Well, if he simply exited the care without pointing the gun at the cops, they were 100% unjustified in shooting him. Implicit in what I said was the news that perhaps we was pointing the gun at the officers and threatening them. We’ll have to wait for the video.

First of all, apparently this guy got out of his car with a loaded weapon, so it seems as if the police might be justified in killing him.

Actually, black people are killed by police at about the same percentage as Americans in general. And, it’s pretty damned rare.  

No, there really aren’t. Also, the percentage of blacks who have been killed this year by the police is about the same for Americans as a whole.

I’m not saying that every poor person has only him or herself to blame. I am saying that there are people within the community of protesters who refuse to go to school, refuse to use the library to better themselves, and refuse to work.

Yes, but as much as people criticized Parks at the time, no one with any intellectual integrity could say that she didn’t have a right to stay where she was. And, she garnered an enormous amount of sympathy, not only in the black community and among white activists, but in the media and among parts of the white…

That’s correct. I really, really hope there are not conflicts of this kind a week before the election, because it will give tons of fuel to Trump, and he’s simply unacceptable.

Non violent protests are positive. They bring about awareness and change in spades. Look at how much dignity Rosa Parks displayed when she simply refused to sit in the back of the bus- with most homes in the US having nothing more than a radio, she inspired a nation.

Yeah, I live in Texas, and the N word is not cool, even in deep east Texas. Unless you’re up in the swamps near Caddo Lake or Texarkana or down around St. Augustine.

Racist attacks against blacks are horrible; they are also down to their lowest level in our entire history as a country. However, although we’re getting better, we certainly need to do more to prevent the deaths of young black men.

A troll is someone who attempts to intimidate, harass, or otherwise disrupt an online dialogue. There are trolls out there, yes, but there are also those who simply have an alternate point of view to what’s being posted.

That’s right. If a white supremacist kills someone, it’s (rightfully) blamed on white supremacy. If a man rapes a woman, it’s (rightfully) blamed on misogyny. If an Islamic fundamentalist attacks somebody, it’s because he’s gay.

Yeah, it’s ridiculous.

Religious fundamentalists have a hard time thinking rationally, which is why they become- or remain- religious fundamentalists.

Okay- Terry Shiavo comes to mind. Perhaps he messed up a few other things in Florida. Point taken.

Yeah, but it’s bullshit. A Christian fundamentalist who does something shitty is a Christian fundamentalist. Not calling them a Christian fundamentalist is insulting to Christians who are trying to reform the religion. How do you reform the Catholic church, for example, if you say that priests who are pedophiles…

Okay- bigotry, not racism.

Yes, he’s Muslim. If he were Latino, Black, Jewish, gay, trans, you wouldn’t say that he isn’t any of those things. Saying he isn’t Muslim is condescending, affirmative racism. He’s a Muslim fundamentalist. Call it what it is.

To preempt the trolls who will invariably begin invading this board, this bombing had nothing to do with extreme Islam and everything to do with the fact that this guy was a ci male. Cis male privilege is all around us and takes many forms if unchecked.

Jeb Bush is actually kind of cool; he’s become kind of a philosophical searcher. Unlike his brother who, although coming from the most patrician New England WASP background on the planet, somehow hoodwinked the electorate into thinking that he a stock character from a Cormac McCarthy novel, Jeb pretty much acted the…