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

[Luna Bliss]

8. Still, the doll test survived—and thrived. But it has since been used to measure attitudes about race unrelated to segregation.

The experiment has been re-created time after time. In 2006 a similar study showed African-American children still labeling a black doll “bad.” The Final Call labeled the results “ugly.” ABC did it in 2009, and CNN’s Anderson Cooper played the role of the Clarks in 2010, administering a doll test for a national audience. No longer used in debates about integration, the results of the contemporary test are frequently cited to anchor comments about the effects on black kids of living in a racist society.

https://www.theroot.com/the-doll-test-for-racial-self-hate-did-it-ever-make-se-1790875716

[Tolya Ugajin]

5 minutes ago, Aethelwine said:

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.

lol no harm no foul, I just saw that 7,000 number as was like "whoa! where is that coming from?"

One thing I think we can all agree on, too damned many people get killed by cops, and nobody should be killed the way George Floyd was, regardless of his skin color, his blood chemistry at the time, or his history or recent actions, or whatever half-assed "but what about...?" people have offered up.

[Beth Macbain]

Happening Now - George Floyd Public Viewing

[JanuarySwan]

17 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

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

I was thinking the pre-conceived notions may have come from television in the 1950's?  But, I also said, I think the study needs follow through with children who preside in multi-ethnic communities just to get an idea of how they feel but also I might choose any doll, I even had an Indian doll when I was kid.   But, come to think of it, in the early 1960's, Motown burst forth into TV.  People started "hanging out" with each other and people of different ethnic backgrounds were brought together because of a love of music and especially The Blues.  

There have been white people who have protested alongside with black people for a long, long time...it's part of our history.  

As far as those who'd prefer to be with "their people", well...I feel not wanted here nor can I voice about The Police due to my skin color.  It's not needed.

And, there I will bow out.  

Edited June 8, 2020 by JanuarySwan

[Janet Voxel]

Just now, Arielle Popstar said:

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.

“All attempts” was not directed at you.

Again, every protest has not been violent, so why continue with the conflation? Why would a militarized police force need to be funded more? 
 

To me, the police’s violent response to people with their hands raised would lead to more protesting and more violence. Maybe it’s just me though.

I know someone has shown the graphic of how much time police officers are trained in community policing and conflict mediation as opposed to shooting. So your response is to fund more weaponry?

Wouldn’t it have been more productive for police to say “we are with you?” Than to respond with more violence? 
 

Again, maybe it’s just me.

[Sylvia Tamalyn]

12 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

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.

"Even more arms" is the last thing the police need. How very authoritarian. 

[Tolya Ugajin]

1 hour ago, Janet Voxel said:

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.

Since Obama's last fiscal budget (2017's), federal spending on social programs is up (2020) as follows:

Total, Education, Training, Employment, and Social Services Programs

35.8% Total, non-Medicare, Health Programs: 20.2% Medicare: 17.1% Income Security Programs (includes SNAP, housing assistance, etc,) 5.1% (note, many of these programs are driven by employment and wages, both of which have grown rapidly in the last 3 years, until Covid) Inflation during this period:  6.2% Spending is decreasing is a myth.

 

[Selene Gregoire]

Budget cuts = decreases in spending.

[Drakonadrgora Darkfold]

your feelings on this?

[Janet Voxel]

5 minutes ago, Selene Gregoire said:

Budget cuts = decreases in spending.

It's not even that hard to see.

[kali Wylder]

1 hour ago, Tolya Ugajin said:

Cops generally only use force when interacting with criminals, particularly violent criminals. 

Wait a minute.  This is just not true!  If this were true we wouldn't see so many video's of them beating on regular people. This is what the whole protest has been about in the first place.  Cops are abusing their power.

Edited June 8, 2020 by kali Wylder
more to say

[Janet Voxel]

47 minutes ago, Tolya Ugajin said:

Since Obama's last fiscal budget (2017's), federal spending on social programs is up (2020) as follows:

Total, Education, Training, Employment, and Social Services Programs

35.8% Total, non-Medicare, Health Programs: 20.2% Medicare: 17.1% Income Security Programs (includes SNAP, housing assistance, etc,) 5.1% (note, many of these programs are driven by employment and wages, both of which have grown rapidly in the last 3 years, until Covid) Inflation during this period:  6.2% Spending is decreasing is a myth.

 

When you break it down like that sure. Looks great on paper, but those numbers don't tell the whole story. When it says "Total, Education, Training, Employment, and Social Services Programs" what does that mean? As an abstract, LOOKS GREAT! What is that money going towards though?

Here's a graphic, its not a myth Trump literally wants to defund social programs:

 

Edited June 8, 2020 by Janet Voxel

[Ashlyn Voir]

This thread just really highlights  the divide and ignorance I think a lot of people have. And, realistically no one is ready for real change. Prejudice and racism has been here even before Christ, if you believe in the Bible anyway. So, what makes us think it’ll ever go away now? It won’t and I know it won’t. Ever. 
 

Just from this thread alone, I can tell a lot of people here really probably never deal with black folks on the daily or really ever interacted with a black person outside of work or school. That’s no shade, just an observation. We’re more likely to deal with white people as black people than the other way around. So...I mean. It is what it is. 
 

Realistically people don’t really listen to black Americans when it comes to racism until a white person starts talking about it. And then, people begin to derail the argument with making it about other people. As I said, NO ONE SAID all lives didn’t matter. NO ONE SAID they didn’t care about the injustices that happens to other races or cultures. But, every time we as black Americans talk about something that pertains to us, everyone wanna jump in and put their own two cents or make it about themselves. And, it further buries the issue at hand. 
 

 

Edited June 8, 2020 by Ashlyn Voir

[KanryDrago]

7 minutes ago, kali Wylder said:

Wait a minute.  This is just not true!  If this were true we wouldn't see so many video's of them beating on regular people. This is what the whole protest has been about in the first place.  Cops are abusing their power.

American cops are abusing their power.....there fixed that for you. In most countries we dont have those sort of things surfacing and on the rare occasion we do, the cop is dealt with. US citizens made the problem up to you to solve it.....dont you have elections coming up?

[Tolya Ugajin]

2 minutes ago, kali Wylder said:

Wait a minute.  This is just not true!

Really, have any data to back that up?  Seems pretty counter-intuitive.  I mean, cops interact with people for traffic tickets, responding to calls, first aid, talking to witnesses, etc. and I'm reasonably certain they don't normally draw their guns or tase people in those situations, which is the vast majority of police work.   And I CAN back that up:

"In fact, only about a quarter (27%) of all officers say they have ever fired their service weapon while on the job"

So, if 73% go their career without firing a weapon, kinda seems to indicate they're not using force a very large percentage of their time.

The implicit claim in what I was responding to is that the number of people cops shoot should be proportionate to the percentage of each group in the population.  That's exceedingly facile, unless you think cops are just firing at civilians and preferentially targeting blacks.

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/02/08/a-closer-look-at-police-officers-who-have-fired-their-weapon-on-duty/

[kali Wylder]

4 minutes ago, KanryDrago said:

American cops are abusing their power.....there fixed that for you. In most countries we dont have those sort of things surfacing and on the rare occasion we do, the cop is dealt with. US citizens made the problem up to you to solve it.....dont you have elections coming up?

Thanks so much for fixing that Kanry, duh.

[Beth Macbain]

29 minutes ago, Drakonadrgora Darkfold said:

your feelings on this?

I only read the lyrics, but I think it's the truth, and I don't think there is any shame in admitting it so long as we are willing to learn from it. There have been several people in this thread who are getting stuck in the noise - and it's noisy as hell right now. There are voices coming from all over the place shouting to be heard above everyone else - myself included. 

Everyone wants their opinion to be heard above all others, and maybe we should all try to quiet down a bit and listen instead - myself included. 

I'm not a perfect ally. I'm trying to be better.

When I lived in LA, I was talking to a coworker who was black, and we were talking about race relations. I don't remember why we were talking about it, or what context it was brought up in, but I asked him a question about whether or not he personally felt that white people were being more tolerant towards the black community. It never once occurred to me that there was anything wrong with my phrasing. 

He stopped me and asked how I'd feel if someone asked me how I'd feel if someone said they tolerated me. He explained how we tolerate misbehaving children in restaurants, but that people were not things to be merely tolerated based on the color of their skin. He was absolutely right, of course. Once I thought about it, and how that word sounded in that context, I understood that it was a really crappy thing for me to say. 

It's the little things like that. Learning that we're not perfect, but that we can change - if, and only if, we can stop being so defensive about "I'm not a racist! Are you saying I'm a racist? How dare you!"

 

[kiramanell]

En passant, the blatent police brutality, as whole, as I've seen it the last few weeks, bothers me greatly too. The 1st Amendment clearly protects "the right to peaceably assemble, or the right to petition the government for redress of grievances (!)." And it's your 14th Amendment which specifically states "No state shall (..) deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.'" Since the latter is clearly not happening, I'd say the protesters have a very not only a perfectly legit, but Constitutionally protected/mentioned-even right 'to petition the government for redress of grievances' (which is the right to make a complaint to one's government, without fear of punishment or reprisals.)

So, tl;dr, don't send in military police; don't use batons to beat peaceful protesters, don't fire rubber bullets; and, FFS, don't attack the press! In 1776 already, the second year of the American Revolutionary War, the Virginia colonial legislature passed a Declaration of Rights that included the sentence "The freedom of the press is one of the greatest bulwarks of liberty, and can never be restrained but by despotic Governments." Trying to make the press the 'enemy of the state' is more of a Trump thing, really, in his Make America White Again attempts at creating a Dictatorship. Half the time, as seen in that vid from nappyheadedjojoba, the press/social media is heavily censored already. If we can no longer see what the police are doing, then be afraid, be very afraid.

[Aethelwine]

Another themed cruise, this one from Topless Sailor's. Starting from Dex in 40 minutes.

An I have a dream cruise....

I have a dream that my four little children will one day
live in a nation Where they will not be judged by the color
of their skin but by the content of their character I have
a dream ... I have a dream that one day in Alabama,
with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips
dripping with the words of interposition and nullification,
one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black
girls will he able to join hands with little white boy's and
white girls as sisters and brothers.

.....

When we allow freedom to ring-when we let it ring
from every city and every hamlet, from every state and
every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all
of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and
Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join
hands and sing in the word·s of the old Negro spiritual,
"Free at last, Free at last, Great God a-mighty, We are
free at last."
(Copyright 1963, MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.)

https://www.archives.gov/files/press/exhibits/dream-speech.pdf
https://youtu.be/vP4iY1TtS3s

Edited June 8, 2020 by Aethelwine

[Drakonadrgora Darkfold]

1 minute ago, Beth Macbain said:

I only read the lyrics, but I think it's the truth, and I don't think there is any shame in admitting it so long as we are willing to learn from it. There have been several people in this thread who are getting stuck in the noise - and it's noisy as hell right now. There are voices coming from all over the place shouting to be heard above everyone else - myself included. 

Everyone wants their opinion to be heard above all others, and maybe we should all try to quiet down a bit and listen instead - myself included. 

I'm not a perfect ally. I'm trying to be better.

When I lived in LA, I was talking to a coworker who was black, and we were talking about race relations. I don't remember why we were talking about it, or what context it was brought up in, but I asked him a question about whether or not he personally felt that white people were being more tolerant towards the black community. It never once occurred to me that there was anything wrong with my phrasing. 

He stopped me and asked how I'd feel if someone asked me how I'd feel if someone said they tolerated me. He explained how we tolerate misbehaving children in restaurants, but that people were not things to be merely tolerated based on the color of their skin. He was absolutely right, of course. Once I thought about it, and how that word sounded in that context, I understood that it was a really crappy thing for me to say. 

It's the little things like that. Learning that we're not perfect, but that we can change - if, and only if, we can stop being so defensive about "I'm not a racist! Are you saying I'm a racist? How dare you!"

 

You had to make a post I couldn't laugh at!!! darn you!!!!

[kali Wylder]

9 minutes ago, Tolya Ugajin said:

Really, have any data to back that up?  Seems pretty counter-intuitive.  I mean, cops interact with people for traffic tickets, responding to calls, first aid, talking to witnesses, etc. and I'm reasonably certain they don't normally draw their guns or tase people in those situations, which is the vast majority of police work.   And I CAN back that up:

"In fact, only about a quarter (27%) of all officers say they have ever fired their service weapon while on the job"

So, if 73% go their career without firing a weapon, kinda seems to indicate they're not using force a very large percentage of their time.

The implicit claim in what I was responding to is that the number of people cops shoot should be proportionate to the percentage of each group in the population.  That's exceedingly facile, unless you think cops are just firing at civilians and preferentially targeting blacks.

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/02/08/a-closer-look-at-police-officers-who-have-fired-their-weapon-on-duty/

I don't have time right now as I'm supposed to be working.  but your stats of cops using their guns don't help much when the force is a knee on a windpipe.

[Aethelwine]

3 minutes ago, Aethelwine said:

Another themed cruise, this one from Topless Sailor's. Starting from Dex in 40 minutes.

An I have a dream cruise....

 

Before anyone complains about the logo on the map, Yes I did copy and paste male nipples over the female ones to make sure no one would be offended.

[Beth Macbain]

9 minutes ago, Tolya Ugajin said:

So, if 73% go their career without firing a weapon, kinda seems to indicate they're not using force a very large percentage of their time.

Force isn't limited to lethal force. How many times have they used their tasers, or batons, or rubber bullets, or pepper balls, or their fists?

[Tolya Ugajin]

2 minutes ago, Janet Voxel said:

When you break it down like that sure. Looks great on paper, but those numbers don't tell the whole story. When it says "Total, Education, Training, Employment, and Social Services Programs" what does that mean? As an abstract, LOOKS GREAT! What is that money going towards though?

You're free to research it further.  The information comes from the first link below, table 3.2.  It's interesting that first you bemoan how spending is being cut, as if the dollars are the important thing, not who is spending it and how, and now you're questioning HOW it's being spent, which, in fact is far more important.

For instance, I believe you originally included education spending is down.  Since education spending a combination of federal, state, and local spending, we can't check that assertion by just looking at federal spending.  Plus, spending goes up with more kids (hopefully) so, we need to control for that.  Fortunately, data is available on average spending per pupil over the last 40 years.  See the second link, column 4, which shows that from 1980 to 2006, spending per pupil, using inflation-adjust dollars, went up 86%.  Unfortunately this source, which seems impeccable, doesn't have (as far as I can find) a more recent version of this table.  So, I provide (third link) as well a different source which more or less reflects the same trend during that period but also includes more recent years, showing that trend continuing to it's last data point, 2017.  The data appears to be current, not "real" (ie. inflation adjusted) dollars.  Total inflation during this period was 318%.  Adjusting for inflation, the $2,272 per pupil in average in 1980 becomes $7,238, which gives an 80% increase in spending per pupil adjusted for inflation over that time.

So, we're spending an awful lot more money on education, but we don't seem to be getting much for it.  Now, we can debate why that is, what we should do about it, and so forth, but it's pretty hard to argue that funding is the problem, because throwing money at it so far doesn't seem to be working.  Think of it this way: your local politicians raised your taxes by 80% last year, but they gave you no improvements in services in return.  Now they want more.  Still going to vote for them?

Politicians and the media love telling you that more money needs to be spent.  It's an easy answer and lets them avoid accountability.

 

https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/historical-tables/

https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d09/tables/dt09_182.asp

https://www.statista.com/statistics/185135/average-expenditures-per-pupil-in-public-schools/

[Beth Macbain]

27 minutes ago, Drakonadrgora Darkfold said:

You had to make a post I couldn't laugh at!!! darn you!!!!

See? I'm not all that evil, either... 😜