ago, Dano Seale said:

What I said was that I've never heard her or anyone else who's black asking for white support/help, by which I mean such as "Rev' Al" or Jesse or anyone of that ilk, including BLM as an organisation!

From BLM's website - A Toolkit for White People (Admittedly this one is specific to Trayvon Martin but it still works)

Here's one from another site - How White People Can Support the Movement for Black Lives

I just posted another one with tons of ideas for Fairre. 

I'm also curious why you put "Rev" in quotation marks in regards to Al Sharpton. He is an ordained minister, for whatever that's worth. I have mixed feelings about him personally, but when I was watching George Floyd's memorial a couple days ago, and Rev. Sharpton was giving the eulogy, he did talk about how this time feels different because white people are standing with black people. That doesn't mean he asked for help, but I'm not sure why he needs to. If I fall down in the street, and everyone just stands around until I ask for them to help me up, I'm not really going to feel like they genuinely want to help me. I'm going to feel like I was an annoyance to them by asking for help. 

Black people in the US have been treated horribly for centuries, and I don't think they should have to ask us for help when we're the ones who treated them so horribly. Let's say my domestic partner is abusive and beats the crap out of me, and has for years. I finally have enough and decide it's time for me to break free - asking him to help me wouldn't make sense, right? Maybe some years later, something happens and he comes to realize and accept how abusive he was to me, and feels awful, and has done tons of therapy and has truly grown as a human being. Is it up to me to go to him and ask him to tell me he's sorry? Or to offer to go through counseling with me? Of course not. No one would expect me to do that.

So why do black people need to ask white people to help them? 

 

[Janet Voxel]

6 minutes ago, Beth Macbain said:

So why do black people need to ask white people to help them? 

He doesn't care about that. He can't even be bothered to check out what he's even saying. We're just a "Brigade" to him.

[Luna Bliss]

1 hour ago, Janet Voxel said:

Love how I'm being appointed the spokeswoman. 

 

[Janet Voxel]

[Mollymews]

1 hour ago, Dano Seale said:

I've seen black cops act the same way, I'm guessing it's "proceedure" and/or "experience". I can only imagine, but when a cop walks out of the door to go to work and never knows if they'll ever make it home again every day/night....that's going to have a huge mental affect! What needs to be worked out is where those "assumptions" come from?

i can relate a little to what the struggle is for some police officers

this is anecdotal as it concerns two people in my extended whanau/family. One is a Detective Sergeant now and the other is a Community Liason Officer

when they first started as constables they were assigned to Manukau / South Auckland, New Zealand. Manukau has a significant population of Maori and Pasifika people. Particularly the suburbs of Mangere, Otara and Papakura

i ask them about their experiences when we catch up. Same with others in my family about what they do in their lives

what they both said was that as young constables the glow of public service wore off really quickly. It was hard yards for them both, upholding the blue line. Same as it is for most police officers anywhere in the world. Officers need to know that when out on patrol other officers have their back, as they have the backs of those officers

the thing was for them both that after about a year in to their service they began to despair

as one related their despair wasn't aimed at the police. It was aimed at the community they served

he said that he reached a point where he began to see every brown face on the street as a potential criminal. So he went to counselling. And thru this he came to understand that this was because of the areas he patrolled

when patrolling an area then most of the criminals do come from the largest ethnic group populations. As he said this is an obvious thing, but when you are up against it day after day, month after month then it can be missed. But as a police officer, on the job he only deals with criminal acts every hour of every shift, day in day out. Patrolling without counseling can lead officers down into rabbit holes in their minds that don't exist. And the rhetoric of the locker room, humor and sarcasm as a coping mechanism, can lead them even further down the rabbit holes  

so he ended up becoming a Community Liasion Officer and a counselor for his now junior colleagues

my other family member, the detective sergeant, went thru the same thing. His breaking of the rabbit holes in his mind happened when he become a detective. As a detective in a regional police squad he got to chase everybody. Not surprisingly he found that there are more criminal white faces than there are brown face criminals because the population of the wider region is majority white people

he does counseling as well

both of them say that police officers need robust counseling and supervision support systems or it all falls apart. That officer training is not enough in itself. Training is about how to do the job. Counseling is about when the job doesn't get done as it should, in the moment

when they both commented on what is happening in the USA when I asked them, they said the same. The police officers in the vids are being failed by the police organisations they belong too. That compulsory counseling and supervision does more than anything else to keep a police officer's head in the space it needs to be to get the job done in every moment

[Ceka Cianci]

8 minutes ago, Janet Voxel said:

You got the Power! \o/

 

[Extrude Ragu]

57 minutes ago, Beth Macbain said:

 A Toolkit for White People

 

Quote

silence is violence

- Quote from "Toolkit for White People"

I am very weary of any person or group that uses this kind of language to suggest incriminating those who are not part of their movement and do not adopt or actively echo the ideology given to them. It is a trait of totalitarians, extremists etc and history shows that it usually ends very ugly.

In the free world, people choose to support a movement because they both believe it has merit and they believe the way it is achieved is ultimately effective and not going to create more problems than it solves, not because they are told failing to support it is an act of violence.

There has been talk of people attempting to rewrite history recently, changing street names, removing statues, literature etc.

Quote

"Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every street and statue has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day, minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the party is always right."

- George Orwell, 1984.

Edited June 9, 2020 by Extrude Ragu
correction

[FairreLilette]

I wanted to address an issue here though.  Both Trump and Biden have said the police will not be defunded and both are calling for reform, but defunding no.  

However, as far as the reformation of the police system in general, the electorates are far favoring Biden's proposed approaches by an overwhelming majority of something like a 97% majority of electorates leaning towards Biden.  

I also wanted to say that while police brutality may be one whole pie, that this pie needs to be cut into sections so we can see each piece of the pie as separate in order to clearly see what is going on.  

I will be reading those links this afternoon provided by both Janet and Beth in hopes I can see this section of the pie in a more unclouded way.  It is important to deal with this one section and what is going on here as a man has been murdered and it's horrible.  Words cannot express this.  

All I can say is I hope for some agreements soon as I don't think either presidential candidate is going to go for a complete defunding and have said as much.  

Edited June 9, 2020 by FairreLilette

[Luna Bliss]

DON'T TAKE THOSE PILLS JANET IS GIVING OUT!!!! 

/silliness

Edited June 9, 2020 by Luna Bliss

[Ted McGregor]

Am I the only one here watching George' s ceremony ? ..

 

[Janet Voxel]

2 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

DON'T TAKE THOSE PILLS JANET IS GIVING OUT!!!!

These?

[Sylvia Tamalyn]

11 minutes ago, Extrude Ragu said:

There has been talk of people attempting to rewrite history recently, changing street names, removing statues, literature etc.

No one seems to cry about "history is being erased!" when a street or whatever is changed in favor of, say, a Confederate leader or other white person. Funny how that works. 

[Extrude Ragu]

1 minute ago, Sylvia Tamalyn said:

No one seems to cry about "history is being erased!" when a street or whatever is changed in favor of, say, a Confederate leader or other white person. Funny how that works. 

I am not aware of that occurring, but then I don't live in the states. I would be opposed to an action here at home.

[Janet Voxel]

6 minutes ago, FairreLilette said:

All I can say is I hope for some agreements soon as I don't think either presidential candidate is going to go for a complete defunding and have said as much.  

First you have to realize "Defund the Police" doesn't necessarily mean stop paying for police or disband the police and realize the police in the US have a huge burden placed on them as far as their role in inner cities. They are called upon to do jobs, they aren't qualified or trained for on a daily basis. In some cases it does work and has already happened. What I was trying to point out yesterday was the US spends far more on the military and police than other "rich" countries do and its not working. Why not spend the money on social services or something more productive to communites?

https://mynorthwest.com/1928786/protesters-call-defund-the-police/

It's happened in Camden, NJ

https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/09/us/disband-police-camden-new-jersey-trnd/index.html

[Cindy Evanier]

12 minutes ago, TDD123 said:

Am I the only one here watching George' s ceremony ? ..

No