And right wingers don't? It's almost the definition of someone radical that they want to suppress the ideas of the other side whether they hail from the left or the right ....
Well said. I suggest to anyone who makes an assumption about a race of people based on a few snippets of a TV show... maybe travel a bit and meet some people before making up your mind.You know, from your post I was originally gonna take a wild guess that you formed your current — hopefully, there's room for change — extremely limited and narrow opinion of us based on "Cops" TV episodes, but I thought no one — absolutely NO ONE — could possibly be that impressionable.
Please read on, because I really hope you'll prove me right.
Let me ask you this: What if I'd never visited Australia and I formed all my opinions on white Australians based on nothing other than YouTube clips of racist ones in Cronulla bashing Lebanese-Australians during the '05 riots, or better yet, on the racist rantings of some hateful West Coast Eagles fans, directed at Adam Goodes?
Would you agree that if I thought that way, then attributed their actions to nothing other than their being white, I'd have a pretty distorted (read, f***ed up) view of Australians of European heritage? Would you agree that I'd be rushing to judgment and taking a pretty small sample size of the millions of people, from which to form an impression?
Mate, I hope you'll accept my challenge: Please take some time to read the following article: http://newsone.com/2023676/police-brutality-against-blacks/
It was written three years ago, BEFORE the deaths of African-Americans Tamir Rice, Michael Brown, Freddie Gray, Eric Garner — all in encounters with police — and the mysterious death in police custody involving Sandra Bland.
Then read this article: http://www.democracynow.org/2015/5/26/137_shots_no_convictions_cleveland_cop
After you read both, ask yourself this question: If you were law abiding citizen and you saw a pattern of police routinely harassing and brutalizing you, your family members, your friends not only in your community, but throughout your city and across the country that had persisted for generations and the perpetrators not being sanctioned and if you were treated as if you were guilty merely by association or by where you live, would you not feel angry enough to riot?
While I don't applaud rioting, destruction and violence, I'd need my head examined if I didn't understand the pain, anger, frustration, despair and moral outrage reaching the tipping point that caused the eruptions.
My final advice to you? Stop watching "Cops." NOW!
You're getting ONE perspective and certainly not the entire story in an edited 30-minute show. Depending on "Cops" to teach you about African-Americans is as ludicrous as me leaning on the YouTube show, "The Legend of Gavin Tanner" to teach me about white Aussies.
Google some insightful articles by African-American journalists on the subject to gain some perspective. Go to the American consulate and see if you can find some additional resources on learning about our history and culture. Better yet: Find some real African-Americans there to talk to.
Hell, like our Coach Lyon, I'm an anywhere, anytime kinda guy. I'd be happy to meet and you talk to you next time I'm in Australia. I'll even shout you a beer.
I won't bite. I have no criminal record and I won't start a riot. Well... maybe I will if the Eagles beat us in a Grand Final.
See? I also have a decent sense of humor — even if if my "Americanness" prevents me from spelling that word without a second "u."
Ask anyone on this board who's met me in person this year or a couple of years ago — they'll vouch for me.
Peace!
Mate, as I said I have formed this opinion through many forms, not just cops. I read American news all the time, I've already been to America recently. This is the same as the Adam Goodes debate, it cuts both ways. Yes, there are some people who are genuinely racist and will insult/hurt a black person because of their colour (See the South Carolina shootings), but then there are the other ones where a person has pulled the race card on something that was not a racially motivated attack and it has stirred a hornets nest (see the Shooting of Antonio Martin in Berkeley, Missouri)You know, from your post I was originally gonna take a wild guess that you formed your current — hopefully, there's room for change — extremely limited and narrow opinion of us based on "Cops" TV episodes, but I thought no one — absolutely NO ONE — could possibly be that impressionable.
Please read on, because I really hope you'll prove me right.
Let me ask you this: What if I'd never visited Australia and I formed all my opinions on white Australians based on nothing other than YouTube clips of racist ones in Cronulla bashing Lebanese-Australians during the '05 riots, or better yet, on the racist rantings of some hateful West Coast Eagles fans, directed at Adam Goodes?
Would you agree that if I thought that way, then attributed their actions to nothing other than their being white, I'd have a pretty distorted (read, f***ed up) view of Australians of European heritage? Would you agree that I'd be rushing to judgment and taking a pretty small sample size of the millions of people, from which to form an impression?
Mate, I hope you'll accept my challenge: Please take some time to read the following article: http://newsone.com/2023676/police-brutality-against-blacks/
It was written three years ago, BEFORE the deaths of African-Americans Tamir Rice, Michael Brown, Freddie Gray, Eric Garner — all in encounters with police — and the mysterious death in police custody involving Sandra Bland.
Then read this article: http://www.democracynow.org/2015/5/26/137_shots_no_convictions_cleveland_cop
After you read both, ask yourself this question: If you were law abiding citizen and you saw a pattern of police routinely harassing and brutalizing you, your family members, your friends not only in your community, but throughout your city and across the country that had persisted for generations and the perpetrators not being sanctioned and if you were treated as if you were guilty merely by association or by where you live, would you not feel angry enough to riot?
While I don't applaud rioting, destruction and violence, I'd need my head examined if I didn't understand the pain, anger, frustration, despair and moral outrage reaching the tipping point that caused the eruptions.
My final advice to you? Stop watching "Cops." NOW!
You're getting ONE perspective and certainly not the entire story in an edited 30-minute show. Depending on "Cops" to teach you about African-Americans is as ludicrous as me leaning on the YouTube show, "The Legend of Gavin Tanner" to teach me about white Aussies.
Google some insightful articles by African-American journalists on the subject to gain some perspective. Go to the American consulate and see if you can find some additional resources on learning about our history and culture. Better yet: Find some real African-Americans there to talk to.
Hell, like our Coach Lyon, I'm an anywhere, anytime kinda guy. I'd be happy to meet you and talk to you next time I'm in Australia. I'll even shout you a beer.
I won't bite. I have no criminal record and I won't start a riot. Well... maybe I will if the Eagles beat us in a Grand Final.
See? I also have a decent sense of humor — even if if my "Americanness" prevents me from spelling that word without a second "u."
Ask anyone on this board who's met me in person this year or a couple of years ago — they'll vouch for me.
Peace!
I happened to be in town for work at the time so I went to the game myself, even though I am from Adelaide. I'm very well traveled (and apparently part aboriginal myself my mum says may or may not be true)
if times ever go bad for you I'm certain your the type that will be in straight for a hand up if you're not in the trough already.
Sieg hell commandant.
