Patterico's Pontifications

6/5/2020

Food for Thought on a Friday

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 8:29 am

Many allege systemic racism by cops and the system based purely on arrest/conviction/incarceration statistics. If such statistics alone prove prejudice, then cops and the system have an extreme problem with sexism against males.

— Patterico (@Patterico) June 5, 2020

My only message here is: as with most issues, maybe it's more complicated than the prevailing sentiment demands you believe.

— Patterico (@Patterico) June 5, 2020

Happy Friday!

Comments (112)

112 Responses to “Food for Thought on a Friday”

Perhaps you didn’t go far enough. The obvious question is: are blacks arrested, convicted and incarcerated at greater rates than white because blacks actually commit more crimes? Seems to me that is a pretty important question, and people shy away from it because the answer is so very politically incorrect.
The Dana in Kentucky (6a5316) — 6/5/2020 @ 8:37 am
Those many alleging this systemic racism are also saying you have to look beyond the statistics. Not every encounter between a minority and a police officer are measured and quantified in some database.
Hoi Polloi (dc4124) — 6/5/2020 @ 8:38 am
Perhaps you didn’t go far enough. The obvious question is: are blacks arrested, convicted and incarcerated at greater rates than white because blacks actually commit more crimes? Seems to me that is a pretty important question, and people shy away from it because the answer is so very politically incorrect.

The statistics based on reporting from victims — which are more reliable in this context than arrest statistics that could be influenced by law enforcement prejudice while victim reporting isn’t in any appreciable way — make it pretty clear that they do.
Patterico (115b1f) — 6/5/2020 @ 8:52 am
with all that is said about “lies, damn lies and statistics”, it’s helpful to consider that good statistical measures are useful in finding the truth oof an assertion. As a hypothetical example, if the arrest counts for African American adolescent males and adolescent caucasian males are presented as percentages of the measured population are compared over a number of similar cities or counties for example, St. Louis and Kansas City, and the percentages show that 22 percent of African American adolescents have been charged with resisting arrest as compared to 8 percent of caucasians, I think one could be justified in questioning whether police behavior was a factor in the result.

It is really, really difficult to get high quality raw data when the subject is influenced by politics. As proof, look at the problems in getting accurate COVID-19 counts from prisons and factories,
John B Boddie (f44786) — 6/5/2020 @ 8:56 am
Those many alleging this systemic racism are also saying you have to look beyond the statistics. Not every encounter between a minority and a police officer are measured and quantified in some database.

What you are saying is we have to look at anecdotes. OK. Are there anecdotes of police being unnecessarily hostile to whites too? I’ve spoken to whites who have been treated poorly who, if they were black, would have probably concluded they were victims of racism. What does that suggest about racism being a causal effect of cops having bad encounters with whites? Not that it doesn’t exist, of course, but that it’s not as bad as the plethora of anecdotes might suggest. Also, it’s impossible to control for the attitude of the citizen, but the attitude of the citizen plays a big role in how cops respond and if you think cops and all other members of society are systematically racist it may affect your attitude in a specific encounter, which will influence the cop’s reaction.

It’s complicated, in other words. Like I said.
Patterico (115b1f) — 6/5/2020 @ 8:57 am
intersectionality[ in-ter-sek-shuh-nal-i-tee ]
noun
the theory that the overlap of various social identities, as race, gender, sexuality, and class, contributes to the specific type of systemic oppression and discrimination experienced by an individual (often used attributively):

the oppression and discrimination resulting from the overlap of an individual’s various social identities:
Leviticus (3eb64b) — 6/5/2020 @ 8:58 am
with all that is said about “lies, damn lies and statistics”, it’s helpful to consider that good statistical measures are useful in finding the truth oof an assertion. As a hypothetical example, if the arrest counts for African American adolescent males and adolescent caucasian males are presented as percentages of the measured population are compared over a number of similar cities or counties for example, St. Louis and Kansas City, and the percentages show that 22 percent of African American adolescents have been charged with resisting arrest as compared to 8 percent of caucasians, I think one could be justified in questioning whether police behavior was a factor in the result.

The point of this post is to ask people to take literally any argument like that and substitute “male” for “black” and see if the conclusion seems as compelling. For example:

if the arrest counts for males and females are presented as percentages of the measured population are compared over a number of similar cities or counties for example, St. Louis and Kansas City, and the percentages show that [fill in the blank with a high number] percent of males have been charged with resisting arrest as compared to [fill in the blank with a lower number] percent of females, I think one could be justified in questioning whether police behavior was a factor in the result.

You could question it, of course, but do those statistics really prove sexism against males, if true? Or do they show something else?
Patterico (115b1f) — 6/5/2020 @ 9:00 am
If this country had a multi-century history of oppressing males, this analogy might hold up.

I understand and agree that this is a complicated topic. A message emphasizing nuance deserves a nuanced delivery.
Leviticus (3eb64b) — 6/5/2020 @ 9:01 am
intersectionality[ in-ter-sek-shuh-nal-i-tee ]
noun
the theory that the overlap of various social identities, as race, gender, sexuality, and class, contributes to the specific type of systemic oppression and discrimination experienced by an individual (often used attributively):

the oppression and discrimination resulting from the overlap of an individual’s various social identities:

You’re saying it’s the racism *and* the sexism against males that characterize the system’s prejudice? (Toss in ageism against the young as well while you’re at it.)
Patterico (115b1f) — 6/5/2020 @ 9:01 am
The oppression olympics. Most victim points wins.
NJRob (4d595c) — 6/5/2020 @ 9:02 am
If this country had a multi-century history of oppressing males, this analogy might hold up.

It is the very fact that the country has the opposite history that makes my point, isn’t it? In other words, reference to statistics alone cannot be a compelling argument if the same statistics would justify a conclusion of rampant prejudice against a group that has actually been *favored* by the system throughout the country’s history.

Do you see how you are actually reinforcing my point?

I’m not saying there’s no racism in the system at all. I’m saying that justifying your beliefs about its extent by reference to statistics is lazy and inevitably leads to inaccurate conclusions.
Patterico (115b1f) — 6/5/2020 @ 9:04 am
“It’s more complicated” — definitely right.

Here is another factor: violent vs. non-violent crime. Putting aside race, one would expect police to need to use force, at least in some measure, more often where the underlying crime is one of violence than not. It would not surprise anyone that in arresting, say, Bernie Madoff, the FBI would have no need to resort to force, even though he committed some very serious financial crimes.

If one focuses only on violent crimes, then I think that African-Americans are statistically over-represented.
Bored Lawyer (56c962) — 6/5/2020 @ 9:04 am
IOW it is precisely the fact that men have been favored throughout this country’s history that makes it clear that sexism is *not* the issue, despite the statistics.

Which leads to an uncomfortable discussion that people would rather avoid about what actually is behind the statistics. The conclusion of which is acceptable to say about males or the young.
Patterico (115b1f) — 6/5/2020 @ 9:06 am
Okay. You’re right, Patterico. Statistics alone can be manipulated if context (particularly historical context) is not provided.

This is still a straw man. A lot of serious people who are using statistics to make their points on systemic racism tend to be referring to the multi-century history in the next or prior breath.
Leviticus (3eb64b) — 6/5/2020 @ 9:07 am
“ Perhaps you didn’t go far enough. The obvious question is: are blacks arrested, convicted and incarcerated at greater rates than white because blacks actually commit more crimes?”
__ _

Don’t you know that it’s not OK to provide any data that runs counter to the ‘systemic racism’ meme?

Telling people that blacks are murdered by the bushel by other blacks, that the black crime rate is disproportional to any other group and that black males have made up 42 percent of all cop-killers over the last decade, though they are only 6 percent of the population, is verboten hate speech.

https://nypost.com/2017/09/26/all-that-kneeling-ignores-the-real-cause-of-soaring-black-homicides/

Same with discussing illiteracy, illegitimacy and fathers-in-the-household stats, you know, the greatest predictors for future incarceration.

And above all, NEVER mention which party has complete domination of the cities where occurance like the George Floyd knee-on-the-throat thing happened.
__ _
harkin (9c4571) — 6/5/2020 @ 9:08 am
“You’re saying it’s the racism *and* the sexism against males that characterize the system’s prejudice? (Toss in ageism against the young as well while you’re at it.)”

– Patterico

You’re saying that you don’t believe that young, black males are the target of uniquely intense prejudice in America?
Leviticus (3eb64b) — 6/5/2020 @ 9:09 am
Patterico, fantastic post. I’m looking through the link you provided in comment 3, interesting stuff. Your point that this stuff is very hard to parse is a good one.
Time123 (af99e9) — 6/5/2020 @ 9:16 am
Patrick and Leviticus both make excellent points.

There are two related, but different issues.

One is the reality of racial bias, which surely exists (and shouldn’t), but which I suspect is not as universal as claimed. Assuming that every incident of police misconduct experienced by a minority is the result of racial animus is obviously crazy. For example, the last time I had an epileptic seizure (2014) the Laguna Beach cops roughed me up while I was unconscious because I didn’t (couldn’t) follow their instructions. I could barely walk (or sleep) for a week afterward. My body felt so messed up that I gave up smoking three packs a day, cold turkey (so the incident probably improved my long-term health…) No racism required.

The other is the perception of racial bias, which is important based on the country’s history of slavery and institutional racism. This does damage too.
Dave (1bb933) — 6/5/2020 @ 9:23 am
“ You’re saying that you don’t believe that young, black males are the target of uniquely intense prejudice in America?”

Blacks overall have been targets of ‘uniquely intense’ racism as long as I have been alive. The amount I see now compared to that growing up in the 60s is microscopic.

But in order to actually address (first step to SOLVE) the two-fold problem of black crime rates (the greatest by far cause of black/police interactions that go wrong) AND bad cops, you have to actually gather FACTS.

1) look for the causes of high crime rates (illiteracy, no father in the household, drug use, unemployment) and do whatever you can to correct them.

2) look for the causes of incompetent/corrupt/criminal policing (lack of accountability, lack of training, corruption/dysfunction of city government and police unions) and do whatever it takes to correct them.

Unless you address ALL these issues, you are merely kicking the can down the road and causing further high crime and bad cops……and riots and destruction of the very communities Dems and BLM profess to support.

It really IS that simple but there are November votes to be gleaned.
_
harkin (9c4571) — 6/5/2020 @ 9:33 am
You’re saying that you don’t believe that young, black males are the target of uniquely intense prejudice in America?

Prejudice, yes. There was a time in my life when I had a black girlfriend and I saw (and got hit with) that prejudice at times. Perhaps not as much as an actual young black male would have, but it was there.

Unique? From police, possibly. From society? Try applying for a job at 60 and you will see that there are other forms of prejudice.

Intense? From some, but mostly fear-based, xenophobic and possibly situational.

There is nothing more painful to me at this stage in my life than to walk down the street and hear footsteps and start thinking about robbery. Then [I] look around and see someone white and feel relieved.

–Jesse Jackson, 1993
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 6/5/2020 @ 9:35 am
Dave – congrats on kicking the habit (3 packs, holy cr@p).

My old man found my Marlboros hidden in the garage when I was in the fifth grade.

He made me eat them. I was cured for life.

Whatever it takes!!
_
harkin (9c4571) — 6/5/2020 @ 9:37 am
OT: There’s that word again dept: U.S. jobless rate unexpectedly declined to 13.3% in May (front-page headline)
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 6/5/2020 @ 9:43 am
Jonah has a good discussion of systemic racism (I think it’s behind a paywall, so I’m cutting-pasting liberally):

Systemic racism is when unconscious attitudes and vestigial unexamined and unjust laws, customs, and policies yield racially unfair or unjust results, in effect, by accident. When racial injustice is the intended result that’s not systemic racism but, you know, racism. Jim Crow was a system of racism, but it wasn’t systemic racism. Slavery in America was a racist system—or at least it became racist when slaveholders needed a new theory for why the evil institution should be prolonged. Even in America, the racial justification of slavery was a lagging indicator, not a leading one. Slavery existed for millennia before any modern notion of racism even existed. But the point is there was nothing unconscious or accidental about it.
I’m reminded of that great scene in Barcelona in which Fred asks about “subtext.”
https://youtu.be/kIbg7oiXECE
“Plays, novels, songs—they all have a subtext, which I take to mean a hidden message or import of some kind. So, subtext, we know. But what do you call the message or meaning that’s right there on the surface, completely open and obvious? They never talk about that. What do you call what’s above the subtext?”
“The text,” Ted replies.
“OK, that’s right, but they never talk about that.”
Of course, this isn’t quite right because at least sometimes the subtext is intended by the author (though whole curricula are dedicated to subtexts never intended by them).
What’s so annoying about the debate we have is that if you don’t agree with claims of systemic racism—some of which I think are perfectly valid—you are shoved into the position of being an actual racist. It’s a heads-I-win, tails-you-lose, form of argumentation.
It’s important to note that however valid the claims of systemic racism—rightly understood—may be, the actual system we have is not racist. In other words, it’s fine to argue about subtext, but we should at least acknowledge the text. This country endured a civil war and then changed the text of Constitution to abolish slavery and expand rights to all Americans. Sadly, that didn’t do the job, so we had a massive civil rights movement and changed the text of the laws to put teeth on those changes. There is a mass of legislation and common law fleshing all of this out. That should matter.
Our culture is also less racist than at any time in American history, even accounting for some of the recrudescent backsliding in some swampy corners of the right. Calling yourself a racist or acting in non-subtextually racist ways carries an enormous price in our culture. Hell, even acting in ways that are merely interpretable as racist can carry a devastating price. One can argue that the prices should be higher—or lower—but that is an argument that requires a level of nuance few are willing to engage in. Instead we’re told that opposing looting and rioting is in itself racist, even if the disparate impact of that looting and rioting actually harms African Americans—and other minorities—more than white Americans. Don’t complain about the immigrant grocer having his livelihood destroyed, because that’s immoral! Don’t point out that Dorn was black, because that muddies the narrative!
Screw that.
Paul Montagu (211372) — 6/5/2020 @ 9:47 am
The other is the perception of racial bias, which is important based on the country’s history of slavery and institutional racism.

Yes. I also think that many whites, myself included, are lulled a bit by the apparent sanguine attitude they see from blacks in their social sphere. When in fact it is mostly acceptance of a situation they are powerless over. If you become close, or you find yourself in a mostly black setting, you will find that there is more to it than that.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 6/5/2020 @ 9:52 am
My old man found my Marlboros hidden in the garage when I was in the fifth grade.

Quickly thinking up an excuse on the spot, I told my mom that I was holding them for a friend. Who knew it was a cliche?
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 6/5/2020 @ 9:55 am
This is not an intellectual problem. The idea that one can teach people not to have racist attitude. even unconscious ones, is a mistake. The only way that people can work free of ingrained prejudice is by constant social contact, proving the prejudice wrong.

Cops may get a different set of contacts and their worldview may harden. Even black cops look at young black men with some suspicion.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 6/5/2020 @ 10:01 am
One of my favorite films, tuskha bergen has been an underutilized resource, subtext is narrative.
Narciso (7404b5) — 6/5/2020 @ 10:02 am
The Dana in Kentucky (6a5316) — 6/5/2020 @ 8:37 am

The obvious question is: are blacks arrested, convicted and incarcerated at greater rates than white because blacks actually commit more crimes?

There is something wrong with your premise of your questio:n.

Blacks are not arrested, convicted and incarcerated at a a greater rate than whites.

They are arrested, convicted and incarcerated at a lower rate than whites.

Per crime.

If it wasn’t so they couldn’t commit so many crimes. (in aggregate)

And actually it depends on the neighborhood or race of the victim. Crimes against blacks are tolerated much more than similar crimes against whites. Law enforcement gives up. For various reasons.
Sammy Finkelman (ce04e1) — 6/5/2020 @ 10:09 am
When Ferguson, MO blew up there are tons flawed analysis that tried to label the Ferguson police were racist simply due the the raw numbers of black statistics compared to non-blacks statistic in Ferguson.

The missing context, was that, most of the non-blacks were disproportionately older/retired and the blacks were younger.

Additionally, the other problem was that the city tried to maximize the ticket-to-revenue process for budgeting. Not because there was racist motive to “get the blacks”. Additionally, most of the blacks were poorer who couldn’t pay for the fines, so they incur even more police interactions and more fines for failing to pay original fines.
whembly (c30c83) — 6/5/2020 @ 10:12 am
And it differs also from year to year and generation to generation. Just like the crime rate between urban blacks and urban whites is not the same, the crime rate in 1990 and in 2015 is not the same.

If things are better, you have lower incarceration and low crime. If things get very bad you have high incarceration and high crime.

The main causes and preventatives are:

1) Individual ethics.

2) If not that, who someone’s friends are and what they do. he friends don;t even have to ethical to stop crime. They just have to be practical.

3) If all else fails, law enforcement – and if law enforcement is not present, in the background at lest, eventually the other two things stopping criminal activity will not be there either.
Sammy Finkelman (ce04e1) — 6/5/2020 @ 10:20 am
The only way that people can work free of ingrained prejudice is by constant social contact, proving the prejudice wrong.

There’s truth in this.
Colonel Haiku (951ecf) — 6/5/2020 @ 10:20 am
If what I’ve read is true, LA Mayor Garcetti 🤡 will address this by defunding police.
Colonel Haiku (951ecf) — 6/5/2020 @ 10:23 am
29. whembly (c30c83) — 6/5/2020 @ 10:12 am

Additionally, the other problem was that the city tried to maximize the ticket-to-revenue process for budgeting. Not because there was racist motive to “get the blacks”.

But because they were a relatively new population in Ferguson, relatively few voted or even knew about municipal elections, and few belonged to municipal unions, and Ferguson Missouri had a government of the unions, by the unions and for the unions.

A number of municipalities around St. Louis were like that and Ferguson was not the worst.

This past Tuesday, a black woman was elected mayor of Ferguson, Missouri. But things had changed already ln 2015.

Additionally, most of the blacks were poorer who couldn’t pay for the fines, so they incur even more police interactions and more fines for failing to pay original fines.

Blacks weren’t specifically targeted. But maybe certain kinds of acts not common among city workers were. Also, with a system like that, anyone with a city job would have the money to pay any fine.
Sammy Finkelman (ce04e1) — 6/5/2020 @ 10:29 am
The only way that people can work free of ingrained prejudice is by constant social contact, proving the prejudice wrong.

What if it proves it right?
Sammy Finkelman (ce04e1) — 6/5/2020 @ 10:30 am
The only way that people can work free of ingrained prejudice is by constant social contact, proving the prejudice wrong.

Alternatively it may support the prejudice even more…
Horatio (399ff8) — 6/5/2020 @ 10:31 am
To really get good stats it would be best to compare young black and young white men from the same or very very similar communities, but communities often aren’t integrated enough for that to happen.

@26 Police officers see the worst of people day in, day out, every day, especially in cities. I’m sure they have a very skewed viewpoint, it would be almost impossible not to.
Nic (896fdf) — 6/5/2020 @ 10:32 am
The missing context, was that, most of the non-blacks were disproportionately older/retired and the blacks were younger.

You may be right about their demographics, but Ferguson’s system of law enforcement and fine collecting was unfair and punitive. The city used its police department more as a profit center than for law enforcement, and it was a racially-biased profit center.
Paul Montagu (211372) — 6/5/2020 @ 10:33 am
When Ferguson, MO blew up there are tons flawed analysis that tried to label the Ferguson police were racist simply due the the raw numbers of black statistics compared to non-blacks statistic in Ferguson.

The missing context, was that, most of the non-blacks were disproportionately older/retired and the blacks were younger.

Additionally, the other problem was that the city tried to maximize the ticket-to-revenue process for budgeting. Not because there was racist motive to “get the blacks”. Additionally, most of the blacks were poorer who couldn’t pay for the fines, so they incur even more police interactions and more fines for failing to pay original fines.

whembly (c30c83) — 6/5/2020 @ 10:12 am

I remember reading that report a few years ago. To me it was a pretty clean example of systemic racism. The system was set up to screw everyone in it and administered for the profit of local government. It wasn’t intended to hurt black people, but it ended up doing that anyway.
Time123 (797615) — 6/5/2020 @ 10:40 am
@37 it wasn’t maliciously racially biased…

More, ticket-to-revenue biased (which was dumb and they’ve stopped that practice). It just disproportionately impacted the the black residents.
whembly (c30c83) — 6/5/2020 @ 10:40 am
St. Louis is sorta unique as what Sammy alluded to. We have a LOT of small cities with it’s own municipalities and their own budgets. Remember, the “city” of St. Louis is small and disconnected from St. Louis “county”:
https://nextstl.com/wp-content/uploads/stl-county-munis.png

See all those fiefdom? whhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhyyyyyyyyy??

The county and city needs to merge and then be carved up similarly to like NY’s Burroughs governance imo. But, all the NYMBYs and political fiefdoms want to protect their jobs/turf.

This is why things like the St. Louis “murder capital of the world” statistic is bunk. We’re nowhere near #1 if you merge the city and county data together.
whembly (c30c83) — 6/5/2020 @ 10:48 am
IMO, City of Ferguson was more an example of actual racism and systemic racism. I suggest you read all of my link above, if you haven’t. The examples of the racism are sickening.
Paul Montagu (211372) — 6/5/2020 @ 10:48 am
Slavery in America was a racist system—or at least it became racist when slaveholders needed a new theory for why the evil institution should be prolonged.

Maybe about 1650. An earlier theory, borrowed from the Muslims, (and Jews) had been religion, but the settlers wanted to convert them. (Jews though tended to free (and convert) their slaves in the Middle Ages.)

This country endured a civil war and then changed the text of Constitution to abolish slavery and expand rights to all Americans. Sadly, that didn’t do the job,

No, they did, but white supremacists waged a long battle, over decades, to take away rights.

Instead we’re told that opposing looting and rioting is in itself racist, even if the disparate impact of that looting and rioting actually harms African Americans—and other minorities—more than white Americans.

The people arguing this way pick and chose their own facts, even if the statistics they cite (as opposed to their generalizations) are not false as such. Whatabout matters. Whatabout whites killed by police? Whatabout blacks killed by people who are not the police? Whatabout the alternative? What happens when police get criticized untruthfully and people stop calling them?

One problem is that facts can be characterized as racially biased.
Sammy Finkelman (ce04e1) — 6/5/2020 @ 10:53 am
If what I’ve read is true, LA Mayor Garcetti 🤡 will address this by defunding police.

Yes, by $150 million, which represents something like 500 officers. Not sure how they are going to do it. It would be best if the department weeded out those they now just tolerate, but I bet it will be something more destructive like forced retirement. Maybe they plan on getting rid of DROP.

The money will go to ~~ward healing payoffs~~ improving relations in the African-American community. I’m going to bet that not a dime of homeless money will be touched.

Patterico may or may not wish to weigh in on this; I’d appreciate his insight.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 6/5/2020 @ 10:53 am
@41… I’m not saying actual racism didn’t exist. I’m arguing that the major reason was structural, rather than actual wide-spread racial animus.
whembly (c30c83) — 6/5/2020 @ 10:54 am
Also… another map highlighting the insanity of having small municiple cities with their own police force:
google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fbloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com%2Fstltoday.com%2Fcontent%2Ftncms%2Fassets%2Fv3%2Feditorial%2Ff%2F96%2Ff96c13d1-0bbe-574c-98ef-6209fbeff423%2F5407a4c215521.image.png&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.stltoday.com%2Fnews%2Flocal%2Fcolumns%2Ftony-messenger%2Fmessenger-as-cities-circle-the-wagons-they-repeat-history-of-a-divided-st-louis%2Farticle_98d960b9-2ddb-513c-9f35-e7a819372158.html&tbnid=PSzmAusG_yXODM&vet=12ahUKEwjI3rfknOvpAhVLQKwKHUsPDqoQMygOegUIARDBAQ..i&docid=jyr1svJ_fwL25M&w=620&h=455&q=map%20of%20st.%20louis%20county%20with%20cities%20displayed&ved=2ahUKEwjI3rfknOvpAhVLQKwKHUsPDqoQMygOegUIARDBAQ
whembly (c30c83) — 6/5/2020 @ 10:55 am
No, they did, but white supremacists waged a long battle, over decades

Just one decade actually. The Cruikshank decision, which gutted the 14th Amendment and most civil rights laws — and legalized lynching — was issued in 1876.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 6/5/2020 @ 10:56 am
Time123 (797615) — 6/5/2020 @ 10:40 am

The system was set up to screw everyone in it and administered for the profit of local government. It wasn’t intended to hurt black people, but it ended up doing that anyway.

I have trouble seeing how this describes systemic racism. If it was set up to screw everyone then it sounds race-neutral. It also sounds like something I’d like to get rid of but not because it’s racist.
frosty (f27e97) — 6/5/2020 @ 10:56 am
A black arborist I work with told me the white people kneeling and laying in the street need psychiatric help.
I choked on my coffee and agreed!
mg (8cbc69) — 6/5/2020 @ 11:06 am
47, These terms all have loads of meanings, connotations, and in some cases very specific meanings. I’m not an expert. But one definition of systemic racism that I think is useful is; A system that has a disparate, and negative, impact on an ethnic minority. Whether it came about because it was knowingly built to do that, or it just ends up being administered that way the end result is the same.

Does that make sense?
Time123 (797615) — 6/5/2020 @ 11:07 am
Patterico, I’m not seeing where the document you linked clearly supports what you claim it does. It’s almost entirely about Black victims of crime. Table 5 comes close but doesn’t have a column for total crimes. Am I just missing it?
Time123 (797615) — 6/5/2020 @ 11:13 am
A big part of the systemic racism is a political party that convinces a community there is no hope and they must be wards of the state.

Another part is, after convincing them there is no hope, telling 20 million pregnant black women that killing their child is their best option to live a better life:

“ Since Roe v. Wade legalized abortion in 1973, abortion has killed an estimated 20 million black babies — more than the entire US black population of 1960.“

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/op-eds/since-roe-abortion-has-killed-more-black-babies-than-the-entire-black-population-of-the-u-s-in-1960

IMO you could not find a better description of ‘systemic racism’.
_
harkin (9c4571) — 6/5/2020 @ 11:16 am
The Obama Administration did this report to take some of the sting away from their other report that the whole Michael Brown case was a hoax.

https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/opa/press-eeleases/attachments/2015/03/04/doj_report_on_shooting_of_michael_brown_1.pdf

Although no eyewitnesses directly corroborate Wilson’s account of Brown’s attempt to gain control of the gun, there is no credible evidence to disprove Wilson’s account of what occurred inside the SUV. Some witnesses claim that Brown’s arms were never inside the SUV. However, as discussed later in this report, those witness accounts could not be relied upon in a prosecution because credible witness accounts and physical and forensic evidence, i.e. Brown’s DNA inside the SUV and on Wilson’s shirt collar and the bullet trajectory and close-range gunshot wound to Brown’s hand, establish that Brown’s arms and/or torso were inside the SUV….

…. However, as detailed later in this report, there are no witness accounts that could be relied upon in a prosecution to prove that Wilson shot at Brown as he was running away. Witnesses who say so cannot be relied upon in a prosecution because they have given accounts that are inconsistent
with the physical and forensic evidence or are significantly inconsistent with their own prior
statements made throughout the investigation.

Brown ran at least 180 feet away from the SUV, as verified by the location of bloodstains
on the roadway, which DNA analysis confirms was Brown’s blood. Brown then turned around
and came back toward Wilson, falling to his death approximately 21.6 feet west of the blood in
the roadway. Those witness accounts stating that Brown never moved back toward Wilson could not be relied upon in a prosecution because their accounts cannot be reconciled with the DNA bloodstain evidence and other credible witness accounts.

They didn’t go into who lied, and why they lied, and whether they could have been prosecuted for lying, and maybe as to why Michael Brown, unarmed, might have charged the police officer (like maybe he was being encouraged by someone.)
Sammy Finkelman (ce04e1) — 6/5/2020 @ 11:21 am
The host’s point was demonstrated in a real world example with the New Jersey “driving while black” study many years ago.

https://www.cnn.com/2002/LAW/03/27/nj.speeding.study/index.html

https://www.city-journal.org/html/racial-profiling-myth-debunked-12244.html

But, as with “hands up, don’t shoot” and George Wallace – Republican, it’s the myth that gets etched into lore and the debunking gets tossed aside.
beer ‘n pretzels (3d3894) — 6/5/2020 @ 11:31 am
46. Kevin M (ab1c11) — 6/5/2020 @ 10:56 am

Just one decade actually. The Cruikshank decision, which gutted the 14th Amendment and most civil rights laws — and legalized lynching — was issued in 1876.

No, it took longer. They didn’t achieve complete victory in North Carolina until 1898.

And it was more than who occupied elective office. They didn’t institute Jim Crow until the 1890s. They drew up new state constitutions past the year 1900. And actually things got worse and worse until blacks began leaving the south, about 1916. They used to try to stop them from boarding trains.

It is possible that the 1920s were the worst period. This was the period (early Twentieth century) when they put up all those statues of Confederate generals.

Then it reversed itself.
Sammy Finkelman (ce04e1) — 6/5/2020 @ 11:34 am
There was a legal victory won in the United Satessuopreme Court in 1915 against the grandfatherclause for voting (this had been law in the state of Oklahoma, which didn;t even exist until 1907)
Sammy Finkelman (ce04e1) — 6/5/2020 @ 11:36 am
53.

Re: “driving while black” study

Also, it was the Washington D.C. drug gangs who discriminated and only hired blacks. So were the New Jersey state police supposed to stop other cars under suspicion of transporting illegal drugs?
Sammy Finkelman (ce04e1) — 6/5/2020 @ 11:44 am
Time123 (797615) — 6/5/2020 @ 11:07 am

I’m familiar with that definition. It doesn’t make sense and it isn’t useful. At its core, this is an outcome-based analysis. At the end of the day this is an argument for systematic inequality based on the hope of producing equatable outcomes. Reality is too complex for this and it only leads to more inequality.
frosty (f27e97) — 6/5/2020 @ 11:48 am
harkin satirically chastised me:

“ Perhaps you didn’t go far enough. The obvious question is: are blacks arrested, convicted and incarcerated at greater rates than white because blacks actually commit more crimes?”

Don’t you know that it’s not OK to provide any data that runs counter to the ‘systemic racism’ meme?

Telling people that blacks are murdered by the bushel by other blacks, that the black crime rate is disproportional to any other group and that black males have made up 42 percent of all cop-killers over the last decade, though they are only 6 percent of the population, is verboten hate speech.

I plead guilty, and thoroughly denounce myself.

So I’ll add my next should-be-obvious point: if blacks commit crimes at a disproportionately higher rate, and the police not only have to deal with criminals but are open-eyed enough to have seen this pattern, is any prejudice against blacks among police officers something left over from their childhood, or is it something which has developed because of what they have seen on the job? Is a prejudice against blacks when it comes to criminal suspects something wholly illogical, or is it a rational response to what officers have seen in the past?

Boy, it’s a good thing I’m retired and thus can’t get fired from a job for things I might post online!
The Dana in Kentucky (6a5316) — 6/5/2020 @ 11:52 am
Why is that society notices the death of a black person only when he or she is killed by a white person (and especially a cop)? Politicians don’t give speeches, people don’t march in protest, and corporations don’t make sanctimonious proclamations unless a white is involved, despite the appalling carnage that has been going on in the African-American community for many years.

Even if you discount overall arrest and conviction statistics as possibly tainted by bias or racism, that doesn’t work with murders, as there it’s undeniable that a crime has occurred. In 2018, there were (approximately, going from memory) about 7,400 blacks murdered in the US, and about 6300 whites. Something like 92% of the murders of blacks were by other blacks. There were also 209 blacks and 399 whites killed by police. The vast majority of the persons, black and white, killed by police were armed.

I am not black but don’t doubt, because it seems like pretty much all blacks say this and there’s no reason to think they’re not telling the truth, that police disproportionately and often unfairly hassle blacks and subject them to suspicion and indignities that as a white I’ve never encountered. This is wrong, even if the above numbers hint at a possible non-racist reason for some of the disparity in police treatment of black people. Conservatives and liberals alike should agree that police need to treat people as equally and fairly as possible; it seems weird even to write those words because they’re so obvious.

The problem I have with the protests is not the calls for police reform but that they seem to discount the lost lives of so many blacks in “ordinary” murders. A death is a tragedy, even if the victim is an 18-year-old gang banger killed by another gang banger in a dispute over something stupid and senseless. That victim may have been a criminal himself, but he still had people who loved him, still had a soul, still hopefully could have had a better life. Society as a whole (I’m as guilty as anyone)seems to shrug its shoulders over all these deaths. If black lives do matter, don’t these thousands of victims’ lives matter as much as the relatively few killed by cops? If a fraction of the efforts that have gone into protesting the cops in just the last 10 days was spent, by people in local communities trying to improve them, day by day, month by month, year by year, maybe the murder rate would go down.

I fear that if we “defund the police” as the idiotic leftish catchphrase goes, then the KKK will end up cheering the loudest because (look at Baltimore) many more black people will be killed.
RL formerly in Glendale (40f5aa) — 6/5/2020 @ 11:58 am
A proposal can be made to abolish a police force. But when proposals to abolish a police force are reasonable, the idea is to replace it with another force, like in Glynn County, Georgia:

They wanted to do it even before Ahmaud Arbery was killed – not by a policeman but by someone who was close to the police and prosecutors, or his son.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/ahmaud-arbery-shooting-spurs-calls-to-disband-police-force-11589630401

A grand jury last year faulted the department for a culture of coverup and abuse of power, prompting efforts to overhaul the agency that were gathering momentum when Mr. Arbery, a 25-year-old black man, was killed on Feb. 23….

…Some officials and residents are now calling for the department to be shut down and for the Glynn County Sheriff’s Office to take over. Glynn County has both an elected sheriff, whose office oversees the jail and courthouse security, and an appointed police chief, whose department handles patrolling and criminal investigations.

State Sen. William Ligon Jr., a Republican whose district includes the area where the shooting occurred, filed a bill before Mr. Arbery’s killing that would pave the way for Glynn County voters to weigh in on whether to abolish the police department. The measure would place a referendum on the ballot asking voters whether county commissioners should disband the department. The referendum would be for a recommendation, not an order.

Mr. Ligon said he drafted the bill at the suggestion of the grand jury that examined the department’s actions last year. After hearing constituents’ reactions to Mr. Arbery’s death, he said, he is now considering altering the measure to make the referendum binding. He expects lawmakers to consider the bill when they reconvene, possibly in June.

“There’s frustration at how this has been handled,” Mr. Ligon said. “The public should just be able to vote for a change.”

Some institutions are so rotten that, rather than attempt to reform them.it is better to abolish them and start all over, or better yet, merge them into something else, even if much smaller.

That should happen to failing public schools, also.
Sammy Finkelman (ce04e1) — 6/5/2020 @ 12:00 pm
Mr Finkelman wrote:

And actually things got worse and worse until blacks began leaving the south, about 1916. They used to try to stop them from boarding trains.

If whites in the South didn’t like blacks, why would they have tried to stop them from leaving?

I went through school integration in the South, and from what I read, it was easier in the South than it was in the north.

Now, I grew up in a small town, and the schools were integrated when the black school mysteriously burned down. The plan had been for gradual integration, three grades at a time, but there it was: everything had to be integrated, all at once. I was entering the sixth grade at the time, but really, I don’t remember any problems. If some adults had problems with it, I never heard about them.

Then I heard about the problems with court ordered busing in South Boston. Perhaps the biggest difference between what I experienced and what we read about in the newspapers was that we had only one school: kids weren’t bused around for the social experiment of integration, the way they were in larger cities.

And when I got to Wilmington, Delaware, in 2000, I found that whites had practically destroyed the public school system after a federal judge — who, unsurprisingly, sent his own children to a private school — in response to the desegregation order. If you lived in New Castle County, if there was any way possible, you sent your kids to private school.
The Dana in Kentucky (6a5316) — 6/5/2020 @ 12:05 pm
“ Boy, it’s a good thing I’m retired and thus can’t get fired from a job for things I might post online!”
__ _

I’m waiting for the pay-per-view where Drew Brees goes down on one knee and kisses Colin Kaepernick on the a$$.

Which reminds me; the meme that Kaepernick “never said his kneeling had anything to do with the flag” is being bleated back into the nation’s consciousness.

CK to NFL.com in 2016:

“I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses Black people and people of color.”

https://www.nfl.com/news/colin-kaepernick-explains-why-he-sat-during-national-anthem-0ap3000000691077

He did however, have the presence of mind to wear a Fidel Castro shirt and socks with pigs wearing cop uniforms.
_
harkin (9c4571) — 6/5/2020 @ 12:08 pm
“He did however, have the presence of mind to wear a Fidel Castro shirt and socks with pigs wearing cop uniforms.”

Imagine still being mad about a peaceful protest in June 2020.
Davethulhu (93f68f) — 6/5/2020 @ 12:12 pm
Someone who used to live in Glandale asked:

Why is that society notices the death of a black person only when he or she is killed by a white person (and especially a cop)? Politicians don’t give speeches, people don’t march in protest, and corporations don’t make sanctimonious proclamations unless a white is involved, despite the appalling carnage that has been going on in the African-American community for many years.

Do you really want the answer? It’s because publicizing black-on-black murders would reinforce raaaaacism, and thus cannot be allowed.

It was the summer of 2009 when the murder of cute little white girl Rian Thal gripped the City of Brotherly Love. The Philadelphia Inquirer ran dozens of stories about her killing, in what turned out to be a drug deal gone bad. Miss Thal was the daughter of well-to-do suburbanites, who got involved in the Philly hip-hop scene, was a drug dealer and “party planner” herself, and got herself blown away. The media were all over the story, just because she was pretty. That’s what drove the media.
The Dana in Kentucky (6a5316) — 6/5/2020 @ 12:14 pm
Patterico, I’m not seeing where the document you linked clearly supports what you claim it does. It’s almost entirely about Black victims of crime. Table 5 comes close but doesn’t have a column for total crimes. Am I just missing it?

You are missing the evidence I am relying on, yes.

Blacks accounted for 49% of all homicide victims in 2005, according to the FBI’s UCR.

. . . .

About 93% of black homicide victims and 85% of white victims in single victim and single offender homicides were murdered by someone of their race.

Also:

Between 2001 and 2005 blacks had higher rates of violent victimization than whites, Hispanics, and Asians (table 2).

. . . .

About four-fifths of black victims of nonfatal violence per-ceived the offenders to be black.

These are statistics. I did not make them up.
Patterico (115b1f) — 6/5/2020 @ 12:15 pm
This is the same story as linked @60. but not behind a paywall

https://thecrimereport.org/2020/05/18/ga-shooting-prompts-calls-to-disband-police-department

Moe:

Glynn County residents who followed the police department’s controversies over the years have long had misgivings about it, said Rev. John Perry II, president of the NAACP’s Brunswick, Ga., chapter. He and others had hoped efforts to reform the department would yield results.

“This Ahmaud case has proved that our hopes were in vain,” Rev. Perry said. “It’s appalling to us that our [local] law enforcement made no arrest in this case.”

Actually, the department contributed too it happening by telling someone who called them, to contact Gregory McMichael the next time he saw someone suspected of breaking in.

Ahmaud Arbery, a jogger, had stopped and entered a site of house that was under construction, probably to get a drink of water. He was not the only person who did this thing. Even some children did this.

He was chased or cornered by men who were not policemen. What were they going to do? Arrest him? On what evidence?

He wound up getting shot to death by the stupid, prejudiced 34-year old son of Gregory McMichael. Then the investigators attempted to cover it up.
Sammy Finkelman (ce04e1) — 6/5/2020 @ 12:21 pm
@59 It’s also well publicized if a black person murders a white person. Most murders take place within a social group (often within a family) so those are “ordinary” murders and less likely to be national news worthy. Murders that take place between social groups are not ordinary, so you get more news about them. Also there are specific historical narratives that come into play if either a white person murders a black person or a black person murders a white person that are not in play if a white person murders a white person or a black person murders a black person.
Nic (896fdf) — 6/5/2020 @ 12:24 pm
“You’re saying it’s the racism *and* the sexism against males that characterize the system’s prejudice? (Toss in ageism against the young as well while you’re at it.)”

– Patterico

You’re saying that you don’t believe that young, black males are the target of uniquely intense prejudice in America?

My question was not rhetorical, Leviticus. I’d appreciate it if you answered it before asking me a question.

Your citation of intersectionality puzzles me because intersectionality, while it indeed describes “the oppression and discrimination resulting from the overlap of an individual’s various social identities,” usually addresses the additional discrimination that flows from one’s membership in one or more *disfavored* classes. For example, under typical intersectionality theory, an older black gay female is more oppressed than a young white heterosexual male, because the groups typically seen as disfavored in this country include older people (although this depends on context and could be debated), blacks, females, and homosexuals.

Here, you are using the theory to ascribe greater prejudice towards young black males. Since it is my thesis in this post and comment section that males are actually favored in our society, at least historically (there are ways in which they are not; how many commercials featuring a married couple portray the husband as dopey (plenty) and how many portray the wife as dopey (none these days) but in the main men are at least historically favored). So I don’t see how a young black male’s maleness leads to a thesis that he lacks access to female privilege and thus is especially disadvantaged as compared to black females. I think that is the opposite of what any intersectionality proponent would tell you.

What we do know is that young males commit a lot of crime. If that disadvantages them in terms of having a tough time getting cabs, or making people nervous when they are followed by young males, or results in higher arrest/conviction/incarceration rates, people easily understand all of that as a function of the fact, which everyone knows, that young males are more dangerous per capita than young females. Is that sexism? I would not call it that. I would call it realism.

I have presented some statistics in this thread on the relative frequency of crimes committed by blacks vs. other races. It’s a delicate subject but statistics are still statistics. I didn’t make them up and I’m not using them to argue blacks are inferior or anything like that. Certainly our history of racism must have something to do with it. Still, we can’t pretend the facts are not the facts. But many people don’t even mention the facts, because there is a tendency on the Internet for people to eagerly look for any hint of anything that could be deemed as racism and then to try to ruin the people who are believed to have shown it. I can’t blame people for shying away from uncomfortable facts in such a nasty environment.

So I have a few questions.

1. Do you acknowledge the statistics I have presented?

2. Why are you citing intersectionality theory? Are you saying it’s the racism *and* the sexism against males that characterize the system’s prejudice? (Toss in ageism against the young as well while you’re at it.)

3. When you ask: “You’re saying that you don’t believe that young, black males are the target of uniquely intense prejudice in America?” I would like to ask: what is your evidence of that?

In any other context but this post I suspect you would *instantly* turn to criminal justice statistics to answer question #3. If that’s your evidence, go ahead, but don’t pretend that those statistics don’t beg the question raised by this post, which I would find it very interesting for you to answer.

I *think* your answer is: I don’t just have statistics. I have statistics plus a history of animus. But your thesis is that statistical variation showing greater arrest/conviction/incarceration rates based on variable x shows that variable x is meaningful in showing discrimination (variable x there being blackness). But my point in response is that when the exact same statistical analysis applied to a different variable y leads to the same conclusion that variable y (maleness) is meaningful in showing discrimination … yet nobody really thinks it is because usually variable y is favorable rather than unfavorable … then maybe some factor other than discrimination, such as rates of crime commission, are the explanatory factor.
Patterico (115b1f) — 6/5/2020 @ 12:32 pm
The host’s point was demonstrated in a real world example with the New Jersey “driving while black” study many years ago.

https://www.cnn.com/2002/LAW/03/27/nj.speeding.study/index.html

Exactly. Give me statistics that say black drivers are pulled over for speeding more and I can tell you a story about the racism of the police, buttressed by this country’s undeniable history of racism. A contrarian might say: “But what about the possibility that blacks … actually speed more?” Anyone who suggested such a thing would be leapt upon by all of the Internet as a rank and ridiculous racist.

And yet, as the commenter notes … a study seems to show that. It’s “controversial” because a lot of people don’t like the conclusion. But I didn’t make up the study. Am I a racist for pointing it out? I’m not citing it to say blacks are inferior. I am citing it to say maybe there is a non-racist justification for disparities in people being pulled over for speeding.

Just saying the facts puts people’s livelihoods at risk these days. And that is scary.
Patterico (115b1f) — 6/5/2020 @ 12:38 pm
61. The Dana in Kentucky (6a5316) — 6/5/2020 @ 12:05 pm

If whites in the South didn’t like blacks, why would they have tried to stop them from leaving?

There was more than one type of white in the south.

The richer people wanted them to work for them. They were better and more honest than the whites.

Some others didn’t want them to work.

And some politicians were afraid they might affect things. Even go to court or make friends with other whites or influence the North to do something. The destruction of communities and massacres happened when blacks were too rich or educated for them, in various places, between about 1898 and 1921. One of them, in Atlanta in 1906 led to the founding of the NAACP. Part of the deal by which peace was made was that the blacks would never ever talk about the – a pogrom really it was – of 1906 even to their own children.

After about 1921, I suspect some people, in a tale that may not have been written or is obscure, without their targets even knowing it managed to undermine the KKK or the worst of the white racists. I mean after all, these people were a danger to everybody.

It’s owing to them we have Mount Rushmore because the sculptor was lured away from Georgia, first to a project which never got off the ground in Texas and then to Mount Rushmore. And eventually his work in Georgia was totally destroyed. (the project was resumed some 30 years later)
Sammy Finkelman (ce04e1) — 6/5/2020 @ 12:44 pm
Patterico, thank you for taking the time to point that out. I wasn’t trying to accuse you of making anything up and I hope it didn’t come across that way

I was hoping that the report would cleanly list the race of the offender for all crimes committed by category of crime. If (% of offender by race) < (% use of force by race) by a meaningful amount, then that would be consistent with the complaint that the police use of force on blacks is 'too high'. It would not prove it, but it would be a useful statistic. For instance if the offender is listed as black 50% of the time and police use of force on black people is 40% of the encounters use of force doesn't correlate with race. If the numbers are flipped it does.

The report supports that black people commit a higher percentage of crime than is explained by pure demographics (As you showed in your excerpt) but it doesn't provide enough specifics to do much more than that.

That's unfortunate, I know the subject of the report was Black Victims of Violent Crime but they would have had to have that data to create table 5. The lack of total by race of offender is either an intentional omission, or it’s very poor work IMO. It could easily have been included.
Time123 (af99e9) — 6/5/2020 @ 12:50 pm
The Dana in Kentucky (6a5316) @61:

The difference between your experience and that in the north is that in the south, there was no association between backs and crime.

Why was there such a thing in the north?

My hypothesis: Organized crime – the Outfit, the Mafia, the Syndicate

Such an association had actually been created by heroin dealers who corrupted the police and, through their connections to political machines, got the politicians to support liberal, anti-punishment judges. The goal being so to not punish crime that took place in segregated communities.

So that their customers could buy drugs without winding up in jail.

And now there’s an attempt to re-create this again.
Sammy Finkelman (ce04e1) — 6/5/2020 @ 12:51 pm
You can also view data from 15 years more recent at https://crime-data-explorer.fr.cloud.gov/explorer/national/united-states/crime as well as download it and chart for yourself. You’ll need some Excel chops to parse the master file.

There is the caveat.

Since crime is a sociological phenomenon influenced by a variety of factors, the FBI discourages ranking locations or making comparisons as a way of measuring law enforcement effectiveness. Some of this data may not be comparable to previous years because of differing levels of participation over time.
Colonel Klink (Ret) (305827) — 6/5/2020 @ 12:55 pm
Patterico I’ll take a swing at this part.

Since it is my thesis in this post and comment section that males are actually favored in our society, at least historically (there are ways in which they are not; how many commercials featuring a married couple portray the husband as dopey (plenty) and how many portray the wife as dopey (none these days) but in the main men are at least historically favored). So I don’t see how a young black male’s maleness leads to a thesis that he lacks access to female privilege and thus is especially disadvantaged as compared to black females. I think that is the opposite of what any intersectionality proponent would tell you.

If you define sexism only as traditional gender roles that benefit men/and oppress women you’re correct.
If you define sexism as a system of gender roles and stereotypes that limit personal choice you’re not correct.

I’ve seen both definitions used.

Using the 2nd definition any time the ‘traditional’ definitions of masculine aren’t desirable you could say that sexism disadvantages men.

Personally I don’t think intersectionality is useful in the ‘oppression Olympics’ sense. It actually annoys me a lot in that way. When it’s called ‘confounding variables’ I think it can be veryu useful in understanding what’s going on in the world.

For instance if you want to do crime statistics you probably should control for not just race but also Sex, income level, average income level for the area, and population density. All of those have places in ‘intersectionality’.
Time123 (af99e9) — 6/5/2020 @ 1:01 pm
What we do know is that young males commit a lot of crime. If that disadvantages them in terms of having a tough time getting cabs

It’s also because they have a much lower tendency to tip because they never were acculturated to tip (not an issue with Uber or Lyft)

And the destination (for yellow cabs) is more likely to be some place where the driver won’t get a return fare. In New York City after a time, yellow cabs tended to limit themselves to Manhattan below 96 St and the airports. Of course the price of medallions was pushed up until it crashed.

then maybe some factor other than discrimination, such as rates of crime commission, are the explanatory factor.

Now the difference in the rate of crime commission is, ultimately the result of different things happening to people of different races. One of the things that made this possible was segregated communities.

It is, by the way not the result of family breakdown. That gets cause and effect reversed. The crime rise happened first – the family breakdown was a result and came later.
Sammy Finkelman (ce04e1) — 6/5/2020 @ 1:04 pm
Our esteemed host wrote:

Since it is my thesis in this post and comment section that males are actually favored in our society, at least historically (there are ways in which they are not; how many commercials featuring a married couple portray the husband as dopey (plenty) and how many portray the wife as dopey (none these days) but in the main men are at least historically favored).

Even The New York Times recognized the fairly dramatic increase in the number of advertisements featuring interracial couples. But the Times didn’t mention an interesting aspect: though black male/white female couples are far more prevalent, the majority of the interracial couples in ads these days are depicted as white male/black female.

Interestingly, along with our host’s thinking, the first ad the Times story mentions has a woman throwing her boyfriend’s stuff out the window to where he’s standing on the ground pleading and you wonder what he did wrong. Of course the guy is white and the girl black, because you just can’t depict a black guy as having done anything wrong.

Of course, advertisers use redheads in about 30% of commercials, even though redheads make up only about 2% of the population. And there are no people as ugly as me in any ads!
The Dana in Kentucky (6a5316) — 6/5/2020 @ 1:05 pm
Why is that society notices the death of a black person only when he or she is killed by a white person (and especially a cop)? Politicians don’t give speeches, people don’t march in protest, and corporations don’t make sanctimonious proclamations unless a white is involved, despite the appalling carnage that has been going on in the African-American community for many years.

Glib answer is “white people only care if a white person is involved.” I think it’s also wrong.

I think in this case it includes; 2 months of social distancing, A video of the death where you could see a man go limp and the officer stay on him, the cities initial response, previous history in the city, the fact that 2 of the 4 officers involved in the murder had histories of excessive force.
Time123 (af99e9) — 6/5/2020 @ 1:06 pm
Thanks to Felipe for pointing out an error. I have fixed it and deleted his comment pointing it out.
Patterico (722b5b) — 6/5/2020 @ 1:06 pm
Mr Finkelman wrote:

The difference between your experience and that in the north is that in the south, there was no association between backs and crime.

Why was there such a thing in the north?

My hypothesis: Organized crime – the Outfit, the Mafia, the Syndicate

All of which were white.

A big part of my experience was that I grew up in a small town; there was no not being recognized, because everybody knew everybody else, quite literally in a lot of cases. That meant that the opportunities for crime were greatly diminished, because you just couldn’t get away with stuff.

When I moved to Lexington after I was graduated from high school, well, blacks had their part of town and whites theirs. The student areas around UK were mostly white, because, at the time, the student body was only about 2% black. That wasn’t discrimination in admissions: at the time, anyone with a diploma from an accredited Kentucky high school was guaranteed admission if he applied, and filling out UK as your first choice on the ACT constituted an application.

And there was little crime — other than drug use — in the areas in which I lived. Was crime higher in the black areas? I really don’t know.
The Dana in Kentucky (6a5316) — 6/5/2020 @ 1:14 pm
Dana in KY:

Just as prevalent as white man/black woman couples in advertising is white man/ darker exotic ethnic woman…Sleep Number Bed is a big user of this, as are many luxury brands, particularly autos.

In my younger years, WM/BW encountered when shopping was usually the loss prevention team (and no, I never tested them).
urbanleftbehind (9df0a6) — 6/5/2020 @ 1:14 pm
Mr 123 wrote:

Why is that society notices the death of a black person only when he or she is killed by a white person (and especially a cop)? Politicians don’t give speeches, people don’t march in protest, and corporations don’t make sanctimonious proclamations unless a white is involved, despite the appalling carnage that has been going on in the African-American community for many years.

Glib answer is “white people only care if a white person is involved.” I think it’s also wrong.

Maybe it’s because the murder of a black person in the black areas of town really isn’t news anymore.

In foul, fetid, fuming, foggy, filthy Philadelphia, there were 356 murders in 2019, and the vast majority of them were of black men by other black men. When you are approaching one per day, is it really news, is it really more relevant than a car crash on the Schuylkill (non) Expressway?

And there have been 169 killings thus far this year, a 23% increase over the same day last year.
The Dana in Kentucky (6a5316) — 6/5/2020 @ 1:21 pm
In foul, fetid, fuming, foggy, filthy Philadelphia,

Somebody oopen up a window!
felipe (023cc9) — 6/5/2020 @ 1:23 pm
#64, #67. Agree that society does have narratives that it clings to regarding race and crime. My only points are that black lives do matter, the murder rate in the black community is much higher than among whites, and the vast majority of blacks who are murdered are killed by other blacks, and it devalues the lives of all those victims to pretend that their deaths are not as important because a white didn’t kill them. I find a lot of the rhetoric out there these days to be racist in the “soft bigotry of low expectations” mode because it seems based on the belief that blacks aren’t responsible for their own actions or capable of doing better, when of course they are. All these murders leave behind shattered families and blighted lives. But the media don’t seem to care, and only find black deaths worthy of attention when they can help further a political agenda. It’s racism that would do a Kleagle proud, despite being marched under the anti-racist banner.
RL formerly in Glendale (40f5aa) — 6/5/2020 @ 1:28 pm
The media only cares about things that put eyes on ads. /cynicism
Nic (896fdf) — 6/5/2020 @ 1:36 pm
Mr Finkelman wrote:

Now the difference in the rate of crime commission is, ultimately the result of different things happening to people of different races. One of the things that made this possible was segregated communities.

Cities have been racially segregated for as long as we have had them, but there’s probably more integration on the edges of those districts than ever before.

My view is that it isn’t so much segregation in housing patterns — though such segregation allows different cultures to exist — but dense urbanization. When you pack people together like sardines, something goes wrong, tempers flare, and the object of your ire is right there! In the suburbs, there’s at least some distance, and out in the countryside, well, other than one house, I’m not in reasonable walking distance of any of my other neighbors.

Around here, almost everybody has guns. The Daniel Boone National Forest is right across the street from my property, and it’s full of bears and bobcats and coyotes.

Kentuckians are less worried about crime, and the Commonwealth has a lower than the national average crime rate.
The Dana in Kentucky (6a5316) — 6/5/2020 @ 1:37 pm
The reason I say that housing segregation was a pre-condition for a longlasting high black crime rate is that it allowed different levels of crime to exist in different places.

It wouldn’t have been tolerated at high levels for so long if people who mattered to the people running things could become victims.
Sammy Finkelman (8a673f) — 6/5/2020 @ 3:24 pm
To say it’s more complicated is an understatement. I keep hearing that the protests are necessary because they are “starting a dialogue” or they are “bring the problem to everyone’s attention”.

First, everyone other than white nationalists agrees that Chauvin was dead wrong. There is no excuse making or rationalizing.

Second, “white America” is not insiduously “letting this happen”.

Third, Democrats are in charge of Minneapolis…literally the entire city council is either Democrat or Green Party. This…..as I was mistakenly accused of before…..is not saying Democrats are to blame, but precisely the opposite, that Democrats cannot afford to have even the appearance of being racist….so policies in Minneapolis may be ineffective, but they are not intentionally so.

Fourth, most cops don’t blurr the lines and are as outraged as everyone else. The issue here is sniffing out the 1 or 2% of bad cops that have figured out how to game the disciplinary system. And do this while still finding enough candidates to fill the other 98-99% of jobs.

This is why this is incredibly complicated. No one is hiding obvious solutions. We want physically aggressive individuals to chase down and apprehend the bad guys….but we want them to know and respect the line of rendering street justice….and we only have so much money to train them, pay them, and investigate complaints. Kneeling and marching is great but it doesn’t change. Minneapolis tired to increase its minority hires a couple of years back…..there were not enough applicants….gee doesn’t that complicate things
AJ_Liberty (0f85ca) — 6/5/2020 @ 3:35 pm
“ Glib answer is “white people only care if a white person is involved.” I think it’s also wrong.”

Considering the amount of young black men killed by other young black men every year ( in numbers multiple times worse than any other demographic) and nobody is kneeling, protesting, rioting, looting or burning things down……

……I’d say Black Lives Matter a lot more if they are killed by a white person and/or a cop.
__ _
harkin (9c4571) — 6/5/2020 @ 4:33 pm
Minneapolis tired to increase its minority hires a couple of years back…..there were not enough applicants….gee doesn’t that complicate things
AJ_Liberty (0f85ca) — 6/5/2020 @ 3:35 pm

My brother is Prosecuting Attorney in a Michigan county that includes a predominantly white town and a neighboring predominantly black town. Both the town and the county LE depts. have tried to recruit more black candidates, but require (or did last I spoke w/him about it a couple of years ago): (i) a HS diploma; (ii) no criminal convictions; and (iii) negative drug testing.
…found that there were few blacks who qualified and who wanted an LE career.
ColoComment (7b779b) — 6/5/2020 @ 6:04 pm
Males between 18-45 are “profiled” because they commit almost all the violent crimes and drug crimes. If you look at the age of homicide offenders or their victims, it drops off dramatically after 45. Old guys are more interested in having a beer and watching a football game then shooting it out with another gang member.

Everyone knows blacks – particularly poor young black men – commit more than there fair share of street crime. And most everyone adjusts their behavior accordingly. I don’t seen many white liberals strolling through Detroit or the bad parts of Chicago at 2 AM.
rcocean (fcc23e) — 6/5/2020 @ 6:44 pm
I was puzzled why the Floyd death occurred in Minneapolis of all places. Its not only a liberal city with little or no history of segregation or black vs. white hostility, its relatively low crime. It should be noted that of the 4 policemen involved, 1 is black, 1 is Asian, and Chauvin was married to an Asian. Not exactly a KKK meeting is it?

But getting back to stats. We only had 10 unarmed blacks killed by the police in 2019, and for 2015-2018 the numbers are similar. Given that you have 20 million black men in the USA, it means an unarmed black man has a 1 in 2 Million chance of being killed by a policeman. And that includes black and Hispanic police. You have to wonder given the FACTS, why all the nation-wide hysteria.
rcocean (fcc23e) — 6/5/2020 @ 6:49 pm
A camera can’t lie; unless it’s switched off.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 6/5/2020 @ 6:52 pm
Liberals/Leftists constantly complain of the over representation of blacks in jail compared to white. Which means one of two things is happening:

1) White society is letting White rapists, killers, thugs, and thieves off, who should be in jail

OR

2) Innocent black men are being convicted of crimes they didn’t commit and sent to jail.
rcocean (fcc23e) — 6/5/2020 @ 6:53 pm
A camera can’t lie; unless it’s switched off

.

A camera can’t lie, but it also – often – doesn’t tell the whole truth. You only need to remember the Covington kids. When it gets switched on, when it gets switched off, and what it DOESN’T show, can be very important.
rcocean (fcc23e) — 6/5/2020 @ 6:55 pm
It’s a class issue which has become a race issue because the white proletariat — from the very first day in 1619 when a white indentured servant found himself working next to a black indentured servant — need someone to look down on, too.

And by class, this being America, I mean rich and poor. Poor people commit crimes. The rich write the laws and they make sure that the things they do to make them rich are not crimes.

I have no statistics, but I’d venture that rich black people commit no more crimes as a group than rich white people do. And for the same reason: They have no need “to beg in the streets, steal bread, or sleep under bridges”, either.

Anyway ….
nk (1d9030) — 6/5/2020 @ 7:05 pm
Jeffrey “It’s **A** Bible” Billman
@jeffreybillman
·
Here’s a bonkers story @indyweek broke today:

At about 3 am, the cops raided activist Conrad Jones’ house and arrested him for … failing to return a rental car. The night before, he told the city and RPD he planned to sue.
__ _

INDY Week
@indyweek
·
UPDATE: The Sheriff’s Office says the Raleigh Police Department asked for the late-night arrest, contradicting the RPD’s statement that it was not involved.
__ _

Raleigh Mayor: Democrat

Raleigh Police Chief: Black Democrat who lectured on white supremacy on Sunday and also declared she would not use police officers to protect property.

https://twitter.com/LeighTauss/status/1267112477390712834?s=20

When will the systemic racism of the Democrats be defeated???
_ _
harkin (9c4571) — 6/5/2020 @ 7:06 pm
Slightly OT

There seems to have been a case of vote fraud discovered in Florida.
https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/breaking-news/os-ne-candidate-alleges-voter-fraud-derek-chauvin-20200605-6hdffv6huvglrmgdpfc5krthym-story.html
Kishnevi (c47780) — 6/5/2020 @ 7:15 pm
Fourth, most cops don’t blurr the lines and are as outraged as everyone else. The issue here is sniffing out the 1 or 2% of bad cops that have figured out how to game the disciplinary system.

Yet going by my Twitter feed there are a lot of cops who seem intent on proving a lot of cops are bad cops.

I assume you know about that incident in Buffalo. The two cops directly involved have been suspended without pay.

They were part of a special response squad. All the other members of that squad, almost 60 LEOs, have resigned from the squad (but not the police department) in protest of the suspensions, which they thought were undeserved.

The victim btw had approached the officers to return a police helmet he had found.
Kishnevi (c47780) — 6/5/2020 @ 7:26 pm
They were part of a special response squad. All the other members of that squad, almost 60 LEOs, have resigned from the squad (but not the police department) in protest of the suspensions, which they thought were undeserved.

The same group were caught on video the day before tackling a guy giving a TV interview, on the TeeVee, with his back to them, just talking.
Colonel Klink (Ret) (305827) — 6/5/2020 @ 7:33 pm
Kishnevi,

Here is an ongoing compilation of examples…
Dana (0feb77) — 6/5/2020 @ 9:22 pm
@100: “cop abruptly grabs a woman for no reason…”

He cannot possibly know this from the video. Typical of the BS this guy traffics in.
beer ‘n pretzels (6bee5a) — 6/5/2020 @ 10:09 pm
It’s blue versus not blue. The peaceful protesters are the worst. They’re looking to get cops disciplined, fired, or sent to prison. That makes it personal. The arson, the looting, the vandalism, the assaults, that’s practically a good thing as far as the police are concerned. It’s what keeps them employed.
nk (1d9030) — 6/5/2020 @ 10:38 pm
“1. Do you acknowledge the statistics I have presented?

2. Why are you citing intersectionality theory? Are you saying it’s the racism *and* the sexism against males that characterize the system’s prejudice? (Toss in ageism against the young as well while you’re at it.)

3. When you ask: “You’re saying that you don’t believe that young, black males are the target of uniquely intense prejudice in America?” I would like to ask: what is your evidence of that?

In any other context but this post I suspect you would *instantly* turn to criminal justice statistics to answer question #3. If that’s your evidence, go ahead, but don’t pretend that those statistics don’t beg the question raised by this post, which I would find it very interesting for you to answer.”

– Patterico

1. Sure. I have not reviewed them, but I trust you and I have no reason to doubt them or believe that you would manipulate them.

2. I am citing it because I am saying that it is the racism *and* the sexism against *young black males* that characterizes a big part of the system’s prejudice. Many, many wise folks – including James Baldwin, as you well know – have written on this particular topic.

3. I have answered your question at #2, and “I’d appreciate it if you answered it before asking me a question,” so I will reiterate #3: do you believe that young, black males are the target of uniquely intense prejudice in America?

You can suspect what you want, but I have never been a major proponent of statistics on your blog or anywhere els, and you can go check for it if you care to do so. I am out of the “lies, damn lies, and statistics” school, and my history on this blog clearly demonstrates it. I am too lazy to round up or manipulate statistics. I prefer history, which is easier to read about in good ole fashioned paper bound books. I am not “pretending” anything. Statistics devoid of history are utterly meaningless.

That was you point, right?
Leviticus (3eb64b) — 6/5/2020 @ 10:49 pm
*your point
Leviticus (3508bf) — 6/5/2020 @ 10:52 pm
They didn’t go into who lied, and why they lied, and whether they could have been prosecuted for lying, and maybe as to why Michael Brown, unarmed, might have charged the police officer (like maybe he was being encouraged by someone.)

The astounding thing about the Mike Brown death, is the number of brazen liars who accused the police man of something that didn’t happen. many of these people talked to the press and presented themselves as hearing and seeing things, when it was PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE for them to do so. Lots of them said that they’d seen this or that, and later admitted they’d “Heard” those things from “Other people”. Of course, the NYT/WaPo/liberal press would’ve discovered that, if they’d asked a few questions.

#103 – statistics devoid of history are meaningless. Statistics need context to be better understood, and they can be manipulated. But blacks making up 49% of homicide victims/offenders speaks for itself.
rcocean (fcc23e) — 6/6/2020 @ 4:18 am
@98 “Yet going by my Twitter feed there are a lot of cops who seem intent on proving a lot of cops are bad cops.”

That sounds a bit like anecdote….fueled by high-octane times….with lots of emotion on both sides….and confrontations. I’m not excusing it. I’m just saying it’s unusual.

As to “bad cops” we probably need to stop and define our terms….or at least put them in categories. I would argue that some cops are just extremely ill-trained…..who make poor choices in conflict resolution and the use of tactics. Not excusing them, but I think they deserve their own category. Then there are the cops that fail to report other cops they observe using questionable tactics or levels of force. They themselves don’t abuse suspects, but they rationalize or excuse those that do because of the team. This is probably the most insidious group because you do need cops to trust one another and work as a team. Another group would be those that are corrupt but not with regards to use of force….they’re on the take or are profiting illegally from the job. Certainly those are bad cops but not necessarily an immediate direct danger to society. The category I’m getting at are the border-line sociopaths who purposefully navigate in the gray because they enjoy roughing up and controlling people…people they perceive as deserving it…perhaps for racial reasons but not necessarily so (i.e., I’m not sure if Chauvin was necessarily racist…maybe…but it’s also possible that he’s simply a sadist looking for an opportunity).I suppose there is a “burned out cop” category that just doesn’t care…and has lost all empathy….who need to not be out in the community.

Sure….all of these groups might point to more than 1-2% “bad cops” but I view the sociopathic group as the catalyst of the larger cultural problem. The first group is fixable by throwing money at the problem….just a bunch more scenario-based training. The second group probably requires different organizational models and community-based policing. This would probably also help in isolating burned out cops. The biggest problem is identifying and eliminating the sociopaths…because they have some of the traits you want….and can be smart…but they’re twisted. I don;t think this group is a high number….but their actions exacerbate everything else. Nothing here is easy to fix….
AJ_Liberty (0f85ca) — 6/6/2020 @ 5:37 am
In the third book of Moses, it was written:

You can suspect what you want, but I have never been a major proponent of statistics on your blog or anywhere els, and you can go check for it if you care to do so. I am out of the “lies, damn lies, and statistics” school, and my history on this blog clearly demonstrates it. I am too lazy to round up or manipulate statistics. I prefer history, which is easier to read about in good ole fashioned paper bound books. I am not “pretending” anything. Statistics devoid of history are utterly meaningless.

And history without statistics and supporting evidence is subject to the prejudices of the authors.
The Dana in Kentucky (6a5316) — 6/6/2020 @ 7:11 am
rcocean wrote:

#103 – statistics devoid of history are meaningless. Statistics need context to be better understood, and they can be manipulated. But blacks making up 49% of homicide victims/offenders speaks for itself.

In our nation’s capital, there were 166 murders in 2019, the highest total in ten years . . . and of those 166, 153 of the victim were black, a 92.2% rate. Yet Mayor Muriel Bowser just had “Black Lives Matter” painted in big, yellow block letters on 16th Street, leading to the White House, in what I suppose was some kind of message aimed at President Trump. Maybe, just maybe, the Mayor ought to be worrying about the failure of her own administration.
The Dana in Kentucky (6a5316) — 6/6/2020 @ 7:16 am
“History is a fable agreed upon.” — His Imperial and Royal Majesty Napoleon I, By the Grace of God and the Constitution of the Republic, Emperor of the French, King of Italy, Protector of the Confederation of the Rhine, Mediator of the Swiss Confederation and Co-Prince of Andorra.
nk (1d9030) — 6/6/2020 @ 7:32 am
Fighting fascism on the anniversary of D-Day, the sixth of June:

“ Now that most of NYC’s retailers have either already been looted, or have been preemptively boarded up and emptied of merchandise until to ride out the unrest, the same looters who relied on more strategic tactics like working in crews and using drivers and lookouts are reportedly targeting wealthy suburbs like Connecticut and New Jersey.

On the advice of state police, retail outlets along I-95 (a critical vehicular artery connecting Westchester and southern Connecticut and the city) are closing and boarding up their stores on Saturday to try and discourage looters, and the potentially deadly confrontations with police that might ensue.

Clinton Crossing Premium Outlets will be closed this weekend after police detected social media posts calling for looters to converge at the premium outlets in Clinton, Conn.“

Here’s the money shot:

“Meanwhile, a candidate for Baltimore City Council told looters and rioters to “take that mess to Towson” (a suburban area) urging them to light fires and loot stores in the suburbs because Baltimore is still “traumatized” from the Freddie Grey riots.“

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/retail-outlets-along-i-95-close-saturday-looters-target-suburbs

Democratic city politicians causing and enabling riots all across the country while the media blames cops and systemic racism caused by…..being white and conservative I guess.

You have to wonder how this will play in suburbs among people who have voted strictly blue down the line for years. Wil they open their eyes or not?
_
harkin (9c4571) — 6/6/2020 @ 8:31 am
Probably not, harkin. I’d love to be wrong about it.
Colonel Haiku (951ecf) — 6/6/2020 @ 8:35 am
If Trump knew what he as doing. he’d go after and get black votes over this issue.
Sammy Finkelman (00fff5) — 6/7/2020 @ 11:03 am

6/5/2020

Food for Thought on a Friday

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