[MENTION=7929]vasco de gama[/MENTION]
Thanks for an interesting post - your 'letters from America' are always insightful on these things.
I look at this situation and it's hard not to despair. I think there are sacred cows aplenty which go unaddressed because they offend one powerful interest or another.
The whole gun things is first and foremost. On the other side are liberal shibboleths which are equally unassailable.
For example, I've never seen in any coverage of these shootings, mention given to the point that black youths are 8-9 times more likely to be perpetrators of homicide than white equivalents - and more so in hotspots.
Whatever else is going on that
must affect the disposition of cops approaching situations. But it seems it can't be addressed - one situation where PC has lethal affect.
On a related note I agree with you about nurture which equally goes unaddressed. As a quick aside, I dread what gene science will produce this century as it's almost inevitable it will throw 'nature' elements into the controversies of the day that will be blown up and distorted. But that's tomorrow's problem - right now we cannot go near the clear disaster that has unfolded in the black community since 60s advances. For whatever reason, the black family has collapsed more catastrophically than equivalents producing a disproportionate amount of the directionless young men you mention, which is a major contributor to this catastrophe (as well as reversing previous rapid advance of black Americans across a range of social indicators). Tragically the pattern is now being replicated in England on a smaller and less lethal scale (thanks to lack of guns). In both countries the trajectory of recently immigrated and 'churched' Africans is markedly different (ie much better) than indigenous blacks, further highlighting the corrosive effects of recent cultural shifts.
I think the Obama era has emboldened the deranged elements within liberalism and made these things ever harder to approach seriously s everything is packaged within identity politics narratives: further inflaming things by encouraging victim hood and impotent rage over the hard struggle for self improvement, and ludicrously enshrining socially destructive behaviours as cultural authenticity. That, along with Obama's willingness to act undemocratically mean his reign has had problems not simply produced by the intransigence of his opposition.
US police forces clearly need some serious scrutiny - your relayed experience is chilling and reflects the particular infamy of the LAPD. Policing there is mental, not just in mentality but in its spectacularly low density compared to other big cities leaving cops a roaming Buccaneers potentially on a hair trigger ready to fight their way out of situations where backup is not so close as it is elsewhere.
It's a Gordian knot - fuck knows what the answer is, but it's not close by as we won't even ask the questions.
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Maybe yer buddy and his colleagues shouldnae racist gun happy $#@!s?
That horrific steamed incident - though I only saw a snippet - suggests a more complicated truth; gun happiness for sure, but not through racism versus a panicked over reaction. Actually perhaps that is a form of racism in terms of stereotyped expectation as opposed to malign 'I'm gonna shoot me a black' racism. Then again, as above, it's a stereotype based on real incidence of violence, so it's ...more complicated.
