Where is Bernie Goetz when you need him?

[dismal]

At least there is a well-documented history to support the reasonableness of that assumption.

Exactly! It could have been a mistaken understanding, but Derec's track record is obvious.

If knowing the race of a criminal was important to you, you could have actually tried to learn it instead of relying on your prejudices about Derec. And being wrong.

It's hard for me to think of any possible reason that would justify your assuming a criminal is black because of something Derec said when the capability exists to check for yourself.

 

[thebeave]

Exactly! It could have been a mistaken understanding, but Derec's track record is obvious.

If knowing the race of a criminal was important to you, you could have actually tried to learn it instead of relying on your prejudices about Derec. And being wrong.

It's hard for me to think of any possible reason that would justify your assuming a criminal is black because of something Derec said when the capability exists to check for yourself.

The race of the perpetrators hasn't been released, last I checked. This whole event is very odd. It happened on Saturday night, but it didn't seem to catch the media's attention until Monday. No interviews of the many victims have apparently been sought or aired. No videos of the incident released. Something is fishy in the state of Denmark.

 

[repoman]

If knowing the race of a criminal was important to you, you could have actually tried to learn it instead of relying on your prejudices about Derec. And being wrong.

It's hard for me to think of any possible reason that would justify your assuming a criminal is black because of something Derec said when the capability exists to check for yourself.

The race of the perpetrators hasn't been released, last I checked. This whole event is very odd. It happened on Saturday night, but it didn't seem to catch the media's attention until Monday. No interviews of the many victims have apparently been sought or aired. No videos of the incident released. Something is fishy in the state of Denmark.

For me, there are three possible separate issues that are worth discussing. These issues are separate and because a person may have a bias for one does not mean that the discussion of the other should be shut down.


1.) The use of thug for OPs by Derec and I am sure myself for violence/theft instances that occurred mostly from youngish black males. Interestingly, I just started a thread about white parents abusing and "pranking" their kids on youtube for sweet ad revenue. No responses yet. Mom and dad are thugs, but I did not use that word.

2.) The rate of incidence of group violence for all sorts of racial, age and class groups in the US should be openly discussed no matter who does the violence.

3.) Paradoxically against issue 2.) above, IF more violence is committed by black youths in groups then media coverage may make things worse. First by helping to stigmatize those areas and pushing businesses and customers away - who wants to be attacked or robbed? Second by maybe having black kids have a sense of fatalism by seeing a disproportionate number blacks on the TV news committing crimes also knowing that everyone is seeing that blacks are committing too much crime.

I am going to give a completely made up number here to be clear about a hypothetical. Let's say that NOT CONTROLLED by income that young blacks are 3 times more likely to do flash mob or swarming type robberies and assaults than young whites (leaving out latinos and asians here). And let's say that all the instances were caught on film. Should the news show ALL of these incidents even though it puts in the mind of the general public that young blacks cause more havoc in groups than young whites? Should they hold back some of the stories with blacks in them and show all the white stories? If you do, then you feed Derec's and my grievances about news coverage.

 

[laughing dog]

Exactly! It could have been a mistaken understanding, but Derec's track record is obvious.

If knowing the race of a criminal was important to you, you could have actually tried to learn it instead of relying on your prejudices about Derec. And being wrong.

If the race of the criminal is unknown at this point, how can you know if someone is wrong about the race of the criminal?

It's hard for me to think of any possible reason that would justify your assuming a criminal is black because of something Derec said when the capability exists to check for yourself.

That is not a surprising admission on your part. Do you check the claim of fact made by every poster?

 

[Toni]

Um, my mother graduated in a class of13 students in a rural Midwest school. She told me about their senior class pranks, which aren't that far off from this, adjusting for time and location.

Can you give a specific example? Because otherwise the caveat "adjusting for time and location" sounds like a convenient fudge for "not remotely similar". I google "senior pranks" with words like "crime" and "extreme" and plenty comes up that was deemed newsworthy but nothing remotely similar to mass strong-arm robbery and assault.

Note that to be remotely similar requires acts on par with criminal physical violence against dozens of people in a crowded public place where armed police officers would be very probable. Pranks that merely involve property crimes are not remotely similar.

Well, stealing a teacher's car would probably count as grand larceny and likely would have resulted in time in court, minimum, by today's standards.

That was one of the milder of the pranks.

No one gathered a group of 60 kids to invade a subway train and rob a few people. For one thing, there were barely 100 kids in the entire school 1-12 (no K). Also, there were no subways or any kind of public transportation. So no one did that because they literally could not have.


I'm serious that what my parents and their peers did, routinely, at school would in today's world merit suspension at a minimum and more likely, time in a juvenile facility. But ditching school, taking livestock up the stairs to the top floor of the school building (which necessitated a great deal of intervention as cows and horses do not like to go down stairs), stealing the teacher's (their favorite teacher!) car, disassembling and reassembling the principal's car on the roof of the school building: they were seen as childish pranks. Not as the work of criminal masterminds. That same teacher whose vehicle was stolen as a senior prank? He came to every single class reunion until he was well into his 80's and died. And the instigator of that prank? He became my high school principal.

Now that I think of it, my mother in law, a city girl through and through--she and her friends ditched school, shoplifted, and played all manner of pranks as well.

My husband and his friends participated with great enthusiasm in the streaking craze of the day. Multiple times. Often in circumstances that involved trespass and many traffic violations. Also fleeing a police officer (while naked). Vandalism, of various houses of worship. Hopping trains. Petty drug use, minor consumption. Those kids grew up to be things like college professors, CEOs of Fortune 500's, doctors, lawyers, etc.

True stories.

 

[Toni]

Exactly! It could have been a mistaken understanding, but Derec's track record is obvious.

If knowing the race of a criminal was important to you, you could have actually tried to learn it instead of relying on your prejudices about Derec. And being wrong.

It's hard for me to think of any possible reason that would justify your assuming a criminal is black because of something Derec said when the capability exists to check for yourself.

To the best of my knowledge, the race(s) of the minors (presumably) remains unreported.

There was/is no way to verify the race(s) of these criminal masterminds, at least not by the public at large thousands of miles away.

 

[dismal]

If knowing the race of a criminal was important to you, you could have actually tried to learn it instead of relying on your prejudices about Derec. And being wrong.

It's hard for me to think of any possible reason that would justify your assuming a criminal is black because of something Derec said when the capability exists to check for yourself.

To the best of my knowledge, the race(s) of the minors (presumably) remains unreported.

There was/is no way to verify the race(s) of these criminal masterminds, at least not by the public at large thousands of miles away.

Yeah, I was the one that pointed this out. Which is why we can be reasonably sure Derec didn't know their race, and those who assumed the criminals were black (e.g., you and Higgins) were acting based on their own biases and preconceptions.

 

[Toni]

To the best of my knowledge, the race(s) of the minors (presumably) remains unreported.

There was/is no way to verify the race(s) of these criminal masterminds, at least not by the public at large thousands of miles away.

Yeah, I was the one that pointed this out. Which is why we can be reasonably sure Derec didn't know their race, and those who assumed the criminals were black (e.g., you and Higgins) were acting based on their own biases and preconceptions.

Cough cough: you mean: based on Derec's posting history.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

You're part of the problem, not part of the answer.

One thing is clear.

You are a sycophant of authority.

Not a free man.

You only see the rights of freedom, not the responsibilities.

- - - Updated - - -

You're part of the problem, not part of the answer.

Liberals like untermensche have virtually no influence in American policies. So your claim is full of crap.

Not a big part, but the attitude he is showing is part of the problem. Anything to put the blame on someone else--and thus avoid actually dealing with the problem.

- - - Updated - - -

Wrong.
And a particularly stupid allegation here, because I have no special access to information about the race of perpetrators.

Higgins must be assuming they are black because they are criminals.

I did look through several news stories on the attack, and oddly, in this day of cell phones and surveillance cameras, not one of them actually had any video. They all had stock footage of people getting on and off BART trains.

I'm not surprised. Anyone stupid enough to film it no doubt lost their phone.

- - - Updated - - -

Loren, as mentioned by others and also by myself: I did make an assumption, not based on the fact that a crime was committed, but on the fact that Derec brought it here for 'discussion.'

But feel free to name call all you want. You have a posting history, too. And we are all aware.

Except so far none of us know their race(s). You assumed racism with no evidence of it.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Toni, you are being racist by saying that because Derec refers to criminals as thugs...

Derec almost exclusively uses the term with blacks. Black teens, black criminals, violent black protesters, peaceful black protesters, etc...

I'll gladly recant if someone can show a few examples of him using the word otherwise.

Most thugs that make the news are black.

That doesn't mean that "thug" says anything about the person's race.

- - - Updated - - -

Liberals like untermensche have virtually no influence in American policies. So your claim is full of crap.

Policies are not the cause of this, "culture" is. A major enabling cause is a sense of entitlement rooted in leftist notions such as violence against innocent people being permissible and excusable because "capitalism".
Reactionary leftists (not liberals) like untermenche have plenty of influence in spreading such toxic mind-viruses.

Exactly. It's this culture that I'm referring to.

 

[Bronzeage]

Derec almost exclusively uses the term with blacks. Black teens, black criminals, violent black protesters, peaceful black protesters, etc...

I'll gladly recant if someone can show a few examples of him using the word otherwise.

Most thugs that make the news are black.

That doesn't mean that "thug" says anything about the person's race.

.

Actually, it does. We don't get to create our own definitions on a technicality. The common usage of "thug" describes a young black man. The word has had different usages in the past, but that doesn't change the present.

 

[Derec]

The common usage of "thug" describes a young black man.

Wrong. Some young black men are thugs, but most are not.
Some thugs are young black men, but most are not.
Now, what is true is that young black men are disproportionately represented among thugs, and vice versa, but that is a very far cry from the invalid equation of the two groups.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Derec almost exclusively uses the term with blacks. Black teens, black criminals, violent black protesters, peaceful black protesters, etc...

I'll gladly recant if someone can show a few examples of him using the word otherwise.

Most thugs that make the news are black.

That doesn't mean that "thug" says anything about the person's race.

Funny, they aren't called thugs on the news.

 

[Arctish]

Derec almost exclusively uses the term with blacks. Black teens, black criminals, violent black protesters, peaceful black protesters, etc...

I'll gladly recant if someone can show a few examples of him using the word otherwise.

Most thugs that make the news are black.

Hey kids, let's all play Count The Thugs!

Go to your favorite news outlet and count how many thugs in the news are white and how many are black.

I got CNN:

Two white thugs in uniform beat up a motorist.
A white thug murdered his wife but was busted by the data on her Fitbit.
A black thug murdered a random pedestrian and posted it on Facebook.
A white thug murdered some people at a Washington mall.
A black thug killed his wife and one of her students in their classroom.
A white thug who raped a 10 year old and then killed her and her grandparents in an arson fire committed suicide.
A black thug killed two co-workers and then committed suicide at a gym in a Florida mall.

Tally: 5 white thugs, 3 black thugs.

Hmmm. I wonder if Loren is wrong about thugs who make the news. Maybe the black thugs are the only ones he remembers? Or perhaps Loren, like Derec, used the term almost exclusively to describe blacks and will go to great lengths to avoid calling whites like this guy a thug even though he fits the description Loren claims to use.

ETA: Reuters is only carrying reports on two thugs on its main page. One thug is a white guy who murdered a trooper, and the other thug is a Hispanic Uber driver who raped a passenger.

 

[Derec]

Derec almost exclusively uses the term with blacks.

Again, for the millionth time, I view the term "thug" as a race neutral descriptor.
The reason why the discussions on here almost always revolve around black thugs, is because black violence and black criminality are very politicized in today's America. Thus, discussions will mostly revolve about them, because there are many in the US who view this violence as somehow justified. #BLM for example is glorifying Joanne Chesimard, a convicted cop-killer, as some kind of role model.
As I mentioned before, if Michael Brown acted the same way he did and also got shot and killed, but was white, there would have been no riots, no wall-to-wall media coverage and no megathread on here.

Black teens,

No. Unless they also commit violent/street crimes, but that applies to white teens as well. For example, the teens involved in this train robbery are thugs, plain and simple, whatever their race turns out to be (and if I had to hazard a guess, it will be a diverse crowd racially).

black criminals, violent black protesters,

Aren't those thugs?

peaceful black protesters, etc...

I have never called peaceful protesters thugs. Now, I do not consider property damage or blocking highways as "peaceful" actions.

I'll gladly recant if someone can show a few examples of him using the word otherwise.

How about I do it now?
This guy is a thug.
Georgia sets execution for man convicted of killing doctor

 

[Toni]

Loren, as mentioned by others and also by myself: I did make an assumption, not based on the fact that a crime was committed, but on the fact that Derec brought it here for 'discussion.'

But feel free to name call all you want. You have a posting history, too. And we are all aware.

Except so far none of us know their race(s). You assumed racism with no evidence of it.

No, I assumed race--based upon Derec's posting history.

 

[Derec]

As noted, Derec used the word "thugs". Certainly a misunderstanding on my part from Derec's intent (possibly) if he just used the word "thugs" in the general sense and not in the context he typically uses it as (i.e. black person who in Derec's mind has committed some crime, including peaceful protesters).

I use the word thug in the same sense. It's just that it is the black crime that is usually politicized. Nobody would be naming streets in Paris after a white cop-killer, but they did name one after Wesley Cook (the street itself carries his ridiculously flamboyant assumed name).

And that politicization of black crime has only intensified since 2014 and the emergence of #BLM.
A white Michael Brown would not have warranted the riots, media coverage or a 100+ page thread here. An Italian Mario from San Francisco who was just released on parole for robbery and who stabbed another man would not have gathered a following or been mentioned at the Super Bowl by the halftime show dancers just because he was shot while wielding that same knife. And so on.
That's why we end up discussing black thugs most of the time. Because white thugs do not have a political movement defending them and pretending they were innocent victims of police brutality.

I also thought that it was a little weird that there was zero footage.

There is security footage, shared with police, and now it seems that the police manage to id some of the perps. However, neither the footage nor the id of the perps have been made public.

Actually makes me think that at least some of the kids are white.

I think that is likely as well.

Whoever was involved need to pay some consequences.

Indeed.

- - - Updated - - -

No, I assumed race--based upon Derec's posting history.

BS.

- - - Updated - - -

Liberals like untermensche have virtually no influence in American policies. So your claim is full of crap.

Since when is unter a liberal?

 

[Derec]

Policing resources are limited. Oakland's got a lot of shit to deal with. That being said, one might expect a subway station to be policed.

BART has its own police force.

- - - Updated - - -

True, but there is your very well documented posting history. Perhaps this is the very first time that you used 'thug' to describe a white person or posted any wrong doing by any white male.

No it is not.

Yeah, you misunderstood my actual point, whether an honest misinterpretation or a deliberate one.
My remark was not about the kids robbing people on the BART. It was about you.

Fits well with your obsessions ...

"Whatever it is, is worse than kids robbing people on the BART."
To simplify: Whatever is wrong with you is worse than kids robbing people on the BART.

Wait, so you think I am worse than 60 train robbers? Wow, just wow!

 

[Derec]

He was arrested for selling pot to an undercover police officer (http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/subway-vigilante-bernie-goetz-arrested-peddling-pot-article-1.1504621).

- NYDN is a rag.
- That happened decades after the case I was referring to.
- The case was dismissed, and we still have presumption of innocence.
- Selling something is a necessary, but not sufficient condition of being a dealer. A dealer sells things regularly as part of their business, and he buys (most of) his stock wholesale. Somebody selling from his own stash (Goetz even claimed he offered her the weed for free, but she insisted on paying) to a young lady he met does not constitute being a dealer any more than me selling my sofa, table and chairs on Ebay makes me a furniture dealer.

Ok, an incompetent wannabe killer and a drug dealer. Meets the basic requirements for a thug, yet for some reason, you cannot bring yourself to call him one. I wonder why.

The subway shooting was clear case of self defense - the youths tried to rob him.
The weed case was dismissed, and there was no evidence presented that he was a "dealer" (see my clarification above).

 

[Derec]

Derec has odd idols.

He is not an idol. But sometimes you need an imperfect tool to do a job.

- - - Updated - - -

The forensic evidence shows a different story. Bernie was in a blind panic, overcome by fear, and firing wild. It's not really clear why he started shooting, because we only have his recollections of it all.

I think it is pretty clear why he started shooting. He was about to be robbed. That much seems to be beyond dispute.