getting woke and SL

[Luna Bliss]

1 minute ago, Janet Voxel said:

Its been updated they're up to the DSM-V...they might need a DSM-VI when this is all over.

Internet behavior is not always contained within the manual. I supposed I need to start visiting Twitter or something..

[Luna Bliss]

15 minutes ago, Janet Voxel said:

I've lived in the US since I was 18 and I'm married to an American.

You were in Canada and then chose to live in America!   That must have been some guy!

[Janet Voxel]

3 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

Internet behavior is not always contained within the manual. I supposed I need to start visiting Twitter or something..

Trust me, its worse on twitter. This is tame compared to that.

[Janet Voxel]

Just now, Luna Bliss said:

You were in Canada and then chose to live in America!   That must have been some guy!

Well, no my father  was African-american. I was born in Canada and have always had dual citizenship. I moved down here because he was dying and I wanted to get to know him better and take care of him. The guy came later!

[Luna Bliss]

2 minutes ago, Janet Voxel said:

I moved down here

Did you notice a difference in how Blacks were treated here?  Or were you too young to really process such things then?  I know slavery ended earlier in Canada than it did here, and so they've had more time to deal with the effects.  And I only read of one Jim Crow type setup, in Nova Scotia, compared to Jim Crow being nationwide here.

[Arielle Popstar]

4 minutes ago, Gage Wirefly said:

'Facts' .  And as to the other bit about not being an American-it does matter. Do you live here or have you ever? If not then you really have no understanding of the culture because you've never been immersed in it.  It would very heady of myself to claim I know a lot about any culture that I haven't lived in or been a part of directly. And as far as politics go, I have zero interest in what non-Americans think about the U.S. or what goes on here. Clean up your own backyard .

Some are only interested in being echo chambers here for each other and sharing 'Facts'.

Not quite valid as BLM as an entity has spilled over into Canada as well as many other countries and the demands for reform pretty much the same everywhere.  Those of us who are not American but throw our .02 cents in are every bit as much a part of this forum and thread as there was nowhere in the OP stating that it was only for Americans.

[Janet Voxel]

2 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

Did you notice a difference in how Blacks were treated here?  Or were you too young to really process such things then?  I know slavery ended earlier in Canada than it did here, and so they've had more time to deal with the effects.  And I only read of one Jim Crow type setup, in Nova Scotia, compared to Jim Crow being nationwide here.

There's racism there too, it's really hard to explain. I shared how my mother didn't really know how to do my hair when I was starting school and got made fun of, little things like that. An old Quebecois might say something really messed up out loud, but people are more likely to say something about it too, here...people kind of see it and won't say anything. Manitoba and Alberta and Saskatchewan can give red states a run for their money. It's just not quite the same, like here....race really matters, it doesn't matter as much up there.

[Luna Bliss]

Jim Crow info:

https://www.history.com/topics/early-20th-century-us/jim-crow-laws

[Arielle Popstar]

There is more prejudice between French and English speaking parts then between whites and blacks in Canada though not entirely non existant as I have it from different sources that there was quite a bit of animosity between bikers and blacks as well as normal racism in prisons.

[Gage Wirefly]

9 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

Not quite valid as BLM as an entity has spilled over into Canada as well as many other countries and the demands for reform pretty much the same everywhere.  Those of us who are not American but throw our .02 cents in are every bit as much a part of this forum and thread as there was nowhere in the OP stating that it was only for Americans.

I stand firmly by what I said, even if we may agree on some things.

[Arielle Popstar]

3 minutes ago, Gage Wirefly said:

I stand firmly by what I said, even if we may agree on some things.

It's a free country on both sides of the border

[Pussycat Catnap]

VoteVets Ad:

... this picks up where I left off maybe 30-million posts ago in this thread when the conversation was around treatment of veterans and military.

Currently relevant with today's news that Adolph Trump decided not to brief his boss Putin in their meeting last week over this issue.

 

Edited July 29, 2020 by Pussycat Catnap

[Pussycat Catnap]

https://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Vallejo-police-held-parties-marked-badges-report-15442661.php (2020 - today's news)

Quote

Vallejo police held parties, bent badges after fatal shootings

police officers who killed someone in the line of duty were thrown a barbecue and initiated into a kind of club by bending one of the points of their badge to commemorate the killing.

An Open Vallejo investigation found three men, Sean Kenney, Joe McCarthy and Steve Darden, accounted for almost a third of Vallejo's 30 fatal police shootings over the past two decades. Kenney denied manipulating his badge when contacted by Open Vallejo, which says it reviewed images that show his badge tips bent.

In addition to Whitney's allegations that some officers glorified violence against civilians, he claims former Police Chief Andrew Bidou told him to delete text messages related to the case of kidnap victim Denise Huskins. In 2015, Huskins was taken from her boyfriend's Vallejo residence and held captive for days. Vallejo police accused Huskins of staging the kidnapping, going so far as to hold a press conference to denounce her. Matthew Muller was later convicted on federal kidnapping charges, and the city ended up paying Huskins and her partner a $2.5 million settlement.

Whitney also claimed Bidou told a Vallejo Police Department spokesperson to "burn that *****" in reference to Huskins.

Bidou retired from the department last year and now works for PG&E.

The California Department of Justice also has an open investigation into the June 2 killing of Sean Monterrosa, who was shot by a Vallejo police officer. The investigation was prompted by allegations that the police department destroyed evidence relating to the case.

"Some days I feel like I work with a bunch of thugs who take pleasure out of hurting people," an anonymous department employee told Open Vallejo.

Things to note:

The Police there deny this, stating it is untrue.

I believe this department is the one that shot and killed a young Latino boy, about 12-13 or so in age' who was playing with a toy gun in a playground within some 10-20 seconds of the police ariving. As in, they entered the scene guns blazing against a 'tween' boy. That was a few years ago though, and we get over 100 killings of unarmed or non-resisting latinos a year out here... so I'm having trouble finding that specific case again... - It was a fact pattern almost identical that of Tamir Rice a few years later.

 

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/black-men-werent-unarmed-people-killed-police-last-week (2016)

Quote

Why aren’t more people talking about Latinos killed by police?

As videos of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile — two African-American men shot and killed by police last week –went viral and their names became hashtags, many called out a lack of media attention for Latinos who were killed by officers that same week. Organizations like the National Council of La Raza (NCLR), Voto Latino and even Black Lives Matter, are raising awareness of police use-of-force in Latino communities. Police killings of brown people often go underreported, says Eric Rodriquez, vice president of the NCLR’s office of research, advocacy, and legislation.

“In American history, racial conflict has largely played out in black and white. But the history is much more complicated, [leaving] out Native Americans, as well as Asians and Hispanics,” said Aaron Fountain, historian of youth activism at Indiana University. “Americans don’t see any kind of historical context when Latinos are victims of state violence, despite the fact that there is historical context there.”

While blacks and Hispanics have interactions with police at rates proportional to their population, according to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, both groups are over-represented when it comes to traffic searches and arrests. Hispanics, for example, make up 17.6 percent of the U.S. population but represent 23 percent of all searches and nearly 30 percent of arrests.

Among minorities, the rate of police killings for Latinos is second to those of African-Americans. As of today, an estimated 94 Latinos have been killed by police in 2016 alone, making up 16 percent of the 585 police-involved killings this year.  In contrast, people who are black or African-American are only 13.3 percent of the U.S. population, but 144 black Americans have been killed by police in 2016. At 25 percent, those deaths represent a disproportionate number of officer-involved fatalities compared to the population.

It’s worth noting a person can be both Latino and black. And sometimes a victim’s race may not be disclosed at all, creating potential for incidents involving both Latinos and black Americans to be underreported, Rodriguez said. Many national databases are dependent on self-reported statistics from local and state agencies, making them potentially incomplete.

“There’s lots of challenges in reporting cases for the Latino community in particular, because of questions around identity. We just don’t have enough information to document all the cases that are occurring, certainly not by race and ethnicity,” said Rodriguez. “But there’s a recognition more broadly that deaths at the hands of law enforcement are having too many racialized outcomes.”

 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/latino-teen-was-shot-in-back-by-police-familys-autopsy-finds/ar-BB16uRJy (2020)

Quote

Andres Guardado, 18, was shot five times in the back by a Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy last month, according to the results of an independent autopsy released by his family Wednesday after the county put a hold on publicly releasing the official medical examiner's report.

Guardado's parents, Elisa and Cristobal, said the preliminary findings confirmed "what we have known all along, which is that Andres was unjustifiably killed by a Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy."

"Our son did not deserve to die this way," they said in a statement. "Andres was a good boy, he was our son and he had so much life ahead of him."

 

https://www.univision.com/univision-news/united-states/what-we-know-about-the-five-latinos-killed-by-police-last-week (from 2016)

Quote

Officers fatally shot four men and a woman. So far this year, police have killed 100 Hispanics.

During a tumultuous week marked by the high-profile killings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, Ventura was one of five young Hispanics killed by police between July 3 and July 7. Though the victims received scant national attention, the killings marked 100 Latinos killed by police this year, according to Killed by Police, a database that tracks killings by U.S. law enforcement. The Guardian’s The Counted database puts that number at 88, likely because local authorities don’t have the option of categorizing victims as Hispanic.

 

- in this case, 3 of the people killed were armed and violent. Though one of those was a mental health issue and another a suicide attempt (a man shot himself in the head, but the bullet only grazed him, so police finished the job). The last of the violent cases was a man who was holding the kind of knife I used to carry, and didn't put it down fast enough when police arrived. Some would say these were justified killings. I would say that I'd bet 2 of 3 of them could have been resolved with less lethal means.

I include them to note that... when it comes to people of color, police resort to the most extreme measures first, not last.

 

This is why I note solidarity. Because all communities of color have targets on their backs.

 

Another article I was reading today... noted that the national dialog is often about White vs Black because the nation starts in the East and then slowly looks west. But if you're out on the West side; it's not about Black and White. It's about Brown, Yellow, Red, Black, and White. Our history is different here, and Europeans got out here a century before they got to the East Coast. Not only that, but the Chinese and Russians also both got here before the Anglos did. The story on the West side has never been about White vs. Black. Things have always been more complicated here. And before the Anglos got here, it wasn't even White vs. Brown... it was more 'Españoles' (born in Spain) vs everybody else... with Criollos (Spanish ancestry but born in New Spain) caught in the middle and flipping sides with the issues of the day... (Often because Ciollos families, much like modern California White families, usually included some people in the extended family that were not White - I think something like 40-60% of marriages these days in California are multi-racial - which is rapidly ending the ability of people to 'take sides').

Being 'woke' out here means you need to know the larger picture and not just the "us vs. them" dialog that the rest of the nation paints with so broad a brush.

 

Edited July 29, 2020 by Pussycat Catnap

[Nick0678]

1 hour ago, Pussycat Catnap said:

... this picks up where I left off maybe 30-million posts ago in this thread when the conversation was around treatment of veterans and military.

Currently relevant with today's news that Adolph Trump decided not to brief his boss Putin in their meeting last week over this issue.

Who knows maybe they both found a way to make the whole war thing even more profitable. Conservatives, democrat's, soviet's, russians never really mattered who was in charge, it's just business about good old oil and weapon industry sales since forever... Let's be fair, there's nothing patriotic about it, it's all bullsh*t decorated with shinny medals.

 

[FairreLilette]

California Natives reclaim land for the first time in 250 years.  YAY!  Keep it up, it's working.  It will work.  Just keep working it~!

On Monday, the Esselen Tribe of Monterey County bought 1,199 acres of land along California's Big Sur coast thanks to a $4.5 million grant that involved the state and the Oregon-based environmental group, Western Rivers Conservancy, The Mercury News reported.

This is the first time the tribe has reclaimed any of its former territory in the more than two centuries since Spanish missionaries traveled through

"It is beyond words for us, the highest honor," Tom Little Bear Nason, chairman of the Esselen Tribe of Monterey County, told Mercury News of the purchase. "The land is the most important thing to us. It is our homeland, the creation story of our lives. We are so elated and grateful."

According to the Esselen Tribe's website, it was in the late 1700s that famed Spanish missionary Junipero Sierra formed three missions near their ancient homeland with the purpose of converting their people to Catholicism.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/calif-native-american-tribe-reclaims-ancestral-land-stolen-250-years-ago-the-highest-honor/ar-BB17lfsk?li=BBnb7Kz

[Gage Wirefly]

1 hour ago, Pussycat Catnap said:

 

 

Currently relevant with today's news that Adolph Trump decided not to brief his boss Putin in their meeting last week over this issue.

 

It's difficult to take you seriously when you refer to the president as Adolph. It is beyond absurd and you actually diminish what happened to Jewish people when you do this. I understand you dislike the man but that's a step too far. He has done nothing to be compared to Hitler.

[Gage Wirefly]

1 hour ago, Pussycat Catnap said:

 

 

 Because all communities of color have targets on their backs.

 

 

 

What exactly are you calling a community of color? Just latinos and blacks or what? Because I find your statement to be a stretch, and that's putting it nicely.

[Pussycat Catnap]

2 hours ago, Gage Wirefly said:

It's difficult to take you seriously when you refer to the president as Adolph. It is beyond absurd and you actually diminish what happened to Jewish people when you do this. I understand you dislike the man but that's a step too far. He has done nothing to be compared to Hitler.

We can just begin with;

Putting people in concentration camps

Using paramilitary thugs to attack civilians

Inciting racial violence in rallies

 

He hasn't finished... because he's not held power long enough and he's not as competent or intelligent or even as sane as Hitler was... but not for lack of trying.

If he's not stopped, it won't just be about his attempts to emulate historic evil... it will be too late.

  

2 hours ago, Gage Wirefly said:

What exactly are you calling a community of color? Just latinos and blacks or what? Because I find your statement to be a stretch, and that's putting it nicely.

First you call me insensitive to their victims for comparing a wannabe Nazi to his role model, then you come at me with denial of my racial identity / existence. I imagine you don't see the irony in that...

 

Edited July 30, 2020 by Pussycat Catnap

[Luna Bliss]

[Luna Bliss]

 

[Gage Wirefly]

1 hour ago, Pussycat Catnap said:

We can just begin with;

Putting people in concentration camps

Using paramilitary thugs to attack civilians

Inciting racial violence in rallies

 

He hasn't finished... because he's not held power long enough and he's not as competent or intelligent or even as sane as Hitler was... but not for lack of trying.

If he's not stopped, it won't just be about his attempts to emulate historic evil... it will be too late.

  

First you call me insensitive to their victims for comparing a wannabe Nazi to his role model, then you come at me with denial of my racial identity / existence. I imagine you don't see the irony in that...

 

Detention centers are not concentration camps. I don't believe they are rounding up people against their will and holding them and then killing them en masse<that's what they did in real concentration camps!  The people in them came here willingly and broke the law willingly and they must be held until processed, then they are either allowed in or they are returned. 

Those 'thugs' are defending Federal property, as is their right to do so.

Inciting racial violence at rallies is another thing that never happened.

I have questioned nothing about your identity or existence, I asked a simple question which you did not answer; What do you define as a community of color?

Edited July 30, 2020 by Gage Wirefly

[Gage Wirefly]

15 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

This is laughable. I would laugh but I can't because it's so extreme.

[Pussycat Catnap]

@Luna Bliss That's why I labeled 'the Orange One' the way I did. He's not competent enough to bring us all the way there... but he IS dangerous enough to put us on the railroad tracks... and set in motion other actors who have more intelligence and competency. A bit like the fall of the Roman Republic... Caesar didn't make the Empire, but he set the stage for others, AND he destroyed the Republic... And that is where we are right now... you only have to look at Portland, the border camps, the rallies, and rivals like China and Russia that are "less friendly to the outside world than even us" circling the sinking boat... to see that our Republic is set to collapse.

 

 

[Pussycat Catnap]

Why is the "White Church" silent on issues of race and social justice. Speaking in broad generics there of course - individual churches can differ. I've not finished this one, but it looks like this 'white guy' who is a pastor, is from one such church that is more socially active - like I recall from my very young years which I later learned were so unusual.

 

Actually the things this white guy is saying are very interesting to me, as a spiritual person.

Especially the parts where he talks about how he needs to teach his children to be better, even as he has yet to get there as far as he believes he must; for himself.

And when asked "where would Jesus be today, would he be marching?" the preacher says "well we only have to look at where he was in his time... and who he was angering..." Jesus would be out there today, because he was out there in his own time for much the same reasons.

 

The preacher's answer to how he deals with people in his community who say they don't believe white privilege is real is very much a faith-centric one.

'let's imagine I am wrong, and that it doesn't exist - but I spend the rest of my days acting like it did exist. What would that means? It would mean I spent my life looking out for other people, making sure they were treated fairly, making sure I always put others before myself. Isn't that what I should be doing anyway... And then lets imagine if it IS real, and you spent your whole like acting as if it wasn't: steeping on the necks others, putting yourself first, ignoring cries for help - what does that amount to?'

- Basically, even if he's wrong about privilege, acting as if it is real is still better faith outcome.

 

Edited July 30, 2020 by Pussycat Catnap

[Jordyn McGregor]

9 hours ago, Luna Bliss said:

Most likely Breitbart News searched until they found a Black woman who hates BLM and then let her loose at a protest. This is not the way news should operate.  Don't you think it strange that Breitbart would be out filming all the protests, hoping they would catch someone who does not believe prejudice against Blacks exists and is out screaming like a banshee at protesters?

And of course there are Blacks who do not believe prejudice exists in the US, but they are waaay in the minority.  And why would finding one or a few Blacks who say prejudice does not exist negate all the others who say it does?   I can find one person with an opposing view on any subject -- that does not prove the opposing view is wrong. Do you see the error in your logic?

I have seen many black people speaking out about BLM.  And just cos some say it doesn't exist doesn't mean it does.  It goes both ways ya know.

I shall wait here for your replies about Uncles Toms, the evils of conservative black people denying their race blah blah blah.