Black Lives Matter

I was just agreeing with you with a source.

 

No, they're not devaluing anybody's lives. They're just focused on one specific problem. Many political movements do this.

So...you're saying that police officers are biased against blacks, but that there's no such thing as institutional racism? Am I understanding that right?

Institutional racism is a real thing:

Justice Department Announces Findings of Investigation into Baltimore Police Department
CiteSeerX — A New Look at Racial Profiling: Evidence from the Boston Police Department
White people are more likely to deal drugs, but black people are more likely to get arrested for it

Even outside of law enforcement:
http://scholar.harvard.edu/files/se...eg_more_employable_than_lakisha_and_jamal.pdf

But, I'll hear your side. You seem very convinced that black culture is responsible for the increased rate of police violence. What evidence (studies, etc.) made you form that belief?

 

I didn't actually go read all of those examples but I do not believe any of those are examples of institutional racism. They are just groups of individuals with similar personal biases.

Not having proper justification of stops affects everyone. Institutions, of course, need to enact policies to curtail the completely natural and expected biases that everyone has but just because the department does not, it does not mean they are racist. They could just be incompetent.

This also does not mean there is any racism going on at all. Blacks commit vastly more crime than whites so it is completely expected that they are disproportionately affected by police behavior, unless of course the Justice department already corrected for that but I see nothing indicating that they have.

This again is not itself racist in any way shape or form. Blacks commit far more crime than whites and generally have a culture of crime and violence. Focusing policing on black areas because of their history of violence and crime is not racist. If they were to have a policy of doubling up police for foot patrols in all black neighborhoods, that would be racist but if they had a policy of doubling up police patrols in high crime neighborhoods and all of the black neighborhoods fit that criteria but none of the non-black neighborhoods fit, that still does not mean it is racist. It would only be racist if the intent of the policy was to specifically target black people or rather if they had a particular racially motivated outcome in mind and they developed policies that would lead to that outcome, that would be racist. I've seen no evidence of this.

The report is using conjecture without any evidence for it. I think it's pretty clear that the people that prepared this report are exhibiting bias and not even attempting to be objective.

I have seen very little evidence and very few occurrences of actual institutional racism or sexism or just plain discrimination in recent times so I have no reason to believe it exists. There have been plenty of reports of the violent culture of blacks, particularly inner city blacks, so the fact that they are targeted more makes complete sense and it would be, in my view, racist for them to not be targeted more. If you live in a high crime area expect more scrutiny from law enforcement.

 

Well, we can't really have a proper discussion if you're not going to read the proof I give you.

Yes, it affects everybody. The issue, though, is that it affects minorities more. You literally just quoted "uses enforcement strategies that unlawfully subject African Americans to disproportionate rates of stops, searches and arrests".

That actually does mean that there's racism going on. "I'm going to pull over this black guy because he's probably committing a crime" is racist, and when the entire police department (which is an institution) condones such behavior, that is, by definition, institutional racism.

At any rate, the data shows that whites and blacks use drugs at the same rate, and blacks are less likely to deal drugs, yet blacks are far more likely to be arrested: White people are more likely to deal drugs, but black people are more likely to get arrested for it

That is absolutely racist. It specifically says they focus it on blacks, not on high-crime neighborhoods.

It's not a study trying to convince people, it's a report of their findings. "Here's what we found", etc.

What evidence have you looked at? You make it sound like you do your own thorough research - is this your area of expertise, or is it just your lay opinion?

 

There is a limit on what it is reasonable to expect someone to read. I clicked the last one first and did not realize they weren't all dozens of pages long.

Disproportionate rates of stops search or arrests does not prove that there is racism going on. If group X is half as large as group Y but commits twice the amount of crime that group Y does you should expect that group X is twice as likely to be stopped, searched, or arrested. It would be a sign of discrimination if group X wasn't disproportionately targeted by the police, although it still would not be proof of discrimination.

That wasn't my argument. The Justice Department presented no evidence in that article that there was any racially motivated policing going on at all. It could all be entirely explained by my point above.

Drug laws were likely passed with racist intentions but that article also says that white drug dealers are less likely to deal in the open which dramatically increases the likelihood of being caught. Just because blacks are arrested more does not prove there is any racism.

I had assumed that they were speaking about disproportionate effects as they were in the rest of the article and not that they found specific evidence that there was an overt strategy to target specifically black people.

But conjecture is a bias and not substantiated by evidence so it's less about what they found and more about a political statement.

I have not done thorough research but I was speaking from my knowledge of current events.

 

Took me a few minutes to skim them all. I'm not asking you to read every single word, just look at the relevant section and check the evidence.

Yes, it definitely does prove that there's racism going on. Stopping somebody because they're black is racist, regardless of the justification.

Their conclusion was that it was racist. They're posting their findings, not presenting an argument.

The data that the Washington Post links to doesn't show that.

Fair enough.

I agree - conjecture is useless for proving anything. That said, they're posting their findings, they're not hypothesizing.

You seem very confident in that knowledge. Any reason why?

 

You are still just attacking a strawman. If X commits twice as much crime I expect them to be arrested for said crime twice as much. It literally has nothing to do with race at all.

Their conclusion was that they were disproportionately affected as they said. They did not use the word racist or race even once (they did say racial once). I don't think that supports the argument of BLM that blacks were subject to racism in their dealings with police.

I literally paraphrased what they said at the end of that article.

I take issue with them making a political statement that is not supported. I can only assume that they were trying to influence the reader into thinking that it was fact while not actually calling it a fact.

Nothing I've really said in these last few posts really requires all that much knowledge. I'm just disagreeing with the definition of racism that the left uses, really.

 

That's not what's I'm arguing against, though. They're being stopped by the police twice as much. As in, a random black driver is much more likely to be stopped than a random white driver, simply because they're black. If the person being black is what makes the critical difference as to whether the police stop them or not, that's racist.

The article said:

"BPD makes stops, searches and arrests without the required justification; uses enforcement strategies that unlawfully subject African Americans to disproportionate rates of stops, searches and arrests; uses excessive force; and retaliates against individuals for their constitutionally-protected expression. The pattern or practice results from systemic deficiencies that have persisted within BPD for many years..."

They didn't use the word racist/race, no, but they made it very clear that the stops, searches, and arrests were not justified, and that their strategies unlawfully subject blacks to stops, searches, and arrests.

The data that the Washington Post links to doesn't show that. Here's the link to their source: United States - Punishment and Prejudice: Racial Disparities in the War on Drugs

I don't think so. The justice system said that it had "reasonable cause" that there was a problem. This is the justice system, not an advocacy group.

They briefly mention the data that they used for their conclusion as:

"In the course of its pattern or practice investigation, the department interviewed and met with city leaders and police officials, including BPD Commissioner Kevin Davis, former commissioners and numerous officers throughout all ranks of the police department; accompanied line officers on dozens of ride-alongs in every police district; conducted hundreds of interviews and participated in meetings with community members, activists, and other stakeholders; reviewed hundreds of thousands of pages of police documents, including all relevant policies and training materials; and analyzed BPD’s data on internal affairs, use of force, sexual assault cases and pedestrian stops, searches and arrests."

So, they talked to literally everyone, they looked at literally everything. Doesn't seem like conjecture to me.

What definition are they using, and what definition would you use? Apologies if you've already said it, it's a long thread.

 

I don't disagree that a person being stopped because they are black is racism. I do disagree with the fact that racially motivated stops happen more because there doesn't seem to be a lot of evidence that shows that they are indeed stopped more because they are black and not for a host of other reasons like being far more likely to be criminals in the first place.

A system that happens to disproportionately affect a certain group is not necessarily discriminatory against that group, although it very well could be. Gun control laws disproportionality affect legal gun owners vs criminals but that does not mean that it is discriminatory against legal gun owners unless that was the intention of the system in the first place. The vast majority of combat deaths in the US armed forces are male which is discriminatory because the system they had in place until recently explicitly excluded women from combat positions and purposely put men in harms way instead of women.

I'm not sure what you are saying since that is the source that they pulled what I said from?

I'm literally just taking issue with:

"inadequate response to reports of sexual assault, which may result, at least in part, from underlying gender bias."

because the left has made huge (and unsupported in my opinion) claims about sexual assaults on college campuses recently which makes me see that bit of the sentence as a political statement.

I'm just going off of what they say and trying to figure out what they mean when they say racism based on their statements. I disagree with the position of the left that you can only be racist / sexist / whatever-ist if you are in a position of power. It seems that many people also define racism as anything that doesn't exactly align with population counts which I find ridiculous. If there isn't racism coming from an individual, either consciously or unconsciously then it isn't racist, period.

 

Unjustified stops means that there's no justification for the stop. No justification, other than they're black. I don't know what else I can say on that.

What I'm saying is that the Washington Post is wrong on that issue. They cited data that doesn't support their point. They said "X", but the data says nothing about "X".

Oh, fair enough. I wasn't focused on that bit.

"The left" isn't one cohesive group. The term "racist/racism" depends on the definition that you're using. Some definitions state that racism can only come from a position of power, some don't.

Who have you seen that defines racism as something that doesn't align with population counts?

 

If you're not black then there's no point in arguing against it. If you do you're either racist or wrong. Or both.

 

There is no evidence presented that shows they were stopped because they were black. It is entirely possible and rather likely that if you account for the number of interactions between cops and individuals of a certain group the amount of illegal stops of black people is proportional to the illegal stops of white people. Just because blacks are illegally stopped more in proportion to their population (which is what I am assuming the Justice Department means) does not mean they are being stopped because they are black.

Ah.

I'm going off of usage of the term not off of a dictionary.

 

I believe that all lives matter, not only black lives. We are all humans and we should all be treated the same.

 

Going to contribute to this topic by posting this video I watched today:

Obviously it's biased but yeah

Back to not paying much attention to this section at all

 

@SuF your definition of racism is simply incorrect. Your idea of racism is more aligned with prejudice. Racism is a term that is designed to address prejudice from those in a position of power. We can argue semantics all day, but that's an unbiased answer. I'm by no means on the far left.

As for the thread: I can see where everyone is coming from (at least from what I've read). Black Lives Matter is looking out for number 1, and that's okay. All Lives Matter and Black Lives Matter should be able to co-exist. They have different goals. They are both necessary, admittedly. This HuffPost article sums up my opinion rather nicely: Every Time You Say "All Lives Matter" You Are Being an Accidental Racist | Huffington Post I'm not a fan of the headline because it's pretty SJW, but it isn't incorrect by definition.

As a side note: I'd like to know how many of the outright supporters of ALM in this thread are white, because that would in itself prove the point made early on in the article above.

 

No. Your definition of racism is simply wrong. An appeal to authority would be just google it and "my" definition appears. Only those on the far left subscribe to your definition. The left loves redefining words to fit their narrative (I assume the right does too) but that doesn't mean I have to accept their definition.

 

@Blupig and @SuF

Definitions of racism will differ continually through their context. i.e. Michel Foucault defines racism as leveraging biological differences as a justification of mistreatment (genocide and sterilization) against a group of people. While this definition could feasibly be applied to other segments of society, it is defined as such due to its role in biopolitics.

Anyway, if we are simply using the vernacular in regards to racism, anyone can be racist. Being a minority does not inhibit you from displaying prejudices; however, more often then not a minority cannot purport systemic racism. There is a vast difference between racist behavior and existing within a system that is (indirectly or directly) systematically purporting it.

Note: I say more often than not due to situations that have arrived that involve a minority group ruling over a larger group. While these scenarios have and will likely continue to arise, this is not relevant to the BLM movement within the U.S.

 

Yeah I called out SuF because one of my buddies corrected me a few years ago on the definition of racism. I looked it up, and he was right. That's the definition I gave above. However, when SuF called me out, I checked again and couldn't find a shred of evidence to support my claim other than on leftist publications and not unbiased dictionary sources. It might have literally changed in the last three years. Interesting.

I didn't read the whole thread @Tmoe (obviously) - what's your stance on BLM (briefly)?

 

How is it not relevant to the BLM movement?

 

@Tmoe I'm not sure what you mean when you say minorities can't [promote] systemic racism.

Quotas exist everywhere now, or 'targets', as some people like to call them. The existence of these is necessarily [noun]ist, whether that be sexist, racist, or otherwise. Minorities very much do promote the respective ists'. Many women for example promote quotas or 'targets' (although you may point out that women aren't actually a minority... yet they are quite often treated as such). Another example, try getting into an Ivy League as an Asian. There are systematic biases everywhere, and they can be promoted by minorities and non-minorities alike.

As an aside, people often label racism, sexism, etc. as something that is always bad. It is not. Our brain naturally creates schemas in order to navigate life. We associate certain stimuli with certain facts. Thus when we see x stimuli for the thousandth time, we can instantaneously make a judgment as to the facts that stimuli might possess. This is not a conscious process. At best you can recognize your schema may be wrong after it has been formed, but never before. Every human does this, minorities included. Why is it right for them and wrong for a 'privileged group' to also do so? Most people are going to be racist or sexist on that prima facie instantaneous level. Priming also plays a role in how we perceive stimuli, but I won't go much into that since I don't know too much about it.

The thing with schemas is when we get information that doesn't conform to it, we sometimes discard it, we sometimes assimilate it to modify our schema, or discriminate between stimuli and form more schemas, etc. People often try to reduce systematic biases by targeting this stage of the process. By helping people to alter their schemas, and assimilate new information into them in order to reduce the bias. The big problem is that, sometimes our schemas actually represent reality. So if you promote schemes to reduce systematic bias, sometimes you can necessarily be promoting a systematic bias in order to reduce systematic biases which in itself is a systematic bias.

The whole BLM movement as I understand it says these cops have a bad schema, and so they are trying to change the cops' schema. What if the cops' schema is right (generally)?


This is not to say institutional racism might not exist, it still could. But to say that minorities themselves can't promote systemic/institutional racism is utterly absurd; they're probably the main people whom actually promote it.