3 ms·

Let’s just say “signals that people believe correlate with various sorts of bad behavior,” which consistently happen to be identified with out-groups. Having s

Let’s just say “signals that people believe correlate with various sorts of bad behavior,” which consistently happen to be identified with out-groups. Having said that, the counter-examples to even that are legion: the professor who’s detained opening the door to his own house, the birdwatcher who gets the cops called on him, the college student shot while lost in the suburbs, the executive who’s pulled over all the time when turning into his neighborhood. (I’ll add to that a friend who was an NFL player whose frequent and threatening run-ins with the cops while playing in Georgia weren’t caused by sartorial or automotive lapses, but his white fiancé.)

zozbot234 5y ago
These counterexamples are popular precisely because they show instances of unambiguous race-based prejudice, as opposed to lazy generalization from easily observable signals. If this really was a major part of profiling as a whole, we wouldn't even need to point to these anecdata because it would be obvious. Black people who might actively identify as middle- or upper-class and be informed by these social norms are regrettably uncommon, but surely not that uncommon!
- morelisp 5y ago
  What kind of large-scale evidence would convince you? The numbers seem quite clear to me. Cops arrest rich black boys as much as they do working-class white boys; punishments are harsher; the disparity increases as income drops. https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2018/03/19/race-class-debate/ https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2018/03/19/race-class-deba... In aggregate, the accumulative benefits of capital are denied them; black wealth crosses generations at a fraction of the rate white wealth does. In this sense it is hard to make a case for any black American being a member of the true capitalist class.
  - zozbot234 5y ago
    > the disparity increases as income drops. This is a relevant fact that seems like it may be amenable to intervention. > black wealth crosses generations at a fraction of the rate white wealth does Note that the factors that drive wealth preservation are also what drives wealth accumulation in the first place. When you've always been living in a more-or-less chaotic environment and almost no one around you is intimately familiar with a feasible alternative, it becomes really, really hard not to eat your marshmallow (or, to use a different image, your "seed corn"). This has nothing to do with race per se of course, but plenty with material conditions, even in a Marxian/Marxist sense.
    - morelisp 5y ago
      This is specifically about children of wealthy families so none of your stereotypes apply. But your true colors really are starting to show.

zozbot234 5y ago

These counterexamples are popular precisely because they show instances of unambiguous race-based prejudice, as opposed to lazy generalization from easily observable signals. If this really was a major part of profiling as a whole, we wouldn't even need to point to these anecdata because it would be obvious. Black people who might actively identify as middle- or upper-class and be informed by these social norms are regrettably uncommon, but surely not that uncommon!

morelisp 5y ago
What kind of large-scale evidence would convince you? The numbers seem quite clear to me. Cops arrest rich black boys as much as they do working-class white boys; punishments are harsher; the disparity increases as income drops. https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2018/03/19/race-class-debate/ https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2018/03/19/race-class-deba... In aggregate, the accumulative benefits of capital are denied them; black wealth crosses generations at a fraction of the rate white wealth does. In this sense it is hard to make a case for any black American being a member of the true capitalist class.
- zozbot234 5y ago
  > the disparity increases as income drops. This is a relevant fact that seems like it may be amenable to intervention. > black wealth crosses generations at a fraction of the rate white wealth does Note that the factors that drive wealth preservation are also what drives wealth accumulation in the first place. When you've always been living in a more-or-less chaotic environment and almost no one around you is intimately familiar with a feasible alternative, it becomes really, really hard not to eat your marshmallow (or, to use a different image, your "seed corn"). This has nothing to do with race per se of course, but plenty with material conditions, even in a Marxian/Marxist sense.
  - morelisp 5y ago
    This is specifically about children of wealthy families so none of your stereotypes apply. But your true colors really are starting to show.