Moving to another place (Seattle) where (for instance) racism is still a part of the fabric of everyday life but a part of the social discussion was challenging as I was introduced to ideas that felt unintuitive. But empathy helped me grow and understand more than I did, and helped me value and pursue that growth.
It also helped me recognize (for other instances) I had unconsciously internalized other biases. I had rejected my own sexuality (I identify queer, demisexual) and my gender identity (I accept he/him/they/them pronouns equally).
I hope a little empathy goes far for you. It’s not often in a followup like this I see someone willing to reciprocate the empathetic spirit and acknowledge a contrary view kindly. Who knows where it’ll take you, but I hope you’ll consider that your experience may be coloring your ideas and that you may have room for other ideas in that consideration.
And I don't like to pick apart semantics, but the way you use the term "American BLM" is a Straw Man and an Ad Hominem deployed in tandem. It's difficult to have a constructive debate when it's posed in those terms.
When you say "American BLM" as if it were a monolithic entity and attach negative attributes to it, that goes to the heart of the matter.
I don't know how to have a conversation with you from across that chasm.
British police officers don't routinely carry guns and therefore couldn't possibly shoot you even if they wanted to. In fact, there is an almost zero probability of anyone in the UK getting shot by the police unless they happen to be committing an act of terrorism or murder at the time.
And of course https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Jean_Charles_de_Me...
This is the disputed evidence at the center of the question; the gun was found several meters away from the scene, on the other side of a fence, "wrapped in a sock". There is a protracted argument about how plausible it is that he threw it there after being shot in the arm.
> they invariably seem to be about people who were in the process of attacking the police when they were shot.
If the police shoot someone, then of course all the official reports will say that they were attacking the police. There have been a number of mass casualty incidents in the UK (Hillsborough, Bloody Sunday) where the police or army reports turned out to be lies.
Living and working near London I always assumed the increased ethnic diversity and global outlook in the capital led to less racism. I assumed it was the rural homogenous countryside that had more endemic racism. I guess we all misunderstand each other all the time.
From https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-9477....
>In the short run, however, immigration and ethnic diversity tend to reduce social solidarity and social capital. New evidence from the US suggests that in ethnically diverse neighbourhoods residents of all races tend to ‘hunker down’. Trust (even of one's own race) is lower, altruism and community cooperation rarer, friends fewer.
There's plenty of secondary sources reporting on this study if you want to have a look for the varying opinions on it but I thought I'd link the source of it itself.
Whether less trust, less cohesion etc. == more racism is something I'm not in a position to draw a conclusion over, but it's interesting nonetheless.
More flareups, perhaps, especially riots against the Metropolitan police, but more diversity tends to make people less racist as they actually meet people of other ethnicities rather than just repeat what they've heard about people they've never met or seen.
Was the Bristol statue teardown an import? The tactic of just dumping it in the sea was, and the "triggering event" of solidarity protests was, but the underlying question of why Bristol has a statue of a man who committed crimes against humanity had been rumbling on for years and the council had voted down even a recontextualisation plaque.
Scotland has some similar "historical benefits of slavery" questions to look at; Edinburgh's own pro-slavery politician statue (Henry Dundas) is somewhat protected by being at the top of a 150-foot column.
I fully support discussing racism in the UK and what we can do to counter it but I don't get why we're discussing it as if it's the exact same situation over here with the same solutions. This might to a symptom of London centric-ness where there is far more ethnic diversity and therefore racism.