I’'m sure it would be quite easy to find several similarly sized areaswithin the USA which had the same or better statistics within those time frames.
Not with 60 million people in them.
Actually, I doubt Novelty is wrong regarding police shootings in the US vs. Europe. Considering the fact that the US has so much more violent crime and so many more armed criminals, I have no problem believing that.
This sqabble began because Sailor tried to hand wave away the shooting of a Brazilian man mistaken for a Muslim(a shooting that many in the UK defended) and AFAIK didn’t end with a police officer sent to prison.
Beyond that police brutality takes many forms other than just shootings.
My point was that if you talk to Muslims in France, Italy, Germany, and other countries you’ll find the idea that they don’t face plenty of police brutality preposterous.
None of which is to excuse Law enforcement in America.
Similarly noting that racism and xenophobia aren’t huge problems in Europe doesn’t mean they’re not huge in the US as well.
Beyond that, I think this has little to do with the OP.
I don’t buy for a second that that “many” defended that shooting. That is not my recollection of the media aftermath, nor of my persona conversations.
What people may agree with was that,* IF* they were tailing the right man then the shooting would have been justified to save lives. They got the fundamentals wrong though, it wasn’t who they thought it was.
Mr De Menezes was a tragic victim of the combined terrorist actions of a few nutters and the imperfect implementation of necessary surveillance.
These were very special circumstances indeed and I too don’t think the incident says anything about police brutality in the UK, merely that mistakes happen and when they do so in an atmosphere of high alert and under the threat of mass suicide bombings then dreadful things are going to happen.
You may consider that a hand-wave as well, so be it.
What relevance does geographical area have?
Here’s a comparison for you. A singe state (California - about half the population of the UK) in the period June-November 2013 had more police shootings than the whole of the UK had in the* fifteen year *period 1995-2010.
I don’t want to come across as defending that shooting, but in the interests of honesty, he wasn’t shot because he was mistaken for a muslim. He was shot because he was mistaken for a suiciede bomber, I believe.
While there’s been a lot of good discussion in this thread, one of the major reasons hasn’t been mentioned yet.
If you were a pastor in the Church of England any time from centuries ago up to the present day, it was a pretty good and cushy job. High pay, lots of benefits, job security, and relatively little work. (A standard government job, in other words.) Consequently he ministry in that country attracted middle- and upper class men who wanted a comfortable life and had enough connections to get it. Once in the ministry, they had little motivation to take the job seriously or to pour much effort into preaching, counseling, evangelism and other things that contributed to the spread of Christianity. The situation was similar in many other European countries.
If you were a pastor in the United States any time from centuries ago up to the present day, you didn’t get any of the perks of a government job. If you wanted to have any job at all, you had to actually serve your congregation. If you didn’t, they were perfectly free to leave and join a different church with a better pastor. Hence American pastors had a strong motivation to work hard and do a good job.
My takeaway from this thread is that I can add religion to the list of things that government does poorly 
Had he been white would he have been shot?
Undubtedly, if they thought he was a suicide bomber with an explosive vest in a subway.
A more relevant question is, would he have been misidentified as such if he was white and spoke the queens english? That, I doubt.
Anyway, muslim is neither a color nor something that induces British policement to shoot you, Met possibly excepted.
But not, N.B., because of any Christian revival/resurgence.
I question the assumption that Religion has not eroded in the U.S.
My (anecdotal) experience is that it has eroded quite substantially and that all the noise the religious are making in the U.S. is because of that decline.
I may be wrong and will try to dig up some stats, work permitting.
From you mouth to God’s ears!
Most likely someone has already brought this up, but IMHO it has to do with the history of religion in Europe. The Europeans have blithely slaughtered each other over religion for literally centuries, and religious intolerance often led to war or at least riots and pogroms. This goes back to even before Christianity in Europe, but mainly stems from the various Christian sects rampaging about fighting and killing each other as well as any folks from other religions (Jews, Muslims, etc). In addition to the above you also had the major religious churches tied to the ruling classes AND having and wielding tremendous secular power in their own right. All of this shaped European thought on religion, and again IMHO it’s what they finally, after centuries of slaughter, have turned against to become almost militantly secular (all the while many European nations still have national churches and such still to this day of course).
Americans, on the other hand, haven’t really had a history of violent religious warfare, nor a history of religions wielding vast secular power over the common person or factional internecine religious conflict that leads to reprisal and counter reprisal. We just don’t have that in our history (though I guess there is always the Mormon conflicts…that’s the closest we’ve come too that I can think of off the top of my head). Not that it’s all been sweetness and light, mind, but nothing like what the Europeans went through in the last 1000 years or so, and I think that’s one of the fundamental differences between the US and Europe when it comes to religion. It actually explains a lot about the key differences between Americans and Europeans in more than just religion as well I think, even though the bulk of Americans actually came from Europe in the past.
Sure. But I don’t believe it’s because they’re Muslims.
To speak of what I know : the French police is notoriously, at times even openly and proudly xenophobic. Mine is the country where a guy gets shot in the head point blank “as he was trying to escape”, while handcuffed to a radiator, inside a fucking police station. I don’t doubt for a second they’ll thump harder on a brown Muslim. They’ll also thump harder on a black Christian.
It’s hard to tell whether someone is Muslim just by looking at 'em, but it’s quite feasible to notice their being non-white, even at first glance !
Fair enough. I was saying Muslims because all the minorities I’ve spoken with from France are Muslim and I’m pretty sure most of France’s minority population is at least of “Muslim background”.
Admittedly, I’m not sure how many are all that devout.
Good points-in England, being a COE parson was a great job-so few people came for services, that many parsons became scientists in their (abundant) spare time.
I believe that in might be, in part, that in places other than America, you actually are expected to behave according to your faith. Tithing , the sacraments, weekly attendance, if not followed would reflect you being a lapsed Christian.
Whereas in America even people who attend church only at Xmas and Easter, don’t tithe, support gay marriage, screw over others in business, etc, still count as Christians.
That is certainly true in the UK, The C of E is happy to count you as a member as long as you were baptised. No need to go to services or tithe (which is a particularly USA concept I believe) and your actual beliefs are very much secondary to the baptism and self-proclaimed C of E designation.
And to correct a point made up thread, the C of E is not government controlled, not by a long, long way. They plough their own furrow hence their nonsensical stances on women bishops etc.
Erhm no. In other First World countries, church attendance rates are generally even lower than in the US.