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I think it's a rhetorical and political mistake to tie this effort to police violence and systemic racism. If you say "We're going to have a special mental heal

I think it's a rhetorical and political mistake to tie this effort to police violence and systemic racism. If you say "We're going to have a special mental health response team to deal with suicidal people and the non-violent mentally ill." Who would oppose that? That seems a very reasonable thing to try. On the other hand, if you begin by saying "Because the police are racist murderers..." It just seems like begging for a fight that doesn't need to happen. People who might support the effort will resist it. I think it's the same mistake some people make by saying "Defund the police" rather than "Let's respond to the non-violent mentally ill with trained mental health responders."

Fogest 5y ago
This is exactly it. People in Canada I often see blindly pushing for this stuff but they don't realize a lot of police departments here already have had these kinds of resources they utilize and have been having success with them before the BLM stuff got popular. But now the BLM stuff surrounding it makes it focused on the wrong goals and creates controversy and drama and it's rather annoying.
- alisonkisk 5y ago
  It's a shame that propopents of good ideas need to mollycoddle fragile egos before the ideas can be approved on their merits. Why is "stop killing Black people" the wrong goal?
  - Fogest 5y ago
    > Why is "stop killing Black people" the wrong goal? Because it perpetuates a false narrative that police are killing black people en-masse which is not true. It also creates a narrative that other races, including white people could not also benefit from mental health specific support. It focuses on one specific group rather than focusing on the fact that everybody has the problem. It creates an unneeded divide in people when really it is uncalled for. It could just as easily be focused on everybody. This is why I still think it is silly to focus on one race when it comes to things like these. Because at the end of the day it is all lives that matter when it comes to mental health, not one specific group. When we focus on support for one specific group that is discriminatory. And that is complete crap. Progress should be focused on benefitting everybody, not giving certain groups advantages based on historical disadvantages. We should be moving forward as a society together, not trying to make up for past issues that the majority of the population weren't even alive for.
LeonB 5y ago
> We're going to have a special mental health response team to deal with suicidal people and the non-violent mentally ill." Who would oppose that? When it diverts funding away from mainstream policing then it would be very strongly opposed by police unions. And it does not need simply a lack of opposition. It needs people to actively support it, and be motivated to support it as it requires funding. And there’s a bunch of straw manning in your arguments that is quite distasteful.
- roenxi 5y ago
  Wikipedia suggests [0] that the majority of NYPD officers come from minority backgrounds. Whites are slightly overrepresented in leadership vs. the demographic backdrop of New York. Though that is probably inertia, as they used to be a majority instead of just the largest minority back in the 90s. It seems to be a stretch to say the NYPD could be a hotbed of racism in particular. They look rather diverse. I suppose possibly the argument could be made that black NYPD officers are racist against whites, whites against latinos and latinos against blacks. But from what I've understood that isn't the accusation being made at them. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_Police_Department#Demographics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_Police_Departmen...
  - aaron-santos 5y ago
    This would be a very good time to break out the systems-level thinking and apply it to racism in policing. In particular, the idea that if individual racism is low implies that racism is also low the composition of those individuals is a fallacy of composition.
    - roenxi 5y ago
      So, the NYPD is hiring a most of their workforce from minorities, who are then banding together to support systemic racism, because I am making the fallacy of composition? I'll admit my argument here isn't proven with academic rigour, but the NYPD isn't the racist actor in the current narrative.
    - 5y ago
akomtu 5y ago
I've been thinking why media and politicians use so radical language. My guess is that moderate language will be seen by their voters as a conspiracy of some sort. You say "mental health responders" but the radical voters read it as "hmm.. by not demanding to defund police he must be secretly supporting police, so he must be a republican and we don't want any of those here". There was an HN post explaining this idea better, why there are no moderate centrists these days: those would be ousted by both hard left and hard right.
temp8964 5y ago
> non-violent mentally ill Is this true though? Many cases involved violent mentally ill.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- danielheath 5y ago
  Police frequently get called to suicide threats. While threatening to commit suicide is a horrible thing to do, it doesn’t warrant an armed response. Instead of arguing over the edge cases, I suggest pushing for the part of the proposal that’s unambiguously helpful (eg: no armed response without a plausible threat of violence).
  - accurrent 5y ago
    I'm not American. But I used to be firefighter for 2 years. Where I live both firefighters and police respond to suicides. In the 2 years I have attended over 100 suicide calls of various forms (in various stages). In none of them have we ever used an "armed response" unless you consider a bolt cutter/saw a weapon. It does seem to puzzle me why one would want to use weapons in a suicide case.
    - throwawaysea 5y ago
      The language used by the parent comment is ambiguous. By armed response they mean that the responding police officers carry a gun. I don’t see that as a problem, because you never know what kind of situation they will encounter and what the needs might be.
      - danielheath 5y ago
        I don’t know about you but when someone with a gun shows up, my motivation begins and ends at “get rid of this person”. I am not going to have a productive conversation, because I don’t know what kind of situation I will encounter.
geofft 5y ago
> If you say "We're going to have a special mental health response team to deal with suicidal people and the non-violent mentally ill." Who would oppose that? A lot of people! One of the standard arguments is, mentally ill people are by definition unpredictable, so you can't classify then as "non-violent," so all responders must be armed and trained in the use of force for at least their own protection if not the protection of others. Note that this is the actual argument as to why traffic cops are armed in the US. Erratic drivers are considered unpredictable, and anyone in the US could easily have a gun, so there isn't a special team for handling "non-violent" traffic offenders. It's the regular cops with their regular authorization to use deadly force. Or put another way - if it were such an obviously good idea to the whole political spectrum, why hasn't it happened before? "The police are racist murderers" is, first of all, objectively true and facts don't care about your feelings, but more importantly, it's objectively better rhetoric. Problems with inappropriate police responses have been around for a long while - and, unsurprisingly, they affect whites too (Ryan Whitaker was killed by officers investigating a noise complaint, and six-year-old Jeremy Mardis was killed by officers after chasing the car he was in the back seat of). But there hasn't been any real movement to change things. Meanwhile, a whole lot of local governments are making good and meaningful changes thanks to people saying things like "The police are racist murderers" and "Defund the police." So while you may not like the slogans, they definitely seem to be working.
- betwixthewires 5y ago
  Your definition of objectivity on both counts seems to be subjective. If someone said "black people kill each other for crack corners, facts don't care about your feelings" you'd at the very least say they were painting with a broad brush. I'd agree with you. There's a difference between a race and a profession, sure, but you're generalizing a diverse group of people. And is it objectively better rhetoric? Objectively? Empirically I see it has a very divisive effect, much more prominent than any positive effect you can find examples of. But say it is effective, that's more important to you than it's truthfulness? Do you want to live in a world where we pretend to believe lies because they're effective at achieving some end? I'm all about reigning in the police, cutting budgets, cutting staff, whatever, not because they're racist (as a group they're not) but because they're goons for the state, it is their job to go sniff your butthole and ask you what you've been doing under implied threat of violence. That's objectively better rhetoric because it's true, and it's all inclusive because they do this to all of us equally.
endisneigh 5y ago
This comment is very strange when you consider that the only reason there's even traction in switching to mental health professionals is specifically because of the injustices inflicted on specific groups and the ensuing protests. I also find it amusing that the tone of your post is that you rightly don't want there to be pointless fights and denounce said pointless fights, but also lament poor language (e.g. "...racist murders"...) while simultaneously using it yourself. Seems pointless given the article in question doesn't use the language you are using nor does it make the claims you're hypothesizing.
- Fogest 5y ago
  > switching to mental health professionals is specifically because of the injustices inflicted on specific groups and the ensuing protests. That is completely untrue. As I said in my comment there are many countries who have police departments who have enacted special mental health professionals prior to BLM being a thing as they saw a general need for it in their community. Not because one specific minority group called for it. Instead it is because everybody benefited from it.
  - endisneigh 5y ago
    We’re talking about the United States so your mention of other countries is completely irrelevant. The police forces of other countries are run completely differently nor do they necessarily suffer from the same issues as the ones in the USA.
    - Fogest 5y ago
      > The police forces of other countries are run completely differently No they are not. That's like saying you're not allowed to compare between other American states because different states run their police departments completely differently. You're just making up arbitrary rules to stipple discussion.
      - endisneigh 5y ago

Fogest 5y ago

This is exactly it. People in Canada I often see blindly pushing for this stuff but they don't realize a lot of police departments here already have had these kinds of resources they utilize and have been having success with them before the BLM stuff got popular. But now the BLM stuff surrounding it makes it focused on the wrong goals and creates controversy and drama and it's rather annoying.

alisonkisk 5y ago
It's a shame that propopents of good ideas need to mollycoddle fragile egos before the ideas can be approved on their merits. Why is "stop killing Black people" the wrong goal?
- Fogest 5y ago
  > Why is "stop killing Black people" the wrong goal? Because it perpetuates a false narrative that police are killing black people en-masse which is not true. It also creates a narrative that other races, including white people could not also benefit from mental health specific support. It focuses on one specific group rather than focusing on the fact that everybody has the problem. It creates an unneeded divide in people when really it is uncalled for. It could just as easily be focused on everybody. This is why I still think it is silly to focus on one race when it comes to things like these. Because at the end of the day it is all lives that matter when it comes to mental health, not one specific group. When we focus on support for one specific group that is discriminatory. And that is complete crap. Progress should be focused on benefitting everybody, not giving certain groups advantages based on historical disadvantages. We should be moving forward as a society together, not trying to make up for past issues that the majority of the population weren't even alive for.

LeonB 5y ago

> We're going to have a special mental health response team to deal with suicidal people and the non-violent mentally ill." Who would oppose that? When it diverts funding away from mainstream policing then it would be very strongly opposed by police unions. And it does not need simply a lack of opposition. It needs people to actively support it, and be motivated to support it as it requires funding. And there’s a bunch of straw manning in your arguments that is quite distasteful.

roenxi 5y ago
Wikipedia suggests [0] that the majority of NYPD officers come from minority backgrounds. Whites are slightly overrepresented in leadership vs. the demographic backdrop of New York. Though that is probably inertia, as they used to be a majority instead of just the largest minority back in the 90s. It seems to be a stretch to say the NYPD could be a hotbed of racism in particular. They look rather diverse. I suppose possibly the argument could be made that black NYPD officers are racist against whites, whites against latinos and latinos against blacks. But from what I've understood that isn't the accusation being made at them. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_Police_Department#Demographics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_Police_Departmen...
- aaron-santos 5y ago
  This would be a very good time to break out the systems-level thinking and apply it to racism in policing. In particular, the idea that if individual racism is low implies that racism is also low the composition of those individuals is a fallacy of composition.
  - roenxi 5y ago
    So, the NYPD is hiring a most of their workforce from minorities, who are then banding together to support systemic racism, because I am making the fallacy of composition? I'll admit my argument here isn't proven with academic rigour, but the NYPD isn't the racist actor in the current narrative.
  - 5y ago

akomtu 5y ago

I've been thinking why media and politicians use so radical language. My guess is that moderate language will be seen by their voters as a conspiracy of some sort. You say "mental health responders" but the radical voters read it as "hmm.. by not demanding to defund police he must be secretly supporting police, so he must be a republican and we don't want any of those here". There was an HN post explaining this idea better, why there are no moderate centrists these days: those would be ousted by both hard left and hard right.

temp8964 5y ago

> non-violent mentally ill Is this true though? Many cases involved violent mentally ill.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
danielheath 5y ago
Police frequently get called to suicide threats. While threatening to commit suicide is a horrible thing to do, it doesn’t warrant an armed response. Instead of arguing over the edge cases, I suggest pushing for the part of the proposal that’s unambiguously helpful (eg: no armed response without a plausible threat of violence).
- accurrent 5y ago
  I'm not American. But I used to be firefighter for 2 years. Where I live both firefighters and police respond to suicides. In the 2 years I have attended over 100 suicide calls of various forms (in various stages). In none of them have we ever used an "armed response" unless you consider a bolt cutter/saw a weapon. It does seem to puzzle me why one would want to use weapons in a suicide case.
  - throwawaysea 5y ago
    The language used by the parent comment is ambiguous. By armed response they mean that the responding police officers carry a gun. I don’t see that as a problem, because you never know what kind of situation they will encounter and what the needs might be.
    - danielheath 5y ago
      I don’t know about you but when someone with a gun shows up, my motivation begins and ends at “get rid of this person”. I am not going to have a productive conversation, because I don’t know what kind of situation I will encounter.

geofft 5y ago

> If you say "We're going to have a special mental health response team to deal with suicidal people and the non-violent mentally ill." Who would oppose that? A lot of people! One of the standard arguments is, mentally ill people are by definition unpredictable, so you can't classify then as "non-violent," so all responders must be armed and trained in the use of force for at least their own protection if not the protection of others. Note that this is the actual argument as to why traffic cops are armed in the US. Erratic drivers are considered unpredictable, and anyone in the US could easily have a gun, so there isn't a special team for handling "non-violent" traffic offenders. It's the regular cops with their regular authorization to use deadly force. Or put another way - if it were such an obviously good idea to the whole political spectrum, why hasn't it happened before? "The police are racist murderers" is, first of all, objectively true and facts don't care about your feelings, but more importantly, it's objectively better rhetoric. Problems with inappropriate police responses have been around for a long while - and, unsurprisingly, they affect whites too (Ryan Whitaker was killed by officers investigating a noise complaint, and six-year-old Jeremy Mardis was killed by officers after chasing the car he was in the back seat of). But there hasn't been any real movement to change things. Meanwhile, a whole lot of local governments are making good and meaningful changes thanks to people saying things like "The police are racist murderers" and "Defund the police." So while you may not like the slogans, they definitely seem to be working.

betwixthewires 5y ago
Your definition of objectivity on both counts seems to be subjective. If someone said "black people kill each other for crack corners, facts don't care about your feelings" you'd at the very least say they were painting with a broad brush. I'd agree with you. There's a difference between a race and a profession, sure, but you're generalizing a diverse group of people. And is it objectively better rhetoric? Objectively? Empirically I see it has a very divisive effect, much more prominent than any positive effect you can find examples of. But say it is effective, that's more important to you than it's truthfulness? Do you want to live in a world where we pretend to believe lies because they're effective at achieving some end? I'm all about reigning in the police, cutting budgets, cutting staff, whatever, not because they're racist (as a group they're not) but because they're goons for the state, it is their job to go sniff your butthole and ask you what you've been doing under implied threat of violence. That's objectively better rhetoric because it's true, and it's all inclusive because they do this to all of us equally.

endisneigh 5y ago

This comment is very strange when you consider that the only reason there's even traction in switching to mental health professionals is specifically because of the injustices inflicted on specific groups and the ensuing protests. I also find it amusing that the tone of your post is that you rightly don't want there to be pointless fights and denounce said pointless fights, but also lament poor language (e.g. "...racist murders"...) while simultaneously using it yourself. Seems pointless given the article in question doesn't use the language you are using nor does it make the claims you're hypothesizing.

Fogest 5y ago
> switching to mental health professionals is specifically because of the injustices inflicted on specific groups and the ensuing protests. That is completely untrue. As I said in my comment there are many countries who have police departments who have enacted special mental health professionals prior to BLM being a thing as they saw a general need for it in their community. Not because one specific minority group called for it. Instead it is because everybody benefited from it.
- endisneigh 5y ago
  We’re talking about the United States so your mention of other countries is completely irrelevant. The police forces of other countries are run completely differently nor do they necessarily suffer from the same issues as the ones in the USA.
  - Fogest 5y ago
    > The police forces of other countries are run completely differently No they are not. That's like saying you're not allowed to compare between other American states because different states run their police departments completely differently. You're just making up arbitrary rules to stipple discussion.
    - endisneigh 5y ago