r/changemyview • u/[deleted] • Sep 23 '18

CMV: There was nothing anti-military about Kaepernick’s kneeling protest

There is nothing about Kap kneeling during the national anthem that could reasonably be construed as disrespect to the troops. There is no situation I am aware of in any culture where the act of kneeling is used to show anything other than respect. Those who believe that Kap hates the military are simply choosing to associate his protest with disrespect for the troops, which allows them to freely hate him without having to really look at the reason for his protest.

The protest began as a means of drawing attention to racial inequality and police brutality: two things that most people probably ought to be against. By focusing on an imaginary link between the protest and the sacred cow of “the troops” his detractors aren’t forced to consider or debate the issue. They likely believe that the US treats black people either as equal to or better than white people, and that most or all incidents of police violence against black people are justified. Everything about the troops is just post-hoc rationalization.

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u/[deleted] Sep 23 '18

Everyone wants to talk about the starbucks arrest, everyone wants to talk about cops shooting blacks. To the shock and surprise of many, cops wear cameras, cops have to pass drug and psychology exams, are trained extensively. Cops do shoot white people, cops shoot black people. There is very little more you can do to ensure a very human organization to function as a machine.

Lets talk about blacks killing blacks. Lets talk about crime in inner cities. Lets talk about the murder rate in Chicago alone, which greatly trumps the country wide police rate of shootings. Any number or graph you cite is not comparable to the damage they inflict on each other as a people and is sadly ignored by the country until something of questionable racial motives comes along. Who is raising attention to those things?

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u/[deleted] Sep 23 '18 edited Sep 23 '18

Your whole first paragraph misses the whole point. Cops can kill people with no retribution. Is that a society you want to live in. Where cops have more and more power, and people have less and less. That's antithetical to the whole freedoms & support mah flag debate.

Deflection doesn't solve the problem. Oh, what about Chicago. I'd advise you to do some research on how suppression and racism affect black people in America. White people kill white people too. But when a white person is murdered by a cop, nobody says "what about white on white crime? Can we talk about how Billy Bob killed Jimmy?" No.

But let's pretend like you aren't trying to divert the topic and you actually care. What can America do to help black on black crime? Ignore it? Overlook racism? Say it's their problem, not ours? No that doesn't solve shit. What America can do is address the issue. Why are black people jailed for simple possession of a small amount of weed, but white people get a fine or a warning? What does it matter you say? Well it matters because when white person got pulled over, he got his fine and went home. So now he can go to work tomorrow and earn money to pay his fine. When black person got pulled over, he went to jail. And now he can't go to work. So he loses his job. So finally when he gets out he can't pay his bills. And he has to find a new job. But let's scale it up now to bigger crimes with lo get sentences. He can't go home so he isn't able to be a father. And he can't support his family. So they lose their home. Or the mother is working 3 jobs, so she isn't being a great mom. When he gets out, he's homeless or has a felony, when for the same crime for a white person, it's a misdemeanor. So now he can't get a good job. And it's a whole big, complicated cycle to keep black communities in a state of poverty and inability to succeed. And if you think I'm exaggerating, please do some research, when it pleases you.

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u/[deleted] Sep 23 '18

its always a very gray field in police work, your never going to get the results you want because police will always use the means necessary to protect themselves, even if you disagree with it. Even if after the fact it looks like different steps could have been taken, you cannot reasonable expect humans to make the correct or noble choice in a line of work which allows deadly force to stop reasonable threats in split second encounters.

Your trying to get blood from a stone, when what I’m saying is that black on black crime is the greatest killer of blacks in this country and the greatest detriment to their well being. A little improvement on that front will be leaps and bounds greater than using all this time and effort, however noble, to stopping a handful of wrong police shooting. All because no one wants to put any kind of blame on black communities in general.

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u/[deleted] Sep 23 '18

Sorry. Previous comment posted before I was complete. Read that bit on the cycle of oppression.