Quote:
Originally Posted by Skinned
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Slavery, segregation, ethnic cleansing, and what is occurring in Ferguson is definitely racism of a structural level, which is better described as discrimination, as racism doesn't have the power component in it, while discrimination does.
A more fundamental question here is: even if you think the man who was killed by the police was a strong-arm thug, are you willing to relinquish the presumption of innocence? From your position in this thread it seems so, but only for one demographic of citizen and not another. Are you ready to go down this road? Or are you acting in a way that you wouldn't want to be the universal maxim given the situation?
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Who relinquished the presumption of innocence? The police have to engage innocent people all the time who may fit the description of a crime. And if someone then assaults and attempts to take the officer's gun, it doesn't matter if that person was a serial killer or a pure soul who is completely innocent of all other crimes. He wasn't killed for stealing cigars. He was killed in the process of assaulting an officer, supposedly. The robbery he was apparently involved in minutes earlier is important in that it makes the officer's version of the story seem more plausible. And just like with the Trayvon situation, hopefully people will wait until all of the evidence is released before jumping to conclusions on this case.