
I Can't Breathe - radmuzom
https://blog.citigroup.com/2020/05/i-cant-breathe/
======
dahfizz
Pretty bold of Citi to publish something like this. I wish more companies had
the balls to do something like this... Not just some "Yay equality!!" Tweet,
but a real and specific stance. Kudos.

~~~
brodouevencode
IDK, I’m a little more skeptical of this post. It seems more posturing than
actually effecting change. CFOs have other means of doing that, in better ways
than a simple blog post. This is no different than the celebrity cause du jour
tweet except that it’s coming from a business leader rather than some
actor/actress/pop star. Let’s see this CFO use their connections and influence
to make things better in real ways.

~~~
Rury
Agreed. Actions speak louder than words. This (and many other company
statements like this) are mostly empty nice feel good words, but merely that.
Just like what a populist or demagogue would say/do to appear favorably in the
eyes of others...

IMO donating to an organization seems weak. It's like outsourcing the problem
to someone else, and thinking your helping them because you're giving them
money. If you really want to help, get your hands dirty, and take matters into
your own hands...

~~~
kthejoker2
Strongly disagree with this sentiment. Not everyone has the time, skills, or
even the "cred" to get their hands dirty.

Giving money to good causes is never weak. It is an extraordinarily effective
tool for those of us who want to help.

An effective legal advocacy or lobby group is a force multiplier - they're
hands down the best "bang for your buck" in this situation.

By contrast, me spending a day working with inner city youth or building
Habitat for Humanity is laudable or protesting in the streets is at best
effective on a much smaller scale.

And secondly, this message is clearly aimed squarely at other well to do
concerned citizens like him who are looking for ways to help.

He is effectively vetting these organizations as "acceptable by the CitiGroup
C suite." As an example, I forwarded this to my parents who would never "get
their hands dirty" but also are open to donating to good causes.

This will reach them in a way no celebrity tweet or protest sign possibly
could.

------
kpmcc
How many people did they foreclose upon during the mortgage crisis? How many
people have they extracted usurious amounts of interest from? How many people
have they lured into debt and deceitful loans?

This is a large corporation with as much a hand in perpetuating systemic
inequality as any other large corporation. Moreso because it exists in the
financial sector. Calling out inequality and donating funds generated from
parasitic practices is not enough. Let's talk about debt forgiveness,
defunding the carceral state and dismantling other structures of oppression.

~~~
gumby
That was 12 years ago. Perhaps they have learned from it?

(I don't believe they have learned anything, but this tiny chink in the armor
suggests that at least I'll give them the benefit of the doubt on this blog
post.)

------
scarface74
When it comes to speaking for racial justice and equality for LGBTQ, private
corporations have been much more on the side of the angels than the
government.

The same government that wants to shut down Twitter.

~~~
rjkennedy98
You mean the same corporations that got bailed out by the us tax payer, had
billions of dollars of fines, and should have executives in prison for
misconduct. Yeah they are the ones we should look up to /s

~~~
scarface74
You’ll have to excuse me if I’m a lot less concerned about white collar crime
than I am about a government that systematically targets people who look like
me.

But speaking of which, the government is also run by a President who actually
quoted a segregationist governor about how to deal with protestors.

As far as crimes, he also was fined for both running a fake charity and a fake
“university” and members of Congress basically got away with insider trading
pre-Covid.

But your statement kind of demonstrates the problem. Unarmed Black people are
getting killed by police and it getting covered up by corrupt government. When
I have to worry about my son who has grown up all of his life in the burbs
being seen as a threat because he is a big Black guy living in a predominantly
White city, I really don’t give a damn about a corrupt CEO compared to a
corrupt justice system.

------
29athrowaway
This investigation will likely end in nothing.

This will be delayed until news coverage stop, then everyone can continue
their life business as usual.

The cops that choked Eric Gardner to death are all free right now.

~~~
masonic

      The cops that choked Eric Gardner to death are all free right now.
    

Despite Loretta Lynch hand-picking the DOJ investigating agents, she declined
to pursue civil rights charges. (Remember, that was the mechanism used by GHW
Bush's DOJ to successfully prosecute Powell and Koon in the Rodney King
beating after the Simi Valley jury acquittal.)

------
BLKNSLVR
"Despite the progress the United States has made, Black Americans are too
often denied basic privileges that others take for granted. I am not talking
about the privileges of wealth, education or job opportunities. I'm talking
about fundamental human and civil rights and the dignity and respect that
comes with them. I'm talking about something as mundane as going for a jog."

What progress?

This song was written in 1966. It could have been written this morning:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFNkacckLBU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFNkacckLBU)

We have made technological progress, which has brought it's own benefits, but
that may be more in the form of keeping us busy / distracted; pointing our
genetically evolved anger and biases towards the Internet rather than the real
world.

But progress within humanity itself?

There can't be progress if there are no consequences, or if the consequences
are escaped too frequently, or if the blame is laid upon the symptoms and not
the cause: Rioting and looting is anti-social and illegal, yes, but property
destruction isn't the same ball park as murder. Focus on the cause, and the
symptoms disappear.

But then it's impossible to provide any absolute answer. There's overwhelming
beauty in humanity. The good ones are forgiving, and the bad ones will take
advantage, and this takes us into game theory. The only way the game changes
is if the rules are changed to have more / worse consequences for the bad
actors; better systems to ensure the enforcement of these consequences.

Bad elements of humanity will persist despite all this; we'll be colonising
Mars in parallel with children being brought up to hate anything unfamiliar,
female circumcision will still be law in some countries, and there will still
governments that censor and censure even minor dissent, flat-earthers, anti-
vaxxers, holocaust deniers.

I don't know if the US is making progress in race relations. That song from
1966 says a resounding no. I don't know if the political will exists within
those with the political power to change things. US politics (only because
that's the current example) is like my parents' fashion sense: stuck in their
favourite era and showing no signs of even the consideration of modernising.

I don't know the answer, and it's maddening and depressing. But it's
ignorable, for me, and therein lies the cause of the lack of political will:
the symptoms aren't bad enough warrant the cost of seeing the doctor. School
shootings once a month aren't bad enough to change gun laws; one dead black
man doesn't have anywhere near the political capital of a dozen dead children.

For there to be change, the symptoms have to be more extreme, and they have to
persist. History says so.

Technologically, this is 2020. Sociologically this might as well be 1966.

~~~
scarface74
_What progress?_

Seeing that my parents grew up in the segregated south where racism was the
law - ie Jim Crow - I wouldn’t say there is no progress. Also redlining was
the law.

While the criminal justice system is just as corrupt as it ever was. It isn’t
getting worse - it’s getting filmed.

 _Technologically, this is 2020. Sociologically this might as well be 1966._

Did you or your parents grow up in the 60s? Have they told you what life was
like then?

------
davidg109
I admit, I was cringing when I saw the Citi logo at first thinking they would
somehow pivot this into some marketing ploy.

Good on Citi for taking a firm stand and calling on some organizations people
can donate to, which I personally hadn’t heard of until I read the post.

------
loopz
Police stood by and watch someone presumably getting murdered. Aside from also
heart condition present, society can't tolerate bullying any longer. Grow some
spine, even if they break you.

------
eli_gottlieb
Some information on the pressures driving statements like these, beyond the
writer's personal impetus: [https://www.corp-
research.org/citigroup](https://www.corp-research.org/citigroup)

------
realtalk_sp
I wish he'd gone a little further in condemning the rioting. It would have
been the courageous thing to do.

The rioting is a mistake. It will not change hearts and minds. It will not
undo the problems endemic to police forces. In fact, it may very well
exacerbate them.

The problematic archetype is the bigoted cop who's drunk with power and
behaves more like an animal operating on instinct than a thinking human. These
people, in the collective, are irrational, aggressive, and reactionary. They
also hide behind authority and a convenient veneer in the "rule of law". We
also are now seeing that there may be many of more of them (and many more
enablers of them still) than we thought.

And it is exactly these people who will feel vindicated and emboldened in the
face of the rioting currently underway. If we're not careful, it may also give
them a pretext to resort to even more horrible tactics in the future.
Increased surveillance of political organizers and low-income neighborhoods,
more military weaponry at their disposal, laxer guidelines around 'use of
force'.

The current trajectory is not the way. We need to use the system of governance
we have at our disposal to try and fix this. It's the harder but also only
truly effective means of recourse society has at its disposal.

~~~
wpietri
From reports across the country, it's definitely unclear who is responsible
for most of the rioting. Some people are clearly outsiders, provocateurs. In
other places, it's clear that the cops are the ones escalating and provoking.
There's a fair bit of evidence that protest organizers worked hard to stop
rioting.

Moreover, I think focusing too much on the property destruction is missing the
point. As MLK says, "Riot is the language of the unheard." White people have
had a couple hundred years to "use the system of governance" to fix this. We
haven't.

I get why you'd want to call for patience, for peaceful pursuit through the
law and courts. But you should read "A Call for Unity", an open letter 8
pastors wrote to MLK in 1963:

[https://web.archive.org/web/20181229055408/https://moodle.ti...](https://web.archive.org/web/20181229055408/https://moodle.tiu.edu/pluginfile.php/57183/mod_resource/content/1/StatementAndResponseKingBirmingham1.pdf)

his response to this is the famous Letter From Birmingham Jail:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_from_Birmingham_Jail](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_from_Birmingham_Jail)

Like you, the white pastors wanted patience, wanted people to trust the system
to eventually provide justice. MLK eloquently explained why that was wrong.
And little in the nearly 60 years since makes the case any more persuasive.

~~~
realtalk_sp
I never said violent revolution isn't a possibly effective means of enacting
political change. History in fact demonstrates that quite vividly.

But violent revolution is also not, in the aggregate, a net benefit in the
immediate term. Not even for black people. Believing otherwise represents a
failure to anticipate 2nd/3rd order consequences and beyond. In the best case,
you might experience a lot of suffering today to benefit people in the far
future. I don't think we'll see that best case play out with the current
rioting. We've been here before, many times (e.g. Rodney King). It doesn't
work.

Take a look at Hong Kong. They got rid of Carrie Lam and just a few days ago
lost their special trading status with the United States. Stay tuned for more
consequences.

The flaw in MLK's logic and the reason that black people still encounter
systemic mistreatment 60 years later is that it fails to account for economic
conditions (where do stereotypes come from? vivid, sticky ideas that trigger
fear, like violent crime; where does violent crime come from? economic
disenfranchisment) and the glacial pace of cultural change (relatedly, the
'hearts and minds problem'; sometimes you just need to wait for enough bigots
to be better educated, achieve empathy by actually knowing black people
personally, or die out).

~~~
fzeroracer
When you have the police state escalating the violence against you, you either
get violent in return or you get the knee to your neck.

The reason why things have gotten violent is as I mentioned in a prior post is
self-defense. People don't trust the police at all, and why should they? We've
seen them attack journalists multiple times, we've seen them assault people
who were protesting peacefully and increasingly it looks like they're
employing agent provocateurs to give themselves a reason to get violent. Who
is going to hold them accountable when the system refuses to hold them
accountable?

~~~
realtalk_sp
I'd be careful to generalize from the almost certainly distorted view you have
of the "facts on the ground". Also keep in mind the irony of weaponizing
sweeping generalizations against a particular group of people.

You should naturally expect some amount of badness in almost any sample of
humans, including the police. It might also help to empathize with a cop on
the ground in this situation when police stations have literally been blown
up.

~~~
scarface74
Why in the hell should I “empathize” with a police department that tried to
cover it up until video was shown?

 _You should naturally expect some amount of badness in almost any sample of
humans, including the police._

And the “badness” seems to only affect people who look like me...

But as Chris Rock said...

 _Well, it’s not most cops. It’s just a few bad apples. It’s just a few bad
apples.” Bad apple? That’s a lovely name for murderer. That almost sounds
nice. I’ve had a bad apple. It was tart, but it didn’t choke me out. Here’s
the thing....But some jobs can’t have bad apples. Some jobs, everybody gotta
be good. Like … pilots. Ya know, American Airlines can’t be like, “Most of our
pilots like to land. We just got a few bad apples that like to crash into
mountains. Please bear with us.”_

