Anguirus wrote:
This surprises me, because last I checked the facts of the case were themselves in dispute. ZImmerman's history wouldn't be relevant to establishing his credibility?
To the jury, in the subjective judgement of each of them individually. None of us are on the jury, and no matter what his personal credibility is, it doesn't counter physical evidence nor the testimony of others.
At any rate, I'm not sure Flagg was talking purely about legal relevance, but whatever.
People always want to do this. "I'm not talking about legal relevance" in a discussion where the issue is whether a crime occured. It's a dishonest way of getting onconvenient things like Proof Beyond a Reasonable Doubt out of the way so that later, when that burden of proof is not met, it's easier to claim there was some nefarious reason the defendant was not convicted.
I didn't make any statistical claims either. That's what perplexes me the most. AFAIK the only point I made is that black suspicion of black youths on the street is a thing that has happened, N > 1. Do you seriously disbelieve this?
Obviously suspicion of black youths by blacks has happened. So what? Is no one ever supposed to suspect a black youth of anything. How about the fact that they're youths, rather than the fact that they're black? When I was a regular cop, I had this guy that liked to call the police every time he saw teenagers in his neighborhood; teenagers that invariably turned out to be white and middle class and obviously so to casual observation. People frequently suspect teenagers
because they're teenagers.
There's no discussion of what racism is in this country because one side simply denounces any disagreement with their definition as yet more racism, and the other side is all too happy to let them do it so that the need to improve things like school funding in order to address real problems don't ever get discussed.
Exactly what makes you think that both sides of American politics are conspiring to have a fruitless non-discussion about racism in order to prevent increases in school funding?
Who said anything about a conspiracy? It's not anything organized. One side just screams racism, and the other side rejects any question of economic or educational reform because they see those calling for it acting like lunatics who will tolerate no reasoned discussion.
You keep returning to this idea, and it honestly just doesn't make a whit of sense to me. I agree with most of the paragraph this sentence is quoting (the wingnuts have definitely come out to play, and acts of poor taste have certainly been committed by both "sides" that inevitably have formed) but how is it that the real issue is school funding, and how is it that both sides are culpable?
I've explained this.
Please define which part of society has that monopoly. Liberals? Black people? Non-white people? It's difficult to know what to say to this as it is currently written, sorry.
A very large proportion of that "side" is black people, and liberals, but neither is an adequate label since all blacks and all liberals do not necessarily behave in this way. I do not know that any adequately descriptive label exists.
First, because race is a predictor does not make it a cause. That's a basic correlation-causation fallacy.
No shit.
Common fucking sense makes it a cause. You mentioned the '60s. How exactly
could racism have gone from being pervasive to irrelevant in 40 years?
You can't just appeal to common sense and claim that somehow "makes it a cause". My common sense tells me otherwise. Racism
as it existed in the 1960s has gone from pervasive to irrelevant in 40 years because most of its practices are now illegal, actively prosecuted if they occur, and because the media, the government, and society at large has made a concerted effort to make it clear that racism is socially unacceptable. As the population of the 1960s dies out and those raised later come to adulthood, racism of that type naturally goes away.
Racism still exists and is still relevant, but its nature has changed. Racism nowadays is driven by the politics of race. The endless complaints of racism have made it all too easy to dismiss the claims by blacks that they generally
do suffer from poor economic and educational prospects and high crime rates. Claims like "Affirmative action is racist!" for example. It isn't; it's an attempt to remedy educational issues among blacks so that a black person who is perfectly capable but wasn't well-educated earlier in life can still get a shot. (It's also ham-handed but that's another story). The problem isn't that people who think affirmative action is racist want to keep black people down; they don't. What they resent is that despite the existence of things like affirmative action, they still get called "racists" because blacks are not socioeconomically on par with whites. "Affirmative action" and other things like it would never have existed 40 or 50 years ago, and they know it, and they constantly hear about racism and that creates the stereotype that blacks just want to be handed success without earning it. It's racism directed against the
politics of being a black person and its born of exasperation.
You've already stated that you only think racism will be no longer a factor when race is no longer a predictor of economic success. Ok, well then presumably you think educational and economic reforms would bring about such a reduction in the predictive value of race. Therefore, you necessarily think that educational and economic reforms are an anti-racism program. Therefore anyone arguing against such programs must be a racist.
No, I do not think this is true. Remember, "racism" is not "what racists do."
I do not see how this cannot be true and yet you can also claim that socioeconomic disparity between the races makes society racist. Maybe what you're trying to say is that you don't think anyone arguing against such programs is automatically racist. Ok maybe
you don't, but the fact of the matter is that any discussion on the necessity or efficacy of any program that either is intended to help disadvantaged minorities or which disproportionately is utilized by or benefits them even if not specifically
for them is inevitably met with someone shouting racism, and by someone I especially mean Farrakhan, Jackson, Sharpton although not exclusively them. Take affirmative action. It is a
blatantly discriminatory program. That's fine, it has to be in order to do what it is intended to do; help blacks overcome educational disadvantage. However, that discriminatory nature also means that it is open to, indeed demands, public discussion about whether it is a good way to accomplish that goal. Any such attempt at discussion is met with the challenge that it's racism to even suggest that it might not be a good thing, and with talk about "dog whistles" and such things that are a cute way of saying "my opponent is a racist because I say so."
I no doubt have been guilty of racism. I hazard a guess that most people, at some point, have been guilty of racism. Am I a racist? I do not think so. Are most people racists? I do not think so, not even in this country.
I think that this is indicitive of the overuse of the term "racism".
I think of a racist (meaning "a racist person") as having a relatively consistent ideology regarding the inferiority of one or more races.
I have not ever, to my knowledge, met anyone that actually thinks this.
Now I do think that people who oppose "such programs" should consider their benefit in combating inequality and making us a more fair society. Non-racists may unwittingly promote racism in society. I dispute that aspect of modern conservative thought that promotes complacency and dismissal of racial issues. Of course, there are degrees of racism, and the degree to which something is or is not racist is not the sole indicator of its worth.
I dispute that aspect of modern conservatism as well. However, opposing "such programs" can mean different things. It can mean opposing them in general, or opposing the specific programs in place. Furthermore, those supporting such programs should consider the effects on social attitudes, and whether or not they are really necessary in the form they exist in, and also should consider whether fairness is really decided by looking at the broad performance of groups rather than at what the
individuals who are not performing well are doing in their lives. Many programs look exclusively at an individual's skin color or race, and do not take into consideration their past behavior or their circumstances. If a white student and a black student both compete for a scholarship at a community college after going to the same high school, but the white student is required to have a 3.5 but the black student a 2.5, is that fair? Is it still fair if the white student worked hard while the black student did not? Maybe we could add teacher recommendations on top of GPA. What if the parents have relatively equal income or the black parents have
more money? Don't dismiss this; I grew up in a family that was poor relative to the community we lived in, and I had black classmates far wealthier than my family.
That GPA difference looks fair from the larger picture of looking at, say, the whole county when there's one community that is rich, with a better school, and is mostly white while there's another school that is more evenly-mixed in another town with regard to race and we say "well, look at how privileged one community is over another." But in the poorer community there are white students that face the same difficulties as their black classmates, and "White privilege" does not justify a 1.0 GPA difference. Similarly, why should a black kid in the rich community be able to get a scholarship his parents don't need? The problem isn't that there's a program that's designed to help blacks; it's that it doesn't have checks and balances in to make sure it targets the blacks that need the help the most.
If economic and educational reforms are necessary (which they are) and the specific reforms you want are the best way of going about getting such results, then they should be able to stand on their own merits without perverting racism to mean "opposing the measures 'progressives' want". Why is it not possible to discuss how we could better educate our population without assuming racist motives on the part of those that disagree?
I don't know. I admit that you seem to have moved onto a specific issue that I'm not prepared to discuss at the moment.
Fair enough.
None of which Zimmerman could have been aware of.
Zimmerman wasn't aware that he was black?
Does the simple fact that he was black, by itself, somehow mandate that Zimmerman should have dismissed his own suspicions?
You do recall that there had been break-ins in recent months in Zimmerman's area?
Exactly which parts of Zimmerman's bizarre behavior does this excuse? I thought we were in agreement as to Zimmerman's heinous misconduct, but this seems to tear that whole thing apart again. Perhaps we are misunderstanding each other.
It certainly excuses following the kid and calling the police. I'm not quite sure what you mean by "heinous misconduct". That implies something illegal, and we suspect that but don't know it. I'd say "rank stupidity".
Indeed, this was a mistake on my part. Regardless, I'm not going to argue what definition of racism is best. I'm not interested in whether or not Zimmerman is "a racist." I suspect that Martin's death was a symptom of historical racism in the United States. It is far from radical to observe that young black men are generally treated with suspicion. We can't know the answer for sure because we can't get inside Zimmerman's head.
I can agree that it is a symptom of historical racism. However, I'd point out that youths in general, and young men in particular are often suspected of misbehavior based on their youth and/or gender. Other factors such as their clothing, tattoos, time of day, and what they are doing are factors as well.
I'm not interested in bludgeoning anybody, politically or otherwise. However the conservative pundit community has earned my contempt for their Martin-related dogshit.
I haven't bothered to listen to any of it. What concerns me is the facts of the case.
Where exactly do you get this idea that blacks are arrested at greater rates, but commit crimes at the same rate as whites?
My mistake, and my apologies for a hasty response. I was thinking of
drug crime.
Of course, this is telling itself. If blacks and whites use drugs at the same rate; use of drugs is the crime; then how exactly do you get 3-6 times more arrests of blacks, who are the minority in most areas of the country?
Because "drug charges" does not mean "using drugs". Getting a ticket for smoking a joint is a "drug charge". Driving a load vehicle up from the Rio Grande loaded with 2,000 pounds of marijuana is also a "Drug charge". When you get a story from a place like Human Rights Watch, that's something to look for. They're being intentionally vague about what's a "drug arrest" in order to make it look like there's more of a racial divide than there really is. There's also the questionable nature of "arrests for drug sales" vs. "posession." Is "posession with intent to distribute" being counted as posession or sale? That guy driving the 2000 pounds isn't selling it; he's working for someone else. Simply looking at "drug arrests" ignores quantities, and the severity of the charges in question.
There's also the fact that blacks are, again, economically disadvantaged. This makes them more likely to turn to crime, and specifically drug crime, because it's big business and an easy way to make money if you have no other options in life. Then you eventually end up in prison, where you end up in a prison gang, and you know what prison gangs control? that's right; a lot of drug traffic. (Not because it goes through the prison, but because a lot of other criminal elements answer to prison gangs because when their members go to prison, guess whose turf they're on?)
There's also a question of "what's a drug arrest"? Let's say I'm still a regular cop and stop someone for speeding. Now I discover they have no license and make an arrest. Now in the process of that I find a joint in their pocket. I issue a charge of drug posession along with the arrest. Is HRW calling that a drug arrest? I didn't make an arrest for drugs; that was a more minor charge and without the driving under suspension charge, I wouldn't have made an arrest at all.
Places like Human Rights Watch are political They have high-minded ideals, but they, like everyone else, are political and tend to have a strong confirmation bias. Furthermore, human rights issues are how they make their money and stay in business. They aren't exactly lying but they are definitely spinning. In my opinion, they have a very high hill to climb when it comes to presenting statistical evidence. If they want to point out individual cases of abuse I'm more than willing to listen, but I find that their statistics are as agenda driven as anyone else's.
It is no doubt entangled with socioeconomic status, but consider that it's easier to tell race with a look than socioeconomic status.
That sounds like straight-up laziness to me.
However my original statement was indeed false.
I appreciate your honesty.
<snip> The bottom line of all this is that we don't actually have any good statistics on what race commits crimes at, is arrested at, or is convicted at, what rate because each study, poll, census, or whatever uses different racial categories. There's no apples-to-apples comparison.
What does "prison" mean here? Does it also include being in jail after a minor arrest or while awaiting trial?
It does not explain why heavier sentences are imposed for
the same crime.
From your link:
According to M. Marit Rehavi of the University of British Columbia and Sonja B. Starr, who teaches criminal law at the University of Michigan Law School, the racial disparities can be explained “in a single prosecutorial decision: whether to file a charge carrying a mandatory minimum sentence….Black men were on average more than twice as likely to face a mandatory minimum charge as white men were, holding arrest offense as well as age and location constant.”
The report concludes that sentence disparities “can be almost completely explained by three factors: the original arrest offense, the defendant’s criminal history, and the prosecutor’s initial choice of charges.”
This is part of the vicious cycle. Blacks are more likely to commit crimes due to disadvantage. They therefore are more likely to have more of a criminal history. The criminal history drives the charge the prosecutor selects, creating yet more criminal history. This creates more socioeconomic disadvantage. Insidious, yes? And it requires no racism whatsoever to explain it; the prosecutor can be utterly colorblind and it still happens. If we looked at poor people of any race we'd see a generally similar effect.
Better education would improve the economic situation of blacks, which would reduce the crime rate, and would reduce it as a result of the education itself. Furthermore, the more educated the black population becomes, the more it will value education, thus creating continuous improvement. That requires 3 things A) reform of schools and school funding B) greater valuation of getting an education among blacks as a whole and C) casting aside "racism" as an excuse.
A) yes
B) yes
C) elaborate?
This goes back to what I said about Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. People liek them need to start demanding that black parents, especially poor ones, demand that their children perform, much like Asian parents commonly do. Having a shitty school, or suspecting racism in the education system does not make it a good idea to let your kids skip school and get none at all. Similarly, even if schools were suddenly universally the recipients of lavish funding, poor blacks (and poor people in general) in neighborhoods traditionally with poor school performance would not suddenly experience a massive jump in performance. They already have their minds made up about school, and real change in attitudes, determination to get the best education for themself regardless of the situation has to accompany reform. Jackson, Farrakhan, Sharpton and the like need to start saying this, because that message has to come from them and.. it isn't.
Please support the assertion that false overestimation of racism materially harms the black community. That's what you keep saying and I think it's going to be a pretty tough thing to back up.
It materially harms the black community by making other people less willing to accept necessary reforms.
When people perceive that peace officers are a physical threat to themselves and their children, they tend not to care about the threat of administrative consequences for that officer.
So what? That does not excuse simply assuming that the officer is some sort of threat just because he's a police officer. That's straight-up bigotry. That's no different than saying I don't care about the consequences to a black man because I perceive him as a threat. Furthermore, losing your job and being made a public whipping boy over someone else's predjudice is not "administrative consequences." Losing your job is a threat to
your wife and children.
Furthermore, if this person, black or not, reacts to the police officer as a threat, there's a good chance that the person reacting becomes a threat to the officer themself. What is the officer supposed to do. Say "oh, I'm sorry, you're a black person? You can go because you see me as a threat when you don't even know why I'm stopping you."? That's ridiculous. He's going to deal with the person based on what he observes. All this attitude does is help create the situations that are being complained about in the first place.
I think people will invariably have a very bipolar view of police. Good ones are angels, bad ones are demons. It's because police have power. There is also a history of enforcing racism with police, thanks to Jim Crow.
Jim Crow is well in the past now. Trying to appeal to that as a reason to be suspicious of police is absurd; the last Jim Crow laws were superseded by the Voting Rights act of 1965 and the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Most police officers working now were not even born yet when Jim Crow expired. It certainly does not explain suspicion of minority police officers, especially black ones.
I'm sorry that you feel this is unfair and that police feel pressured, but what can you say when people fear for their lives and freedom? You HAVE to be under the microscope every day because we entrust you with the power to take everything away from citizens. If police mistrust is endemic among a massive class of citizens, you can't just declare that it's their fault (at least, this won't improve the situation; you serve them the same as you serve everyone else.
Except that we already do serve them the same as we do everyone else. Just because people "fear for their lives and freedom" does not make it reasonable that they do so. That's especially true when that fear is such a useful tool for trying to deflect attention away from whatever your own actions were and onto the officer. When black people are constantly being told that they are supposed to fear police officers, at lot of them are going to do it, and a lot of them are going to figure out that claiming that fear is an excellent tactic, whether it was because of a speeding ticket or something far more serious. People of all races do this; blacks just get to tack "white" onto "police officer" in many cases.
Maybe you should trust me because making up a bullshit story about the cops is not unique to black people. People of all races do it. White people do it all the time. The only difference is that white people cannot pile racism on top of everything else, unless the cop happens to be black and then its a hell of a lot more likely to be dismissed out of hand. Rightly so, because very few black cops will pull over or harass a white person just because they're white. Yet mysteriously the same belief doesn't extend to white cops; no, all of a sudden then its ok to stereotype white cops based on their skin color, where they happen to live, and on incidents that don't seem to have any expiration date.
The burden of proof is on you, thanks to the weight of recent, local history.
Sorry dude.
Sorry no, just citing "recent local history" doesn't mean I need to prove anything. Establish that recent local history somehow justifies anti-police bigotry. You haven't explained why some white people fear the police, if black fear is because of polcie racism. Establish that police officers who mistreat blacks are doing so because the victim is black rather than because the cop is shitty.
Are some of these stories true? Doubtless, but even in those cases there's a good chance that cop mistreats white people too. A shitty cop is not automatically racist because he does something to a black person; he is pretty damn likely to be doing the same shit to white people.
How good is the chance?
Do you think black people notice or complain disproportionately of police mistreatment?
If so, why might this be the case?
How good is what chance? The chance that a cop who mistreats a black person is just a shitty cop? Excellent. Racism is not s necessary condition to explain that. If black people are disproportionately complaining about the police it's largely due to the fact that they've simply been told over and over again that the cops are racist and so they automatically assume that.
Unfortunately I'm not finding anything in the way of data to back up either of us.
Of interest.
that article is 10 years old, but I don't have any data either. The article also points out that shootings vary
wildly from department to department. This illustrates a lot of the problems with black "fear" of "police officers" in general. Doubtless there are some police officers that are racist. These officers are not likely to be evenly spread across the whole country. They'll be in come places more than others and in those places in some departments more than others. The problem is that we start with anecdotal incidents of abuse by police officers. The next thing we know we get "don't be black in Florida" as if anecdotes make every officer in Florida racist. Then it becomes "the south". Then it's "in America".
The problem is not "denial". "Denial" works when you're talking about addictions; it does not work to dismiss other people's perspectives on complex social problems.
Racial inequality exists. Opposing perspectives are denial. The fact that racial inequality exists should cause us all to consider its influence on our actions.
No one is denying, however, that there are racial inequalities. What people are denying is that the racial inequalities are caused solely, or primarily, by continuing, active racism; intentional perpetuation of those inequalities.
White privilege is not only not "the biggest" it is an utterly worthless hypothesis. It is undisproveable by nature and therefore can be immediately discarded.
White privilege can be falsified on the level of any psychological study.
Unfortunately, it often isn't. It's simply shorthand for a set of observations with a common theme (i.e. resume studies, sentencing...)
Aside from the appalling quality of that source, look at the study he describes. It's based on 4 researchers sent out to collect their
subjective impressions of their treatment. I see nothing whatsoever to compensate for the personal biases of the researchers themself. Take for example the claim of "raising her voice to 'shame' the client". How much did the attendant raise her voice? How does the researcher know the reason? She reads minds? As for the citizenship status questions those are the most appalling. The fact of the matter is that white non-hispanics do not consititute a significant percentage of people illegally in this country. Note that the black researcher was not asked this either; but this is (rightly) not taken as evidence of "black privilege".
Way to miss the point, asshole. The point is that a young black teenager gets tons of national symapthy from people assuming he's innocent becuase he's black. You will not find the same happening if the victim is white; even if people privately feel that way, they will not say it in public.
Bullshit.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing_wh ... n_syndrome
Martin is not a female. It's missing white
woman syndrome. This is also not a missing person case. The phenomenon seems to hold only for disappearances.
He's presumed innocent because he was unarmed and was walking from a convenience store to his house, not because he's black. In fact, it's his "blackness" that fuels the smear campaign.
So because he was unarmed and walking home, that means it's impossible he assaulted Zimmerman? I have news for you: Every criminal has a first offense, and criminals go to convenience stores, walk home, and go about unarmed sometimes too. Martin is under suspicion right now, and the longer this case goes on the more it looks like, no matter how big an asshole he was, Zimmerman cannot be proven to be the aggressor nor a murderer.
How bout he's presumed innocent BECAUSE HE'S FUCKING INNOCENT, you dweeb. Turns out people think it's shitty to start an altercation and then win by escalating it with a deadly weapon!
We do not know that Zimmerman started the altercation, nor that he "escalated it with a deadly weapon." If Martin got him down and was on top of him hitting him in the face as the police report indicates (turns out that people haven't exactly been telling the truth about the extent of the investigation at the scene, either), then MARTIN escalated it, not Zimmerman.
Martin's innocent only in the sense that he hasn't been proven guilty in a court of law. He never will be now, because he's dead. We can't use that lack of a finding of guilt on Martin's part, however, to establish that Zimmerman somehow must be guilty either.
The situation has changed, but it has hardly "influenced the handling of the case" except insofar as "dead person" did not become automatic cause to throw Zimmerman in jail. That is a good thing.
That's silly. Because blacks are more likely to get shot ("gunned down" is just cheap purple prose) does not somehow mean you would not be shot; especially in a scenario where the starting point is you getting shot! Do you not understand what a hypothetical is?
Obviously by my other two answers. But do you understand why I have less to fear than Trayvon did?
I do not necessarily believe that you would have less to fear. I think, in fact, you are more likely to realistically assess the level of danger that you are in, rather than simply focusing on the race of the person following you. You also are not a teenager.
Furthermore, most murders are by the same race.
Irrelevant.
Hardly.
And you seriously think that the problems of blacks in the justice system are the product of a racist justice system rather than poor education and economic prospects?
False dilemma.
Not at all. I'm not offering you a choice of one or the other. I'm saying that your position appears to be the former.
Racism is a self-perpetuating attitude, and system. There is no one easy solution. High horse? Fuck you. I'm the one who's got an ounce of humility. You claim to want the same damn thing I want, so why is it so important that I jump on your post-racial bullshit bandwagon?
Why is it so important I ccept your assertions about "systematic" racism and "white privilege"? It's not important that you jump on any bandwagons. It's the topic at hand.
It is the HEIGHT of arrogance to summarily proclaim when racism is not a problem.
That's hilarious. There's nothing "summary" about it. You don't even disagree that economic and educational reform are the underlying issues; you're just afraid to give up the political tool of calling disagreement "racist". What's arrogant is claiming the right to tell everyone else what's racism and when they're a racist.
Now I'm off to laugh at arbitrarily chosen political labels!
that's nice.
You know what? Fine. I'll go work on my definition of racism and get back to you. I don't have time for any more of this.
Later.
Shit like this is why I'm kind of glad it isn't legal to go around punching people in the crotch. You'd be able to track my movement from orbit from the sheer mass of idiots I'd leave lying on the ground clutching their privates in my wake. -- Mr. Coffee
