As hard as it has been to do, I have now watched the video of the murder of George Floyd carefully a number of times. I have watched the movements, or lack thereof, of everybody visible. The facts are well known. Mr. Floyd was handcuffed, thrown to the ground, and murdered by the action of having his throat crushed under the heel of a police officer.

As he spent over eight minutes killing Mr. Floyd, the officer stood with one hand in his pocket. He made no effort to move, to desist, or to determine what was happening to the man under his heel. The scene was quietly watched by other officers, and carefully videotaped. This all makes the murder look like it was intentionally staged to be seen. Of course it wasn’t, since a bystander made the video, but it has revealed the horror of what was being done–one police officer carefully murdering a man while three others look on.

No matter why Mr. Floyd was arrested, he was absolutely helpless and not offering any resistance when he was methodically and carefully murdered.

Afterward, while the officers were fired immediately, and justifiably so, there was a necessary delay while the District Attorney’s Office built its case. People do not understand why such a delay would happen, but it is inevitable in cases of police involvement, which the murderer would have known.

Then there was the initial choice of Murder 3 instead of Murder 1, made, almost certainly, because the DA wants to be certain of a conviction. As well, the other officers present, all likely guilty of crimes as well, have not yet been charged because building a case against them is going to be difficult because of the procedures that are mandated to prevent a rush to judgement against police officers who have been involved in deadly force incidents.

All of this adds up to a situation tailor made to incite riot, which is exactly what has happened. (To read more about the reason for the care and the delays in charging Derek Chauvin, click here.) And to make matters worse, Donald Trump added fuel to the fire by tweeting “when the looting starts, the shooting starts.” The incendiary tweet quoted a threat made by the Miami police chief during the 1967 civil rights riots. It may have been intended to warn the rioters, but it the effect of inciting even more anger.

Now, I want to talk about what, exactly, Derek Chauvin and possibly the officers around him, thought they were doing. Chauvin appeared to be intentionally taking the life of George Floyd. It was being done in a video so carefully made that it reveals the horrible deliberation and passive compliance by the other police on the scene that was involved.

Why would anybody do that? There can be only one logical reason, which is to incite riot. But I think that it has become clear that the officers simply did not realize that they were being recorded.

So here we are, with a man horribly murdered, the reputation of a police department in the mud and police everywhere being held in ever more violent contempt, and more of a racial divide in the United States than we have had in a generation.

AND we have COVID-19 lurking in the background.

Every single one of us must go deep into our hearts and find what is best there, and bring it forth in defense of our republic and the future of our children. We do that by not joining the fury in the streets, and not allowing ourselves to fall into the trap of a personal response founded in racism, either angry or fearful.

As the great Roman orator Cicero said when he was engaged in one of his many battles to save their republic, “O tempora, O mores!”

Oh times, oh morals. Two thousand years have passed, and it has never been said better.

 

 

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49 Comments

  1. Thank you for this intelligent post. Your dissection reveals a terrible force behind a heinous act. The tweet made by the president only reinforces what I think you have accurately sensed. I feel very sad for Mr. Floyd and the African Americans of your country.

  2. All this talk of love and compassion resting in the hearts of everyone, and then this comes to the fore and it tempts me to dispel that as nothing more than a pollyanish myth— a whole bunch of crap. Mankind has been senselessly killing each other since the time of our inception, rising to the sickening heights of mass genocide and wholesale extermination of entire civilizations. I ask myself to “be the change” I want to see in the world by demonstrating true compassion and humility toward the world at large, but then I’m constantly reminded that we are far from that collective intention of being a species predominantly ruled by a tolerant and loving consciousness. I fear that we are so far away from that objective that we will ultimately kill ourselves into extinction before we can realize that potential. And I fear that our species is just a few rungs above the evolutionary muck of creatures who not only kill their own but also eat their own babies. I choose to love in love, humility and compassion, but I reserve the right to look over my shoulder and shudder at the capacity for murder the human being has in its core nature.

  3. Author

    What choice do we have, Tomkowt? Either we give up civilization and become barbarians or we don’t. That’s the line in the sand here. Hardly Pollyanna-ish.

  4. The video of the murder of George Floyd was not made by the police. It was made by a black teenager named Darnella Frazier. It was not a set-up, but it did show, quite clearly, the attitude of the police. She wanted to make sure that it was seen for what it was. What might have happened to her, or to those around her if they had intervened…? The police were showing pure hubris as the murder of Floyd was filmed. And THAT is the problem. They probably figured it was business as usual, nothing to worry about.

    This is all so incredibly sad…

    1. I totally agree. I don’t think it was a set up at all. Just a case of bloodthirsty police brutality — or even a personal vendetta, since the killer seems to have known Mr Floyd. But a pattern of police brutality is well known in many cities, and that gave the cop cover to murder a man.

    2. Yes I agree. I think the boldness of what they did is even scarier than planning it. The society divide is getting bigger by the day.

  5. Local TV news stations on Sunday, May 31st showed that the Vons supermarket at the corner of Lincoln and Broadway had its interior shelves emptied during the looting activities, but it may be able to re-open shortly.

    The Santa Monica Co-opportunity organic food market on Broadway at 16th street was undamaged. I phoned them this morning and they say they will be open at 7am daily all this week, but they will be closing each night at 6pm due to the county-wide curfew:
    https://www.coopportunity.com/

    About 5 years ago, on the librarything website, I got tired of hearing presumably white people there sound unfamiliar with the concept of white privilege, so I started a white privilege group, to explain the concept. That group has definitions and examples of white privilege, and a large recommended reading list. So far, about 10 people have joined the group. We had negative comments from one person so far, but others peacefully challenged his inaccurate comments before I even saw his posts. He discontinued any posts in that group. On the question of a greater US racial divide now, could it be that the divide that existed here for the last 400 years is now simply being seen for what it is, without further denial?

    Tragic events like this Minneapolis killing by a police officer and the following US protests suggest that Whitley’s appearances at the upcoming Consciousness and Contact conference next month could occur at a learning moment: We have never been more ready to start on a path of peace.

  6. Hey Whitley! I know your traumatic childhood experiences predispose you to look for conspiracies, but sometimes police brutality is just police brutality — as people of color have experienced for generations. I think you may be jumping to conclusions as to a huge plot. That said, I respect you as always.

  7. Is this something Trump could pardon? His lack of an overall response and when he does say something it is to incite more violence suggests he is pandering to elements of his base……again.

    1. Trump could pardon them only if they are charged as federal crimes, not state crimes.

  8. My first thought reading Whitley’s journal was also that the video was steady and clear because it was made by Ms. Frazier and not from a body cam. But this actually begs the question even louder. If as alledged this cop was doing this in such an arrogant and blatant way, with no apparent concern from the other police on scene as far as we can tell, then how is it even remotely possible they would have impassively posed while their actions were methodically recorded for the world to see? I definitley think Whitley is on to something. But What?

    1. After my initial shock of the horrific image of George Floyd be killed by a policeman kneeling on his neck I started to become concerned about things that didn’t happen. Are there any other images of the scene? Who else was there? It’s hard for me to imagine that other complicit policemen would allow someone to take such a clear video. Can anyone direct me to other videos or comment on the lack of appropriate reaction to this scene? I’m no hero but I think I would have intervened. Or was everyone there gripped with paralyzing fear that I can’t comprehend because I wasn’t there? Would love to hear people’s thoughts on this.

  9. None of this is really new, it’s just the opposite—not much has changed. I am a Texan, but spent my adolescence and teen years living in Southern California. In 1965, the Watts Riots happened very close by, and the only thing that separated our neighborhood off Atlantic Ave in North Long Beach from Compton was an overpass.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watts_riots

    So, my younger childhood was spent in South Texas, where a dry creek-bed was the only thing that separated our little house from a colonia where Mexican-Americans lived in shacks, with dirt floors and no plumbing.

    My family was white, but as you can probably guess, we didn’t have a lot either.

    Fortunately, my folks were kind, compassionate people, and my dad would give you the shirt off of his back if you needed it, and he didn’t care what color you were. Even though we didn’t have a lot, we were never faring as poorly as the folks that lived nearby, although it was not out of the question that sometimes we were considered ‘oil field trash’ due to the nature of my dad’s work. (In those days, trust me, oil field hands did NOT make good money.)

    The bottom line is, I have an understanding and empathy for all of this that may be different from many. I don’t condone violence, but I do get where it is coming from. I also know that we ALL have to heal and get past this, and become better human beings.

  10. I respectfully disagree… no grand conspiracy here. Video was taken not by an officer’s body cam but a bystander with a camera phone. Guy probably did not think he’d kill him. Excessive Force for a 20.00 forgery…he did crawl out the other side of the police car once they got him in and he was a BIG guy. I see it as reptile brain ,racism,anger and adrenaline.

    Now I do believe that white supremacist infiltrators have waited for a moment like this and accelerated the rioting.
    Carry on…

  11. Very sad business all around. But I fear that when the looting stops and the protestors go home, nothing will have truly changed.

    1. I was thinking the same but now a number of incidences have sprung up including a lawsuit pending for the tear gassed protestors due to Trump’s public bible holding display (upside-down,btw).
      Here in LA, we had a good day on Tuesday protest-wise considering the huge turn-out. The ones in Hollywood and Downtown LA on Tuesday were relatively peaceful, looters kept at bay for the most part and police stayed on top of things without going over the top).
      Many of the protests so far across the country have not mirrored Tuesday in LA, unfortunately, and if anything have exposed additional ugliness in the name of enforcing curfews (people paintballed for sitting on their own front porch, elderly man knocked to the ground and bleeding after hitting his head on the pavement). Cell phones are ready to film every moment of conflict justified or not and we’re seeing new images daily of stuff thats difficult to file away.

      The mayor of DC has painted the road up to the White House in huge,bold,bright yellow BLACK LIVES MATTER.

      Tear gas thats being used indiscriminately is going to spike the already inevitable Covid19 spikes by forcing ppl to de-mask as they cough and try to clear their lungs…

  12. Author

    Disagree with what? I didn’t say that I thought that it was a conspiracy, but that the way it appeared to the public made it look like the police were intentionally filming it in order to create the maximum effect. This appearance, and the steady, clear video has greatly added to the rage. That was my point.

    1. Whitley, did you see the video of the “emt’s” taking Mr. Floyd’s body? I am from MPLS and could say a lot about a lot. You are right that something is off. Also Chauvin and Floyd knew each other. And why call the cops for passing a bill? Every cashier i know says the same, you keep the bill, tape it to the register and toss out the customer. Never heard of cops called for that.

      The fact that a white st paul officer was filmed starting the destruction of windows at autozone, inciting the looting, while black protesters continually asked him to stop, (there’s video easily found) does point to either taking advantage of or creating a situation to cause this, then martial law. Passports officially are no longer being issued in the US indefinitely, as of May 17.
      I’m concerned about our actually holding an election. Fence around the people’s house and Erikkk Prince’s paid mercenaries on the ground as txxxp’s Stasi. Yes, let’s stay away from politics. I respect so much you keep this platform clean. That said, nazis were political and genocide of African Americans by the for profit prison system is political. There is an agenda and we mustn’t play into it. I hope it will all come out and as you said, we must fight to preserve the republic.

      Don’t let this drop, you’ve taught me more about the nazis than I wish to know. Evil is here and we are up against it. From what I see in the streets, love is winning and I couldn’t be more proud of one of my adopted cities. No more half measures. Change or burn.

      Also! dreamland, the unseen, revelations, marla frees and especially the new shows with (blank mind) the NYC Artwalk creator, pine ridge? can’t recall their name, that new show is a huge add. You’re one of the bravest out there. We’re so grateful.
      all love, Maude

  13. I’ve chosen to stop viewing footage of the appalling rioting and looting going on in your country as it was fuelling feelings of rage. That’s a state of mind I don’t want and you have to wonder if the coverage is designed to induce that effect.

    These feral mobs don’t appear to be starving or sick, rather they are young, self-entitled and pious, hardly candidates for Sainthood. This is where an obsessive leftist education system lands you.. mired in a soup of social theft, fear and zero life incentive.

    Don’t even get me started on that ‘white privilege’ term. That term is an example of overt racist targeting. I’m white, a Celt in fact, and I’ve worked hard my entire life. Forgive me if I look down my nose at anyone insulting me by attempting to smear that term over me. Teenagers fresh out of college probably came up with that one. Let them work for 15 years and let’s see how their arrogance has transformed into a peaceful Conservative attitude. Life is great at levelling egos.

    The Policeman who killed Floyd was already in jail when this violence started and so this isn’t a call for justice, it’s merely wanton theft and destruction.

    One wonders how reckless those people are with their lives, especially at this time. We’re all still under the spell of a released virus and just days before these latest events we, here in the UK, began reading of the BAME specificity vulnerabilities associated with coronavirus.

    One can’t help but wonder if a small elite are watching this violence unfold with baited breath and hands raised to heaven in exaltation as they offer thanks for justifying the next bold measure. Such elites are certainly crazy enough to stoop to such a measure as they ‘answer to a higher moral authority’.. apparently.

    There’s little to be said about this that’s constructive. Shooting protesters is wrong. Just let them rant and rave, throw some tear gas and let them go home happy that they had a grand day out.

    Using lethal force on looters is another matter entirely..

    1. I’m allowing this post because it’s a textbook example of “white privilege”–forgive me if you feel racially targeted by this, but that’s the core point that you seem to be missing here: Black Americans–of all ages–are sick and tired of being the victims of “overt racist targeting”, an endemic problem that has existed throughout the country’s history. In your own case your “white privilege” has shielded you from the prejudices and dangers Black Americans face in their own country.

      You would also appear to be limiting your news sources to the ones that focus solely on the rioters and ignore the peaceful protests, of which make up the vast majority of the demonstrations (and yes, the news stories you’re referring to are designed to evoke states of rage, the Two-Minutes Hate garners more ratings). Although nothing of this magnitude has been seen since the Civil Rights Movement, this is about thousands of Americans protesting against an ostensibly lethal un-American inequality, not because they just feel like endangering their lives on a whim.

      Life is great at levelling egos.

      In my experience, it is not; in fact, I’ve found the opposite to be true, with most folk becoming increasingly full of themselves as they grow older, and your post is a prime example of this. The ability to survive does not guarantee wisdom.

      1. Humility and wisdom truly have nothing to do with age, and the ability to learn and grow as a human being is so important, as is the ability to acknowledge when one is wrong. I have not been young for a while, but I try and never give up on the concept of ‘wisdom’, knowing that as soon as I begin to see myself as ‘wise’, reality will soon give me a well-deserved kick in the pants…

      2. Thank you Matthew, hear hear. One more time and louder for those in the back.

      3. Thank you Matthew. I’m from the UK. If you include my paper round – worked since I was thirteen, and have not slumped into “conservative” indifference. I know good humanist muliti-dimensional connected people who are also conservative. Neither I nor they are represented accurately by the comments of account holder “VON HAUSENBURG”. My feeling is that the easy acceptance of over-simplifications is definitely a Brexit phenomenon. At least the loudness of it. Don’t knows have become knows due to the recent abundance of easy answers here in the UK. I suspect the phenemenon translates accross the Pond and elsewhere. Einstein accurately said that real explanations should be as simple as possible, but no simpler. It has always been convenient for others to “mistake” that comma for a full stop.

      4. White privilege had never occurred to me until I was assigned to a minesweeper. There was only one black man aboard. We became friends. He opened up to me about his feelings of aloneness and discrimination. I was surprised. I thought we were already over that. It was the 60s. He explained very carefully how he was treated aboard ship. I was taken by surprise. I had seen some of these incidents and had thought nothing of them. I did not realize that they hurt him each time.

        We became better friends. He talked and I learned. His ambition was to get onto a much larger ship with a community of black men. He also wanted to get promoted. This was problematic for him because of his race. He was overdue for promotion.

        I was a confidant of the captain. I spoke with my captain one day over coffee. I explained what was going on. I really liked our captain and he was surprised by the subtle racism going on. He too was completely unaware. I asked him to give our sole black crew member his promotion and send him to an aircraft carrier. That is what happened.

        I was only a noncom myself but was made an assistant to the captain. I took care of everything he did not want to do. He felt he could not confide in his junior officers. Like I said, we got along very well and I tried my best to keep the captain from making any mistakes and keep his relationship with his superior going well. My captain was a squadron commander and this extra responsibility was difficult for him.
        Well the end of this story turned out well for our black crewman but not so much for me. Our captain got promoted and could no longer just be a squadron commander. We lost him to this promotion. I did not get along well with the new captain, so I quit. I became just another civilian working for the Navy. I could quit because my time to extend my contract had conveniently come up.

        1. Thank you for sharing this, FBMBoomer, we need more people speaking up and relating their experiences to point out that we tend to take the second-class treatment of our fellow human beings for granted. And it’s excellent that you also spoke up for a friend that was being left behind by the system!

  14. “Humility and wisdom truly have nothing to do with age” – strongly seconding that. And those well-deserved pants-kicks… ouch.

    And wow, when I think I’ve understood even a bit of the whole truth of the history of racism in this country, a whole new eye-opener comes my way.

    “Ku Klux Klambakes
    The Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s was no fringe group. Tens of millions of nonmembers agreed with its politics.”

    https://getpocket.com/explore/item/ku-klux-klambakes

    This view into truth feels agonizing. What a horror this country has been, and still is in so many ways.

  15. Author

    I am beginning to wish I had not posted anything about this. I grew up in the segregated south and by the time I was 10 years old I knew very well that it was wrong. But it was also the only life I knew, and I could do nothing about it. When I was 14, I began to become politically active. I’m going to post a journal about those days and what it was like. It was scary to be a young teenager and against something that everybody else around me only didn’t think was wrong but proactively thought was right.

    1. For better or for worse, this is a conversation that needed to happen. And articles like the Journal entry you’re proposing are sorely needed, a perspective pointing out that this phenomenon extends far further back then the events of the past few weeks–a long-standing vicious cycle that can’t stop until major reform is enforced on the system itself.

      These perspectives, whether they be from those that have directly participated in the Civil Rights movement, or even simply had the wherewithal to recognize that something was fundamentally wrong with how society victimizes major swaths of its citizenry, need to tell their stories, to reinforce the simple fact that these reforms are long overdue.

    2. I’m mixed race, grew up in seventies London, and have the privilege of having been abused by most major ethnic groups at some point. Not quite the deep South, but it had its moments. We Brits have always been masters of making sure we all “know our place”, and then making it complicated by spawning a multicultural society as a by-product of Empire. The conversation needs to be had. Your comments were very welcome. The silence enables bad actors and it leaves those they target feeling isolated and frustrated to the point of [insert "act of protest/feral" action here]. Every society has racist elements. The dominant culture has a responsibility to make change or oppose descent into darkness because it has the power to do so. Thank you for exercising that power (rather than not).

  16. For those that might still be confused by the motivations behind the demonstrations being held across the U.S., Last Week Tonight’s most recent segment addresses this issue, breaking down the core components of the problem and succinctly summarizing those components, and what’s behind the outrage that’s being demonstrated, something that the news doesn’t really seem to be getting across properly.

    The segment is available here; a caveat, though, Oliver–and some of the speakers in the segment’s featured clips–is even more profane than usual, so this is definitely NSFW. This video is region-locked, so viewers outside the U.S. might need a VPN to access it.

  17. I thought from the beginning that this looked like a hit job. Why was Floyd taken out of another police vehicle – already cuffed – to be taken over to these cops who subsequently executed him? And those EMT’s – they came there to pick up a body and nothing else. Their behavior and complete lack of any attempt at revival proves this. How did those so called EMT’s get there so fast, and why were they called in the first place, and by whom? Talk about Johnny on the spot.

    Given the connections they all had to the night club, I think the mystery can be solved there. I think that club is a hub for some organized crime activity (money counterfeiting and laundering? would certainly explain the counterfeit cash Floyd was passing) that they were all involved in, and these cops that were employed there were basically an umbrella. This kind of thing has been going on since the days of Al Capone. I think Floyd was a desperate drug addict (see him drop something from his pocket when he was cuffed on the sidewalk) who was in a bind due to the covid shutdowns, and with his place of employment (the club) being shut down for so long, I think he started doing things that jeopardized the operation (passing the funny money) and so these particular cops came to the scene to take him out.

    1. Author

      Have you ever considered becoming a detective? I think you might’ve hit the nail right on the head.

      1. Lol – thanks for that, but no… Law enforcement is not for me.

        I used to work in night clubs for a stint when I was younger, and I learned that the average longevity for a night club is a little over two years. Most don’t make it long. This place was there for a VERY long time – that alone makes it unusual. Then when I saw a report that the nightclub was forced by the city to hire cops as extra security – but only certain ones they could choose from – it started coming together.

        Man I just wish cooler heads could have prevailed earlier on and the proper situational analysis could have been done before all the emotional outrage and chaos that abounds now.

  18. …and until hard PROOF is obtained that the club was a counterfeit/laundering front, this will remain only a THEORY.

    1. In science, a “theory” is not just an opinion, its an observation based on the use of certain tools. “We saw this, did that, and observed whatever”. In science, one welcomes honest, impartial criticism of “your” observations.

      Why say this? So…a theory in a scientific sense, is sometimes not the same as a conclusion reached in a criminal/intelligence sense. Thats sometimes very unfortunate. If one is blind to information that does not support ones “preferred analysis and observations”. This “blind spot” is most easily self-reinforced, and most difficult to counter.

      After all, most of us (myself included) have a tendency to build around ourselves walls of self actualization. We create our future from what we want, certainly not what we don’t know. The less we know, the more we cling to what we want. Oh well…

      Mr. Strieber, your post about living with-in injustice, and feeling powerless to do anything about it is quite telling. You grew up in a society where racial discrimination was institutionalized. I’m from the American midwest, where racism/discrimination was just as toxic, no “laws” required.

      The one consistent mantra of the far right is they are victims of someone or something. The far right fears, the moderate and slightly left of center hopes. Christ, Fox news has a daily “news” segment called “outnumbered”. Game, set, etc…

      And for the record, why (IMO) communism is bull s*** nonsense? Because it denies the very existence of the individual person. Who the hell did Marx think “the masses” were? Marx didn’t care, or even notice those details. Game,set,etc…

  19. Well, I’m honestly both surprised and slightly heartened by the responses to my British Conservative opinion.

    The social disparity, both economic and cultural that is experienced by different communities in America is nothing new to me and I have few suggestions if any to correct or re-balance this. It seems impossible.

    Now, it is a common understanding here in Britain that BLM is, in reality, an extremely dangerous Marxist organisation intent on ripping America apart from within. The overall message of BLM is fine and I’ve never met anyone who’s had a problem with it, at least here in the UK. Their presence on the streets though is increasingly confused. Sure there are peaceful BLM protestors, I took that as a given.

    Without wishing to stir up a hornet’s nest though, this white privilege tag is toxic and serves absolutely no purpose other than to further division and resentment. It is so accepted, it seems, in America that it has come to indicate a form of extreme Marxist brainwashing that is instantly accepted as a result of well over a decade of use in mainstream media and on campuses around the World.

    I agree that this entire area of discussion has become a minefield but why is that exactly? Radical reactions, fly-away tempers (not from this online community) and an ever present creeping fear and loathing seem to pervade any challenges to far-left arguments, however small in scope (again not from this community).

    Deep down, I am absolutely convinced, as a hard working individual, that the current fear-based mindset whirling around this issue is a form of suicide. Allowing any radical group or mass movement (left or right) to gather momentum, is so front loaded with the debris of disaster that I have to say that I’m astonished at how so many people are genuinely scared of openly discussing verbal affronts such as this label white privilege.

    Granted, Britain is not awash with guns and we got over this racial nonsense three decades ago. The current news reports of violent disorder in London will be forgotten in a week.

    Britain is also, in my sincere opinion, a bedrock of free speech where we don’t live in fear of personal kickback. Yes, I understand your sensitivities to hearing a non-American offer an opinion but again, free speech in America seems to be under threat, though not by your laws, rather by a tormented cloud of fear based mindset slowly encircling everyone like a snake.

    Far better to ask more questions than go on the attack and I’m pleased to say that that is, effectively, how Mathew handled any concerns.

    Mathew’s response was very honest and while a little surprised at the rapidity with which I appear to have been cast as some kind of convoluted tea drinking outsider, wearing slippers and living in a dreamworld, I really do sense how powerful/effective entrainment has been over issues like this. I absolutely believe that a great deal of sensitivity over challenges to almost constant attacks on white people is the result of continuous deployment of entrainment technologies.

    Some years ago, I attempted to highlight some of the classified technology embedded in the Windows 7 desktop environment. Perhaps it would have served me better to have said nothing about this. I shudder to think what is available now.

    Thank you for being honest Mathew, I’m certainly not upset over your input as I understand that you have a responsibility to maintain a balance. I did not spill my tea and my monocle did not drop from my eye as I absorbed your take on my post.

    I would ask everyone to try to remember that our entire Human civilisation faces the onslaught of machine intelligence (both through economic strategies and eventually through direct governance) and that our own reactions to life’s onslaught may very well be one of the first indications that our core Humanity is being coerced.

    Yes, I remain tough on the subject of looting. Let’s hope the civil disorder blows over.

    That is all I have to say about that.

    Peace.

  20. As a white American male in my 50s, the term “white privilege” is about as controversial to me as the idea that the sky is blue. I’d no more dispute the reality of my white privilege than I’d argue the evidence my eyes give me about the color of the sky.

    The evidence for both – and the correct terminology – is equally plain and obvious. Marxist?

    Radical??

    “Allowing any radical group or mass movement (left or right) to gather momentum, is so front loaded with the debris of disaster that I have to say that I’m astonished at how so many people are genuinely scared of openly discussing verbal affronts such as this label white privilege.”

    Not sure what to make of this. Is this bait? 🙂 There are so many things that exist now as everyday, good-natured and happy fact that were once were considered not just radical, but heretical, evil, dangerous – and so much more. That’s an absurdly long list. We could go back to the idea that God-Kings were once considered a normal and acceptable thing on Earth, and work our way forward from there.

    Simply the fact that I *exist* as a free being on Earth, with certain inalienable rights given to me simply by the fact of my existence – that’s truly radical. How much “debris of disaster” had to happen for such a thing to come about? Hmm.

    I’m all for open discussion. I consider both Free Will and open, fair discussion of these matters, by individual beings, to be sacred and inviolable. We can all have at it. That is radical. Check world history for a second, for reference.

  21. It’s useful to consider that I am quite unshaken in my readiness to object to the white privilege term.

    Were I another ethnicity and objecting to a specific terminology being directed at me then consideration for my objection would be instantaneous.

    Targeting any group with collective guilt is heinous and certainly does not advance consciousness.

    I really do hope to see less entrainment with regard to the self-entitled manner in which some people and certain groups openly insult white people.

    It is entrainment and it is gathering momentum. This website is largely concerned with conscious development and chundering on about political issues serves little. Have a cup of Tea for once and perhaps drink less coffee.

    Peace.

  22. Out of consideration for Mr Strieber’s work and the direction of this website I will not comment further on this issue.

    It is to the credit of this community that we have engaged in expression without resorting to screaming at one another and that is testament to good work.

    Peace.

  23. “Targeting any group with collective guilt is heinous and certainly does not advance consciousness.”

    This term has nothing to do with collective guilt, and everything to do with understanding both internal and external social and psychological biases, power structures, and freedoms. Those matters are assessed on a factual basis regarding the experiences of humans in society. The danger of “driving while black” is one of thousands of possible examples. One of the more obvious ones. There are many others, some very subtle.

    How does this have anything to do with collective guilt? It is merely a reality assessment, that I choose to make, and that I want to make completely conscious, in order to avoid being _unaware_ of my own biases, and assumed powers and freedoms, to whatever degree possible.

    I feel – rather deeply – that it is critical for my own conscious development to be aware of these matters in reality.

    For example, I could say to the visitors, “You guys have a high degree of visitor privilege.” And my meaning would be fundamentally the same as knowing I have white privilege. I’m totally certain they would agree with me, in a heartbeat.

    Their nature, and their experience of reality, gives them biases, powers and freedoms that other beings without visitor privilege do not have. I am quite certain they work very hard to stay as conscious of their visitor privilege as they possibly can – knowing it would be greatly unfair and unbalanced to interact with humans with _unconscious_ visitor privilege.

    No collective guilt. Simply a collective desire for maximum consciousness, for the greater benefit of all.

  24. Would like to throw in my 2 cents here. I believe “americans” do not consider that the people around the world do not understand the hatred directed toward minorities (specially toward black people) that exists in the USA. This is an “america only” problem. “check your privilege” or “white privilege”, those words mean something very different in other countries. Now I am not saying that racism or bigotry do not exist elsewhere, of course they do, but the level of divide that exists in this country seems to be by far the greatest of all. Now, again I am not trying to fuel a discussion or saying that foreigners should stay out of it, but one must understand that when they express an opinion, they may not completely understand the situation.

    1. Quite the contrary, “white privilege” means the exact same thing in other countries–the U.S. isn’t the only white-dominated country with biases against minority ethnic groups, including the African diaspora; the only difference with the U.S. is the sheer magnitude of the problem.

      Googling “police brutality Canada” or “police brutality England” will illustrate that this is definitely not an America-only problem, with long-running cultural biases against minorities. International nice-guy Canada has a bent toward a bias against Indigenous peoples, but the problem involving Canada’s black population has gotten to the point where a recent incident involving the death of a indigenous/black woman during a police investigation automatically prompted accusations that the police murdered her.

    2. America has definitely developed its own distictive style. But the rest of us have game. Think Hutus and Tutsis, Serbs/Croats/Bosinans or the various massacres and genocides in the name the Britsh Empire. And, no-one is going to forget the generous contributions of Stalin and Hitler. I would not take all the credit for the US just yet. The US has obviously not dealt with its legacy of bloody colonization, or of slavery or the the civil war that came to represent it (an seemingly unresolved conflict that just seems to have just amplified the schism and a sense of pan-generational defiance), or even the war of independence (movie villains still had British accents for many years). And all of it happened over a fairly short space of time and I think events and attitudes were munged in the collective psyche into a pride filled defiant hateful heoric naively optimistic in-denial shadow on everyones shoulder. The harmonics, as always, seem to resonate unabated over the years manifesting as the unfiltered attitudes of successive generations. In the UK “Empire” has left the same kind of ugly tinitus ringing in the ears of our newborns. All cultures in any society seem to find ways to exercise bigotry, but it is the dominant cultures in any society that have the power to exorcise it. They have the power and the means to make a difference, and they have the burden of responsibility to shape the society they control. Every nations has to unlock and voice their own story, and the words are not always there immediately. Powerful loud minorities seem to cause all the trouble in history. The words are always there for them. But the majority of good people trying to speak out until they get it right is all that it takes to force change for the better.

  25. as people argue about race the same old bankers and wall street elites and members of secret societies rob and pillage the govt we all pay taxes to. their divide and conquer is in full effect these days. they put trump there, they pay for BLM protests, They make the society as unbalanced as possible. tell one group they are special another they are criminals. they get a to hate b and all the while no one is talking about them and their control of the money that makes all of this happen. They killed MLK not because he was black but because he brought unity to the divided and refocused the people on the real culprits. the wealthy powerful elites that finance left right and anything that further confuses and causes hate to grow. the problems of america are not of the moment but are created by a ruthless design. until you focus on the designers of division and hate in the halls of power in the banks and wall st and their govt lackeys and see the economic roots of all this we are wasting valuable time. those elites enslave the whole race inc the privileged whites. just diff bars on the cells.

  26. I’ll have to retract my theory in my initial post here. Just saw the body cam footage – Floyd was screaming that he couldn’t breathe long before they put him on the ground. He actually DEMANDED that the cops lay him on the ground!! Go see it where you can find it. WOW! This changes everything!

    The media in this country is absolute garbage!

  27. How does this change anything? He asked to be laid on the ground not to be murdered. Or am I misunderstanding your point?

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