I especially appreciate when the BLM speaker tells one of the most capable politicians in the world...
Jones: "I say this as respectfully as I can, but you don't tell black people what we need to do. And we won't tell you all what you need to do."
I keep thinking that this is part of the problem some Black people in America have. They are adamant that they should be able to be successful living and doing whatever they want to do. I have found it much easier to conform with business dress codes, speaking proper American English, being successful academically, etc I wish them luck fighting city hall.
Salon Version
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Interesting how the word "opportunity" kept cropping up in that conversation? Most of it was a bad case of two liberals talking past each other, from equally distant worlds of their own imagining. HRC thinking that government could make make people behave better if the "right" laws were passed, and the BLM folks just assuming that black crime, drug use and violence were created by white oppression of some sort. NO personal responsibility whatsoever. It seems to me that many of our problems today have been caused by us believing that just electing the right politician will solve all of our problems, and by the politicians promising that to us to get our votes. We keep wanting to (and are told we can) "let George [Washington] do it" when George has been dead for 200 years.
Personally, I tell people what they need to do all the time. And quite often, people tell me what I need to do. In a free country, people have every right to tell each other stuff, and they often do. And the fact is, many advocates I see quoted in the media, could benefit from a great deal of sound advice as to how to influence opinion.
--Hiram
I don't know that much about black lives matter, but I think one of their complaints is that being successful doesn't protect one from being unfairly targeted by law enforcement. Do you believe that African Americans are treated unfairly by the police/ criminal justice system?
I do believe they should listen to feedback from white people regarding the tactics of their movement, as they will need allies to make significant changes/improvements. It would be a good idea for politicians to listen to input from blm activists as well, as listening to constituants is part of a politician's job.
"Do you believe that African Americans are treated unfairly by the police/ criminal justice system?" -- Laurie
No, I do not. Police tend to target (quite reasonably) high crime areas. Those areas just happen to be, in many cases, black enclaves. Therefore many of the criminals arrested happen to be black, as well, and their attitude with law enforcement and courts tends to make those systems view them with less leniency. That's why my advice would be that the "black community" should quit doing so many crimes. If Black lives matter, why are 93% of the shootings of blacks at the hands of blacks? And of the 7% left, a tiny fraction of 1% are by police. Why don't they do something about THAT? Blacks are being unfairly treated by other blacks, not by whites or the justice system.
I saw this video on Slate. I don't necessarily vouch for it but I think it might add something to the discussion.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/crime/2015/08/baltimore_ex_cop_discusses_police_violence_toward_young_black_men.html
I am also a huge fan of "The Wire". It's fictional, but it certainly has an impact on my thinking about these issues.
--Hiram
Hiram, that's very interesting, but I am considering the source (Slate) and that raises my skeptical antennae. The idea seems to be that police are trying to "make numbers" by arresting minorities for petty crimes that get ignored in the white community.
First, somebody would have to show me the "quotas" police work under, and that cops who made the most arrests got paid better because of it. Second, these "minor infractions" are typically the "probable cause" which leads to an arrest on larger charges. And there doesn't seem to be any getting around the fact that larger crimes are committed disproportionately in minority neighborhoods. If the victim describes "a black man, red bandana" running away, would you have the police ignore that description?
I think it would do most people some good to just shut our mouths for a little while and let them have their say. It's undeniable that black men get worse treatment in the justice system. Before we cut folks off with the "pull up your pants" lecture, maybe we should just listen, and understand that their experience isn't like ours and that it isn't only the bad actors who pay the price for these systemic problems.
Entirely reasonable to consider the source.
I don't know whether police are trying to "make numbers" or not, although I do often hear crime statistics cited. In this context as in others, education in particular, I would be very leery of allowing statistics to drive policy. The fictional "The Wire" especially in later seasons, deals a lot with how cops are required to meet statistical goals, to bring violent crime rates down.
I just throw this out generally. Does your employer or employers you are familiar with measure employee performance through use of statistics. If so, do those goals become de facto quotas?
In terms of big crime, I remember when the Daily Show sent reporter Jessica Williams down to New York City's own high crime area, Wall Street.
"I think it would do most people some good to just shut our mouths for a little while and let them have their say. It's undeniable that black men get worse treatment in the justice system." There is a certain reasonableness to that suggestion, except that "having their say" seems to involve arson, looting, shooting at police, and completely ignoring reality. If they would have their say and ask for some reasonable accommodation of their grievances, it would be worthwhile for us to listen.
As for "undeniable," I don't see how you can say that without resorting to statistics and placing them in context. Again, if 93% of black homicides are perpetrated by other Blacks, is there some maltreatment within the subsequent justice system proceedings that accounts for this?
"If so, do those goals become de facto quotas?"
Hiram, you may be onto something. That discussion about quotas in the video bothered me, and you may be explaining why. It was mentioned that the police generally have an objective to bring crime rates down – certainly a statistical measure. But in the same breath that seem to imply that a certain number of arrests had to be made and that a charge of jaywalking counted equally with the arrest of a murder suspect. I don't think that the total number of arrests is the right measure of, and probably does not even correlate with, the crime rate for any specific, particularly violent, crime.
I used to sit in on meetings where ways to evaluate people were discussed. In these meetings great emphasis was placed that the methods to be employed were to be measurable. I always thought that was fine just as long as what could be measured was consistent with the overall goals of the organization. But what wasn't discussed win those meetings were what those goals would be. What we were talking about was what was easy, and maybe what would stand up in a performance review, or maybe in a court, but not what was right. This same problem comes up everywhere, in schools when testing becomes an end in itself, and it would seem in that Slate video. It's always risky to extrapolate physical law concepts outside their domain, but I always think of this as a form of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, that you can;t measure something without changing it.
--Hiram
I think what you are saying is that you get what you measure. So if police are measuring number of arrests as a proxy for reducing crime, they will get increased arrests with negligible effect on crime. And any population group thinking they are "targeted" in such a scenario would be rightly disturbed by it. The problem is that I see no evidence of that, and the BLM offer none. Quite the opposite. They seem intent on committing MORE crimes in pursuit of having the police do LESS to control it in their neighborhoods. Perhaps if this ends up moving some black folks off the Democrat "plantation" it is a good thing, but even that won't solve their problem. What BLM seems to want is for crime to be allowed to proceed unchallenged in their neighborhoods; certainly that is the inevitable result, as in Baltimore.
"Again, if 93% of black homicides are perpetrated by other Blacks, is there some maltreatment within the subsequent justice system proceedings that accounts for this?"
The reality is that a similar percentage of white homicides are perpetrated by other whites, so I'm not sure how this is relevant.
At pretty much every step of the way, black are systematiclly discriminated against in our justice system.
BI Inequity
http://www.gopusa.com/news/2015/08/24/black-lives-matter-radicals-issue-manifesto-of-demands/?subscriber=1
I stand corrected. "BLM" folks have demanded specific reforms to policing. Largely divorced from reality, but at least specific. We know what happens when these "demanded reforms" are tried. As not untypical for liberal organizations, the name and the results are at odds.
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2015/06/as-crime-soars-in-baltimore-the-police-are-partly-to-the-blame.php
I don't think a police slowdown is what people in Baltimore wanted. What they want is the police to handle things fairly.
As for the Gray case, we'll have to see if the DA overcharged there. But when a kid gets thrown in the back of a police vehicle healthy and comes out 40 minutes later with a fatal spinal injury, I guess I'm not sure why folks should be surprised that there might be some criminal charges there. We haven't seen the DA's evidence there to know for sure.
As for the Campaign Zero agenda, there are some reasonable demands in there, such as independent investigation (and if necessary, prosecution) of use of force and other potential police misconduct, civil forfeiture reform, and national standards and reporting for use of force. Other pieces are less compelling.
I think you have to distinguish between what ordinary law-abiding Baltimoreans wanted and what the thugs and criminals of BLM extremists wanted. And regardless of what anybody involved wanted, the protesters and official sympathizers created, with their actions, the situation that exists today in which Black Lives Matter less-- lacking police protection. Now here's where you get to argue that getting rid of police oppression as ALLEGED in ONE INCIDENT is better than losing police protection in 75% of ALL incidents.
I'll grant you that we don't know the facts in the "Gray case," but I think the overcharging is obvious and the evidence is skimpy even to support the one or two reasonable charges. And frankly, I don't know that race has anything to do with it under any circumstance-- that is also an allegation without evidence. I'm much more comfortable talking about Ferguson, where riots and criminality continue a year later, based on an obvious and proven false narrative of what occurred. These folks keep talking about "no justice, no peace" but when justice is done, we get even less peace. It's one thing to be sympathetic to the problem in general, but quite another to be sympathetic to rampant lawlessness under the cover of legitimate grievance.
The people causing the loss of protection are the police, not the protesters. It's gotten to the point where the many police seem to believe they are immune to criticism.
I guess I don't know that the evidence in necessarily skimpy in the Gray case. If I'm taking care of one of my kids and they suffer a spinal injury and die as a result, I'm going to be investigated and there's a reasonable chance I'm going to be charged with something. And if I did something intentional that could caused that injury, it's going to be a pretty severe crime. Likewise, if the BPD decided to get cute with Freddy Gray and give him a rough ride, then they need to face the consequences of their actions. (Let's also not forget that it's highly questionable whether they even had probable cause to arrest Gray in the first place.)
Regarding Ferguson, there's still a lot of justice to be done there, if you take the Brown case out of the mix.
"The reality is that a similar percentage of white homicides are perpetrated by other whites, so I'm not sure how this is relevant."
The facts say otherwise. See if you can read this table.
race of.....Percent
killer.......of
............population
........................W-on-W W-on-B B-on-B B-on-W
Black .......14..........---.....---........90......14
White........83..........83........8.......---.....---
Whites, with 83% of the population, kill 83% of whites. That's as expected. Blacks, with 14% of the population, kill 90% of the black victims. Fairness would dictate that whites should be killing 83% of blacks, yet that is only 8%. Fairness would dictate that blacks would account for 14% of white homicides, and that's the only other statistic that matches what it "should" be, but may be due to the fact that Hispanics and whites are lumped together, and the hostility between Hispanic and black gangs is well known. And by the way, lest percentages be deemed deceptive, the number of black-on-black homicides was nearly equal to the white-on-white number, with only 1/6 the population involved. IOW, blacks are 6 times more likely to commit homicide against one of their own as is a white person. Does THAT matter?
In 2013, blacks made up 42 percent of all cop killers whose race was known. The 25 or so reported killings of blacks by police officers — nearly all justified — pale in comparison to the 2500 or so killings of blacks by other blacks.
" if the BPD decided to get cute with Freddy Gray and give him a rough ride,..."
That seems to be the presumption, but if so it would seem that only the driver should be charged, but I think intent might be hard to prove, and racist intent even tougher. You would also have to account for how the other prisoners on the same ride came through unmarked.
"Regarding Ferguson, there's still a lot of justice to be done there,..."
The only way I can see that is if a lot of people start going to jail for arson, looting, failure to disperse, riot, shooting at police and other crimes. And by the way, Officer Wilson should either get his job back (not that he wants it) or a nice chunk of back pay.
The presence of black-on-black violence doesn't excuse inappropriate behavior by police. (And, no, you wouldn't expect 83% of black murders to be committed by whites, because most murders are not random -- they're generally people who know each other in some way.)
"That seems to be the presumption, but if so it would seem that only the driver should be charged, but I think intent might be hard to prove, and racist intent even tougher. You would also have to account for how the other prisoners on the same ride came through unmarked. "
The police weren't charged with racism, but intent will be harder to prove (I'm guessing that they have either GPS data from the vehicle or witnesses who can account for the "rough ride"). The only other prisoner on the same ride was collected after the point where Gray was injured.
You are correct on both counts. But "inappropriate behavior" must of necessity be a much smaller incidence than that of appropriate behavior, which means arrest, and sometimes shooting of, the people committing the crimes. For that, statistics isn't so helpful as the raw numbers. So, in the case of intracial homicides, we find that the NUMBER of black victims (of black killers) is almost equal to the number of white victims, so that a black person is SIX TIMES more likely to be a homicide victim. Fretting (screaming and rioting) over the occasional police shooting would seem to be tackling the tiniest fraction of the problem of "black lives matter." I don't think Clinton or any other politician can fix this, and are more likely to make matters worse, regardless of what they do. It still takes two sides to make a peace and only one side to make a war.
Shorter Jerry: Overbearing government use of power not a problem when "those people" are at the receiving end of the stick.
Here's a reference to "what we know," and unfortunately I don't see it as probative for either side of the charge. It includes a map, but again doesn't "prove" anything by itself. I think if I was the defense I would want to test whether a heavy police van could accelerate or decelerate fast enough to slide a man around on the floor, hard enough to break his spine. It does sound like consensus that police failed to get him the medical help he needed. Whether you can prove they knew of his medical needs or not, that's yet another issue. By all means let's get to the bottom of this thing, and try not to let what is alleged here happen again, but really, is rioting in the streets the best way to get it?
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/05/01/403629104/baltimore-protests-what-we-know-about-the-freddie-gray-arrest
There are lots of people who devote their lives to the problem of black-on-black crime. The implication that is made that folks in those communities should just shut up about what is done to them by police because there are criminals in their own midst is part of the problem, not part of the solution. It dehumanizes the people in those communities, implying that they are less worthy of their rights as citizens than others merely because of the color of their skin.
"By all means let's get to the bottom of this thing, and try not to let what is alleged here happen again, but really, is rioting in the streets the best way to get it?"
The violent rioting isn't helpful, but frankly, the large peaceful gatherings have brought a focus surrounding this issue that otherwise wouldn't have been there. That, and the growing number of incidents being filmed, which have shown that this isn't an isolated problem. Just in the last couple of months, we've seen two killings by police that wouldn't have resulted in charges without video.
Sean, I really want to agree with you here, but I find the implied racism a bit troubling. I don't think we have /enough/ people working on B-B crime, nor enough people working on the RE-humanization of the black cultural situation, whereas we have too many people stoking racial animosity, a sense of victimhood, and dehumanizing ideas. Some are white, some are black, and I don't care; I wish they would stop.
Unfortunately, I think you have a chicken or the egg problem. Did the heavy police presence occur first, or did the concentration of crime come first? And was the concentration of crime a result of some organic change in the black community, or a response to the constrained choices government put on them, such as the welfare state?
Just because there is video and charges filed does not mean that something unlawful happened, and it certainly doesn't mean that such incidents are commonplace. Indeed, my concern is that we not go overboard and say that we are only allowed to arrest people based on some quota system, when we know blacks commit more crimes per capita than whites. If you want to be concerned about police "brutality" or whatever, then let's be concerned for it in every case and not make a racial thing out of it.
Ultimately what we want is a way to HELP cops do their jobs better (rather than punishing them for trying), so that crime is reduced and with it, the number of "incidents."
"Did the heavy police presence occur first, or did the concentration of crime come first? And was the concentration of crime a result of some organic change in the black community, or a response to the constrained choices government put on them, such as the welfare state?"
It's a matter of what crime you want to focus on, too. Most studies show that the rate of drug use is similar for whites and blacks, but clearly the enforcement of such usage is not. If you treated every kid at that had smoked some weed the same way kids at <insert name of Minneapolis/St. Paul high school) get treated, some eyes would be opened. The constrained choices placed on these communities started long before LBJ or FDR, too.
"Indeed, my concern is that we not go overboard and say that we are only allowed to arrest people based on some quota system, when we know blacks commit more crimes per capita than whites."
I haven't heard anybody calling for that.
"If you want to be concerned about police "brutality" or whatever, then let's be concerned for it in every case and not make a racial thing out of it. "
Sure, absolutely. But, the fact of the matter is that police tend to use force disproportionately towards blacks. The Ferguson PD, for instance, never used their dogs against a white suspect.
Sean, you have some very thoughtful arguments. Let me point-by-point.
I don't want to focus on drug crimes directly, but on the violent crimes-- murder, assault, robbery, that tend to accompany it. I think those kinds of crimes happen far more often in the black community, for example the 6:1 difference in murders of blacks, by blacks, as compared with whites murdered by whites. Another example: We've got one of Obama's "diversity villages" near here, largely populated by inner-city black people who are subsidized to live here. That area has 12 times the police calls per capita as the rest of the city. The police are RESPONDING, not causing the problem.
As for constrained choices, I contend they are different since LBJ. LBJ saw the end of official racism and many of the legal, even societal constraints placed on black people, but the beginning of a welfare system that tended to keep people dependent, rewarded unwed motherhood, and then saddled this population with schools following "the soft bigotry of low expectations."
You probably won't hear prominent black voices calling for "quotas" in arrests, but you have many of them calling for an end to arrests of blacks, or policing of black neighborhoods. Just yesterday we had a group calling for an end to arrests for shoplifting because Target and Walmart were "insured." It is the tolerance for lawlessness that begets more lawlessness, not justice, and not peace.
As for the "fact of the matter" of disproportionate police force against blacks, I don't know whether there is proof of that or if it is simply one more inflammatory assertion by the race pimps and agitators. Certainly there is anecdotal evidence, there has to be, but I keep coming back to my belief that we have allowed a cultural divide to develop in this country, and black people (young black men in particular) are more inclined to resist arrest, and sometimes even bystanders attempt to hinder or harm police officers performing their duty. If there is violence towards black offenders by police, I think it is likely that both sides are at fault. Now, how do you fix it? I don't know. But arson and looting probably isn't the way.
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2015/08/walters-murray-the-new-jim-crow-revisited-2.php
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