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> Finally, he tries to muddy the waters by essentially claiming black people seem to "deserve it" more, because apparently black people are involved in more cri

by tdfx 6y ago

> Finally, he tries to muddy the waters by essentially claiming black people seem to "deserve it" more, because apparently black people are involved in more crime than white people? Which, again, doesn't seem to be very well supported by data. I don't think you're being fair to what he said. He said that black communities have higher crime rates, which should rightly deserve more police attention, hence their interaction with police on a per capita basis would increase. You seem to be implying that cops are, subconsciously or not, more interested in using deadly force against black people than white people. The data you're using from statista seems to have many equally plausible explanations, but you've chosen to only accept the racism one.

kelnos 6y ago
> He said that black communities have higher crime rates, which should rightly deserve more police attention, hence their interaction with police on a per capita basis would increase. "Interaction" is one thing; police killing people is another. (An aside: if we dig deeper to figure out why black communities often have higher crime rates... welp, there we go again, it usually boils down to some form of systemic racism.) > ... but you've chosen to only accept the racism one. Why do you feel the need to steer people away from racism as a cause? Nowhere did I say that racism is the "only" thing; please don't put words in my mouth. But it is, by and large, the root of the majority of the problem. I've already spent more time than I care to on this topic, so I'm not going to go digging again, but if you look at studies around general police behavior (who they are interested in, who they detain, how long they detain them, stats around escalation, arrest vs. warning rates for same offense, etc.), it's pretty clear that police target -- whether consciously or subconsciously -- non-white people, and black people in particular. You can call that "bias" or "prejudice" or whatever you want; I call it racism. But regardless, bottom line: black people are killed by police at a disproportionately large rate when compared to people of other races. That is what the data shows, plain and simple. I'm not really interested in quibbling over vague claims that racism has little or nothing to do with it, as that's clearly false. If you want an acknowledgement that racism isn't 100% the entire picture, then sure, ok, fine. (Though you don't seem particularly interested in venturing forth any suggestions or data pointing to other causes, so I question your motives here.) But racism is a huge contributor to these disparities. If tomorrow we could magically eliminate racism from everyone's mind, I guarantee you ant disparities would be so small as to not really garner anyone's attention. So here's my question for you: what are those other non-racism causes of this disparity? And if you can name some, do the causes of those causes not actually boil down to systemic racism in the end?
- tdfx 6y ago
  > That is what the data shows, plain and simple. I'm not really interested in quibbling over vague claims that racism has little or nothing to do with it, as that's clearly false. I understand why it feels that way, but all this data does is show correlation. As soon as you attempt to draw any meaningful conclusions about causation, the data is lacking. I think the focus on racism is detrimental to the truth because it forces a feedback loop: we're tracking the race of victims of police shootings so that we can show more correlation that feeds back into the same narrative that racism is the problem. There's no data that shows poverty level, education level, etc. in these shooting statistics. If being poor increased your chances of being shot by the police, it would certainly explain the numbers, but since we're only interested in the race variable, we'll never know.

by tdfx 6y ago

kelnos 6y ago

> He said that black communities have higher crime rates, which should rightly deserve more police attention, hence their interaction with police on a per capita basis would increase. "Interaction" is one thing; police killing people is another. (An aside: if we dig deeper to figure out why black communities often have higher crime rates... welp, there we go again, it usually boils down to some form of systemic racism.) > ... but you've chosen to only accept the racism one. Why do you feel the need to steer people away from racism as a cause? Nowhere did I say that racism is the "only" thing; please don't put words in my mouth. But it is, by and large, the root of the majority of the problem. I've already spent more time than I care to on this topic, so I'm not going to go digging again, but if you look at studies around general police behavior (who they are interested in, who they detain, how long they detain them, stats around escalation, arrest vs. warning rates for same offense, etc.), it's pretty clear that police target -- whether consciously or subconsciously -- non-white people, and black people in particular. You can call that "bias" or "prejudice" or whatever you want; I call it racism. But regardless, bottom line: black people are killed by police at a disproportionately large rate when compared to people of other races. That is what the data shows, plain and simple. I'm not really interested in quibbling over vague claims that racism has little or nothing to do with it, as that's clearly false. If you want an acknowledgement that racism isn't 100% the entire picture, then sure, ok, fine. (Though you don't seem particularly interested in venturing forth any suggestions or data pointing to other causes, so I question your motives here.) But racism is a huge contributor to these disparities. If tomorrow we could magically eliminate racism from everyone's mind, I guarantee you ant disparities would be so small as to not really garner anyone's attention. So here's my question for you: what are those other non-racism causes of this disparity? And if you can name some, do the causes of those causes not actually boil down to systemic racism in the end?

tdfx 6y ago
> That is what the data shows, plain and simple. I'm not really interested in quibbling over vague claims that racism has little or nothing to do with it, as that's clearly false. I understand why it feels that way, but all this data does is show correlation. As soon as you attempt to draw any meaningful conclusions about causation, the data is lacking. I think the focus on racism is detrimental to the truth because it forces a feedback loop: we're tracking the race of victims of police shootings so that we can show more correlation that feeds back into the same narrative that racism is the problem. There's no data that shows poverty level, education level, etc. in these shooting statistics. If being poor increased your chances of being shot by the police, it would certainly explain the numbers, but since we're only interested in the race variable, we'll never know.