Discussion: Racism - Part 1

[MessiahDecoy123]

This is the danger with the social media generation, we assume because we don't see something plastered over social media it doesn't happen. In reality what people need to understand is the media shows what gets the most traction, so something not appearing in the media doesn't mean it doesn't happen. This doesn't negate the fact that there seems to be some kind of bias in terms of police interaction with different races, but jumping straight to "white cops shoot black men more" because we see lots of videos about it is a really horrible leap in logic.

We need more specific hard data on this, media stories are a sample - not the population, but people make sweeping assessments of a population based on a sample of stories.

We live in the age of viral YouTube videos.

I'm willing to bet if a person uploaded a video of an innocent white person, with their hands up, getting gunned down by cops it would go viral because it goes against the BLM narrative and there's plenty of anti-BLM sentiment.

 

[MessiahDecoy123]

Right, white people get shot by cops all the time too. While 50 unarmed white people and 50 unarmed black people were shot and killed. While white people are the majority so more black people are being killed when we look at proportions. That being said black people encounter police at a higher rate because of the correlation between poverty and crime. So the numbers really are not that out of proportion when you take that into consideration.

I do think cops need to change how they are trained to find more ways to subdue criminals while also making sure that body cams and dash cams are worn/displayed.

The vast majority of homicides are gang related (80%).

So really cops shouldn't racially profile, they should track gang activity and treat the rest of blacks fairly.

There are 300,000 gang members and 36 million blacks.

Trump wants to expand stop and frisk to violate the constitutional rights of 36 million people when the biggest problem is from less than 1 percent of the black population.

 

[DeadPresident]

We live in the age of viral YouTube videos.

I'm willing to bet if a person uploaded a video of an innocent white person, with their hands up, getting gunned down by cops it would go viral because it goes against the BLM narrative and there's plenty of anti-BLM sentiment.

It's possible, but maybe not. The media narrative dictates what gets shown and what doesn't. The fact of the matter is the trendy social "progressive" now protects the interests of all minorities and has adopted the view that all minorities are under siege from white supremacists. In the USA those groups are specifically black Americans and Muslims - we can see how the media narrative is blurring the line between fair critique and deliberately framing any negative comments when people are discussing those minorities as prejudice or racism.

Remember Ahmed the clock kid? He was a national hero for about a month. Anyone that neutrally asked "Should a kid be bringing something that looks like a homemade bomb to school?" was branded a hood-wearing Islamaphobe. There's a very real conflict between the liberal and conservative narratives in the USA and both are resorting to almost abject propaganda to legitimize their views. The key difference at the moment is that the US public has been tricked into believing the liberal arm is inherently moral and the conservatives are all Klansmen in plain clothes.

Average Americans need to realize cheap identity politics are being used to cordon them off from their fellow citizens and promote senseless division in the country.

 

[MessiahDecoy123]

Nail on head, in my opinion, as to why a lot of people are resisting lawful orders from the police.
.

Nope, the person with the gun has a greater responsibility to control their pride and emotions.

Would these cops be so trigger happy if their family members were being disobedient?

Nope, shooting would be the absolute last resort.

 

[moviedoors]

http://www.laweekly.com/news/an-unarmed-white-man-is-shot-by-a-cop-and-black-activists-rally-7216759

That was 3 seconds on google.

 

[Angryfantasyfan]

That being said black people encounter police at a higher rate because of the correlation between poverty and crime. So the numbers really are not that out of proportion when you take that into consideration.

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court report I just posted says differently.

Black Men May Have Cause To Run From Police, Massachusetts High Court Says

A black man who runs from police shouldn't necessarily be considered suspicious — and merely might be trying to avoid "the recurring indignity of being racially profiled," the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court says.

As member station WBUR reports, the court cited "Boston police data and a2014 report by the ACLU of Massachusetts that found blacks were disproportionately stopped by the city's police" as it threw out the 2011 gun conviction of Jimmy Warren.

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-...run-from-police-massachusetts-high-court-says


And, as pointed out by another article, it's not just one city.

Tuesday's ruling is also significantbecause Boston is not the only city in the United States where police disproportionately focus their attention on the black community.


During a 2013 investigation during the heyday of "stop and frisk" tactics in New York City, a court found that city police had made 4.4 million stops between January 2004 and June 2012; about 83% of those stopped were black or Hispanic.


In San Francisco, a report on law enforcement practices commissioned by the District Attorney's office found that, "although black people accounted for less than 15% of all stops in 2015, they accounted for over 42% of all non-consent searches following stops."



And in 2016, a Chicago Police Accountability Task Force found that black and Hispanic drivers were more than four times as likely to be searched as those who were white.

https://mic.com/articles/154771/bla...edium=movement&utm_campaign=social#.ePEZgittf

And all this is on top of the report the Department of Justice released last month on the Baltimore Police Department.

They also found that black residents were more likely to be stopped and searched as pedestrians and drivers even though police were more likely to find illegal guns, illicit drugs and other contraband on white residents.

http://www.theatlantic.com/news/arc...or-of-the-baltimore-police-department/495329/

If reports from the Executive and Judicial branches of the U.S Government aren't enough, how about the American Civil Liberties Union?

Racial profiling is based on the premise that most drug offenses are committed by minorities. The premise is factually untrue, but it has nonetheless become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Because police look for drugs primarily among African Americans and Latinos, they find a disproportionate number of them with contraband. Therefore, more minorities are arrested, prosecuted, convicted, and jailed, thus reinforcing the perception that drug trafficking is primarily a minority activity. This perception creates the profile that results in more stops of minority drivers. At the same time, white drivers receive far less police attention, many of the drug dealers and possessors among them go unapprehended, and the perception that whites commit fewer drug offenses than minorities is perpetuated. And so the cycle continues.

https://www.aclu.org/report/driving-while-black-racial-profiling-our-nations-highways

 

[DeadPresident]

All you're doing is proving teeth's point about this actually being a class issue and not a race issue - poverty is the underlying systemic variable, not race.

And although it's only a single incident moviedoors' post highlights again this isn't about race nearly as much as poverty.

 

[Angryfantasyfan]

All you're doing is proving teeth's point about this actually being a class issue and not a race issue - poverty is the underlying systemic variable, not race.

Did you not read the reports? They specified race as an issue. Poor blacks and poor whites are not treated equal.

 

[RockSP]

It's ridiculous to say it's not a race issue just because it's also a class issue.

 

[DeadPresident]

Did you not read the reports? They specified race as an issue. Poor blacks and poor whites are not treated equal.

Uh, they specified race as an issue because that's the only variable they were looking at? It's relatively easy to make research look valid if you're not tracking a single variable. Two of those reports you showed actually mentioned "poor neighborhoods" and "poor areas", and I saw nothing that explicitly mentioned the impoverished of different races observably receiving different treatment?

It sounds like you want this to be about race exclusively rather than a multitude of variables interacting, one of which may be race in certain instances but not all.

 

[DeadPresident]

It's ridiculous to say it's not a race issue just because it's also a class issue.

It's not ridiculous if the one is causal and the other merely correlated. Superficially yes it is a race issue, but the core of the problem is about the socioeconomic factor.

Race isn't irrelevant, but a lot of folk seem to be wanting to paint it as though race is the defining, exclusive and causal variable and that just doesn't appear to be the case.

 

[Angryfantasyfan]

It's ridiculous to say it's not a race issue just because it's also a class issue.

It is.

 

[DeadPresident]

Do you guys understand the distinction between race being a causal or correlated variable...? It doesn't seem like you do.

Poverty is more causal in how people are treated, the associated race is correlated and different depending on the country or area.

 

[RockSP]

Do you guys understand the distinction between race being a causal or correlated variable...? It doesn't seem like you do.

Do you live in America?

 

[2kt09]

We live in the age of viral YouTube videos.

I'm willing to bet if a person uploaded a video of an innocent white person, with their hands up, getting gunned down by cops it would go viral because it goes against the BLM narrative and there's plenty of anti-BLM sentiment.

It'd be in support of all lives matter against the common minute threat of police brutality. Oh hey, look what moviedoors found. I also remember when the BLM twitter tag blew up over a disabled white person and kept hissing ALM.

Speaking of viral Youtube videos, anti-BLM sentiment gets more hits and is more recommended. Flock to other social media outlets if you need BLM's credence justified.

 

[Handsome Rob]

It'd be in support of all lives matter against the common minute threat of police brutality. Oh hey, look what moviedoors found. I also remember when the BLM twitter tag blew up over a disabled white person and kept hissing ALM.

Speaking of viral Youtube videos, anti-BLM sentiment gets more hits and is more recommended. Flock to other social media outlets if you need BLM's credence justified.

There's one out there on Youtube with a driver who drove through a group of idiot* protestors blocking an interstate for BLM. It's pretty gratifying to watch. t:

Spoiler

*Unnecessary Clarification: The word "idiot" placed in front of protestors is not meant to state that everyone who protests is an idiot. While I recognize the right and importance of peaceful protest, there should be no right to prevent the free movement of others in your protest. So, if you are involved in a protest and blocking traffic, pathways, building entrances and exits, etc., in a way that prevents non-protestors from moving about in a way they normally could, you're the "idiot" I'm referring to. In that instance, I'm all for drivers (slowly) running your blockade, police pepper-spraying you into dispersal, and so on.

 

[DeadPresident]

Do you live in America?

No, I don't.

 

[Angryfantasyfan]

Do you guys understand the distinction between race being a causal or correlated variable...? It doesn't seem like you do.

Poverty is more causal in how people are treated, the associated race is correlated and different depending on the country or area.

Do you understand stop and frisk/stop and search tactics, racial segregation, and the domestic war on drugs in America...? It doesn't seem like you do.

Police use visual cues to determine who to search. They aren't only targeting people who "look poor," because drug dealers have money, nice clothes, and nice cars. Black neighborhoods are targeted by police and black people in white areas are targeted by police.

 

[RockSP]

No, I don't.

Okay...that definitely clarifies your stance on this. Perhaps you don't really know the history of this country when it comes to race.

 

[SuperT]

There's one out there on Youtube with a driver who drove through a group of idiot* protestors blocking an interstate for BLM. It's pretty gratifying to watch. t:

You're sick, seek help ASAP.

 

[Handsome Rob]

You're sick, seek help ASAP.

I'll tell you what: How about me and some of my buddies come and surround your house, protesting? We'll form a human "wall" that prevents you from leaving your property.

You'll be cool with that, right? You won't think for a minute that you should have the right to leave your home to go somewhere you need to be, because our right to protest supersedes your right to move freely.

I mean, that is the case, right? Or do you believe that only you and your pre-approved groups can restrict other's freedom of movement, because your cause is "just?" Just, of course, being defined by you.

 

[DeadPresident]

Do you understand stop and frisk/stop and search tactics, racial segregation, and the domestic war on drugs in America...? It doesn't seem like you do.

Police use visual cues to determine who to search. They aren't only targeting people who "look poor," because drug dealers have money, nice clothes, and nice cars. Black neighborhoods are targeted by police and black people in white areas are targeted by police.

I'm not denying that those occur and I'm not denying that institutional racism exists, or that it influences these interactions.

What I'm saying is the root cause is poverty, and the solution to the institutional racism is socioeconomic - not social. There are racist cops out there, that's a fact, and they reinforce and perpetuate their racism by targeting poor areas because crime is more prevalent in lower income areas all over the world, another fact.

The remedy for this isn't disciplining or re-socializing cops although that may help, the remedy for this is investing in lower income areas and getting all of black America in the middle class. Whoever wants to tell you there's a better way of solving this isn't actually interested in solving it; material circumstance is the most crucial factor of this discussion - it is the source. People can treat symptoms all they want, I believe the efficient way to solve it is by treating the cause, not the effects.

Okay...that definitely clarifies your stance on this. Perhaps you don't really know the history of this country when it comes to race.

No, I'm fairly familiar with it.

 

[MessiahDecoy123]

It's possible, but maybe not. The media narrative dictates what gets shown and what doesn't. The fact of the matter is the trendy social "progressive" now protects the interests of all minorities and has adopted the view that all minorities are under siege from white supremacists. In the USA those groups are specifically black Americans and Muslims - we can see how the media narrative is blurring the line between fair critique and deliberately framing any negative comments when people are discussing those minorities as prejudice or racism.

Remember Ahmed the clock kid? He was a national hero for about a month. Anyone that neutrally asked "Should a kid be bringing something that looks like a homemade bomb to school?" was branded a hood-wearing Islamaphobe. There's a very real conflict between the liberal and conservative narratives in the USA and both are resorting to almost abject propaganda to legitimize their views. The key difference at the moment is that the US public has been tricked into believing the liberal arm is inherently moral and the conservatives are all Klansmen in plain clothes.

Average Americans need to realize cheap identity politics are being used to cordon them off from their fellow citizens and promote senseless division in the country.

You act as if all media is MSNBC. They are not.

Fox is very conservative and CNN pretty much allows pundits and surrogates from both sides argue endlessly.

MSNBC, I'll admit, will consistently and openly side with BLM.

But there's nothing wrong with these police brutality videos gaining wide attention.In many cases it's the only way to have public oversight and police accountability.

This recent North Carolina shooting is a perfect example. The police said the victim had a gun. The family member recorded the event and said he did not have a gun. Usually the story ends there but the black community demanded the police release the video of the shooting. Because of protesting, unfortunate rioting, and national media attention the cops reluctantly released the video. Now we can see why they hid the video in the first place. Not only was the victim having medical problems but the police might have thrown down a gun to frame the victim and protect their own.

So without the media focusing on this matter and others oolice would literally get away with murder. Instead, many police departments are adding body cams and tools for transparency.

This teaches the police they can't plant evidence, they can't shoot forst and ask questions later, they can't violate people's constitutional rights.

So thank God the media provided oversight and transparency to encourage police reforms because many of the divisions and distrust you blame on the media actually came from people's horrific and very real experiences with the police.

The idea that the black community's distrust for the police is mostly due to media exaggerations is ridiculous. Blacks have experienced systematic racism from the authorities since the nation was founded and it's naive to think those problems evaporated immediately after the Civil Rights movement.

These police brutality videos simply give a voice to people who are powerless when the police have a different version of events.

Transparency is good. Accountability is good. Exposing corruption is good. These are not a pro-BLM conspiracy by corporate media. They are the main tenets of true journalism.

 

[SuperT]

I'll tell you what: How about me and some of my buddies come and surround your house, protesting? We'll form a human "wall" that prevents you from leaving your property.

You'll be cool with that, right? You won't think for a minute that you should have the right to leave your home to go somewhere you need to be, because our right to protest supersedes your right to move freely.

I mean, that is the case, right? Or do you believe that only you and your pre-approved groups can restrict other's freedom of movement, because your cause is "just?" Just, of course, being defined by you.

Please point me in the direction to where BLM protesters have been surrounding people's homes? As far as I've seen and attended, they've protested in public places and spaces where they have every right to be. You do realize the point of a protest is to shake up the status quo, gain attention and disrupt. But no, you don't want that you want us to protest in a way that doesn't inconvenience you despite the fact that being black or any PoC in this country is very often an inconvenience for us we can't ever escape.

You cry when we protest in a way that disrupts your life, so someone else comes up with a way to protest that literally has zero impact on you and you still complain. There is literally no winning with you people so at this point why continue to give a damn about what you think? You aren't going to be satisfied until those darn black people just be quiet and go away.

 

[MessiahDecoy123]

Also MSNBC is playing the entire North Carolina shooting video.

No one else is.

So much for the entire media being pro-BLM.