- Thu, 12:56: RT @andreas_akt: Registration of non-Belgian voters for the 2019 European Parliament elections – it’s really easy! https://t.co/gDoy6d3bNX…
- Thu, 14:55: RT @robertshrimsley: What I Iove about this is that every journalist who worked on local newspapers has always met someone who was petition…
- Thu, 17:45: Favourite guest star: I’ve said this already, but Derek Jacobi’s brief appearance rules. https://t.co/3LWsVlLPjZ
- Thu, 20:43: January Books https://t.co/FtFTXoGjtX
- Thu, 22:06: RT @FinancialTimes: Gillian Tett: Trade is only half the battle. National security concerns could overshadow any breakthrough in US-China t…
- Fri, 00:41: RT @sjgeimer: fuckers https://t.co/jVKjauvvd7
- Fri, 10:45: Great thread. https://t.co/t20ZjvXQ4S
The rhetoric in that article is _way_ over the top. The police have been closing ranks and defending themselves a bit, yes – as you do when lots of potentially-armed people are walking around proclaiming that the only good person-like-you is a dead person-like-you.
The underlying problem here is actually that _neither_ side are capable of listening to the other – the division of police treatment of blacks is part of the wider social problem where black people are disproportionately poor people, and poor people tend to end up on the wrong side of the police more often for many obvious reasons (‘In its majestic equality, the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets and steal loaves of bread.’).
The obvious solutions are in fact being implemented (body cameras for police to get actual evidence of what happens and help eliminate disproportionate uses of force) or are politically unacceptable (fundamentally it’s a problem of inequality and inadequate funding of social programs, but Americans as a nation seem to like their inequality and don’t like government spending much).
But the protesters are convinced it’s still about entrenched active prejudice, and then the police are defensive about not being racist (which, by and large, they’re not especially), and everything escalates.