iNow

As that’s not a claim I made, I feel no need to defend it.

https://www.hamiltonproject.org/charts/rates_of_drug_use_and_sales_by_race_rates_of_drug_related_criminal_justice

It? Why what might be lower?

Once correcting for SES, the rate of crimes committed is equivalent and/or lower for blacks. Is this more inline with your expectations (which strike me as needless pedantic since we largely agree)?

It doesn't, though, because if you continue reading you see that the bias persists even upon correcting for SES and poverty. See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_crime_in_the_United_States https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/06/04/another-excuse-police-bias-bites-dust/ https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/05/chicago-police-department-consent-decree-black-lives-matter-resistance.html

It's not me doing the condemning, but the data. I don't know how else to explain this for you and folks similarly struggling to accept the point, but in terms of policing, sentencing, suspicion, jailing... on nearly every metric and across nearly every type of crime, the approach is asymmetric and disproportionate, and CANNOT be explained or handwaved away by socioeconomic considerations. A well-off black man is STILL more likely to be harmed by the current system than a poor uneducated white man. https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/opinions/systemic-racism-police-evidence-criminal-justice-system/ https://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/un-report-on-racial-disparities/ I could really keep going for hours given the bulk of evidence on this topic, but this feels like a topic where evidence simply isn't enough to make people realize how bad it is. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/11/16/black-men-sentenced-to-more-time-for-committing-the-exact-same-crime-as-a-white-person-study-finds/

Better screening of police officer candidates is surely a good idea, even necessary, but is not sufficient. Even people with stellar ethics and exemplary moral character will stray and behave within the confines of their local group or tribe. Their boundaries and guardrails of what is appropriate are set by local expectations and trends. What constitutes acceptable behavior is for the most part defined more by social norms than by personal principle. The system is stacked against people of color. The system is stacked in favor of qualified immunity for police. Not every interaction with police is a sign of systemic problems, and not every cop within the system is racist, but the system is currently unjust, the bad police are allowed to prosper and continue gainful employment even in the face of unacceptable behavior, and the problems are magnified for nonwhites... and have been for decades (centuries?). Blacks make up only 13% of the population, yet they are 25% of police killings, and worse still comprise 38% of those in prison, and all despite committing crimes at the same (or lower!) rate as their white peers. The system is broken and too many broken people are out policing our streets with qualified immunity instead of adequate qualifications for the job or appropriate behavioral expectations from their leadership. It’s harder getting a job as a hairdresser in the US than it is getting a job as a cop, and sadly that’s only a tiny part of the problem overall.

You ought to study human psychology and sociology more, then. It’s quite common.

We actually give 3 guns to anyone who wants one. Only the folks who don’t want one at all get a single one.

How would one conduct such a screening effectively?

Actually, he blamed protestors and left wing agents for blocking the streets and entrances.

Meanwhile, Trump signed an executive order yesterday while claiming Obama never did anything to address police brutality... which is a lie... as Trump overturned Obama’s order on exactly that topic upon entering office. Trumps order appears entirely symbolic and has no “teeth.” It’s said to ban choke holds unless officers life is in danger. It also calls for a national database to track police with a history of misconduct to help prevent them from being rehired in other precincts or by other departments. Not enough to address the depth and breadth of the current problems, but directionally correct... Unfortunately, policing is a local state-level issue, not a federal one. Trump can’t really don’t anything to enforce these orders. He’s also not put any mechanism or funding in place to implement a system for tracking. So, it’s all for show... a symbolic gesture... PT Barnum at his best... With an “order” that he signed with a bunch of police standing behind him for a photo op, instead of the families of people killed by police with whom he met earlier that same day. https://apnews.com/7f06786e118c4ca9d48b44dc224c3862

You mean the nice lady with dark skin who supports nazis? Yeah, okay.

Summarized: You and JCM did not actually introduce new points. Both were already included in the 2 proposed by MigL Which is the reason protests are so energetic and widespread. This has been the situation for decades, and John Q Public (even those who are less effected due to the whiteness of their skin) have decided that enough is enough and change is no longer optional.

Your friend is lucky. He’s still alive and got a settlement. These things happen every day. Most get nothing or get dead.

The authenticity and passion is notable. People we love all across the world are feeling this way

Protests help with that, too. Millions of pissed off people tend to have more power than hundreds of armed authoritarian ones. Protest and social unrest is at the heart of essentially every single civil liberty we enjoy and celebrate today

You don’t think they’ll be next? Focus first on the ones putting knees on throats. Focus next on the ones looking away when they do, then those who lock up for life the ones lucky enough to survive

I’m opposed to 100% of the force using it. The beat cops. The guys who drive around in patrol cars. The ones interacting with neighborhood kids or helping abused women transition to safety. The ones issue it traffic citations. They don’t need guns or vests. They don’t need equipment from the Pentagon that was used in Iraq or Afghanistan to go chat with a guy who MIGHT have used a fake $20 bill. But a handful of “last resort” special ops team members? That’s justified. It should be a last resort, though... Not option 1 for initial engagement as they’re so often used today. My read on this as of today is he’s running on the deepest core of his base right now: racism. His first campaign rally is in Tulsa Oklahoma where hundreds of innocent black men, women, and children were brutalized and massacred by the police themselves. He’s doing this amidst the current protests against police violence, he’s dog whistling himself as the “law and order” candidate, and he’s chosen to schedule this first rally on June 19th... aka Juneteenth... the day the black community celebrates slavery’s end across the US south. He’s speaking the quiet parts out loud and too many people STILL can’t seem to hear him (or simply don’t care). But this isn’t a thread about Cheeto Mussolini. Let’s not let his blackhole of “mommy and daddy didn’t love me enough” derail yet another thread or interesting conversation.

Why couldn’t the bulk of the force be social services and de-escalation teams and rehabilitation specialists with a separate SWAT style tactical unit of 10-20 for those special more “kinetic” circumstances?

“Demilitarize the police” might be more effective at achieving the end we equally desire, but let’s please remain focused on the end and not the various paths people pursue to achieve it.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/06/08/shutdowns-prevented-60-million-coronavirus-infections-us-study-finds/

Just to clarify, is it possible you’re thinking about this in terms of abolishing the police instead of defunding them / reducing the funding they receive? One of the things I do like about the current rhetorical framing is how it shocks the system a bit. Most often, those with privilege think of the police as an inarguable good... fine servants making us safe and keeping our families protected. However, for non-whites the police are too often a source of danger and commonly increase their likelihood of death. When I get pulled over, I think, “oh man. This sucks. I don’t want to get a ticket. This is super inconvenient. I hope this dude hurries up so I can get on with my day and that I can mail in the fine instead of showing up in person.” When my black friends and family get pulled over, they think, “oh shit. This is how I’m gonna die.” Then they call their wife or mom to listen in on the interaction in case things go sideways and they wind up with a bullet in them. By framing the conversation as “defund the police,” it jars the system a bit... it’s not something we normally even conceive of... we think, “wait, wtf?!?” and reframes the normally implicit framing of police as an inarguable good. It’s not a policy proposing we abolish the police (tho in sure those calls are out there, too). It’s a conversation starter. Finally, I tend to agree with you that it distracts from the issue. I’m just trying to lead by example here and keep us focused on the WHY. I’m clearly failing at that.

Unfortunately, you’ve just slipped us back into a conversation about HOW they’re protesting instead of WHY. When you find yourself leading a social movement or advocating for one trying to gain traction, then you can choose any techniques and strategies you want to operationalize it and maximize your chances of success. Until then, despite your good intentions, every time you speak of HOW they’re conveying their message, you’re doing little more than distracting us from it... or reaching that next step of doing anything to address it or improve the situation underlying it.

I guess when all you have is a hammer everything looks like a nail. Protests grow MORE violent when the police intervene “armed to the teeth.” It makes things worse. People are protesting police violence. More police violence isn’t going to solve it.