Surfing Waves

I just wanted to share that the surfers where I live support Black Lives Matter movement https://www.thegardenisland.com/2020/06/07/hawaii-news/paddling-out-for-peace/ I hear it's happening all over the USA. Where i live there are very few blacks but huge support among the community for this matter from a wide selection of races

Australia has similar issues that effect Aboriginal/ first nations/ black Australians, there has been huge protest in recognition of the American situation and as a response to aboriginal deaths in custody, more violence in situational dealing.
. A lot more that is similar to issues with first nation land, and inequality of opportunity!

A positive note we have quite a large number of very good aboriginal surfers right around the country.
They have been well represented on the QS and World Tour!
We could be doing better however!

I don't know Hawaii very well, but Im going to guess there are marginalized communities there also. I moved from a big city to a small coastal town some time ago, many first nations people who struggle with dysfunction due to having their entire lives and culture ripped from them in the not too distant past. Their children were taken at a young age and schooled in an abusive system with the goal of "civilizing" them.

Now they are being demonized for their problems and discriminated against. It's just plain toxic for society when this is allowed to continue.

Well the Hawaiians were unfairly annexed into the USA by wealthy businessmen.. Beyond that racism in Hawaii is a whole different kettle of fish. Hawaii is a melting pot of races. We are a multiracial community with numerous Japanese , Chinese, Portuguese, Filipinos, Germans and other races brought into Hawaii to work in the sugarcane fields. While Hawaiians are a minority for a while they weren't but now Caucasians are no longer a minority. Most people have racial biases like Chinese are cheap, Japanese are smart, Portuguese talk a lot, Hawaiians are lazy, Caucasians are greedy and very much maligned by locals but the severity of racism is much less than say the south USA. Hawaiians still struggle with changes and many feel marginalized and there are less and less pure Hawaiians although there is an effort to have schools that focus on speaking Hawaiian and teach Hawaiian traditions. The people of Hawaii (all races) are very supportive of movements.to fix social injustices.

I oppose BLM in its current form. It is too radical and not structured enough with good stuff mixed with BS.

So do many other Californian surfers.
I don’t like Unjustified violence and destruction.
And, as a lawyer I researched most of the cases that triggered the protests. And, in my opinion the killings were justified and/or adequately handled by the authorities. And, the protest were not adequately handled by the authorities leaving the businesses exposed to looting and vandalism.

Russians are exposed to more discrimination and prejudice than any other minority group in the USA.
And, I don’t think that this prejudice should be addressed with the violence or vandalism.

There are multiple things going on. One is peaceful protests then there are the vandals and the looters. I hear that some protesters feel the vandals and looters serve a purpose by forcing people to pay attention. But some of the looters are opportunists. I think they detract from it and make it more divisive. I don't hear about many Russians being gunned down or killed by the police

Are ready to speak on the merits of any of these BLM shootings:)? Beware: I passed the bar exams in two states and actually read the court documents, not liberal media BS. Try at least Wikipedia. Although biased in favor of BLM, it has to present facts somewhat accurately.

Do you hear about white people being killed by the police? Not even Russians. More white people are being killed by the police. And, not only numerically.
And, Russians are being killed by the police as well.

I face bias and prejudice on daily basis even in the courtroom. And, it’s done openly. Nobody cares to even hide it. And, I don’t complain or arrange protests regarding it. Just push forward and fight against all odds!

And, define peaceful protests. Blocking highways so that kids die because of the resulting delay of ambulance. Is it peaceful ? Half LA was on fire! Nothing was peaceful about these riots. Especially in the middle of the pandemic.

I am sorry to hear of your troubles. You should come to Hawaii. There’s more white people than black people so of course more white people get shot. It’s about the likelihood of getting shot or killed by a police officer. You can have 500 peaceful protesters but it still just takes 1 person to start a fire

I have been to Hawaii and liked it.

I stated that not only numerically but also proportionally.
Just check this CNN. The failed it to fake it well enough that time.

https://youtu.be/mnaXN9tM21Q

It sounded like those two people were talking about different things

OlegLupusov wrote:as a lawyer I researched most of the cases that triggered the protests. And, in my opinion the KILLINGS were justified and/or adequately handled by the authorities.

I'm not a lawyer, but shouldn't the verbiage be "use of lethal force" instead of "killings" ?

OlegLupusov wrote:Russians are exposed to more discrimination and prejudice than any other minority group in the USA.

So you are saying being a white Caucasian, albeit Russian, that you are more apt to be racially profiled and gunned down during a random traffic stop than a African American / Black male ?

America has been trying to make up for the past racism but several problems occur. One is there is still pockets of racism in the USA. Another is that black people have been held down so long they are not equal by birth. In order to make up for it America needs to elevate black people above that of whites for a while to let them catch up. They have been doing that in small ways such as when I applied for college the schools I wanted to attend gave preference to nonwhites. This perhaps needs to happen in some significant way in the legal/penal system. I'm not sure how that should work just that it seems to be needed.

This is a touchy subject and here are my two cents before the post gets lockdown.

I support equality and that we are all human being. I don't support a black person or any person knocking on my door asking for donations and saying that I don't support BLM if I don't donate. Not only I felt threatened but I feel that my family is unsafe. I'm being coerced to donating money. I don't support my friends or colleagues going to protest and thinks it's okay to vandalize and steal from the shops because they believe the big corporates has been stealing from us for generations.

As for the shootings, yes some were clear unjustified killings and are just plain murder. But most of it started off with not complying police orders or someone breaking the law and having police called on them.

of lethal force” does not necessarily result in death or injuries.
And, the use of plain English is more welcome than legalese in the current legal writing.

Resisting police and driving style increase the risk of being Pulled over and being shot.

My black girlfriend has never been pulled over and never got any tickets for her 10+ years of driving.

I got more than 30 parking tickets Within 8 years in the USA although I successfully challenged almost all of them. But it’s all because of my driving habits.

I heard “it’s not Russia” many times within these traffic stops.
Once I asked for the permission to open the glove box to show my driver license and got an additional ticket as the officer refused to let me reach into the glove box.

Following police orders and behavior of the driver overall are crucial for the driver’s survival within a traffic stop. The color of the skin is secondary.
Ganster style outfit, golden teeth, incoherent speech, slang, facial tattoos etc. don’t help either.

I have heard that some outfit, appearance and even manner of speech are part of the culture and as such should be considered “protected” and “immune” from profiling. But I don’t buy this BS.

Another one is that black males’ tantrums and resisting police are justified by prior actions of racist cops and ages of discrimination and the police officers should be considered primary aggressors.
From my perspective, it’s even more outrageous BS.

So, a Caucasian guy wearing ganster outfit, talking incoherently and resisting police is more likely to get shot than a black wearing a suit and talking nicely to the police.

As for CNN video, they were talking about the same Harvard research that demonstrated that black males are shot at a lower rate than white ones to the great surprise of the author of that research.
Don Lemon just tried to obscure it with his usual false narrative.

What shootings were clearly unjustified:)?
I may name one or two. But even then I would not say “clearly” and then these shootings were adequately prosecuted.

BaNZ wrote:As for the shootings, yes some were clear unjustified killings and are just plain murder. But most of it started off with not complying police orders or someone breaking the law and having police called on them.

I think we have to think about what laws are being broken and which laws police chose to enforce. There’s a loooong history of laws being created and enforced solely for the purpose to put Black men and women in jail. There’s a lot you could read on this topic (The New Jim Crow is a good place to start) and there’s a recent Throughline podcast on the history of mass incarceration that gives some good background. The NY Times 1619 project is also very good. I know some will dismiss these sources as “liberal BS” and that is unfortunate and a way to stay in one’s bubble rather than to consider the facts and history behind the moment we’re in.

And while protests are not going to solve the issue, they do bring attention to it and can lead to lasting change (see the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s).

In many ways, I’ve been disappointed in the surfing community’s response to BLM but not surprised. There’s some deep-seated racism within American surf culture that still very clearly exists. I have also been encouraged though to see some taking a stand. There’s a lot of work to be done and I think it starts with education.

It’s sad to me that a simple phrase such as “Black Lives Matter” is up for debate. There have been decades and decades of racist policies and structures in place in the US that have unfairly pushed down Black communities. To deny that is to deny history.

nooshie wrote:

BaNZ wrote:It’s sad to me that a simple phrase such as “Black Lives Matter” is up for debate. There have been decades and decades of racist policies and structures in place in the US that have unfairly pushed down Black communities. To deny that is to deny history.

Agree. When Kap took a knee it was clear that many people were not interested in even thinking about injustice.

Any big problem where people may have to change their behavior, climate change, racism, pandemic response - easier to deny than to act.

BLM is a radical And racist movement quite similar to the current KKK! It may evolve in smth better or worse. Let’s see what happens.

History is history. You learn the facts, draw conclusions and move forward. There is no need in making religion out of history, learning the abuse stories by heart, believe in weird stuff without any basis, and make people villains and saints only based on their beliefs. Most of these ancient stories and anecdotes are irrelevant as of now.

Name any current racist law or institution?
There is some reverse racism against white people or targeting/discriminating immigrants both legal and illegal but no law is discriminating black people.

But I haven’t found any law against black people that has been currently enforced.

So, history is not BS. But justifying current crimes and misfortunes by the history is totally “liberal BS”.

There are More poor white people than black people in the USA. Why should we distinguish people by the color of their skin.
Some white trash from trailer parks are more or less in the same position (if not in the worse than) as black kids from South central or Compton.
Obama daughters, Kopernick, Le Bron are more privileged than an average white person.

I personally know black people who graduated from Princeton and Harvard and white guys who do not have a high school degree!

I have been called a “cracker” and “sugar boy” quite often.
I have been personally attacked by representatives of minority groups. And, the police would not press charges against them although some of these attacks involved knives, etc.
The only guy who ended up indicted was a Caucasian bodybuilder suffering from PTSD who freaked out and tried punching while being wasted. I was able to arrest him without any visible injuries to myself and the perpetrator.

The numbers game. It's not numbers since minorities are just that minorities. It's percentages and BLM is not like KKK whose continued existence shows why these issues need to be addressed. Current crimes are crimes on both sides of the badge..

Please explain how BLM is different from the current version of KKK?
I think that addressing specifics is a good idea.

Liberal BS may make sense as a general idea but it falls apart if you go into specifics.

As for numbers, more white people are killed By the police under similar circumstances than black people proportionally not in absolute numbers.
As for being poor and relevant numbers, the skin color should not be a Definite factor. It’s more about geography and bad neighbourhood.

Why should black people from bad neighbourhood should be more privileged than white people from bad neighbourhood. Most likely, the ancestors of trail park people suffered from some sort of injustice, atrocities and misfortunes.

Obviously, kids from poor families have fewer opportunities, unattractive kids of ugly parents have fewer opportunities than beautiful kids, the same is true for low IQ kids.

And, we should compare opportunities not outcomes!

And, there are many factors to consider. Destructive culture and the absence of fathers are some of the many.
Somehow, we are required to appreciate “rap” and “fleshin' the police” culture. Not doing so makes us racist. Attributing any misfortunes and inclinations to commit crimes to this culture is also racist.
Reporting criminals to the police is racist,
Basically, everything rather than condemning the police and admiring drugs addicts who committed multiple violent crimes and got shot or oven ODed while resisting police is racist.