Conversation

Aella
@Aella_Girl
1/ When I was a Christian, we believed that we were persecuted. Any time there was a high profile killing of a Christian, we heard about it. Any bad thing that happened to Christians was fed through a narrative that the world was out to get us because they hated us.
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Aella
@Aella_Girl
2/ As a woman, I hear a lot about sexism. I personally don't much view things through gendered lenses, and so don't interpret negative stuff that happens to me as sexism, because often I think it isn't. The wage gap is mostly a myth, yet I hear it being promoted constantly.
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Aella
@Aella_Girl
3/ So I have a similar view about feminism as I do about my old Christianity - we're being emphasized specific examples in a victim narrative that gives us a sense of cohesion and power, gives shape to our pains and a clear moral direction for where to go.
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Aella
@Aella_Girl
4/ Tangent: The US has been really shitty to black people. Even ignoring slavery - we've actively burned down prosperous black cities, regulated them into poverty, and also done a lot of lynching. There's a reason black people are on average poorer, and it's largely the white US.
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Aella
@Aella_Girl
5/ Poverty breeds crime, and areas of higher crime get higher police violence, pretty proportionally. Since black people make up more of the poor population, they experience more police brutality. This is an indirect, lasting effect of the systemic racism of the past.
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Aella
@Aella_Girl
6/ But when adjusted for poverty and crime and stuff, as far as I can tell (open to debate! lots of studies, nuanced!), it appears there's actually no significant disparity in police violence based on race. But the cultural narrative right now is the complete opposite.
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Aella
@Aella_Girl
7/ This doesn't surprise me; a group's lived experiences don't necessarily mean much (unless we want to believe evangelical Christians are persecuted in the US, or ignore data about the wage gap). It's real easy to construct a wide variety of opinions on the same experience.
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Aella
@Aella_Girl
8/ But moreso, I'm concerned that a more important discussion around police brutality and training is being coopted by a statistically unsupported narrative around racism. I don't mean that racism isn't real or that its lasting effects aren't part of the background here
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Aella
@Aella_Girl
To be completely fair, the stuff here is still nuanced! There's racial bias found some places, in some levels, depending on where you look. But even including this, it's very far from the widespread police racism that you'd think exists from looking on social media.
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Fake Mario
@ShakedDown
Replying to
@Aella_Girl
Another point: "police brutality and abuse of power is out of control, but they only target black people" gives white people a false sense of security, and makes us all less safe from them. White people who feel personally safe offer worse support to victims of cops.
anti ego
@DLydbyrd
Replying to
@Aella_Girl
The narrative and attitude itself is important though Even if police violence against black people was equal adjusted for poverty, even if the nation has built up this media narrative on false premises That narrative still being overpowered by *something* that leads to the...
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Travis Thompson
@thompsontravis
Replying to
@Aella_Girl
I think u got a point in here. But I would say there's 2 things ur ignoring: 1. White Christians have built a system of power so victim mentality as "lived experience" is BS. 2. Reaction to police brutality is never just about police. To make all this about 1 issue is... racist.
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Nesdon Booth
@Nesdon
Replying to
@Aella_Girl
The part of this that is hardest for me is the psychic violence done, especially to little black boys, who wrongly believe that police will assassinate them in cold blood just for being black. No one should have to live with that kind of fear.
Colby
@ZerothAxiom
Replying to
@Aella_Girl
It’s certainly eerie and it is crazytown. But it’s not surprising at all. Every event turns into a tool to be used to bludgeon those who reject the narrative. Look at your first reply. This person literally made your point for you, while attacking you.