A random criminal being accidentally killed by a random overexcited cop...sad for sure but there are much bigger injustices committed all over the world every second. Probably not enough space here to put a banner for each of them.

By this point I would not judge people in minieapolis if they would ask for refugee status in Canada... The USA is having nationalist riots. Hopefully they can de-escelate it quickly. the police in miniapolis should probably be replaced by new cops, but the protesters should also stop joining looting parties and riots, and they should defenitly not be outside when the government ordered them not too, and there is a plauge going on. that is the thing with nationalist fighting: everyone are the bad guys.
Obviously, the killing of george floyd is inexuceble, but it seems it was just a bad police department, not systematically against against americans who happen to have a darker skin and ancestors in africa.

If y'all think all these protests going on around the US and the rest of the world are about one specific incident you are missing the point by an astonishing margin.

@Scuba: Folks are being shot in the street for taking a stand. How less popular do you want it to get?

Also, @Calvin that was really well spoken and I think Spartan's point is critical in all of this as well.

Nobody is questioning or diminishing the importance of your cause but there are plenty others. If they put a banner for yours they should accept to put one as well for others upon requests.
There is not enough room for it here and it s not the purpose of this website anyway.

+1 Agnaar

jmo1121109 wrote :
"we don't view fighting for equal human rights as political"

On the contrary : every fight for, or against, something is political, especially if that something is related to rights.

Thanks CBro, I'm just hoping people engaged with my points in good faith, despite some evidence to the contrary haha! I'm also hoping that everyone in this thread might do a bit of reading on current events and the history of the US as a system built to disadvantage POC, specifically Black people, and maybe even challenge the status quo narratives surrounding policing/racism in the States because everyone can always do more.

Anyone who has access to Netflix should watch "13th" - it's a very interesting perspective that I was previously ignorant of.

+1 Battalion

Just going to bump this to the top of the forum list again, for visibility

I don't think the vdip community has any history of racism, and so I think a statement in support of black lives matter would be unnecessary on this platform. However, there does seem to be a general assumption (I have no idea to what extent accurate) that everyone here is male. I think maybe a statement in support of female vdip players would be more directly relevant to this site.

That's a great point, ingebot - I've got tired of reminding other players that not everyone here is male (though I am myself). I'm often reminded that not everyone's first language is English, but I think awareness could still be improved.

I'd be cautious about hijacking this thread, though.

I'd agree that doing that is way less apolitical and more relevant to the site, either supporting female players or non-English speaking players

I agree with ingebot, but think that it is equally political to post about supporting female players and non-English speaking players. That is, it is a rights and equality issue rather than a "politics" issue

I would prefer a statement that is inclusive of all disadvantaged groups. I was and am appalled at the events in the US, and I would certainly endorse the sentiments that call for fair and equitable treatment for all people irrespective of their racial origin, class, creed, colour or sexual orientation.

But I am not a fan of the historical revisionism that is taking past events out of context ... it's very dangerous and is precisely the sort of thing that Chairman Mao practiced. HBO's withdrawal of Gone With the Wind, will doubtless be followed by similar excisions of works taken out of context. George Washington owned 317 slaves at his death; Dickens was racist (vis. Fagin et al), etc.

Quota methods of ensuring fairness not only don't work, as Adidas are introducing, because they don't address the institutional racism that employs disproportionately more white folk, that same institutional racism will likely provide a dangerous and unpleasant workplace for those who are employed to fill those quotas. Considered, constructive thought is required.

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it - George Santayana.

+1 ingebot.

@Chumbles: I think a lot of people right now are missing the difference between "erasing" certain aspects of history and "celebrating" them. Personally I'm glad Gone With The Wind is going back on HBO with a contextual writeup. But it's important to note that taking down confederate statues or banning confederate flags isn't "forgetting" our history, it's just finally ceasing to celebrate American traitors in prominent places. Much of the historical revisionism regarding the civil war came and continues to come from the south who put up these statues as late as the 1960s to celebrate the "noble lost cause" and to continue to enforce the racial social hierarchy.

That's a fair point, CBro27, and I agree with it, but by the same token the Founding Fathers should also be contextualised. There's so much that needs this contextual treatment - here in the UK, the Opium Wars tends used to be treated as an historical aberration rather than an unprincipled attempt to counterbalance the trade deficit due to Chinese porcelain and tea exports; French, and American traders joined in and thus the growing, processing and smuggling of the opium poppy spread quickly throughout the Near to Far East... and this trade has morphed into a horrible and deadly disease that 'infects' the world to this day ...

I totally agree. I remember as a kid my family did a tour of Mount Vernon and during the very brief time we spent at the former slave quarters, it was presented as "Well it sucks they were slaves but at least they got to live on this beautiful estate and hang out with the father of our nation."

@Chumbles: speaking of the Opium Wars, some people in Hong Kong (where I live) actually subscribe to (and promote) the idea that the UK waged the Opium Wars in order to save the Chinese population from consuming opium o.O

*UK protecting the natural right to be a junkie.

Yeah, the British Empire was pretty progressive on drug policy.

Agree wholeheartedly with the OP. The internet can be a pretty toxic place, so it's nice to know that any particular site is explicitly against racism. Also really important stuff being said here about making women, or non-male people in general, feel welcome here, but it feels a bit cynical to use this moment to do that