5 ms·

Just because there exist immigrants who have fled their home country to find a better life in US doesn't invalidate the plight of other groups in the US right n

by vore 6y ago

Just because there exist immigrants who have fled their home country to find a better life in US doesn't invalidate the plight of other groups in the US right now: just look at the police brutality protests. If your bare minimum is "at least your family didn't get incinerated so get over it", that's extremely heartless and cruel: the US can and should do better than such a low baseline.

stormdennis 6y ago
You're distorting what I said. As regards these protests I believe that they will probably only make things worse. Black areas are where the most crime occurs so there is going to be more police activity in those areas. The protests encourage a feeling amount black people that the police are the enemy and that if you're stopped it's always only because you're black. On the police side this means that the typical interaction with a black person will be more difficult on average, leading to a perception on their side that black people are trouble. Put the two together and you have a greater potential for someone to get hurt.
- adamsea 6y ago
  I think lots of white collar crime occurs in “white neighborhoods”; it’s just not a priority for law enforcement.
  - stormdennis 6y ago
    Why aren't the victims of white collar crime in these white neighborhoods out protesting in the streets about the lack of police help, if what you say is true?
    - jessaustin 6y ago
      Man, nobody in USA wants police around shooting their dogs and kids. Very few of us are wealthy enough to have any control over what police do. Police in USA are like regular expressions.
  - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
    "White collar crime" means things like fraud and embezzlement. It overwhelmingly happens over the phone or the internet or in corporate offices, not in residential areas.
    - adamsea 6y ago
      Yeah but the financial irregularities and crimes around events like the '08 crash are, I'd think, much bigger, in terms of dollars, than those other things?
hintymad 6y ago
Which policies or lack thereof specifically target the black people? We should definite fight to abolish them. Otherwise, wouldn’t it fair to say that the US legal system has flaws that every group may suffer, and therefore it’s really about law and order?
- geofft 6y ago
  Just so I understand your framing: Do you consider the poll taxes and literacy requirements for voting of the Jim Crow era to have been policies that specifically targeted black people or not? They were written in a racially neutral way (and the 14th and 15th Amendments were in effect then, and they were ruled constitutional).
  - hintymad 6y ago
    They are, right? Every book I read says so, and I don’t see a reason to dispute the claim. Are you saying they are not?
    - geofft 6y ago
      Yes, they are (or at least I think they are). I think we have other policies today that are similar in effect - gerrymandered election districts and intentional poor placement / management of polling stations being the most obvious examples in my eyes. There's also stuff like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigford_v._Glickman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigford_v._Glickman .
      - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
        > gerrymandered election districts It's hard to call gerrymandering "racist" when there isn't inherently any right way to draw district lines and then you consider the implications of what the opponents of existing districts call the "wrong" way. The way gerrymandering works is that you start off with a town with 1000 black Democrats, 1000 white Democrats and 2000 white Republicans, and you have to draw four districts of a thousand people each. If you put a random sampling of voters into each district then you get four districts evenly split between the parties but which are all white-majority. If the Republicans gerrymander the districts then they make one district which is 100% Democrats so that it creates three safe seats for the Republicans. If the Democrats gerrymander the districts then they do the opposite. But which seems better for black people to you? The random sampling which causes the black votes to be spread across enough districts that they don't have a majority anywhere, or the gerrymandering that puts them all together and allows them to elect a representative which by the numbers they should have one of? > intentional poor placement / management of polling stations Black voter turnout was the highest of any racial group in one of the last three Presidential elections and was the second highest in the other two, so this doesn't appear to be having a major impact.

by vore 6y ago

stormdennis 6y ago

You're distorting what I said. As regards these protests I believe that they will probably only make things worse. Black areas are where the most crime occurs so there is going to be more police activity in those areas. The protests encourage a feeling amount black people that the police are the enemy and that if you're stopped it's always only because you're black. On the police side this means that the typical interaction with a black person will be more difficult on average, leading to a perception on their side that black people are trouble. Put the two together and you have a greater potential for someone to get hurt.

adamsea 6y ago
I think lots of white collar crime occurs in “white neighborhoods”; it’s just not a priority for law enforcement.
- stormdennis 6y ago
  Why aren't the victims of white collar crime in these white neighborhoods out protesting in the streets about the lack of police help, if what you say is true?
  - jessaustin 6y ago
    Man, nobody in USA wants police around shooting their dogs and kids. Very few of us are wealthy enough to have any control over what police do. Police in USA are like regular expressions.
- AnthonyMouse 6y ago
  "White collar crime" means things like fraud and embezzlement. It overwhelmingly happens over the phone or the internet or in corporate offices, not in residential areas.
  - adamsea 6y ago
    Yeah but the financial irregularities and crimes around events like the '08 crash are, I'd think, much bigger, in terms of dollars, than those other things?

hintymad 6y ago

Which policies or lack thereof specifically target the black people? We should definite fight to abolish them. Otherwise, wouldn’t it fair to say that the US legal system has flaws that every group may suffer, and therefore it’s really about law and order?

geofft 6y ago
Just so I understand your framing: Do you consider the poll taxes and literacy requirements for voting of the Jim Crow era to have been policies that specifically targeted black people or not? They were written in a racially neutral way (and the 14th and 15th Amendments were in effect then, and they were ruled constitutional).
- hintymad 6y ago
  They are, right? Every book I read says so, and I don’t see a reason to dispute the claim. Are you saying they are not?
  - geofft 6y ago
    Yes, they are (or at least I think they are). I think we have other policies today that are similar in effect - gerrymandered election districts and intentional poor placement / management of polling stations being the most obvious examples in my eyes. There's also stuff like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigford_v._Glickman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigford_v._Glickman .
    - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
      > gerrymandered election districts It's hard to call gerrymandering "racist" when there isn't inherently any right way to draw district lines and then you consider the implications of what the opponents of existing districts call the "wrong" way. The way gerrymandering works is that you start off with a town with 1000 black Democrats, 1000 white Democrats and 2000 white Republicans, and you have to draw four districts of a thousand people each. If you put a random sampling of voters into each district then you get four districts evenly split between the parties but which are all white-majority. If the Republicans gerrymander the districts then they make one district which is 100% Democrats so that it creates three safe seats for the Republicans. If the Democrats gerrymander the districts then they do the opposite. But which seems better for black people to you? The random sampling which causes the black votes to be spread across enough districts that they don't have a majority anywhere, or the gerrymandering that puts them all together and allows them to elect a representative which by the numbers they should have one of? > intentional poor placement / management of polling stations Black voter turnout was the highest of any racial group in one of the last three Presidential elections and was the second highest in the other two, so this doesn't appear to be having a major impact.