Life Is A Long Time - It Should Be.
- Thread starter Tout Seul
- Start date
Colin Phillips
At the Start
It's the use of BETTER before insult is the part that concerned me!
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Phil Waters
Guest
Yes, until that 1 innocent man is you...
There is a very serious point here. However, I really don't know of a possible and workable alternative to the current system. Do you? Innocent people have been convicted throughout history but personally, with forensic advances, I would hope and believe that the likelihood of wrongful convictions is dropping all the time.
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Phil Waters
Guest
Like you, I don't know of a suitable alternative to the current system. It doesn't make anyone's points (mine included) any less valid, though.
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Phil Waters
Guest
We're definitely not stuck with it, by any means. Reform and change are (thankfully) part of our society.
Phil, no this isn't a condolence thread to the Walker family. They have some real and genuine support in their home town, where Anthony clearly had sincere friends from a variety of ethnic backgrounds. I just don't think we should have tainted a topic like this with our own petty hatreds or outbursts towards one another. It wasn't appropriate to sling personal insults back and forth in some sort of insult pissing contest. That is what I meant, as I believe you are sharp enough to know.
There's been a programme about Anthony Walker in the context of his school and family a short while ago on BBC1. It's even more incomprehensible that the two young men who attacked him should've done so, since they all lived very close to each other, and Anthony's mum used to pass the time of day with Barton's mother around schooltime. The Walkers moved from Toxteth, which the programme says is very multiracial, to Huyton, which is 'whiter'. I don't know whether there was any hidden resentment, that a black person might move into a slightly more select neighbourhood, behind the outburst. It seems even less understandable to me now, than a straightforward piece of bigoted brutality.
There's been a programme about Anthony Walker in the context of his school and family a short while ago on BBC1. It's even more incomprehensible that the two young men who attacked him should've done so, since they all lived very close to each other, and Anthony's mum used to pass the time of day with Barton's mother around schooltime. The Walkers moved from Toxteth, which the programme says is very multiracial, to Huyton, which is 'whiter'. I don't know whether there was any hidden resentment, that a black person might move into a slightly more select neighbourhood, behind the outburst. It seems even less understandable to me now, than a straightforward piece of bigoted brutality.
jft2005
Conditional
having seen the news yesterday & today, it reminded me about this thrad. a black man (clearly suffering from mental illness) kills a white man & attacks his wife. but this would never, ever be considered as a racist killing. instead we get fobbed off with "obsession with the rich"
if the situation was the other way around, white man goen to black mans house & stabs him & his wife, i have no doubts the press would have branded it a racist killing.
if the situation was the other way around, white man goen to black mans house & stabs him & his wife, i have no doubts the press would have branded it a racist killing.
Colin Phillips
At the Start
.............it's slightly more difficult to find a "rich" black person!
Ted
At the Start
I've got every sympathy with the family of Anthony Walker, and I think the bastards who killed him should have got even longer sentences, but I do find it very strange that cases like Anthony Walker and Stephen Lawrence get far more media coverage than a white victim would get.
In Scotland a gang of asians kidnapped a 15 year old white lad, they tortured this poor kid before killing him, but is his case on the news every week like the other two? the answer is no it's not, even though it was an even worse crime than the Walker and Lawrence cases. Did the BBC broadcast a memorial service to this poor youngster? no, of course they didn't, but they did for Anthony Walker. People could be forgiven for thinking that as far as the British media are concerned, a black person's life is more important than that of a white person.
Personally I don't think that's right.
In Scotland a gang of asians kidnapped a 15 year old white lad, they tortured this poor kid before killing him, but is his case on the news every week like the other two? the answer is no it's not, even though it was an even worse crime than the Walker and Lawrence cases. Did the BBC broadcast a memorial service to this poor youngster? no, of course they didn't, but they did for Anthony Walker. People could be forgiven for thinking that as far as the British media are concerned, a black person's life is more important than that of a white person.
Personally I don't think that's right.
Oh, come on now, jft - there are plenty of black vs black murders, just as there are white vs white murders, which are all to do with mental disorders and nothing to do with skin colour. Just occasionally, it really DOES happen - a white person goes berserk and kills another white person because of their paranoia or obsession, a white person kills a non-white, and a non-white kills a white.
They're all mentally unstable, and it's the instability that's to blame, not even the person in a way, since they often don't understand they've committed a crime, or even think that what they've done is wrong. This guy was delusional, as many thousands of people walking around today are. Some of them even think that they've found a way to make money backing horses - now, how crazy is that?
On a slightly more serious note, and not something that gets pointed out too often, there is a slightly higher percentage of black people suffering from schizoid personality disorders than there are white. That doesn't mean that there aren't plenty of mentally unstable whites around, but the schizoid personality is more frequently found in younger black males than in younger white males. Because of the perceived shame attached to mental illness, many families don't want to present the young man for assessment, let alone treatment. It isn't usually until some behaviour gets really outrageous, or the Police are involved, that a psychiatric evaluation is made. In the case of the killing mentioned above, the man had been previously deemed dangerous, but RELEASED - presumably, if there was supposed to be any medical support for him, it failed, as it so often has done in the past when so-called 'cured' patients are once again released into society.
It seems that what failed the family was not so much a deranged male, black or white, but the evaluation system which deemed him fit to roam the streets, and failed to check how his obsessive nature was progressing or worsening.
There are plenty of horror stories concerning obsessives, and their ethnic origin has nothing to do with their behaviour. I was aware of a case, when I worked for Victim Support, where the WHITE male, not content with having killed his little son ('he was taking all of my wife's love away from me'), said he was 'coming back' for the rest out of vengeance. All the family could do was get fitted with a CCTV and better locks and hope for the best - the 'system' said he HAD to be released if the prison psychiatrists deemed him fit to go, even though he was making threats, which he denied he'd made. He WAS released and, because of a banning order not to enter the village where the family lived, he skulked just a mile outside it, letting everyone know he was around, but legally not breaking the order, and so avoiding re-arrest. The Police would have loved to have put him back inside for good, but the fact is, cases are reviewed annually, and if that particular year the person SEEMS to have made progress, out they go!
They're all mentally unstable, and it's the instability that's to blame, not even the person in a way, since they often don't understand they've committed a crime, or even think that what they've done is wrong. This guy was delusional, as many thousands of people walking around today are. Some of them even think that they've found a way to make money backing horses - now, how crazy is that?
On a slightly more serious note, and not something that gets pointed out too often, there is a slightly higher percentage of black people suffering from schizoid personality disorders than there are white. That doesn't mean that there aren't plenty of mentally unstable whites around, but the schizoid personality is more frequently found in younger black males than in younger white males. Because of the perceived shame attached to mental illness, many families don't want to present the young man for assessment, let alone treatment. It isn't usually until some behaviour gets really outrageous, or the Police are involved, that a psychiatric evaluation is made. In the case of the killing mentioned above, the man had been previously deemed dangerous, but RELEASED - presumably, if there was supposed to be any medical support for him, it failed, as it so often has done in the past when so-called 'cured' patients are once again released into society.
It seems that what failed the family was not so much a deranged male, black or white, but the evaluation system which deemed him fit to roam the streets, and failed to check how his obsessive nature was progressing or worsening.
There are plenty of horror stories concerning obsessives, and their ethnic origin has nothing to do with their behaviour. I was aware of a case, when I worked for Victim Support, where the WHITE male, not content with having killed his little son ('he was taking all of my wife's love away from me'), said he was 'coming back' for the rest out of vengeance. All the family could do was get fitted with a CCTV and better locks and hope for the best - the 'system' said he HAD to be released if the prison psychiatrists deemed him fit to go, even though he was making threats, which he denied he'd made. He WAS released and, because of a banning order not to enter the village where the family lived, he skulked just a mile outside it, letting everyone know he was around, but legally not breaking the order, and so avoiding re-arrest. The Police would have loved to have put him back inside for good, but the fact is, cases are reviewed annually, and if that particular year the person SEEMS to have made progress, out they go!