I am actually quite shocked by this. It's not like I haven't heard about police brutality and in many cases light penalties by the judicial system in America in cases where white men have killed black teenagers, claiming it was done in self-defense. But I always used to see Rage Against the Machine's "Killing in the name" as a bit of as exaggeration. Even though one has to assume some police departments may be corrupted or racist, the US has undergone many changes and I suppose it has a high number of black policemen.
On the other hand, I know that there are many bad neighborhoods (I would not say black neighborhoods because the problem is not unique to the black community) where the crime level, especially teenage crime, is so high that the police is scared of getting into. Not fighting the crime level and gangs there hurts, first and foremost, the residents of those neighborhoods who are stuck with a low standard of living and find it more difficult to escape their poverty.
I would be interested to hear PFG's comment on this.
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I've been away from this forum for a while. I don't know whether I should share this, but it's been a horrible period in my country lately. As many of you probably heard, the Hamas organization governing Gaza has pulled Israel into another conflict by launching rockets attacks and infiltrations, and in response Israel launched operation "Protective Edge" for destroying the military capabilities of Hamas. The operation was completed, but with no political results. Hamas has been leading a round of temporary ceasefires while refusing the terms Egypt and Israel set for a permanent one. Voices has been raised in Israel saying that the situation, of repeated armed conflicts that has continued since the Hamas takeover of Gaza in 2007, cannot go on, and that Israel has no choice but to reoccupy the Gaza Strip to drive out the Hamas militants and leadership.
Meanwhile, the media and international institutions were being very critical of Israel, while at the same time not condemning the crimes of Hamas against Israel and the population of Gaza, who suffers the most from Hamas' violence and violations of human rights.
It seems like the entire middle east is going crazy, with ISIS taking over parts of Iraq and Syria, committing gruesome crimes against humanity and creating humanitarian catastrophes. In comparison to those guys, Bashar Assad, the autocrat of Syria who killed hundreds of thousands of his men in the civil war, seems like a nice guy.
This extremism is pulling our world to the dumpster, and in our global society, don't think any place is safe.
*sigh*