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George Floyd's murder is only the straw that broke the camel's back. This is now about decades of injustice and police officers that stand by silently and enab

by djaque 6y ago

George Floyd's murder is only the straw that broke the camel's back. This is now about decades of injustice and police officers that stand by silently and enable their peers to abuse and kill and get away with it. Protests have broken out in most major cities.

mdoms 6y ago
Well people said the same thing about Trayvon Martin but nothing changed after the protests.
- ngcazz 6y ago
  I don’t remember Trayvon Martin triggering any public action this aggressive or widespread
  - MattGaiser 6y ago
    https://www.google.com/search?q=trayvon+martin+protests&rlz=1C1CHBF_enCA852CA852&oq=trayvon+martin+protests&aqs=chrome..69i57.5533j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 https://www.google.com/search?q=trayvon+martin+protests&rlz=... It was pretty intense at the time.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - ngcazz 6y ago
      Sure; but that wasn't a campaign year, nor was there a pandemic raging in parallel where at least 100000 people will have died, the majority of them from minorities. And as a sidenote: Trump is literally activating terrorist cells in your country -- his tweet was explicitly quoted by this self-ascribed paramilitary goon when coming out with his machinegun to terrorize folks: https://twitter.com/LCRWnews/status/1266509747169005569 https://twitter.com/LCRWnews/status/1266509747169005569 Was this happening in 2013? Pretty sure it wasn't.
  - mdoms 6y ago
    I'm not sure what you want me to tell you, a simple Google search shows how intense it was. Sorry about your memory, I guess?
    - ngcazz 6y ago
      Don’t need to get all snarky on me
    - thomasfedb 6y ago
      Your comment serves no purpose but to be unfriendly.
  - orthoxerox 6y ago
    Trayvon Martin and the wannabe cop actually fought each other. Daniel Shaver had a pellet rifle and reached for his belt. Some other poor fellow had an object in his hand. You can come up with some excuse that makes it a "both sides" case. George Floyd was arrested and handcuffed by four real cops, calmly complied with every request recorded on video, and still died pleading for his life because one cop strangled him for no reason and the other three did nothing. It's a perfect storm: you can say "no matter how compliant you are, the police will still kill you if you're not white enough" and pro-blue opinion leaders can't counter you with anything except "but look at the looters".
- whymauri 6y ago
  Every major city in the US is having huge protests, and several metropolitan areas are dealing with riots. Trayvon Martin was nothing like this. You have forty million people unemployed, many of which overlap directly with the demographics most impacted by wealth inequality and police brutality. It's pretty clear that this is going to be more intense than in 2012.
- djaque 6y ago
  Two things make this different: 1) There's record unemployment in the US and there's an active pandemic. People are unhappy and the country is a powder keg ready to go off. 2) The footage this time is especially graphic. You can see the officer strangling George Floyd with his knee. You can see the unnervingly satisfied look on his face. You can hear George call out multiple times that he can't breathe. Then, after he stops moving you can watch the officer continue to strangle him for four minutes. You can also see three police officers that stood by and let it happen in the background. There's not much wiggle room here.
  - _Understated_ 6y ago
    2) It's worse: One of the videos I saw had three of them kneeling on him while he was begging.
  - sfj 6y ago
    Actually according to the autopsy, his knee on Floyd's neck did not cause his death. https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/11742264/george-floyd-autopsy-cops-restraint-death-minneapolis/ https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/11742264/george-floyd-autopsy-... > The ME also claimed that the initial autopsy found no evidence that Floyd died of strangulation and traumatic asphyxia after Officer Derek Chauvin kneeled on his neck for more than eight minutes. Edit: I don't understand the downvotes. Provide evidence contrary to the narrative and get downvoted into oblivion? Isn't it valuable to know all the facts?
    - t-writescode 6y ago
      I have trouble believing any source that accepts the claim that > Floyd was then told to step out of the car and handcuffed, and "actively resisted being handcuffed", according to body cam footage obtained the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. When we have video evidence that suggests quite the contrary from a shop nearby: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9Tqs06YN_A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9Tqs06YN_A edit: yes, I know that maybe he resisted in invisible ways. And yes, I saw him fall over when he was getting in the cop car way up at the top of the screen at the end of the video (partly hidden by the 'watch next!' videos); but is that really sufficient 'active resistance' if you can call it that?
catmanjan 6y ago
As an outsider the George Floyd seems like every other police murder that the US has, I swear it happens every other year with similar outrage... BAU
- MattGaiser 6y ago
  Yeah, I expect this to last a week or three and then it will happen again in another year or two.
  - manquer 6y ago
    normally perhaps, It is perfect storm of other factors. - 40+ Million people are unemployed - the mental strain of being up indoors - covid affecting the poorest potion of the population disproportionately - finally Trump being president and handling the situation in the worst possible way everyday.
    - drannex 6y ago
      Not sure why you are getting down voted here. These are all very valid points, this situation has a lot of variables that make it remarkably different than any other and can encourage the resistance (protests, &c) to continue far longer than standard.
      - wafn 6y ago
        They're being down voted for the last point about Trump. He has nothing to do with this and is only doing a shitty job at [insert issue here] when you swallow the load of his opponents instead of apply critical thought.
        manquer 6y ago
        I will bite, even if he actually means better than he tweets, his tweets has only added fuel to the fire. When you are in the public sphere you do not spew out every thought that comes out unfiltered - whether it is trump or musk it damages what they stand for and works against them. I would expect a president, 3 years in, to be able to communicate to all his constituents with a measure of forethought and attempt to keep in mind that not all of them apply "critical thought".
29athrowaway 6y ago
aka "blue wall of silence" or "blue code".
RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y ago
I am afraid that this will actually swing the election towards Trump. One of the big reasons for the blue wave in 2018 was the suburbs going Democrat. However, a lot of the people will get scared by the riots and get pushed into voting for “Law and Order”. Trump was on the ropes politically, but I think this might change the voting calculus.
- wafn 6y ago
  This is correct. Actual peaceful protests might have had some results, but this intolerable behavior by rioters is only turning many, many people against black people and "anarchists" in general. Could have had a consensus against police violence, but instead the reaction was and is far more harmful. More people's lives have been affected (or lost; see Louisville) as a result of the riots than the initial death.
  - chancho 6y ago
    You are a piece of shit.
    - dang 6y ago
      We've banned that account for breaking the site guidelines egregiously, but it's also not ok to respond to that by breaking the site guidelines yourself. They specifically ask people not to do this (a.k.a. please don't feed the trolls). It helps nothing and only makes the thread even worse. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and sticking to the rules when posting here, we'd be grateful.
- giantDinosaur 6y ago
  Perhaps. I don't think it's possible to be too certain about it - 'law and order' may not imply support for Trump, especially if you see him as inflaming tensions. Or it may result in larger voting turnouts in certain areas which may not help Trump at all. Who knows? It seems unpredictable to me, unless there's good precedent for similar events & election results?
danielscrubs 6y ago
Do they have any actionable points to fix the US-system? The HK-protests where simply awesome in that regard.
- djaque 6y ago
  Yes, there are many data driven policy solutions that have been proposed. See for instance Campaign Zero [1]. [1] https://www.joincampaignzero.org/ https://www.joincampaignzero.org/
  - danielscrubs 6y ago
    Excellent, I hope it gets media coverage.
    - djaque 6y ago
      Same, I fortunately just saw a senator pledge that he will end the federal 1033 program which provides military weapons to local police departments. That was one of their points.

by djaque 6y ago

mdoms 6y ago

Well people said the same thing about Trayvon Martin but nothing changed after the protests.

ngcazz 6y ago
I don’t remember Trayvon Martin triggering any public action this aggressive or widespread
- MattGaiser 6y ago
  https://www.google.com/search?q=trayvon+martin+protests&rlz=1C1CHBF_enCA852CA852&oq=trayvon+martin+protests&aqs=chrome..69i57.5533j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 https://www.google.com/search?q=trayvon+martin+protests&rlz=... It was pretty intense at the time.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - ngcazz 6y ago
    Sure; but that wasn't a campaign year, nor was there a pandemic raging in parallel where at least 100000 people will have died, the majority of them from minorities. And as a sidenote: Trump is literally activating terrorist cells in your country -- his tweet was explicitly quoted by this self-ascribed paramilitary goon when coming out with his machinegun to terrorize folks: https://twitter.com/LCRWnews/status/1266509747169005569 https://twitter.com/LCRWnews/status/1266509747169005569 Was this happening in 2013? Pretty sure it wasn't.
- mdoms 6y ago
  I'm not sure what you want me to tell you, a simple Google search shows how intense it was. Sorry about your memory, I guess?
  - ngcazz 6y ago
    Don’t need to get all snarky on me
  - thomasfedb 6y ago
    Your comment serves no purpose but to be unfriendly.
- orthoxerox 6y ago
  Trayvon Martin and the wannabe cop actually fought each other. Daniel Shaver had a pellet rifle and reached for his belt. Some other poor fellow had an object in his hand. You can come up with some excuse that makes it a "both sides" case. George Floyd was arrested and handcuffed by four real cops, calmly complied with every request recorded on video, and still died pleading for his life because one cop strangled him for no reason and the other three did nothing. It's a perfect storm: you can say "no matter how compliant you are, the police will still kill you if you're not white enough" and pro-blue opinion leaders can't counter you with anything except "but look at the looters".
whymauri 6y ago
Every major city in the US is having huge protests, and several metropolitan areas are dealing with riots. Trayvon Martin was nothing like this. You have forty million people unemployed, many of which overlap directly with the demographics most impacted by wealth inequality and police brutality. It's pretty clear that this is going to be more intense than in 2012.
djaque 6y ago
Two things make this different: 1) There's record unemployment in the US and there's an active pandemic. People are unhappy and the country is a powder keg ready to go off. 2) The footage this time is especially graphic. You can see the officer strangling George Floyd with his knee. You can see the unnervingly satisfied look on his face. You can hear George call out multiple times that he can't breathe. Then, after he stops moving you can watch the officer continue to strangle him for four minutes. You can also see three police officers that stood by and let it happen in the background. There's not much wiggle room here.
- _Understated_ 6y ago
  2) It's worse: One of the videos I saw had three of them kneeling on him while he was begging.
- sfj 6y ago
  Actually according to the autopsy, his knee on Floyd's neck did not cause his death. https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/11742264/george-floyd-autopsy-cops-restraint-death-minneapolis/ https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/11742264/george-floyd-autopsy-... > The ME also claimed that the initial autopsy found no evidence that Floyd died of strangulation and traumatic asphyxia after Officer Derek Chauvin kneeled on his neck for more than eight minutes. Edit: I don't understand the downvotes. Provide evidence contrary to the narrative and get downvoted into oblivion? Isn't it valuable to know all the facts?
  - t-writescode 6y ago
    I have trouble believing any source that accepts the claim that > Floyd was then told to step out of the car and handcuffed, and "actively resisted being handcuffed", according to body cam footage obtained the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. When we have video evidence that suggests quite the contrary from a shop nearby: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9Tqs06YN_A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9Tqs06YN_A edit: yes, I know that maybe he resisted in invisible ways. And yes, I saw him fall over when he was getting in the cop car way up at the top of the screen at the end of the video (partly hidden by the 'watch next!' videos); but is that really sufficient 'active resistance' if you can call it that?

catmanjan 6y ago

As an outsider the George Floyd seems like every other police murder that the US has, I swear it happens every other year with similar outrage... BAU

MattGaiser 6y ago
Yeah, I expect this to last a week or three and then it will happen again in another year or two.
- manquer 6y ago
  normally perhaps, It is perfect storm of other factors. - 40+ Million people are unemployed - the mental strain of being up indoors - covid affecting the poorest potion of the population disproportionately - finally Trump being president and handling the situation in the worst possible way everyday.
  - drannex 6y ago
    Not sure why you are getting down voted here. These are all very valid points, this situation has a lot of variables that make it remarkably different than any other and can encourage the resistance (protests, &c) to continue far longer than standard.
    - wafn 6y ago
      They're being down voted for the last point about Trump. He has nothing to do with this and is only doing a shitty job at [insert issue here] when you swallow the load of his opponents instead of apply critical thought.
      - manquer 6y ago
        I will bite, even if he actually means better than he tweets, his tweets has only added fuel to the fire. When you are in the public sphere you do not spew out every thought that comes out unfiltered - whether it is trump or musk it damages what they stand for and works against them. I would expect a president, 3 years in, to be able to communicate to all his constituents with a measure of forethought and attempt to keep in mind that not all of them apply "critical thought".

29athrowaway 6y ago

aka "blue wall of silence" or "blue code".

RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y ago

I am afraid that this will actually swing the election towards Trump. One of the big reasons for the blue wave in 2018 was the suburbs going Democrat. However, a lot of the people will get scared by the riots and get pushed into voting for “Law and Order”. Trump was on the ropes politically, but I think this might change the voting calculus.

wafn 6y ago
This is correct. Actual peaceful protests might have had some results, but this intolerable behavior by rioters is only turning many, many people against black people and "anarchists" in general. Could have had a consensus against police violence, but instead the reaction was and is far more harmful. More people's lives have been affected (or lost; see Louisville) as a result of the riots than the initial death.
- chancho 6y ago
  You are a piece of shit.
  - dang 6y ago
    We've banned that account for breaking the site guidelines egregiously, but it's also not ok to respond to that by breaking the site guidelines yourself. They specifically ask people not to do this (a.k.a. please don't feed the trolls). It helps nothing and only makes the thread even worse. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and sticking to the rules when posting here, we'd be grateful.
giantDinosaur 6y ago
Perhaps. I don't think it's possible to be too certain about it - 'law and order' may not imply support for Trump, especially if you see him as inflaming tensions. Or it may result in larger voting turnouts in certain areas which may not help Trump at all. Who knows? It seems unpredictable to me, unless there's good precedent for similar events & election results?

danielscrubs 6y ago

Do they have any actionable points to fix the US-system? The HK-protests where simply awesome in that regard.

djaque 6y ago
Yes, there are many data driven policy solutions that have been proposed. See for instance Campaign Zero [1]. [1] https://www.joincampaignzero.org/ https://www.joincampaignzero.org/
- danielscrubs 6y ago
  Excellent, I hope it gets media coverage.
  - djaque 6y ago
    Same, I fortunately just saw a senator pledge that he will end the federal 1033 program which provides military weapons to local police departments. That was one of their points.