Often times when I'm learning other languages, I learn about words in languages that I already know- this often happens in Chinese, where my overall vocabulary is not that high (I did not take the Chinese equivalent of the SAT's) and where there are hundreds of thousands of combinations of Chinese characters that become words. More rarely, though, I learn English words- like today, I was reminded of what "de facto" means- it's a bit tricky, but it's useful to contrast it with "de jure," which means by law, something is that way, but the law isn't always reality, and the reality of who someone is or what something is is "de facto," in fact.
In today's society, much more than when I was growing up, people have strong opinions on "hot- button issues" (hot button started out as a marketing term in 1970's America where advertisers would prompt users to hit a proverbial "button" to get them to react to products, or so the theory goes). Whether it's due to the rise of social media, or increased polarization in politics (the left and right grow further and further apart on issues, it's like 2 versions of the United States), and everyone having all the news right away and being able to express it right away, average citizens are more and more expressive about certain hot button issues. It's also partly because no one wants to read a measured response on Facebook exploring both sides and finding merit in each side's arguments, nope, people are much more likely to be "upvoted" or get "Likes" for short, to-the-point, clear-cut opinion on something hot-button (ironic that we now have buttons we "click" on to like or love posts that cause certain issues to become hot button because they get the most attention and rise to the top of the page due to algorithms. For example, today NASA was scheduled to broadcast the SpaceX launch for its seventh Starlink mission, but weather got in the way and it was postponed. This was pretty big news due to it being the first time in more than 10 years a mission would launch into space from US soil (think Apollo 13), but it's not hot-button: there are no divisions of thoughts or disagreements one can have about it: it's happening or it's not happening. The bigger news of the day, carried over from yesterday, was the George Floyd police killing in Minneapolis, where a black man was killed because a white police officer put his knee on his neck while making an arrest, denying him the ability to breath for several minutes and eventually causing Floyd to die.
Racial relations in this country is ALWAYS a hot-button topic because it's such human stories, where there are videos of killing and police brutality and crime, and has roots of white-black race relations that have haunted the U.S. since its inception of the country. Every time police brutality happens it's a tragedy, and recently they've frequently been recorded using smartphones and posted online right away, so there is immediate public outrage; almost everyone on Facebook will post their stance on it. a condemnation of the officers, and I feel there is inherent pressure to take a strong stance on it; almost as though NOT taking a stance is frowned upon, suggests apathy and tacit approval of the action. Having watched the video, the incident is hard to stomach. The officer on top of Floyd is pressing his knee on his neck consistently without even thinking about it, just casually, while onlookers tell the officers that Floyd may be in trouble, and Floyd also yelling out that he can't breathe. Unfathomable behavior by the officer, and this isn't the first time something like this has happened. I think EVERY one of these police killings is a tragedy, but I also feel it's overreaching to lump them all into one category and use it as a tool for one's arguments. There definitely is racism, explicit racism in this country. But lumping each tragedy into all racial crimes seems wrong to me. For sure, the officer who killed Floyd was right to be fired, and to be arrested and have charges pressed against him. However, certain posts like "send this man to prison now!" are a little too strong (evades the right to a trial afforded each person), and doesn't answer to me why this was a racial crime: did the white officer do this to Floyd only because he was black? Or because Floyd was a suspect in a minor crime? Does this officer do this to all suspects? Is he just a bad cop, regardless of what race of suspect he is dealing with? I've dealt with some good cops in my life, I've dealt with some bad cops, and the bad cops can be arrogant, seemingly on a power trip, and dismissive all the time, but I've never had any evidence to show that they were being racist, although I'm sure some are. These are questions that I thought would need to be answered before this got labeled a racial crime, and I think should be kept in mind when deciding what to do going forward and making officers aware in the future.
For example, today I was stopped in the streets while running by an African American man and asked "Let me ask you a question. How you gonna let a man lie on the ground and not be able to breathe, man?" The implicit reasoning that since I was Asian, I was somehow complicit in what the Asian American police officer in the video (his Caucasian partner was tacking George Floyd while he stood to the side watching) did. I don't want to diminish Floyd's death and compare his suffering to my suffering of being questioned on the street (not physically assaulted at all), but I do think these kind of incidents can trigger the wrong responses, of blaming people for deaths. For sure the Asian American officer did wrong as well, and deserves punishment in a court of law, but did he also do it because he is racist? Is it right to be racist towards me because of the reaction to these (maybe) racist actions? Doesn't seem like that hate should fuel more hate-filled reactions.
I'm learning as we go along to, and I admit to being wrong many times, and would love to learn about these hot-button issues.
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