I agree with everything except - are white people with dreads fashionable and cool? Maybe a select few white celebs but white hippy culture seems slightly mocked to me (now? maybe less so earlier?). I’ve always felt judgemental for this but I find white dreadlocks really off-putting

It’s a really sad situation, and I don’t agree with what the cops did, but in the end it’s possible that precinct will get some of the resources they did. Like you, I understand it.

well - to be fair they literally said they have nowhere to send people looking for help with their addictions. The point of posting the picture was to get the public/gov’t to give them more resources.

100% agree. 

They could get addicted to pain pills, or they could start using when they are say, 14, and still a child.

Right - shaming have severe psychological effects. It’s one thing if a person has choosen to live a public life, but if you are a private citizen it’s another. People who beat their children might “deserve” to be beaten as well, but we have decided as a society that we don’t do that. Public shaming of this sort should…

you’re probably right, and I’ll say again I don’t think it should have been posted - but people outside the area are not so aware of the problem - and he is looking resources, which means broad public awareness and pressure is needed.

I heard that interview and commented above. The man was palpably frustrated and desperate. I do not think they should have posted the picture with all the faces visible - but if that man truly represents the police force they did not have all those terrible intentions everyone is citing here.

My point was not that this action was okay - it is not - which I said clearly. Many people in this thread were saying the cop’s intentions were nefarious, and based on the interview I heard, it sounds like the intentions were actually good. That does NOT absolve the department of their actions, but there is a lot of…

I wrote this above, I’mnewt a reflexive defender of cops but I think this thread has it wrong on the intentions. They shouldn’t have posted this picture, but I heard an interview with one of the cops and I didn’t hear a hint of grandstanding or anything they are being accused of in this thread. The cop sounded…

There are lots of people unaware. I know about this through news reports but to my knowledge I don’t know a single person who has used heroin (cannot say the same for about any other drug besides meth). I’m in my mid-30s and live in an urban area.

I don’t know, I don’t think this was the right action, at the LEAST they could have blurred out the child’s face and adult’s eyes, shaming people like this never sits well with me. But I heard someone from the Liverpool police on the radio, I was prepared to be furious, and I came away extremely sympathetic. The guy…

Now that you say this it seems very obvious. :)

I’ll admit when I was younger I had no idea why that would be offensive. But I’m grateful for the internet for explaining all this to me over the last ten years or so.

yes - I am really over people using “white” and “privileged” interchangeably. It doesn’t do anyone any favors. There is a reason poor white people , rural especially, feel looked down on by liberal elites . . . and it is because they are looked down on by liberal elites. The racism in these (and other) communities…

Normally I’d agree with you but considering David Duke is a visible Trump supporter, the standards are a little different in this election. Calling David Duke and people like him irredeemable is fair.

Well, narcissism has nothing to do with cultural appropriation, and cultural appropriation certainly isn’t worse “these days”, although maybe narcissitic traits are, but probably not true narcissism, and non-white people don’t have some mystical ability to be free of “rampant narcissism”. Sorry you hit all my pet…

What’s your take on the fact that there are a lot of white authors and if all authors “writer what they know” you end up with a complete lack of non-white characters? I think there is something to be said for the clunky march toward non-offensive representations (like how women are depicted over time in Disney movies)…

yes! It’s always the easily offended who are complaining about other people being offended

I don’t know how to make an eyeroll with my keyboard