America’s Poisonous Obsession with Race | Hacker News Reader

America’s Poisonous Obsession with Race

jpost.com

6 pointsmorpheos1374 comments

Hoo boy. Here's what that reads like to me: "Let's pretend that George Floyd wasn't murdered on account of his race, and black Americans don't have anything to worry about, so really this is all their fault."

America is "obsessed with race" because racism is still a problem, and telling the people who are the targets to ignore those problems is just... awful. It does take until the second-to-last paragraph to Godwin itself. "Who are the real Nazis: the ones who are killing people on account of their race, or the ones who call them out about it? Cuz that's also racist."

There are tons of problems with the way race is talked about in America. But there's certainly nothing to be gained from the contribution of the white guy going "Hey, I read a bunch of newspapers and I just don't see the problem. You're just making it up." People are going to keep being loud about it as long as all of the genuine problems are swept under the rug like that, without even a pretense of looking at them.

HN is supposed to be a place for civil, intellectual discourse so I hope we can keep it that way. That said, I feel you start your comment with a strawman.

It has not been proved that George Floyd was murdered on account of his race. It has not be proved that George Floyd was even murdered. There is currently a court case going on about that right now. It has been stated that he had an overdose level of fentanyl in his system at the time of his death. I think the correct way to look at the Floyd death is through the lense of (possible) over use of police force. It happens to all races and seems to be more of a class and police abuse of power issue than a race issue. The media staked its flag on the "race" issue but this has not been proven. The media does a better job dividing America over statistical noise than any Russian bot.

See for example

https://www.tmz.com/2017/12/07/mesa-police-involved-shooting...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4xmsFBKHEg

https://www.joelevi.com/utah-highway-patrol-taser-man-for-re...

Seems to me that police brutality / excessive use of force is the problem. Just because the victim happens to be black does not make it a race issue by default. And that was the point of the article...

In 2021 if anything, 99.9% of cops are going to be assiduous about treating perps of colour to spec. because they know they will be lynched by media otherwise.

I am confused. You seem to be saying that police abuse is a problem, but also that this particular case of police abuse wasn't actually a problem. That's a pattern I see a lot: when black defendants are killed by police, there's always some reason why that particular abuse was warranted -- even though these are the cases where the person was clearly in no position to present a threat.

If you stand against police abuse, I'd have thought you'd make it clear that standing on somebody's neck for eight minutes constituted abuse and should be opposed. So why aren't you looking at it through that lens, rather than making excuses for it?

There is nothing to be confused about, my friend. I am against police abuse no matter the colour of the victim. I am also against trial by media. I will grant that likely Chauvin acted in an abusive way by restraining Floyd by his neck. However it remains to be seen (1) if his motivation in doing so was racial, (2) was intended to cause death (3) and if was actually the primary cause of death. Before any facts had been determined the media decided that a black man was suffocated with a knee to the neck. Instead, these issues should be adjudicated in a court of law by a jury who has followed an adversarial exposition of both sides of the case and heard expert testimony on the various issues.

I am not an expert but I do know enough physiology to know (1) if a person is talking (saying "I can't breathe" then they are also breathing). (2) human necks are very strong. (3) it is very difficult to both block the entire blood flow to the brain and airflow through the trachea outside of using tight ligature strangulation (e.g. garrot or hanging). The trachea is actually quite strong. It is supported by muscles on both sides and is a ribbed cartilage tube. In studies of hangings that do not involve breaking the neck (i.e. in short drop hangings) almost all cases do not show signs of mechanical asphyxia, i.e. blockage of the airway. Rather the proximate cause of death is ischaemia of the head, i.e. occlusion of blood vessels. Thus it is exceedingly unlikely Floyd died because he could not get enough air into his lungs. He may have died from bradycardia if there was excessive pressure on a carotid sinus with fentanyl induced hypotension being a contributing factor. My point re. police brutality, however, still stands. It does not matter to me the race of the victim or the exact mechanism of death, whether or not it conforms to the sensational narrative that the media latched on to, why does it matter to you? Maybe because you are more emotionally invested in selling a "police are racist" narrative than in the truth.

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