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It's definitely just cops harassing black folks. Nobody would actually think you decorate the front of your car with coke. Like... of all the ways in the worl

by x0x0 7y ago

It's definitely just cops harassing black folks. Nobody would actually think you decorate the front of your car with coke. Like... of all the ways in the world to do cocaine, smearing it on your hood? At something like $50/half gram, that's a couple hundred dollars of coke on the front of a car doing 70 mph. That didn't blow off.

CobrastanJorji 7y ago
I just realized that, although the only thing I knew about this story was the headline, I already assumed the driver was black.
wallace_f 7y ago
Cops harass Blacks, but cops also harass too many people, period. There is too much of a police state, period. This paper(1) is by a Black economist at Harvard. On page 5, Blacks are 25% less likely to be shot, though they are more likely to experience non-lethal force. The paper concludes there are a minority of officers who discriminate. I was quite surprised by that. I also was curious about that because it didn't match my preconceived notions, so did a rough check of some of the crime stats myself(2). It seems about 25% of fatal shootings are of Blacks, which is about proportionately double the rate. But if you look at something like arrest rate for violent crime as a metric for encounters with police, they're a little bit over 25%, which would be consistent with the former paper's conclusion. I have no doubt that in the past there was terrible discrimination, and that presently a minority of officers do it, which is still unacceptable. But whenever I see people talking about this topic presently, I never see facts or statistics brought into it and it comes off as hand-wavey virtue signalling. I also worry that there is a growing problem of a police state -- it is not only a problem of discrimination. 1- http://www.nber.org/papers/w22399 http://www.nber.org/papers/w22399 2- https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2016/crime-in-the-u.s.- https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2016/crime-in-the-u.s.-.
- voldacar 7y ago
  This is really interesting data, thanks for posting.

by x0x0 7y ago

CobrastanJorji 7y ago

I just realized that, although the only thing I knew about this story was the headline, I already assumed the driver was black.

wallace_f 7y ago

Cops harass Blacks, but cops also harass too many people, period. There is too much of a police state, period. This paper(1) is by a Black economist at Harvard. On page 5, Blacks are 25% less likely to be shot, though they are more likely to experience non-lethal force. The paper concludes there are a minority of officers who discriminate. I was quite surprised by that. I also was curious about that because it didn't match my preconceived notions, so did a rough check of some of the crime stats myself(2). It seems about 25% of fatal shootings are of Blacks, which is about proportionately double the rate. But if you look at something like arrest rate for violent crime as a metric for encounters with police, they're a little bit over 25%, which would be consistent with the former paper's conclusion. I have no doubt that in the past there was terrible discrimination, and that presently a minority of officers do it, which is still unacceptable. But whenever I see people talking about this topic presently, I never see facts or statistics brought into it and it comes off as hand-wavey virtue signalling. I also worry that there is a growing problem of a police state -- it is not only a problem of discrimination. 1- http://www.nber.org/papers/w22399 http://www.nber.org/papers/w22399 2- https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2016/crime-in-the-u.s.- https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2016/crime-in-the-u.s.-.

voldacar 7y ago
This is really interesting data, thanks for posting.