zlacker

> Trump’s posts included the racially charged phrase “when the looting starts, the shooting starts”

How is that racially charged?

>>JohnBe+(OP)
The phrase has some history. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_the_looting_starts,_the...

>>JohnBe+(OP)
It's a quote said in 1967 by Miami police Chief Walter Headley who was talking about how he will respond to protests against the police. For context, he also said he was against "young hoodlums, from 15 to 21, who have taken advantage of the civil rights campaign. ... We don't mind being accused of police brutality"

The Chief got the phrase from the guy who used firehoses and dogs against children during the Birmingham, AL protests.

>>dceddi+x
Is the history of that phrase commonly known? That long and detailed Wikipedia Article was only created after Trump said the phrase:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=When_the_looting_...

>>JohnBe+(OP)
I wish you weren't getting downvoted because I was wondering the same, and I'm happy someone asked so that I could learn the answer.

>>alasda+R
That sounds like the "Hitler liked dogs" argument. Just because that police chief sounds like a bad person from the quote doesn't mean that everything he said was bad. In fact, I think many Americans would be fine with the use of violent force to stop violent criminals

>>JohnBe+z2
I must admit, I didn’t know the origin of the phrase when Trump said it. I only learned about it after the fact, and passed on the link here.

>>baby+H2
Seconded. Us non-Americans watching what's going on can't be expected to know something an unremarkable American cop said 50 years ago.

Is it such a well known phrase among Americans or something that most people just learned was a thing?

>>alasda+R
If you read "young hoodlums" and think of certain race maybe it's your own bias shining through. Where I grew up on Ohio the kids I considered "young hoodlums" didn't happen to be any specific race

>>rmello+25
Even in the US it wasn't well known - most people just learned it was a thing.

>>rmello+25
I was the one who asked the question and I've lived in the US all my life. I had never heard the phrase or knew that Trump said it until this conversation just now.

>>JohnBe+z2
Yes, the history is fairly well known by people who lived in the late 1960s. It was reported in the press and major magazines.

>>derisi+A5
From context, it's pretty clear who he is talking about.

>>JohnBe+(OP)
If you wanna believe the man who said that.

Here's the actual tweet explaining it - https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/12664341539328942...

>>derisi+A5
Except Headley had used "hoodlums from the Negro districts" in the past, and it's pretty clear that it's being used similarly here.

>>rmello+25
We didn’t need to know it to read it as inherently racist. If you can’t interpret that, it’s a problem with reading comprehension.

>>cmdli+58
Oh I see. Well if it’s “pretty clear” then I guess that’s it then, discussion over.

>>JohnBe+z2
When someone leads a nation of several hundred million people, it is expected that their public communication be thoroughly vetted. This is even true at a medium to large corporation for an executive.

This is an expectation. I don’t actually believe Trump has anyone filtering his speech and I don’t think he’s educated enough to understand the phrase he said, but with that said, yes, we should expect our leaders to be informed on the nature of the words they say especially in the context of a crisis or emergency.

>>derisi+A5
Thank you for explaining that you, who grew up 1,700 miles away, decades later, and not a police chief with the literal legal ability to kill black people with impunity, did not have the exact same thought process as this particular person. That was very helpful and your insight contributed enormously to clarifying the point.

>>symlin+th
No, no, I’m sure you have a valid point here. In addition, the people that talk about the (((globalists))) could really be talking about absolutely ANY ethnic group at all and making inferences based on the speaker’s past language and behavior and overt, documented, racism would be entirely silly.

>>ponsin+h4
> That sounds like the "Hitler liked dogs" argument. Just because that police chief sounds like a bad person from the quote doesn't mean that everything he said was bad

This sounds like the “straw man” argument. Just because I made a specific point about a specific utterance does not mean that I was claiming that literally every single thing he said was intrinsically racist. In fact, I think many Americans would be fine with the idea that this was a massive stretch of what I just said.

But you knew that and decided to post anyway.

>>JohnBe+z2
If Trump didn't know, I suspect that he had adopted the phrase from someone in his circle who does know - can imagine him thinking 'sounds like a catchy way of threatening consequences; I'm going to bust that out next chance I get.'