"Black Brunch" protesting in "white spaces"

Great Debates
121

I agree with this. Both ‘good’ and ‘bad’ protests are annoying, and deliberately so. If they were not annoying, they would be ineffective.

This thread illustrates the exact difference between them.

Protesting by sitting-in at segregated lunch counters is a ‘good’ protest. Why? Because the victims of the protest (the people being annoyed) are exactly those who are committing the moral offence being protested: the owners and patrons who are engaging in segregation.

Protesting by invading a “brunch” is a ‘bad’ protest. Why? Because the victims of the protest (the people being annoyed) are not those committing the moral offence being protested: police violence. The allegation that they somehow are, because “brunchers” = ‘White, 1 percenters, thus owners of the system that created violent racist cops’, is dubious in the extreme. [We will omit the polite fiction that this is intended to ‘educate’ said brunchers]. Many people who would readily agree that violent racist police are a major problem would nonetheless strongly disagree with the underlying logic of this protest - that ‘brunchers’ are a bunch who are morally offensive, thus deserving of protest.

122

Thanks for the translation. Presumably, he can relate his own experiences. Maybe he can’t?

123

I’ll leave the rest up to him. But I have certainly noticed varying levels of service/friendliness in restaurants and retail establishments when I’m with black people versus white people.

124

(post shortened)

Generally-speaking, protests are OK. These particular protests are not OK (except, maybe, to other racists?). There are many places available for protesting and the media will happily provide free coverage.

I do not have to listen to racist protesters, who’ve illegally invaded my chosen eatery. I can boo them, I can repeatedly clink my glass, I can accidently toss hollandaise sauce in their general direction.

How did these racist protesters even chose these so-called “White Spaces”? Oh, look. White people without their slaves. Let’s go teach them a lesson.??? The restaurants aren’t racist and have nothing to do with police-criminal interaction. The owners and staff aren’t racist and have nothing to do with police-criminal interaction. The customers aren’t racist and have nothing to do with police-criminal interaction. These racist protesters simply decided to target white people for punishment.

Speak freely. Speak loudly. Speak often. But don’t force me to clink my glass in your general direction.

125

In my limited, 3rd-person experience, waitstaff puts up with a lots of crap from pushy, picky, annoying customers and still provide service with a smile. It’s all about the TIPS.

Are your friends (of all races, creeds, and colors) big tippers? Average tippers? Or are they known to stiff the staff for services rendered?

p.s. Try tipping your waiter/waitress an estimated 15% BEFORE they even take your order. IMHO, the service will be nothing short of amazing.

126

This is correct. I am saying that I have sometimes noticed my date and I, together, getting startlingly worse service, in cases where she is black, versus what seemed to me closely comparable circumstances with other dates who were white.

I recall a time when I entered a restaurant feeling proud to be escorting a beautiful and stylishly dressed woman, showing off my knowledge of a cuisine new to her–and left feeling humiliated, apologizing to her, for having chosen the place. (Luckily we were able to continue the evening elsewhere, and ended up having a good time.) I remember also how she seemed much less perturbed than I; was appallingly bad service something that she was just accustomed to happening sometimes?

127

That’s putting it mildly. And I was an avid cyclist in SF!

128

Thus touches on the crux of the issue. These idiots want to fight the good fight—the righteous fight! So, they contort the hell out of the facts to establish a thin strand of connection between the Michael Brown’s of the world and Rosa Parks. Then, PRESTO, we should be just as enraged by whatever tinge of injustice/racism/whatever might exist now as people rightly were during the civil rights struggle of the '50s and '60s. But as Shodan pointed out, when you really look at the complaint, it falls apart. But these idiots get some jollies from playing Civil Rights Crusader. The truth is that they’re just desperate to bring some meaning into their own lives. If it’s fabricated, well it’s better than nothing.

I wish I owned a restaurant. I’d hire the biggest bad-ass bouncer-types I could find and try to plant a seed for then to show up. Then when they do and they’re told that they must leave or be forcibly removes, let the games begin!

129

I think there are legitimate complaints to be had about different treatment based on race (such as the mistreatment that several black NYPD officers have spoken of while they were off duty). It’s not just about one shooting. Black people that I’ve spoken with have believed that they were often mistreated by police due to their race for many, many years… and only now, is it resonating beyond just one community.

130

It’s tied to crime, and the greater propensity for it in one group of others. Remember Jesse Jackson’s statement about being more afraid to walk down the side of the street there was a black guy on. The type of soft “racism” we have today that you allude to will not go away until blacks are viewed as having non greater propensity to commit crimes than other races. And the only way to achieve that is <drumroll> for blacks to not commit more crimes per capita than other races. It really as plain and simple as that.

Now, how that might be accomplished is not easy. I’d start with the sucky schools that many in the inner city are stuck with. And the answer to that is more and more charter schools. Which means telling the teachers’ union to go fuck off.

131

I don’t think it’s nearly this simple – and this justification allows for pretty much any mistreatment, since it can always be blamed on differing crime statistics. We have very little data about police shooting of black people, but what little data we have suggests that they kill young black men at a much greater disparity over young white men than the disparity in crime statistics. Further, watching Dad get serially mistreated by the police because he’s black probably makes a kid more likely to see police as the enemy – treating black people differently may well make the problem worse.

I think it’s more like this – 100 years ago, the vast majority of police officers in America pretty terribly mistreated black people. 50 years ago, big, big chunks of cops did – and large majorities probably did in many localities. 20 years ago, smaller chunks but still significant numbers of cops still mistreated black people. Now, it’s even smaller, most likely… but I think some significant number of cops still treat black people differently because they’re black. And it’s not the fault of black people – most black people don’t commit crimes… so most black people are not at all responsible. Most black people don’t commit crimes – telling them to commit less crimes does nothing.

24 of 25 black NYPD officers in that article I linked to had been mistreated by cops while off duty. Some of them reported this mistreatment to their supervisors, and were either ignored or retaliated against. The others didn’t want to be punished, so they didn’t report this.

I don’t believe this is a made-up problem. I believe most black people are not criminals, and most black people shouldn’t be treated like criminals in any way.

132

Anyone got a link to who is on the list of dead black people the protesters read at their brunch-in?

Regards,
Shodan

133

Part of their speech is that cops kill a black person every 28 minutes in the US, and these people are “our brothers and sisters”. Which, presumably, puts all those killed in the same category, even some of them are firing or pulling a gun on cops. This dilutes the message.

134

You are making the same leap of logic here that you did in the thread about this specific issue. That leap is assuming that police killing of individuals should follow the rate of crime statistics - that if one group commits 10% more of a specific crime, then the response to that group should also be 10% more. You have presented no basis for that assumption.

135

Nah, it’s not really as simple as that. Black people get arrested and incarcerated for crimes more often than white people, but it’s not obvious it’s due to their committing more crimes. There are a lot of steps between committing the crime and possibly being caught, and then eventually maybe going to jail. Cash and education can help at every step.

My wonder bread ass is very likely committing a crime while you read this. I have been to jail, and been on probation once. If I were black, I can imagine that I would have had more than a few trips. My sister is sitting in jail right now awaiting trial for 2 felonies. I can think of 3 other felonies that she’s not charged with because she had an education, and learned the wrong lesson from it. I suspect that if she wasn’t blonde, female and white she’d have gone in for a long stay years ago.

Now, aside from blaming the victim, what can we do to address this? Hmm, I don’t know, but I’ll add this: Genetic testing revealed that I’m just Jewish enough that a Nazi would care, and my wife’s sub-Saharan African enough for Jim Crow to care. Other than our genetic information and being fat Americans, we look like stereotypical Celts/Swedes, and would qualify as Nazi poster children in our youth (ok, I had a Simpsons level overbite, but she’s perfect). I think that if enough people realized how African the general population is, and that skin color isn’t even a good indicator of genetic makeup; we’d probably stop associating dark skin with anything other than “people who never visit tanning salons”.

Genetic testing for 300 million people seems like an unworkable idea, though. I think it’s a more practical than annoying random people at breakfast.

And not to put ideas in their head, but why didn’t they decide to do this at Cracker Barrel? You’re more likely to bend the ear of racists there. Heck, even I’ve had my meal packaged to go for me there without asking for it to go, and I was sitting at a table having a beverage.

It’s called Cracker Barrel for a reason.

ETA: And Cracker Barrel is open 24 hours a day! You could rent a bus, and never stop until well, something had happened.

136

I’m not making a leap of logic – I’m simply refuting the assertion others have made that the disparity in shootings by police of black people is due to the disparities in crime statistics. The disparities don’t match – I don’t think it’s incumbent on me to prove that it’s not okay that police kill young black men way, way more often than they kill young white men, relatively speaking.

I’m simply pointing out this big disparity, and saying “this looks like a problem to me”. I’m open to the possibility that this disparity has some explanation that’s not based on disparate treatment due to race. I just haven’t heard one yet.

137

You are correct that most black people are not criminals. But by insisting on looking at things that way just paves a path to not do what must be done. You MUST look at it from the other direction. As long as blacks commit crimes at a greater per capita rate there will be some degree of racism. If you think there’s a way around that I think you’re deluding yourself. Is that fact fair to all black people? No. But if you’re trying to fix the problem you really need to: fix the problem.

138

I don’t think this is the case. I don’t think disparate crime statistics lead to racism.

What would lead you to believe this, looking at American history? It certainly wasn’t disparate crime statistics that led to slavery, or Jim Crow, or segregation, or any of the other big racist things in our history. What makes now different?

139

Yes, it is. Which is to say, it’s also very, very difficult to fix.

Evidently you misunderstand my position. I agree with the presence of unfairness, some of it due to racism, the rest due to classism. But those things are based on perceptions people have of different groups. And right now those perceptions are grounded in reality. Change the reality. Change the numbers and you’ll see the perceptions change.

140

Would be sweet if a white brunchie whipped out a list of all the black victims black people have shot and read it back at the “black brunchers”/nimrods.