Just read this article about a student in Houston facing a 50 day suspension at the University of Houston For tweeting # All lives matter. She can go to classes but no activities. I'm not racist but this bothers me. Kind of reminds me of things that went on in Communist Hungary. You had to watch what you said or be jailed. In fairness, she did tweet something like #forget black lives matter but adding #all lives matter includes blacks...no? Not only is she suspended but also has to take classes on things dealing with diversity, etc. You can read the whole story here.....http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2016...y-suspension-for-saying-all-lives-matter.html
Yes, I have kin still living in Slovakia and the Czech republic. One cousin made his way to the west and eventually the USA, while his homeland was still under commie control. I've heard his stories. America is getting so close to being like that.
If this goes on her transcripts and records, depending where she applies for a job, it might affect her being hired. This type of thing has the opposite effect in my opinion, it divides races rather than uniting us. All lives matter is Unity not Black lives matter. What group hasn't been discriminated against in History for one reason or another? If someone wants to say #blacklivesmatter, that's fine, nothing wrong with that but don't force everyone else who feels that all lives matter. Just because someone creates a hashtag that is PC, people who disagree or have a different hashtag get suspended? That's scary.
This group should have first picked a different name since it's been basted and changed from the beginning. There was an Oakland chapter of this movement on a San Francisco radio show a couple of weeks ago. Something that bothered me was this: If there is such a thing as a black community (and I think there are major differences within all people) can't this community come together and make internal changes instead of just protesting and blocking up streets. According to what I heard on this show there had been a major protest by this movement which caused major traffic jams. I've never felt I belonged any place or with anyone. So I can't understand why people, if they feel a sense of community can't build on that. I also saw on a news feed web site a few weeks ago a young white woman at a protest holding a sign that started with "I'm showing you...." I read the sign at least three times and it made no sense to me. I just know I had the feeling of divisiveness. Of look at "I" and "you" And I thought she was pretentious and would probably be judgmental of me based on nothing but what I look like. My mother's home city was behind the eastern block. We went there when I was probably 16. Had car trouble and never made it to Dresden. My mother never went back until 1992 after the block fell. Many people in this country have no idea what freedom is. I remember leaving and going across the border. At the border there were trucks going to West Germany. They were being searched with dogs and mirrors under the trucks. I remember my mother saying "I guarantee you every one of these men (the truck drivers) is married and has young children. That's how they know they will come back. They won't leave their families" I also remember the day before we flew back. We were at a park in Frankfurt. My mother sat speaking to two women. After she said goodbye to them she said she knew the town in East Germany where they were from. I said why are they here then. My mother said they let them leave because they don't care if they come back since they are just on pensions now. Stupid me stated "Are they going to go back?" A bit irritated my mother responded "of coarse they are going to go back they have children and grandchildren" And I remember thinking "I wouldn't go back " but I didn't say it. To this day I believe nothing would be more important than my freedom. Even my family. I think a lot of Americans don't know what they have. I can't comment on being black in this country because I'm not. But some of these white protesters need to do something more productive. There protests just seem to be more about themselves than anything they can really do to help or make any change. We do still have freedom of speech. I don't think racist comments are acceptable. But there was really nothing wrong with what she, even if some didn't like it.
It would have been different if she said black lives didn't matter, only white lives matter. I can understand being suspended for that. I don't know exactly what encompasses hate speech but I don't think what this student said fit the description. All I know is you can't yell fire in a movie theater or say bomb at an airport or hijack but other than that I don't have a clue. Are we allowed to hate anybody? Things I never really thought about before. I dislike a few people but can't say I hate any one group of people but I'm getting tired of the PC crap. It's gone too far. I agree on the traffic stopping protests, how does that help your cause? Just made everyone angry, I even saw comments by black people trying to get to work that were against these protesters.
If I am going to hate someone, I'd rather my hatred be based on something they have said or done rather than on the tone of their skin, on their religion, or on the basis of which part of the planet they live. Still, this is not something that can be enforced under penalty of law. You can mandate that I not act upon my hatred, and that's reasonable but, in a free society, I have a right to hate, and governmental attempts at specifying which emotions are allowable and which are not can only make things worse. The best remedy for bigotry and hatred is communication, and political correctness stifles communication. Does this mean that students in a public school setting should be able to say whatever they want? Of course not. Teachers should control the message in the classroom, but this wasn't in the classroom. It was a tweet, and students should have the right to tweet whatever they want as long as it doesn't infringe on anyone else's rights, which would be the case with tweeting threats of violence. But a tweet that says forget black lives matter, all lives matter, that is not a threat to anyone. That is communication, and it doesn't leave anyone out. If anything, black lives matter is more of a threat because it implies that other lives don't.
Exactly Ken and I'm glad you put what I've been trying to say in a coherent post. I was rambling and kept adding thoughts. Yes, there is a problem with some police that are trigger happy and that needs addressing. Is what's going on with the shootings of police and protesters blocking traffic going to make them less trigger happy? No, they're going to be even worse...it's only natural. Hashtags on twitter don't solve problems, communities where this is a problem need to take a good look and see what is causing it. I don't think it's because these police have a vendetta out against young black men. I think in the Freddie Gray Case 2 of the accused officers were Black. In Fresno a white youth was shot for no reason. It could be that in the black neighborhoods the police are outnumbered and are overworked or stressed or even fearful, so they use more force than necessary. Even knowing they are being video taped doesnt seem to stop them so there is more to it than just race. Of course this is just my opinion sitting here in my safe white neighborhood where the worst crime is people taking lawn decorations and on garbage day mostly Mexicans driving around going thru garbage cans.
There is something going on with our police departments, I fear, but I don't think it has much or anything to do with race. The police do seem more inclined to shoot someone than they used to be. Sometimes, it might be racially motived but it probably has more to do with the unfamiliar seeming scarier than it has to do with hatred. Yes, it's still racism but it's not racial hatred. I doubt that very many police go to work intent upon killing a black kid, or anyone for that matter. Why do they do it? There are probably a lot of reasons. In many cases, they are scared. The young black kid who was shot while playing with a toy gun comes to mind. Twice before the white cop arrived on the scene, the dispatcher told him that the caller had said that gun might be a toy. Yet, he was on the scene for seconds before he had shot the kid dead. I don't know, but I don't have any reason to believe that he hated black kids or that he particularly wanted to kill a black kid. Yet, I can't help but believe if that same kid had been white, he would have been more willing to believe that the gun might have been a toy. We've had a couple of people shot in Maine over the past couple of years that seemed unwarranted. One was a guy who had been drunk and loudly arguing with his wife when someone called the police. However, since he lived in the country, it was a couple of hours before the police arrived. By then, the man and his wife had gone to bed and were asleep. When someone knocked loudly on the door at 2:00 in the morning, he answered the door holding a rifle. Although there was nothing in the reports to indicate that he had pointed the rifle at anyone, the police shot him several times, killing him. If we're allowed to have a gun at home for protection, then we're allowed to have it in our hands when someone knocks on the door early in the morning. Yes, the police saw the gun and reacted out of fear, I'm sure, but I don't think that would have happened ten years ago. Another was far worse. A person who was known to the police to be mentally ill was walking along the road waving a knife at cars that went by. Dozens of police were on the scene. The man didn't come near any of them, but kept waving the knife around. Although he still hadn't advanced on anyone, it seemed that they got tired of waiting on him after a couple of hours and shot him to death. These people were white, so it was reported only locally. I don't know what the statistics are since whenever a black person is shot to death by the police, it is played up in the news for weeks and months, while the deaths of white people are ignored, but I would guess that if more black people are being killed by police than white people, it has more to do with the crime, poverty levels, and family stability than with the color of their skin, and I'm sure that many of these police are black. There too, if the cop is white, it's big news. If the cop is black, it might be mentioned at some point, but most people aren't made aware of it. I don't know what the problem is. I don't believe that the level of crime has increased significantly overall, although it probably has in some areas. Is it related to the militarization of our police? Are they being trained to view citizens as the potential enemy rather than citizens who may need to be protected? Does it have to do with the fact that the police are mostly isolated within their vehicles rather than walking the streets interacting with people? Certainly, BlackLivesMatter isn't making things better for anyone, and the media hype isn't helping either.
That's just the way I see it also but of course I'll be called a racist even though I know perfectly well I'm not.
The problem with some of these hot button issues is that people tend to listen or read just far enough to see the button, then they jump to assumptions and attack based on what they think they heard rather than on what was actually said. Religion does that too.
I just think that the police need to be retrained or something, or they need to be more selective about who they are recruiting one or the other. I mean these are just some of the things that need to be done differently, because clearly something different needs to happen. I just can't believe some of these shootings. I can understand being apprehensive..but why do you need to draw your weapon?
Isn't that suspension a curtailment of freedom of speech and expression? There are students here who are also suspended from classes due to their posts in the social media but the offending posts were mostly derogatory in nature like a smear campaign against a person. There were 3 graduating female students who were disallowed to join the graduation rites when the posted in Facebook their photo showing they were drinking liquor. With that statement about lives that matter, I don't see anything wrong whether it is black or white or anything. As long as the message is positive then that should be okay. What's bad is if the tweet said that black lives or white lives or whatever color fo life don't matter because that is negative. That's really sad that racism or consciousness about racism is on the rise.
As a citizen, I have less training than the average police officer, I would assume. If not, then that should be the case. Yet if I shoot someone because I am afraid that I might be in danger, I darned well better have been right about the decision I made, or I'm going to prison for a long time. The fact that I might have mistaken a cell phone for a handgun won't be enough, by a long shot. Yet the police can shoot someone down because they imagined they saw something that could be dangerous, and ninety percent of the time, they are not going to be charged with a crime. That's a part of the problem right there, I think.
That could be it Ken and most were found not guilty so it only goes to show them that they can do what they want. Even if they're not sure of the situation, they'll shoot, rather than be shot knowing that they'll probably be exonerated. It's something that needs looking into seriously in areas where there problems.
The discussion on all life matters does not make sense, until we respect and care about everyone. Rather than fighting for the rights if we can take a unity step towards human welfare will be a great step. We should help people in need, have a peek at these guys that helps us to understand the fact that differences does not matter but serving to humanity can bring a lot of change in the lives to people affected due to natural causes and we can get inner relief by helping others.