Players taking the knee

A lot of those points already exist. Police number have been cut to unsustainable levels and courts only use prison as a last resort as criminality becomes more expansive throughout society. Police officers will be sacked if found guilty of code breaches (they are literally filmed 24/7 now).
I'm all for police reform, the service is not fit for purpose anymore. But it's also a two way thing and sections of society who cry foul also need to understand that they are also part of the problem in a world which seems to have more of a blameless culture about it.

 

Its not really a threat or anything. I would say the vast majority of the time i do feel welcome. And i do hope that booing isnt aimed at me. I do personally think if something like help for heros was linked with a far right organisation it wouldnt get booed. But because its something about race it gets booed. Personally people like to pretend its not an issue but lets face it i know what you all say behind closed doors. This to me proves that people are not willing to go that extra mile for me.


Not booing the knee doesn’t mean karl marx will come back from the grave or the USSR will reform. Really its a gesture thats being booed and thats why they continue.

 

All of them are worthy of discussion. Some of them such as banning information gathering on gangs and disarming the police could be disastrous though.

But they're not a simple "anti-racism" message are they where you would expect 100% agreement across the population? Which is exactly why we don't get it.

 

That one is a fair point, personally I am fan of privacy but understandable either way.

 

What's wrong with prison or police expansion

What's wrong surveillance and keeping data if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear.

What's wrong with keeping data on gangs that commit crime.

The only one I agree with on there is if a police officer is convicted of using excessive force he/she should be removed from duty that said I have personally seen officers attacked without warning and then go in heavy handed and rightly so IMO.

The one thing the black community should be doing is finding the reason why black on black crime is the biggest problem within its community. People only seem interested if the culprits are white. Well that's fine but they need to get their own house in order you can't pick and choose what is right and wrong then turn a blind eye and say black on black crime isn't a problem.

 

But it's NOT about race, sadly you are missing the point, nobody should need to kneel for anybody except maybe the queen, it's the gesture that is offensive, nothing else, at least that is the case with me..

 

I never said that people should be able to distinguish between the two. Stop putting words in my mouth. I don't think most people are even aware of the distinction. I said that most people associate BLM with the wider movement, not the small BLM Inc.

When I said that people can distinguish between what was going on in the USA on their TVs last year I was talking about the pictures of the unrest in cities etc, not the fine detail of who is in which organisation and what their political views are.

Black Lives Matter has been around for ages now. It's clearly and obviously a global, non violent protest movement against racism, associated with taking the knee. Most reasonable people will recognise that. The people who don't recognise that are those who would be opposed to taking the knee anyway. Those who boo and get angry about taking the knee aren't doing so because of some principled objection to the politics of a few activists in Chicago. They are angered because they either don't want to have to think about racism or they actively support it.

 

From the Daily Mirror...of all places..

One in three English Football League clubs abandon taking the knee against racism
More and more club sides are deciding to move away from the powerful gesture as the new season gets underway including nine outfits in the Championship alone as they seek alternatives

 

Why are you framing it as them vs us

Shouldnt it just be everyone?

And just framing it through race is a poor picture to make.

i do disagree with a few of thoses (such as privacy) i cant be bothered writing it out but i can do so if youd like.

 

But what went on on TV last year was people representing BLM talking about violent protests, destroying capitalism and defunding the police. Its what people saw and heard from the mouths of people with "Black Lives Matter" under their name!

So you're just going to completely ignore the fact that some people representing BLM have an agenda which is ideologically wider that anti-racism and in some cases violent? You want people who have heard these messages from people who represent BLM to simply ignore them?

Is that where we've ended up?

 

Can you just explain what you mean by 'I know what you say behind closed doors' because it seems quite a wide ranging statement. Apologies of the comment has been lost in translation.

 

The point about police funding/numbers is that in the USA some cities have utterly enormous police forces that just keep growing and growing without doing anything to reduce crime. They just end up being a hugely repressive, heavily armed presence in poor areas, which in some cities are mostly black, creating a huge sense of repression in those communities. And it's abundantly clear that there is a considerable racist element within those police forces that take obvious pleasure in being as heavy-handed as possible.

By contrast, the money spent on creating jobs, constructive activities, social facilities etc is minimal by comparison. Everyone knows that poor communities with no facilities are breeding grounds for crime. Yes, of course black on black crime is a big issue. But that doesn't happen in more wealthy black areas. It's a direct consequence of poverty and lack of legitimate opportunities.

When people talk about 'de-funding the police' they don't mean disbanding the police force. They mean halting and partially reversing the constantly growing police budgets and using that money instead at grassroots level to create better social conditions that will reduce crime levels by raising living standards.

 

Completely agree with this.
I would, however, say that the left wing ideology of 'institutional racism', 'white privilege' etc etc is what has already started the whole narrative of looking at society almost solely through the perspective of race.
Ultimately I think we all want to live in a society where frankly no-one gives a toss about the next persons skin colour, but conversely the more we talk about it sometimes the harder it is to achieve that

 

And comments like "I know what YOU ALL say behind closed doors" just fuels the fire.
Unbelievable Jeff.

 

A tiny, unrepresentative minority in the US have that agenda. The movement has since massively expanded, leaving that minority behind as an irrelevance.

 

But as has been said numerous times they were given a large voice and people don't forget what they heard. They have intertwined themselves.

The movement and the organisation have both expanded massively since. Unless WE can find a way to unlink the messages then there will never be 100% support for any of their gestures.

Ignoring that the messaging were linked won't help that.

 

Why? Why is kneeling an offensive gesture? That's a very strange attitude. If it was kneeling in subjugation then that would be unacceptable. Why is kneeling in protest 'offensive'.
I'm not being provocative here. I genuinely don't understand why kneeling is offensive. Please explain.

 

You say that 'they were given a large voice'. Were they? Maybe on Newsnight or other specialist political discussion programmes. But I don't recall discussions of the political views of the BLM Inc organisation on mainstream news, which is what most people watch.

Of course there will never be 100% support for their gestures. The 'head in the sand' types, the racism deniers and the outright racists will never support BLM or the knee. And they are the ones who insist on using the political views of a small minority to smear the whole global movement.

 

Oh, FFS go away.......

 

Do we have to kneel to prove we actively agree with the points made? Remember the police officers in the met who were bullied into dropping on one knee during the protests? It wasn't their choice, it was demanded. Because now it seems there isn't choice, kneel or you're against the movement.