Karma, it’s a b!tch.

[pmax]

Originally Posted by Por_sha911

Really? Let me ask another question (cstreit didn't answer my first one but you are welcome to do so):
Did you ever notice that if a white person is murdered in a bad neighborhood with gangs and violence, no body saw nuthin. If a police officer shoots a person of color people half the community saw it and people from three states all testify about how the thug with a rap sheet longer than your arm was such a kind and gentle soul... ?
Here's the MSM portraying the violent thug:

Flip the roles and the opposite scenario is just as believable to someone like the speaker and the audience he panders to in that youtube video I posted, namely a white man, with a family in the car no less, kills a young black fella in fear of his life and family's safety, in other words self defense will be taken for his word as the complete truth, given the police made no claim about having any eye witnesses to the shooting. Dead men tell no tales, needless to say, but is that how justice should play out ? In fact, flip the color in this incident, tell me ... will the treatment be identical ?

[john70t]

Originally Posted by pmax

I'm scratching my head wondering how a black man riding a neon colored Kawasaki, alleged ... I can't tell, is now a "cultural norm".

Anyone else ?

Alex,
My best guess is that they want to appear organized while culturally-appropriating Japanese culture.
(While skipping the essential part about being organized, intelligent, self-invested, cognizant and very respectful of civy surroundings, etc, etc, etc)

https://www.bosozokustyle.com/what-is-bosozoku/
"The zoku part in the word indicates it is about a gang"

[Jeff Higgins]

Originally Posted by pmax

Allegedly chose a gun, as claimed by the other with no witness that we know about who can corraborate ... see the different perspective ? The fact that he was carrying on isn't pertinent since "everyone" in Texas carries one.



Brand newish looking bike, hardly impoverished I think you're jumping way ahead to the socio-economic stuff which may be completely irrelevant within this context let alone talk about a solution, this thread is still about the shooting right ?

Yeah, I did ask mainly because I don't see how it relates to this incident ... for now.

*Sigh* (again...)

We used this incident as a springboard into a deeper discussion, since the details of this specific incident are not that well known at this time. I have, over the course of this discussion, made it quite clear that the specifics of this young man's own situation were pure conjecture on my part and that I was only using them as a starting point for a broader discussion. You missed that, of course, because you were too lazy to go back and read through this thread and asked for a summary of some very specific aspects of this conversation, which I provided (certainly not of the entire conversation). You are well behind this conversation at this point. Perhaps you should now take the time to go back and read through it. Or not - your choice. Just don't expect me to respond when you again rehash something we covered a few pages back.

[black73]

Originally Posted by Jeff Higgins

This is exactly the kind of "woke" virtue signaling to which I was referring. Play the race card any time anyone even attempts to start a dispassionate discussion on this matter.......

Yeah woke, virtue signal, race card, all the cute buzzwords. Am I the one that brought race into the discussion?

Be honest, you're not as concerned about black lives, youths, etc. as you are about optics, You just want to make sure that the optics show white gun owner equals responsible gun owner and black gun owner equals irresponsible gun owner. You want to make sure to frame the discussion in a racial context to incriminate the race and exonerate the weapon. IOW, please oh please please please don't put any restrictions MY toys just because some other race kills people with them!

Am I correct?

Originally Posted by Jeff Higgins

And therein lies the problem with far too many people. Color is a factor in this whole "gun violence" problem and, to be brutally honest, it is statistically one of the most important factors.

Understanding and acknowledging all of the factors contributing to any problem is the very first step in solving that problem. Ignoring any contributing factors for any reason, be they religious, political, or whatever dooms any "solution" to failure. We have now suffered generations of failure in our attempts to solve this particular problem, in a large part because it is taboo in certain circles to discuss one of the most glaring contributing factors.

[Jeff Higgins]

Originally Posted by black73

Yeah woke, virtue signal, race card, all the cute buzzwords. Am I the one that brought race into the discussion?

Be honest, you're not as concerned about black lives, youths, etc. as you are about optics, You just want to make sure that the optics show white gun owner equals responsible gun owner and black gun owner equals irresponsible gun owner. You want to make sure to frame the discussion in a racial context to incriminate the race and exonerate the weapon. IOW, please oh please please please don't put any restrictions MY toys just because some other race kills people with them!

Am I correct?

No, you are not correct.

Several of us have been having a wonderful, enlightening conversation regarding some very serious issues, issues resulting in dramatically off the scale violence and death affecting young black men in America. It appears that you are not only unable to contribute to this conversation, but on top of that, it has made you very angry. Angry to the point where you have decided to attack me rather than make any attempt to contribute.

I'm sorry, but your approach is precisely the one we have decried over the course of this conversation. You steadfastly refuse to acknowledge even the existence of this problem, even in the face of overwhelming statistical data that outlines it very clearly. You would rather conjure up some evil, self serving ulterior motives and assign them to those of us who think we need to discuss this. With angry, ignorant people like you chirping in the background like this, we have little hope of ever finding at first the underlying causes and then, hopefully, a solution. That makes me very sad.

[pmax]

Originally Posted by Jeff Higgins

*Sigh* (again...)

We used this incident as a springboard into a deeper discussion, since the details of this specific incident are not that well known at this time. I have, over the course of this discussion, made it quite clear that the specifics of this young man's own situation were pure conjecture on my part and that I was only using them as a starting point for a broader discussion. You missed that, of course, because you were too lazy to go back and read through this thread and asked for a summary of some very specific aspects of this conversation, which I provided (certainly not of the entire conversation). You are well behind this conversation at this point. Perhaps you should now take the time to go back and read through it. Or not - your choice. Just don't expect me to respond when you again rehash something we covered a few pages back.

Just that everyone has to wade through the multipost multipage verbiage which is based on a conjecture and not realize that is the case, including myself prior to this. Now I know.

Carry on with the sermon then !

[pmax]

Originally Posted by john70t

My best guess is that they want to appear organized while culturally-appropriating Japanese culture.
(While skipping the essential part about being organized, intelligent, self-invested, cognizant and very respectful of civy surroundings, etc, etc, etc)

https://www.bosozokustyle.com/what-is-bosozoku/
"The zoku part in the word indicates it is about a gang"

Interesting.

80s Civic makes sense then. What about the hand gesture ?

[Jeff Higgins]

Originally Posted by pmax

Just that everyone has to wade through the multipost multipage verbiage which is based on a conjecture and not realize that is the case, including myself prior to this. Now I know.

Carry on with the sermon then !

This forum has a good number of multi page discussions on an interesting variety of topics. If they do not interest you, you are free to skip right past them. Just don't ask the participants to rehash them for you because you are too lazy to go back and read them, but still desperately feel as though you have to say something, anything....

[upsscott]

Originally Posted by MikeSid

I believe the cause of this problem is actually well understood, but difficult to change, or perhaps there is just institutional resistance to the change that is required.

In short, black neighborhoods have statistically higher rates of gun violence than other (like white) neighborhoods of the same socio-economic level. I don't think this statistic can be seriously disputed (part of Jeff's point). A middle class black neighborhood will have a higher rate of gun violence than a middle class white neighborhood.

The problem is that we still have black neighborhoods and white neighborhoods. Most cities in the US have long standing race based neighborhood boundaries that were rooted in systemic racism. While the zoning laws have slowly changed over the years, it takes a long time for a community to completely equalize. And there may be resistance to this change, even by those who would benefit from it.

Black neighborhoods have traditionally had fewer resources available to successfully raise families. In my own city, which I have lived in for over 50 years, the difference between the parks department youth programs in one neighborhood versus another is palpable. The City may build a shiny new ballfield and community center, but that may not change how it is used. A community is more than it's physical infrastructure - it requires volunteers, business owners that invest in the community, and families that actively participate in raising their children to be responsible parts of that community. There are not as many (some may say none) impediments to doing that now in black neighborhoods, but there certainly used to be broad barriers that made that very difficult. Hope, as one example. If you don't have it, everything seems pointless, so why try, just survive.

Bottom line for me, it is going to take several generations to fix the long term effects of systemic racism that created our historic black and white neighborhoods. And until that changes, we will continue to see gun violence at a higher rate in historically underserved neighborhoods.

All that said, I have no idea where this motorcyclist lived or what his story is, so maybe his damage is just too much violent TV/Movies. But to Jeff's point, I don't think the statistics can be seriously disputed, and in my opinion the fix for that issue will likely take 100+ years - which is incredibly unfortunate.

Thank you for this. I think you illustrate my thoughts much better than I’ve been able to do. I don’t deny Jeff’s statistics I just feel like we are all part of the reason things are the way they are.

[upsscott]

Originally Posted by pmax

Interesting.

80s Civic makes sense then. What about the hand gesture ?

That gesture can easily mean “I love you”. My wife flashes me this gang symbol every time I leave on a trip. Is she a gang banger?

[upsscott]

https://www.dignitymemorial.com/obituaries/dallas-tx/jaderek-gray-10251666
To be honest this kid, and he was a kid, did not seem like a thug. He was a kid who made a horrible decision that cost him his life. I don’t hold anything against the man who defended himself and his family. The whole thing is a horrible tragedy.

[Racerbvd]

[Jeff Higgins]

Originally Posted by upsscott

Thank you for this. I think you illustrate my thoughts much better than I’ve been able to do. I don’t deny Jeff’s statistics I just feel like we are all part of the reason things are the way they are.

Agreed. What Mike has to say captures much of what I've been trying to say as well.

Originally Posted by upsscott

https://www.dignitymemorial.com/obituaries/dallas-tx/jaderek-gray-10251666
To be honest this kid, and he was a kid, did not seem like a thug. He was a kid who made a horrible decision that cost him his life. I don’t hold anything against the man who defended himself and his family. The whole thing is a horrible tragedy.

Again, agreed. Young Mr. Gray may have been an otherwise great kid who simply did something really stupid in one very brief moment of his life. And, unfortunately, as divided and muddled as our "news" reporting has become these days, we will never know the truth of this either way.

My hope is that by discussing his tragic death, and others roughly paralleling his, we can come to an understanding of why these things keep happening. We are all in this together, and his loss is all of our losses. We need to come together and find a way to make this stop.

[Baz]

One of the reasons people live in poverty is they have too many kids than they can take care of financially.

Throw in the single parent scenario and now you are really behind the 8 ball.

Add to this poor decisions on spending - such as using money to buy tattoos, alcohol, cigs, drugs, fancy cars when a more economical one would do, TV sets, jewelry, piercings, vacations, etc, etc.

And all of a sudden - we have poverty.

This is not a racial thing - it's a common sense thing.

Are these people getting any kind of life instruction from those who espouse to be their benefactors?

These include: parents, teachers, relatives, clergy, social workers, peers, friends, acquaintances, and family.....and lastly....the media.

That's a good place to start, IMHO.

[Por_sha911]

Originally Posted by pmax

Flip the roles and the opposite scenario is just as believable to someone like the speaker and the audience he panders to in that youtube video I posted, namely a white man, with a family in the car no less, kills a young black fella in fear of his life and family's safety, in other words self defense will be taken for his word as the complete truth, given the police made no claim about having any eye witnesses to the shooting. Dead men tell no tales, needless to say, but is that how justice should play out ? In fact, flip the color in this incident, tell me ... will the treatment be identical ?

very eloquent but you didn't answer my question

[Purrybonker]

Originally Posted by Por_sha911

Putting aside all the conjecture and made up facts that weren't reported;

A guy walks toward a car with his gun drawn. The driver defends himself and kills the assailant. I call this a win for the Second Amendment and now the woke progressives will come up with 100 reasons why we need to ban guns or there was racial prejudice...

In the meantime, I love events with happy endings.

Yes but? Why does the "assailant" have a gun? I call this a win against the Second Amendment (which we all know has absolutely zero reference to this type of scenario - I refer you, sir, to the actual wording of the Second Amendment and I'm a Canadian so feel somewhat inadequate in purporting to edify you on your own laws)

In Canada (the second most individually weaponized nation, after USA, on the planet), we have about 10% of the annual gun deaths of the USA - do you get a clue at all? Or do you just stand by your "kill or be killed" philosophy regardless of the permanent, unrelenting mayhem such philosophy endlessly results in, year after year?

[Bill Douglas]

Originally Posted by upsscott

That gesture can easily mean “I love you”. My wife flashes me this gang symbol every time I leave on a trip. Is she a gang banger?

hey hey hey. Us surfers invented that. the gangsters borrowed it. If wifes are using it too, that's just too much.

[john70t]

One in the stink, one in the pink, one in the belly button.

(btw the 4th Gen Civic just happens to be the most awesome car on this planet ever made.)

[black73]

Originally Posted by Jeff Higgins

No, you are not correct.

Several of us have been having a wonderful, enlightening conversation regarding some very serious issues, issues resulting in dramatically off the scale violence and death affecting young black men in America. It appears that you are not only unable to contribute to this conversation, but on top of that, it has made you very angry. Angry to the point where you have decided to attack me rather than make any attempt to contribute.

I'm sorry, but your approach is precisely the one we have decried over the course of this conversation. You steadfastly refuse to acknowledge even the existence of this problem, even in the face of overwhelming statistical data that outlines it very clearly. You would rather conjure up some evil, self serving ulterior motives and assign them to those of us who think we need to discuss this. With angry, ignorant people like you chirping in the background like this, we have little hope of ever finding at first the underlying causes and then, hopefully, a solution. That makes me very sad.

Oh yes, angry. Very, very angry. I forgot to include that one in my list of your cute buzz word false accusations. Don't ever forget angry. Use that any time someone calls you out. You will win every argument whether or not the person shows any anger or not.... or maybe not. Maybe you will be seen for what you are.

Meanwhile, another 8 year old child was killed by a gun yesterday in Nashville. I think it he was white, but i don't see how that is possible given that guns are only dangerous when in the hands of blacks because, you know, they are irresponsible bloodthirsty killers that hate their children and need Righteous Concerned Citizen HIggins to instigate conversation that will rescue their race. At least that what I'm reading here.

Who do you love more? black kids or your gun?

[rfuerst911sc]

My 2 cents call me a rascist if you want . You can't force anyone to solve a problem , the person has to want to solve a problem . Examples: you are not going to force an alcoholic or drug addict to get sober , he or she has to want to before any progress can be made . How long has the middle east been in conflict ? Never going to get better until the majority REALLY want it to change .

The statistics on African American violence in America is real sorry if you don't like hearing that . The black community has to pick themselves up by their bootstraps and start fixing from within and stop pointing fingers that it's everyone else's fault . Yes there are outside factors like rascism but you have little control over how someone thinks .

The black community needs some REAL leaders to rally THINKING that will lead to solutions . In my humble white opinion Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton are not leaders . Regardless of your politics John Kennedy rallied the country to put a man on the moon . The black community needs that type of leadership to rally a common positive theme for success .

Solving a problem/s has to start with understanding what is the problem . In a corporate scenario you take a white board and start writing down the perceived issues to be solved . When you think you have all issues captured you start a discussion on each item and corrective measures . Is this an easy issue to resolve ? Nope . But it will NEVER get better if a real effort to get better is embraced . And that has to start from within .