6 ms·

Why would you assume that cops are racist? Especially when a lot of them are black themselves?

by lawnchair_larry 6y ago

saagarjha 6y ago
This comment is much more inflammatory than it needs to be.
- lawnchair_larry 6y ago
  What do you mean? Parent comment was inflammatory by slandering anyone who works in an entire profession with no basis. Asking him why is not inflammatory.
outworlder 6y ago
Because we have looked at the statistics.
- asguy 6y ago
  Which statistics?
- jimmygrapes 6y ago
  Which statistics are these, please provide! They must be both very detailed and very massaged to get a result as generic as "cops are racist" (a mindset that requires significantly more information than provided by mere statistics to identify).
  - ceejayoz 6y ago
    Here's one pretty interesting result: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/05/200507094621.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/05/200507094621.h... > The largest-ever study of alleged racial profiling during traffic stops has found that blacks, who are pulled over more frequently than whites by day, are much less likely to be stopped after sunset, when "a veil of darkness" masks their race. > The Stanford team decided to repeat the analysis using the much larger dataset that they had gathered. First, they narrowed the range of variables they had to analyze by choosing a specific time of day -- around 7 p.m. -- when the probable causes for a stop were more or less constant. Next, they took advantage of the fact that, in the months before and after daylight saving time each year, the sky gets a little darker or lighter, day by day. Because they had such a massive database, the researchers were able to find 113,000 traffic stops, from all of the locations in their database, that occurred on those days, before or after clocks sprang forward or fell back, when the sky was growing darker or lighter at around 7 p.m. local time.
  - mitjak 6y ago
    whenever this comes up, this is inevitably the response, which sometimes betrays confirmation bias. these statistics are not hard to find.
- Reedx 6y ago
  This is worth a read for a nuanced, holistic look at the stats. https://samharris.org/can-pull-back-brink/ https://samharris.org/can-pull-back-brink/
  - tjr225 6y ago
    Lol, from that very article: > Specifically, in New York City, in encounters where white and black citizens were matched for other characteristics, they found that: > Cops were… > 17 percent more likely to go hands on black suspects > 18 percent more likely to push them into a wall > 16 percent more likely to put them in handcuffs (in a situation in which they aren’t arrested) > 18 percent more likely to push them to the ground > 25 percent more likely to use pepper spray or a baton > 19 percent more likely to draw their guns > 24 percent more likely to point a gun at them.
    - stronglikedan 6y ago
      Some people seem to physically resist arrest more than others. That's really not a smart thing to do, and leads to related stats like that.
      - maybeOneDay 6y ago
        If you're so keen on implying it, wouldn't it be more honest to phrase your sentence accurately? > Black people seem to physically resist arrest more than others. That's really not a smart thing to do, and leads to related stats like that.
  - tjr225 6y ago
    For what it’s worth to anyone who finds themselves reading this for whatever reason; the author of the above comment changed their original post from a snarky “have you?” To its current form after my reply. In my opinion that is not the behavior of someone who is trying to have a good faith discussion.
- caeril 6y ago
  PNAS has also looked at the statistics: https://www.pnas.org/content/116/32/15877 https://www.pnas.org/content/116/32/15877 Police brutality is definitely a problem in the United States, but it appears to be entirely colorblind.
  - ceejayoz 6y ago
    "This article has a Correction, but has also been retracted and Letters." From that retraction: > Despite this correction, our work has continued to be cited as providing support for the idea that there are no racial biases in fatal shootings, or policing in general. To be clear, our work does not speak to these issues and should not be used to support such statements. We take full responsibility for not being careful enough with the inferences made in our original report, as this directly led to the misunderstanding of our research. edit: It's also, IMO, misleading to claim "PNAS has also looked at the statistics" based on their publication of a submitted article. It passed peer-review and they saw fit to publish it; it doesn't mean the National Academy of Sciences feels it's the last or only word on the subject.
    - fallingknife 6y ago
      The error is pretty trivial: >“Although we were clear about the quantity we estimated and provide justification for calculating Pr(race|shot, X) in our report (see also 2, 3), we want to correct a sentence in our significance statement that has been quoted by others stating ‘White officers are not more likely to shoot minority civilians than non-White officers.’ This sentence refers to estimating Pr(shot|race, X). As we estimated Pr(race|shot, X), this sentence should read: ‘As the proportion of White officers in a fatal officer-involved shooting increased, a person fatally shot was not more likely to be of a racial minority.’ This is consistent with our framing of the results in the abstract and main text.
      - ceejayoz 6y ago
        The retraction comes after the correction, and again, states explicitly: > our work does not speak to these issues and should not be used to support such statements
- lawnchair_larry 6y ago
  Evidently you either have not, or you have made some fairly basic errors in interpreting the data.
jjeaff 6y ago
I took it to mean that the "cop's boys club" is racist, not all cops. But if you want to see real world examples of racism in policing, talk to a handful of Black men and ask about their experiences dealing with the cops. You will very likely hear many stories that you have never heard of happening to white people. And the individual cops don't have to be racist for the -system- of policing to be racist.
- lawnchair_larry 6y ago
  That’s backwards. The “system” quite obviously has no racial element. It’s possible (but uncommon) for racist individuals to get jobs as officers, but absolutely nothing about “the system” itself is racist.
  - jjeaff 6y ago
    Of course systems can have a racial element. How could a system that originated to catch runaway slaves -not- have a racial element? Because systems are designed by individuals. If you put a bunch of not-racist police officers patrolling the Black part of town all day, guess what? They are going to arrest more Black people than white people even if white people are committing just as many crimes. If your system has "stop and frisk" laws, then you are going to be stopping and frisking people who are walking and ignoring most everyone else that drives or takes a taxi (i.e. people with money and white, on average). If your system rewards citations and arrests, then cops are going to tend towards neighborhoods where they can find more people out and about, i.e. urban centers, where people of color live and population is more dense. You aren't going to get many citations in the white suburbs where everyone gets in their cars to go anywhere and the population is all spread out.

Why would you assume that cops are racist? Especially when a lot of them are black themselves?

saagarjha 6y ago

This comment is much more inflammatory than it needs to be.

lawnchair_larry 6y ago
What do you mean? Parent comment was inflammatory by slandering anyone who works in an entire profession with no basis. Asking him why is not inflammatory.

outworlder 6y ago

Because we have looked at the statistics.

asguy 6y ago
Which statistics?
jimmygrapes 6y ago
Which statistics are these, please provide! They must be both very detailed and very massaged to get a result as generic as "cops are racist" (a mindset that requires significantly more information than provided by mere statistics to identify).
- ceejayoz 6y ago
  Here's one pretty interesting result: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/05/200507094621.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/05/200507094621.h... > The largest-ever study of alleged racial profiling during traffic stops has found that blacks, who are pulled over more frequently than whites by day, are much less likely to be stopped after sunset, when "a veil of darkness" masks their race. > The Stanford team decided to repeat the analysis using the much larger dataset that they had gathered. First, they narrowed the range of variables they had to analyze by choosing a specific time of day -- around 7 p.m. -- when the probable causes for a stop were more or less constant. Next, they took advantage of the fact that, in the months before and after daylight saving time each year, the sky gets a little darker or lighter, day by day. Because they had such a massive database, the researchers were able to find 113,000 traffic stops, from all of the locations in their database, that occurred on those days, before or after clocks sprang forward or fell back, when the sky was growing darker or lighter at around 7 p.m. local time.
- mitjak 6y ago
  whenever this comes up, this is inevitably the response, which sometimes betrays confirmation bias. these statistics are not hard to find.
Reedx 6y ago
This is worth a read for a nuanced, holistic look at the stats. https://samharris.org/can-pull-back-brink/ https://samharris.org/can-pull-back-brink/
- tjr225 6y ago
  Lol, from that very article: > Specifically, in New York City, in encounters where white and black citizens were matched for other characteristics, they found that: > Cops were… > 17 percent more likely to go hands on black suspects > 18 percent more likely to push them into a wall > 16 percent more likely to put them in handcuffs (in a situation in which they aren’t arrested) > 18 percent more likely to push them to the ground > 25 percent more likely to use pepper spray or a baton > 19 percent more likely to draw their guns > 24 percent more likely to point a gun at them.
  - stronglikedan 6y ago
    Some people seem to physically resist arrest more than others. That's really not a smart thing to do, and leads to related stats like that.
    - maybeOneDay 6y ago
      If you're so keen on implying it, wouldn't it be more honest to phrase your sentence accurately? > Black people seem to physically resist arrest more than others. That's really not a smart thing to do, and leads to related stats like that.
- tjr225 6y ago
  For what it’s worth to anyone who finds themselves reading this for whatever reason; the author of the above comment changed their original post from a snarky “have you?” To its current form after my reply. In my opinion that is not the behavior of someone who is trying to have a good faith discussion.
caeril 6y ago
PNAS has also looked at the statistics: https://www.pnas.org/content/116/32/15877 https://www.pnas.org/content/116/32/15877 Police brutality is definitely a problem in the United States, but it appears to be entirely colorblind.
- ceejayoz 6y ago
  "This article has a Correction, but has also been retracted and Letters." From that retraction: > Despite this correction, our work has continued to be cited as providing support for the idea that there are no racial biases in fatal shootings, or policing in general. To be clear, our work does not speak to these issues and should not be used to support such statements. We take full responsibility for not being careful enough with the inferences made in our original report, as this directly led to the misunderstanding of our research. edit: It's also, IMO, misleading to claim "PNAS has also looked at the statistics" based on their publication of a submitted article. It passed peer-review and they saw fit to publish it; it doesn't mean the National Academy of Sciences feels it's the last or only word on the subject.
  - fallingknife 6y ago
    The error is pretty trivial: >“Although we were clear about the quantity we estimated and provide justification for calculating Pr(race|shot, X) in our report (see also 2, 3), we want to correct a sentence in our significance statement that has been quoted by others stating ‘White officers are not more likely to shoot minority civilians than non-White officers.’ This sentence refers to estimating Pr(shot|race, X). As we estimated Pr(race|shot, X), this sentence should read: ‘As the proportion of White officers in a fatal officer-involved shooting increased, a person fatally shot was not more likely to be of a racial minority.’ This is consistent with our framing of the results in the abstract and main text.
    - ceejayoz 6y ago
      The retraction comes after the correction, and again, states explicitly: > our work does not speak to these issues and should not be used to support such statements
lawnchair_larry 6y ago
Evidently you either have not, or you have made some fairly basic errors in interpreting the data.

jjeaff 6y ago

I took it to mean that the "cop's boys club" is racist, not all cops. But if you want to see real world examples of racism in policing, talk to a handful of Black men and ask about their experiences dealing with the cops. You will very likely hear many stories that you have never heard of happening to white people. And the individual cops don't have to be racist for the -system- of policing to be racist.

lawnchair_larry 6y ago
That’s backwards. The “system” quite obviously has no racial element. It’s possible (but uncommon) for racist individuals to get jobs as officers, but absolutely nothing about “the system” itself is racist.
- jjeaff 6y ago
  Of course systems can have a racial element. How could a system that originated to catch runaway slaves -not- have a racial element? Because systems are designed by individuals. If you put a bunch of not-racist police officers patrolling the Black part of town all day, guess what? They are going to arrest more Black people than white people even if white people are committing just as many crimes. If your system has "stop and frisk" laws, then you are going to be stopping and frisking people who are walking and ignoring most everyone else that drives or takes a taxi (i.e. people with money and white, on average). If your system rewards citations and arrests, then cops are going to tend towards neighborhoods where they can find more people out and about, i.e. urban centers, where people of color live and population is more dense. You aren't going to get many citations in the white suburbs where everyone gets in their cars to go anywhere and the population is all spread out.