6 ms·

That would be a comforting fiction. However it seems that this prosecutor might have a pattern of behavior consistent with taking race into account: http://ra

That would be a comforting fiction. However it seems that this prosecutor might have a pattern of behavior consistent with taking race into account: http://raniakhalek.com/2013/05/02/prosecutor-behind-kiera-wilmot-arrest-filed-no-charges-for-white-teen-who-killed-little-brother/ http://raniakhalek.com/2013/05/02/prosecutor-behind-kiera-wi... While the component you're talking about is real, I'm sure, I suspect that the part of it where a young girl curious about science has her life ruined is probably at least as motivated by race as by control issues in the school.

tzs 14y ago
That link you gave could equally well be used to support the argument that the prosecutor is prejudiced AGAINST white people. Set off a minor explosion at a school where it will put black people at a slight risk, he prosecutes. Kill a white kid, he does not prosecute.
- KirinDave 14y ago
  Maybe, if America doesn't have a history of white-oppresses-black racism stretching back to before its founding as a country. Since it does, I do not thing any rational reader could com to that conclusion. In either case, it doesn't matter. The point is the prosecutor really seems to be taking race into account on juvenile cases. Were they favoring black kids or unduly penalizing them is immaterial.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
  - tzs 14y ago
    A rational reader could not come to any conclusion from the link you provided, because the two cases considered there are so different, and even if they were similar the sample size is way too small.
    - KirinDave 14y ago
      It is not small at all in the context of American history. It was really not so long ago that we were requiring black people to use separate water fountains from white people and blocking them from whole classes of employment. Many places in that region of the US still cling–perhaps unwittingly, I suppose–to extremely racist traditions like segregated public and private events. The statistics on black incarceration and economic status are well established. So when someone raises the specter of racism in a powerful public office like this, the accusation warrants investigation if nothing else. And other people here have asked for hundreds of samples, but this prosecutor's data set (which is really the thing in question here) is really not that large. What's more, it loses sight of the real problem! The real problem is a curious girl is being overly punished for experimenting. The laws that put her in this jeopardy should also be under attack in addition to investigating the racist factors that come to light.
- scarmig 14y ago
  Yes. And the War on Drugs can be seen just as easily as evidence that the government is racially biased against white people, because it decides to protect blacks from the decimation of drugs in their own community while letting white teenagers smoking pot run wild in their own.
mseebach 14y ago
The problem with that story is that the prosecutor advised the charges by telephone. It is much more likely that she, the police officer and the principal got all worked up over "OMG BOMB" than that the police officer decided that mentioning the race of the girl on the phone was relevant.
betterunix 14y ago
I do not think two datapoints can really support any conclusions here. Are there other cases to point to?
- KirinDave 14y ago
  http://hiphopandpolitics.wordpress.com/2013/05/01/the-case-around-fla-teen-kiera-wilmot-is-part-of-a-bigger-more-disturbing-pattern/ http://hiphopandpolitics.wordpress.com/2013/05/01/the-case-a... P.S., How many young black children's lives being unfairly altered is "a significant dataset" for you to answer the question, "Is a white prosecutor in sub-urban Florida _really_ racist?" I'd like to know the actual number.
  - betterunix 14y ago
    The article you linked to only has two cases for this specific prosecutor. I have little doubt that there are racist cops and racist prosecutors in this country, but for this specific prosecutor I am not seeing good evidence of a racist motivation. On the other hand, I see quite a bit of prejudice in your comment -- you seem fixated on the fact that the prosecutor is white and works in suburban Florida.
    - sophacles 14y ago
      Actually, those are relavant data points. Assuming you can get racism rates for the population "white people in suburban florida", you can set a base probability of the specific person from that population being racist. This would affect the sample sizes of data needed to determine if that person was racist.
      - betterunix 14y ago
        Except that not all those datapoints were from suburbs, let alone suburban Florida, and there were still only a handful of them. The sample is also biased, as it excludes white people receiving harsh treatment (it happens). I do not personally doubt that black Americans are mistreated; I watched black friends of mine being mistreated when I was a teenager. However, I have yet to see any evidence of racism in this case.

tzs 14y ago

That link you gave could equally well be used to support the argument that the prosecutor is prejudiced AGAINST white people. Set off a minor explosion at a school where it will put black people at a slight risk, he prosecutes. Kill a white kid, he does not prosecute.

KirinDave 14y ago
Maybe, if America doesn't have a history of white-oppresses-black racism stretching back to before its founding as a country. Since it does, I do not thing any rational reader could com to that conclusion. In either case, it doesn't matter. The point is the prosecutor really seems to be taking race into account on juvenile cases. Were they favoring black kids or unduly penalizing them is immaterial.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- tzs 14y ago
  A rational reader could not come to any conclusion from the link you provided, because the two cases considered there are so different, and even if they were similar the sample size is way too small.
  - KirinDave 14y ago
    It is not small at all in the context of American history. It was really not so long ago that we were requiring black people to use separate water fountains from white people and blocking them from whole classes of employment. Many places in that region of the US still cling–perhaps unwittingly, I suppose–to extremely racist traditions like segregated public and private events. The statistics on black incarceration and economic status are well established. So when someone raises the specter of racism in a powerful public office like this, the accusation warrants investigation if nothing else. And other people here have asked for hundreds of samples, but this prosecutor's data set (which is really the thing in question here) is really not that large. What's more, it loses sight of the real problem! The real problem is a curious girl is being overly punished for experimenting. The laws that put her in this jeopardy should also be under attack in addition to investigating the racist factors that come to light.
scarmig 14y ago
Yes. And the War on Drugs can be seen just as easily as evidence that the government is racially biased against white people, because it decides to protect blacks from the decimation of drugs in their own community while letting white teenagers smoking pot run wild in their own.

mseebach 14y ago

The problem with that story is that the prosecutor advised the charges by telephone. It is much more likely that she, the police officer and the principal got all worked up over "OMG BOMB" than that the police officer decided that mentioning the race of the girl on the phone was relevant.

betterunix 14y ago

I do not think two datapoints can really support any conclusions here. Are there other cases to point to?

KirinDave 14y ago
http://hiphopandpolitics.wordpress.com/2013/05/01/the-case-around-fla-teen-kiera-wilmot-is-part-of-a-bigger-more-disturbing-pattern/ http://hiphopandpolitics.wordpress.com/2013/05/01/the-case-a... P.S., How many young black children's lives being unfairly altered is "a significant dataset" for you to answer the question, "Is a white prosecutor in sub-urban Florida _really_ racist?" I'd like to know the actual number.
- betterunix 14y ago
  The article you linked to only has two cases for this specific prosecutor. I have little doubt that there are racist cops and racist prosecutors in this country, but for this specific prosecutor I am not seeing good evidence of a racist motivation. On the other hand, I see quite a bit of prejudice in your comment -- you seem fixated on the fact that the prosecutor is white and works in suburban Florida.
  - sophacles 14y ago
    Actually, those are relavant data points. Assuming you can get racism rates for the population "white people in suburban florida", you can set a base probability of the specific person from that population being racist. This would affect the sample sizes of data needed to determine if that person was racist.
    - betterunix 14y ago
      Except that not all those datapoints were from suburbs, let alone suburban Florida, and there were still only a handful of them. The sample is also biased, as it excludes white people receiving harsh treatment (it happens). I do not personally doubt that black Americans are mistreated; I watched black friends of mine being mistreated when I was a teenager. However, I have yet to see any evidence of racism in this case.