Regarding the first part of your comment, heard about that last night. Regarding the second part, there have been some conflicting reports.

Possibly isn't good enough. While I'm sure there are some saboteurs, that hardly represents the situation as a whole, and there is strong evidence both BLM and ANTIFA are mostly responsible for the criminal behaviors going on. One of the black protesters was on camera saying to some of the white ones "this isn't your space", as he knew ANTIFA was there to riot and make it look bad for the peaceful protesters. When there are lootings and arsons of that magnitude, no way do I believe a few bad actors are responsible for all that.

That it is.

Most likely no, not nearly as much ado anyway. Of course, such a story as that is a juicy one for the mainstream medias to stir up the racial divide.

The answer is no. Recently found out that that in the same city a white woman was killed by a black police officer and he was charged. The left's complaint is that the black police officer was sentenced to jail and this police officer will probably not get charged...see...racism.

[theintercept.com]

Unfortunately, the race of the victim has everything to do with it. Time and time again we see black men (and children, don't forget Tamir Rice) killed, while white men are given the benefit of the doubt and rarely killed.

Look at the videos of the Michigan Capitol, where rioters wearing tactical gear and brandishing long arms were storming the building and getting in the faces of the cops, screaming at them. Did anything happen?

Earlier this month a white man named Anthony Trifiletti, a supposed white supremacist, murdered a black man over a road incident. He was brought in unharmed.

Earlier this year, a white man named Benjamin Murdy fired on the police in a standoff. The police were familiar with the man from previous issues, and knew he had threatened to kill cops before. They never fired a shot on him, and he was taking into custody unharmed.

How about when Cliven Bundy had an armed standoff with the federal government? He was considered a domestic terrorist at that point. The feds never shot on him, it was resolved peacefully.

I could go on and on about well known incidents where white people posed threats, and yet the cops were calm and collected and the people were arrested and taken into custody with no violence.

Then you have issues like George Floyd. The video clearly shows he was not resisting arrest in any way, and yet the cop was kneeling on his neck. Whether Floyd was a model citizen has nothing to do with it. What about innocent until proven guilty?

What about Ahmaud Arbery? Whether he was trespassing is again besides the point - did a it give the McMichaels a right to approach him with guns?

What about Botham Jean? A police officer entered his apartment and shot him, claiming she thought it was her apartment and he was a burglar. So you can't be safe in your own home anymore?

What about Breonna Taylor? She was sleeping in her home when police stormed in with a search warrant, despite the suspect they were after having been arrested earlier. Her boyfriend thought people were breaking in to rob or kill them, and defended himself, as was his right - and the police killed the sleeping Taylor. So you can't be safe in your own home anymore?

What about Atatiana Jefferson? She was also killed in her own home when police saw her look out her window (she saw strange men approaching her house) and thought she was a threat, and they killed her. So you can't be safe in your own home anymore?

What about Philando Castile, who identified himself as a legal gun owner during a traffic stop, and the cop freaked out. Castile assured him over and over he was not reaching for his gun, as did his girlfriend and daughter in the car with him, and the cop shot him anyway.

I could go on and on about well known incidents of black men and women getting killed by cops, or people playing cops. Sure, sometimes the people were guilty, other times not, but again that doesn't change the fact that almost every time the black people are treated with violence and killed, while white people are given space and treated fairly and come away unharmed.

To all the holier-than-though pundits who are coming out complaining about the riots in Minnesota, they are the same people who had a problem with Kaepernick kneeling in a silent protest. It is now about the protests being inappropriate, and whataboutism with people complaining that so and so was murdered by a black person with no riots, and anything else they can complain about to not have to address the egregious act by the cop against Floyd. We keep seeing cases of the officers involved in these killings having been written up for complaints several times before, or having been fired for similar violence elsewhere and just moving to a new station.

There have also been reports of the protest in Minnesota being peaceful until cops showed up fully expecting rioting, and fired rubber bullets and tear gas to break it up, leading to the violence and rioting.

I fully condemn the riots and any looting and violence. It is not the right way to get your voice heard, although it seems that no matter what you do, no matter how peaceful, talking heads like Trump or Tomi Lahren will condemn you and call you a son of a bitch and advocate for you to be fired.

Again, no one is saying black people don't murder white people, or there aren't bad black cops, or anything of that sort. The issue is the continued pattern of black people treated with violence by the police, while it seems that white people - even ones heavily armed and violent - are treated with respect.

This says it all.

There are also videos of the looting in Minnesota - plenty of white people participating in it.

@JacksonNought "Again, no one is saying black people don't murder white people, or there aren't bad black cops, or anything of that sort."

So then hatred and carelessness isn't mutually exclusive to one race, am I right?

Let's do some math. We have about 328 Million US Citizens. Black people are about 12% of the population. You named a handful of incidents that have happened in the past 6 years. Can you tell me how many black men were killed in the streets of Chicago last year? Baltimore? Camden? Los Angelos? Miami? You don't know this because they weren't gunned down by cops. They were murdered by people who look like them. Your outrage is very selective.

Do you realize that Minneapolis black population is about 40% living under poverty? Let me ask you what burning everything down will do to them. Make it go to 50% and above. Let's do economics...how does a city gain money to build buildings and help a community. Taxes. If businesses are burned down, how are those taxes collected? If the median household income is low, where are those taxes coming from? You think a riot will entice people to invest in a community or even buy a house there? Your outrage and passively okay with destruction of an already poor city is short sighted.

I'm not at all saying that those examples of people being killed are good, I think any injustice is an injustice. If you really wanted to know about white people getting killed by the police, look it up. Statistics show that they are actually more likely to be, it's just that no one cares.

Your number of examples is like me telling you how many times I've seen a spider in my home in comparison to how many days I've lived there, it doesn't mean I have a spider problem.

@BlackoutNJ does it matter how many times black people are killed by other black people? You also understand there is a fundamental difference between criminals committing gruesome murders, and police officers - who should be protecting us - committing blatant murder while on duty? Your own outrage is selective, as you seem to try and discuss this pattern of police corruption just because criminals kill each other.

@JacksonNought My outrage is not selective. At no point did I say that what was done is good, I just think things should be proportionate. If people are actually upset when a black person dies unjustly, they have a much bigger problem with someone else than the police. This doesn't give the police a pass but there are multiple reasons as to why it even gets to the point that the police are in this position or why that person is in the position. This isn't pointing blame, this is just looking at reality.

So when I say selective outrage, I'm referring to what is killing black people in a massive majority. Pointing out 2 cop shooting incidents that the media shows you is not proportionate to the amount of families who have lost children due to gun violence and generations of black people torn apart due to crime and imprisonment. That is where peoples rage should be. 1 authority figure doing something bad is not good but they have bigger problems that they are ignoring.

@dd54 Nothing satisfies mobs. This isn't about George Floyd anymore. It's about destruction.

@BlackoutNJ maybe selective outrage isn't the best descriptor for it, but it's dismissive of the problem at hand by trying to make it about something else, or saying there is something larger to focus on. We could tell people fed up with the lockdown that there was already rampant poverty and starvation going, so who cares about their complaints because there is a much bigger problem at hand.

As I said, it is different when people in positions of authority are abusing their power. And it is different when time and time again we see police do everything in their power to restrain themselves and handle encounters peacefully with armed white men posing a threat, but when the perpetrator is black they will show unrestrained force and violence even when the perp isn't subdued and not resisting.

It also always seems like the whole "black on black" crime talking point is only ever brought up when complaints about police violence come up. It always comes across as something like "why are you complaining about issues X when issue Y exists?" and it seems like it is only brought up to dismiss the issue at hand. I don't see why we can't worry about both.

@JacksonNought "It also always seems like the whole "black on black" crime talking point is only ever brought up when complaints about police violence come up"

It's the opposite. No one cares about black people UNTIL black people are assaulted by the police or another white person.

I'm not saying no one should care about police brutality. People can protest, I'm all about protest. But what is happening right now is barely protest. You have to admit that there is no justification for ruining businesses, causing chaos and putting lives in danger all in the name of a stranger. I highly doubt this is what he would want in his memory.

There are people profiting financially, politically and by narrative. The narrative that white people don't care about black people in a whole is a farce. There is more evidence that black people don't care about black people. It's the same as "Don't put your hands on my child but I can beat the shit out of them because they are my child". No white person should dare do anything to any black person but black people harming black people...NO PROBLEM. It's the low expectation of liberals that they expect it to happen.

@dd54 ignorant comment. Blame everything on "SJW" and assume everything is the fault of left-leaning people to destroy the comment, while assuming right-leaning Conservatives are all angels.

@BlackoutNJ no, there is no justification for the rioting and destruction happening right now. Though from accounts I have seen, the protests started off peaceful until police fired rubber bullets and tear gas to break them up. I've seen undercover police officers smashing windows to incite rioting. I've seen right wing news outlets continually demonize all attempts at peaceful protest in the past, such as kneeling or wearing shirts or holding up signs - at a point, when your voice is constantly ignored and drowned out, you start getting frustrated.

Here is an interesting take I read yesterday:

“Remember the whole 'tea party' thing. The actual one, not the movement from a few years back...

...it comes down to 'he who can destroy a thing controls a thing.' When people feel like they are not safe in their own lives, then they will lash out and destroy what they can as a control mechanism...

...it's still a control mechanism. It's taking something. Anything, back to feel like you somehow have control over some aspect of your life. It's just as much a physical manifestation of control as something like compulsive theft or anorexia is. 'I can’t control X thing, but I can control what I eat, destroy or steal.'

Protesting/riots/looting/theft it’s all a manifestation of the feeling that you are not safe in your own neighborhood. These are not people thinking about their actions. These are people reacting to being scared. And you can’t expect rational thought from people who are scared and feel threatened.
You’re looking at it from a safe distance. But this is one of those situations where the context of the action matters if you are going to fully understand it and it definitely matters if you are going to pass judgement on it.”

@JacksonNought I'm confused. You start off saying there is no justification to looting but then you later give justification for looting.

"I've seen undercover police officers smashing windows to incite rioting."

This has not been verified and even if it was true, hello...have you seen hundreds of people causing chaos? They didn't need a rogue cop to smash windows.

"at a point, when your voice is constantly ignored and drowned out, you start getting frustrated."

I'm sure there are people who are trying to protest peacefully but people are legitimizing rage of others who aren't protesting. Frustrated? Let me ask you, how acceptable would it be if you just got upset and started breaking windows? That would sound immature. Why would the standards change?

You're also assuming that the people causing violence actually care about what is going on. Massive reports from this riot and previous riots of NON LOCALS coming into these already poor and deprived neighborhoods to steal and destroy. They don't give a fuck about the people who are there because when this is all over, they will be back in their home not caring about the carnage that was left behind. This is short sided rage and anarchy.

So I will always go back to this...if people actually cared about black people, how about not destroying other black peoples neighborhoods.

Also, the false equivalency of the Boston Tea Party and this is ridiculous. It's historically dishonest. Not accusing you but others on the internet are trying to use that as some sort of legitimization for bad behavior.

@BlackoutNJ I wasn't necessarily endorsing the quote I used, just thought it was an interesting perspective that not many people consider. I still do not support the rioting and destruction.

Yes, there are a ton of people rioting, so one or two or several rouge cops causing destruction isn't really an excuse - but it definitely can be a catalyst to escalate. If undercover agents are in the midst, trying to encourage destruction and looting, and then allowing the riot cops to justify using violence, it can all reach a dangerous boiling point. I by no means excuse the rioting based on this, but I definitely think there is more to the story than what may be just gleamed on the surface or what is being reported by the media. And then it gives ignorant people the excuse to say racist things and try to condemn and entire race because they think no white people riot or loot ever.

And yes, you are right, there are outside people taking advantage of the looting - both black and white. It is very unfortunate that people are taking advantage of this out of greed and personal gain, helping to drown out the actual issue.

@JacksonNought "If undercover agents are in the midst, trying to encourage destruction and looting, and then allowing the riot cops to justify using violence, it can all reach a dangerous boiling point."

I am very worried about this. I am very worried that everyone is so jaded and agenda driven that it will lead to deaths on the streets of these cities all in the name of a man that actually wanted peace.

By the way, I'm glad we could come to an understanding and agreement. I hope you understand I'm not out to attack, just having a discussion. It's a difficult topic especially right now.

@BlackoutNJ of course, I enjoyed our back and forth.