[cookie_monsta]

It might be worth considering that murdered-on-tape-in-broad-daylight is at the extreme end of the spectrum of violence - both direct and indirect - that minorities experience throughout their lives. Otherwise you might end up with the belief that a black person's experience of the USA is only 0.0005% different to that of a white one's.

[darawk]

I think the point is that, though police violence is terrible and should absolutely be corrected, trying to summarize the United States with it is incredibly reductionist.

[cookie_monsta]

Maybe. Or maybe the point is that for some people systemic racism isn't just another abstract problem that doesn't really affect them every single day of their lives.

[darawk]

It seems to me that's what's happening in this thread is privileged people with no experience of systemic racism telling Filipino veterans how they ought to feel about the country they fought for. The people with the concrete experience are speaking, and HN commenters are telling them they're bad and wrong and should be more mad. Seems strange, in light of the prevalence of the word 'listen' of late.

[cookie_monsta]

Seems like an odd place to put this comment. Nobody's talking about Filipino vets on this sub-thread, much less how they should feel or who is bad or wrong or should be mad. Am I missing subtext?

[darawk]

It seems to me that the thrust of this sub-thread is a debate over narratives. One narrative is "America is basically good, but it has serious problems, and we're working on fixing them". Another narrative is "America is basically bad, we should burn it to the ground and start over". Neither of these narratives are right or wrong, because all narratives are false. But I think one of them is more useful than the other.

[cookie_monsta]

And can I argue against your strawman as well, or will that disrupt your momentum?

This subthread started with "Well, ACTUALLY, if you look at the statistics, state sponsored/condoned violence against black people in the US barely exists and all this kerfuffle is an overreaction"

That's not admitting a serious problem, and calling it out as revisionist BS is not saying we should burn the country to the ground.

[hootbootscoot]

You had me, then you lost me.

Hubris and the unwillingness to comprehend real problems and the desire to cover them up with "SHUT UP IT"S GREAT!" won't go down well.

What I'm seeing is more apologism for wrongful historical actions, perhaps in RESPONSE to what you described, but at this point it's become an "AMERICA IS GREAT SO SHUT UP"

[darawk]

Nobody is saying "America is great shut up". America has very serious problems, both currently and historically. The point of this piece and the other commenters in this thread in defending America is not that we should ignore the problems. It's that we should work towards fixing them in a positive way, not a "fuck America" sort of way.

[AnthonyMouse]

It's not "SHUT UP IT"S GREAT!" so much as pointing out specifically why the claim that it isn't great is wrong, to which the responses were a moving of the goalposts to some other, generic wrongs against black people that haven't actually been specified and so can't be addressed.

[cookie_monsta]

Patriotism is just as absurd as any other dogma to a person who doesn't share it. I think the US has done some great things as have most countries. It's when you start blindly believing it's perfect that it seems less than rational.

> generic wrongs against black people that haven't actually been specified

Surely you don't need to hear the list again?