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

[lHorizonl]

And to note, it might have started in the US but it has grown now outside to Europe, Spain, Canada, Philippines etc. i am seeing less “BLM” targeted approaches and more “we need racial equality” 

[Janet Voxel]

2 minutes ago, Beth Macbain said:

And that when we're talking about defunding the police, we're talking about defunding this militarization and reinvesting it in different ways that will benefit all communities. 

Defunding the police seems extreme until you realize we've been defunding education for years. (I stole that from Twitter, but it's true)

Absolutely, if anything....the amount of funding towards police has been increasing while the crime rate has been decreasing, along with the amount of funding going towards social programs. Another blown opportunity for discussion.

[JanuarySwan]

3 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

I think you're missing the point here. The prejudice in White society has been leveled against POC simply because they have varying degrees of browner skin. So the child is choosing based on what they've internalized via society, to prefer the darker or lighter color of skin.

Well, I will drop it but I was just curious where the pre-existing prejudice came from as it's a learned behavior; it's not inborn in us.  If they already knew there was pre-existing prejudice, they already knew.  

[Innula Zenovka]

45 minutes ago, Lilathvom said:

Well, that's my concern as well, as well as the concern of the government. Go home. The curfew is implemented for this very reason, so that police dealing with armed criminals can focus on the people throwing Molotov cocktails and trying to kill police officers.

If you are out after the curfew, I can totally understand that a police officer might feel threatened by you. They might be afraid you have a gun, or a bomb. When you violate a curfew knowingly, and intentionally seekto disrupt legitimate police activities - well, I'm not going to be very sympathetic if the police make a mistake. Go home. It's simple enough. Don't violate curfews. They are for your own safety.
 

Very good advice, but I think you're conflating two separate issues here.

If there's the sort of thing you describe -- armed criminals rioting and trying to kill police officers -- then that's a highly risky situation, curfew or no curfew, and it's advisable to escape as soon as possible.   I know that because 30 years ago I attended the rally in Trafalgar Square against the poll tax which turned into a riot that spilled over into Leicester Square and much of the rest of the West End.    It took me about an hour or so to make it to safety, trying to dodge flying bricks and avoid streets where protesters and police were facing off, because I didn't want to get caught in the middle.   

So there are going to be many innocent people caught in a situation like that, who simply want to get home and stay there.

If there happens to be a curfew in force, then certainly that's grounds for ticketing them, or whatever, though I'd have thought there would be other policing priorities during a riot, but that's not really relevant to the situation, or so it seems to me.

Edited June 8, 2020 by Innula Zenovka

[Luna Bliss]

12 minutes ago, JanuarySwan said:

Well, I will drop it but I was just curious where the pre-existing prejudice came from as it's a learned behavior; it's not inborn in us.  If they already knew there was pre-existing prejudice, they already knew. 

Experiments are sometimes done to confirm what is suspected, and that's where care must be taken as it's too easy to set up a test to confirm one's suspicion.  It's beneficial to confirm ideas though as best as one can, as they can be used as evidence (for example, to demonstrate the unfairness in the criminal justice system which assigns more guilt and longer sentences to Blacks).

You take most any person on the street and many are certain they would not think a Black person more likely to be guilty of a crime compared to a White person.  But the evidence proves otherwise.

Edited June 8, 2020 by Luna Bliss

[Drakonadrgora Darkfold]

police nowadays are more para-military groups then social servants anymore. of course this is in part because of the increased firepower that criminals could get a hold of as well. so police became more like enforcers/bullies then what they were originally meant to be, protectors of society.

'i am the law' -judge dredd

where they think they can use intimidation and bullying and coercion to get people to obey the laws or force confessions out of people. its less about innocent until proven guilty nowadays and more about guilty until proven innocent..

now if people new more about and used post for their local law enforcement to report police abuse maybe such cops would loose their badge and no longer be able to be in law enforcement anymore. which might have helped prevent some of the things that happened.

[Madelaine McMasters]

22 minutes ago, JanuarySwan said:

I thought she meant they were choosing via the color, the color black.  I don't want to explain that again.

Does it really make sense to treat color as something independent of all else? If children reject dolls because they don't like black (brown, really), why don't they also reject chocolate?

[Drakonadrgora Darkfold]

1 minute ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

Does it really make sense to treat color as something independent of all else? If children reject dolls because they don't like black (brown, really), why don't they also reject chocolate?

because its not a living thing where as the doll is a representation of living things. but you still have a very valid point.

[Tolya Ugajin]

2 hours ago, Aethelwine said:

The source comes from "Mapping police violence." 

https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/interactive/2020/05/mapping-police-killings-black-americans-200531105741757.html

I didn't look at it in more detail because the claim being refuted hadn't, so it wasn't necessary and not easy on a phone to develop points with more subtlety 

What you said:  "The number of police killings of blacks in the USA over the last 5 years is in excess of 7000 people. "

What your source ACTUALLY said: "Between 2013 and 2019, police in the United States killed 7,666 people, according to data compiled by Mapping Police Violence"

That was the FIRST LINE of your source, and you managed to not only get the time period incorrect (you said 5, the source used 7) and but also managed to claim the number was of Blacks, when it was ALL people.

I mean, that's laughable.  Admit it, you didn't look at it at ALL, you simply Googled, thought you saw something that satisfied you, and first misquoted it, and then linked to it without reading.  Or, perhaps you'd misheard the 7,000 figure elsewhere, and then when called on for a source, you googled and didn't read.

By the way, Al Jazeera is a state-funded news service.  As such, it largely reports what and how the Qatari government wants.  It's not quite as bad as using Pravda, but you should really stick to sources that cannot be questioned due to implicit bias on such a basis.  For instance, Qatar frequently gets criticized (including by the US) of its treatment of foreign workers and religious minorities, and one of the ways such regimes fight back is by pointing out and often mischaracterizing similar problems in other countries, especially those critical of them.

 

Edited June 8, 2020 by Tolya Ugajin

[Arielle Popstar]

36 minutes ago, Janet Voxel said:

I'm honestly trying to understand how these two things are being conflated. The only thing I can come up with is you're simply not seeing what I'm seeing.

Maybe that is the point in that we need to merge the viewpoints to come to a clearer understanding of what is really going on in all of this. It is not the black and white issue that some are trying to promote in this thread. (That is not directed at you)

[JanuarySwan]

6 minutes ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

Does it really make sense to treat color as something independent of all else? If children reject dolls because they don't like black (brown, really), why don't they also reject chocolate?

Chocolate is known via a sense of taste, that it's going to be sweet.

I thought she meant children with no preconceived notions as it's not inborn in us, it is a learned behavior/thought pattern.   It would also depend on the year of this study, plus it needs more multi-ethnic community follow through if it is indeed an old study.  

[Madelaine McMasters]

1 minute ago, Drakonadrgora Darkfold said:

because its not a living thing where as the doll is a representation of living things. but you still have a very valid point.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/02/190226112426.htm

We actually do have inborn color biases about living things. But it's not the color that we're judging, it's the larger ideas color conveys. Humans who've never seen lush green landscapes still prefer them in imagery. Why? Because green landscapes signify the presence of food, water and shelter. That appreciation evolved, it's not taught.

Crayons are an abstraction, they possess no intrinsic value to a newborn human mind, so color is approximately meaningless there. We eventually learn to have "favorite colors" for a wide variety of reasons. There's also evidence that we're born with a preference for our own skin color, but that's a weak preference easily overridden by external influences...

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2566511/

[Janet Voxel]

1 minute ago, Arielle Popstar said:

Maybe that is the point in that we need to merge the viewpoints to come to a clearer understanding of what is really going on in all of this. It is not the black and white issue that some are trying to promote in this thread. (That is not directed at you)

So then why all the attempts to delegitimize a movement , when it can clearly lead to societal change? Why not start where it actually is right now? Wouldn't starting with the actual flashpoint have a ripple effect through ALL of American society?

[JanuarySwan]

25 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

Experiments are sometimes done to confirm what is suspected, and that's where care must be taken as it's too easy to set up a test to confirm one's suspicion.  It's beneficial to confirm ideas though as best as one can, as they can be used as evidence (for example, to demonstrate the unfairness in the criminal justice system which assigns more guilt and longer sentences to Blacks).

You take most any person on the street and many are certain they would not think a Black person more likely to be guilty of a crime compared to a White person.  But the evidence proves otherwise.

I found some information on the internet.  The doll study was originally done in the 1940's.  I was thinking it sounded like something from the 1950's.  Actually, the study found more black girls prefer the black doll, so the title is misleading.  

Here are the most current findings I came up with:

Last week, ABC’s Good Morning America (GMA) brought back the famous doll experiments by sociologist Kenneth and Mamie Clark. Originally conducted the 1940s, the “doll experiments” studied Black school aged children’s attitudes about race by giving them identical white and Black dolls and asking which one they’d prefer to play with. Half a century ago when the original study took place, 63% of Black children studied said they’d rather play with the white doll. Good Morning America’s findings 50 years later resulted in more Black children preferring and identifying with the Black doll. Although the slight improvement is a sign of progress, ABC only looked at racism as an interpersonal issue and failed to mention the more powerful forces of instititutional and structural racism that children of color also “unconsciously absorb”. These sorts of studies make me wonder if these findings should be considered a sign of progress or interpreted as a sign of how little we’ve moved. I’m conflicted because I don’t think the doll studies are meaningful. This is shallow journalism, but I can’t help but be saddened when a young Black child has negative feelings toward a Black doll.

https://www.colorlines.com/articles/fifty-years-later-black-girls-still-prefer-white-dolls

Edited June 8, 2020 by JanuarySwan

[Pixieplumb Flanagan]

1 hour ago, Sylvia Tamalyn said:

Stop right there.

You know, I do appreciate when the racists identify themselves, but FFS. 

ETA: I just caught the "criminal negligence" part. It was straight up murder. "Negligence"?????

yup, and yet another name hits the ignore mat.  That was some of the clearest racism on here, and oh boy do we ever have a selection.

[Arielle Popstar]

I looked that study up too and seems the 3, 4 and 5 year old test subjects were being tested on the effects of segregation:

Quote

During the “doll tests,” as they're now known, a majority of African-American children showed a preference for dolls with white skin instead of black ones—a consequence, the Clarks argued, of the pernicious effects of segregation.

 

Edited June 8, 2020 by Arielle Popstar
spelling

[Janet Voxel]

2 minutes ago, Pixieplumb Flanagan said:

yup, and yet another name hits the ignore mat.  That was some of the clearest racism on here, and oh boy do we ever have a selection.

They’ve been doing it for quite sometime with little snipes here and there in other threads over the years. So some of the names that are popping up aren’t really surprising.

[Luna Bliss]

4 minutes ago, JanuarySwan said:

I found some information on the internet.  The doll study was originally done in the 1940's.  I was thinking it sounded like something from the 1950's.

Here are the most current findings I came up with:

I think the experiments we were studying in school at that time were done in the 80's. But your somewhat unstated point is taken -- there has been some improvement over the years in race relations, depending on which area we're evaluating. Certainly we don't approve of hanging women and slicing open their pregnant belly...at least most of us don't.

[JanuarySwan]

11 minutes ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/02/190226112426.htm

We actually do have inborn color biases about living things. But it's not the color that we're judging, it's the larger ideas color conveys. Humans who've never seen lush green landscapes still prefer them in imagery. Why? Because green landscapes signify the presence of food, water and shelter. That appreciation evolved, it's not taught.

Crayons are an abstraction, they possess no intrinsic value to a newborn human mind, so color is approximately meaningless there. We eventually learn to have "favorite colors" for a wide variety of reasons. There's also evidence that we're born with a preference for our own skin color, but that's a weak preference easily overridden by external influences...

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2566511/

That's interesting, but the doll study was from the 1940's...I was guessing perhaps 1950's because of television maybe? was my main reason for placing a year.  More black girls today prefer the black doll.  However, I loved all kinds of dolls when I was a kid.  I don't know which one I'd pick as I love all kinds of avatars here on Second Life.  

Edited June 8, 2020 by JanuarySwan

[Luna Bliss]

https://www.history.com/news/brown-v-board-of-education-doll-experiment

[Aethelwine]

22 minutes ago, Tolya Ugajin said:

What you said:  "The number of police killings of blacks in the USA over the last 5 years is in excess of 7000 people. "

What your source ACTUALLY said: "Between 2013 and 2019, police in the United States killed 7,666 people, according to data compiled by Mapping Police Violence"

That was the FIRST LINE of your source, and you managed to not only get the time period correct (you said 5, the source used 7) and but also managed to claim the number was of Blacks, when it was ALL.

I mean, that's laughable.  Admit it, you didn't look at it at ALL, you simply Googled, thought you saw something that satisfied you, and first misquoted it, and then linked to it without reading.  Or, perhaps you'd misheard the 7,000 figure elsewhere, and then when called on for a source, you googled and didn't read.

By the way, Al Jazeera is a state-funded news service.  As such, it largely reports what and how the Qatari government wants.  It's not quite as bad as using Pravda, but you should really stick to sources that cannot be questioned due to implicit bias on such a basis.  For instance, Qatar frequently gets criticized (including by the US) of its treatment of foreign workers and religious minorities, and one of the ways such regimes fight back is by pointing out and often mischaracterizing similar problems in other countries, especially those critical of them.

 

To be fair I was using my phone at the time. The 20 figure it was being contrasted with weren't all blacks, they weren't even victims of the protestors one died from tear gas inhalation fired by the police. I admit I missed that they had said Black people, but their 20 figure wasn't about black people anyway. hence my confusion.

And yes I did just google it. State or not I have generally found Al Jazeera to be a pretty good news source,  its role is similar to the BBC, not to be taken in isolation, but they have good journalistic credentials. And in this case they are reporting a separate source, if you have a criticism it would be better directed at the primary rather than seondary one.

All those admissions aside, I still think the link more than sufficient to show just how bizarre the claim it was countering was.

Edited June 8, 2020 by Aethelwine

[Luna Bliss]

2 minutes ago, JanuarySwan said:

That's interesting, but the doll study was from the 1940's

What would be interesting is if you could concede that there is ANY type of prejudice against POC still occurring today.

Edited June 8, 2020 by Luna Bliss

[Drakonadrgora Darkfold]

10 minutes ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/02/190226112426.htm

We actually do have inborn color biases about living things. But it's not the color that we're judging, it's the larger ideas color conveys. Humans who've never seen lush green landscapes still prefer them in imagery. Why? Because green landscapes signify the presence of food, water and shelter. That appreciation evolved, it's not taught.

Crayons are an abstraction, they possess no intrinsic value to a newborn human mind, so color is approximately meaningless there. We eventually learn to have "favorite colors" for a wide variety of reasons. There's also evidence that we're born with a preference for our own skin color, but that's a weak preference easily overridden by external influences...

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2566511/

we have inborn biases about a lot of things, color, gender and a hole host of other things that would probably take a page to list.

humans are still pretty much a primal and instinctual creature that works on a lot of hard and soft wired programming before birth.

some of that programming is genetic, some is taught before birth while still in the womb and hearing what is being said by the parents.

[Pixieplumb Flanagan]

If it turns out to be a full on revolution well, people die in revolutions, on both sides.  Who would like to argue against the American or French revolution on the basis that some people died? I mean, sure, I would much prefer that the racists stop being racist, that the police stop deliberately targeting POC and escalating situations so that they can use their shiny shiny toys, that statues of murderers be removed, that history be taught fairly and accurately, but it seems at this point that a lot of people don't fancy that, so maybe you just have to have the revolution instead.  Your choice.

[Arielle Popstar]

7 minutes ago, Janet Voxel said:

So then why all the attempts to delegitimize a movement , when it can clearly lead to societal change? Why not start where it actually is right now? Wouldn't starting with the actual flashpoint have a ripple effect through ALL of American society?

Hmm, that was my only post in this thread so "all attempts" might be a bit of a stretch. 

In response to your question I would say that I do not believe mob violence will lead to legitimate change. If anything it would lead to the police needing to be funded for even more arms in case of future incidents.