Disproportionate rates of police violence against blacks: Racism?
Hey all, this is a repost of a thread I wrote on June 8th at the old forum (which now seems to be thoroughly broken)...
A main issue being hailed as evidence for systemic racism against people of color in the U.S is the disproportionate rate at which people of color in the U.S experience the use of force at the hands of police. Dissecting this claim is made uniquely difficult by the long history and complex nature of the issue of racism in America, but also because merely discussing these topics can be highly emotionally evocative. With this in mind, the purpose of this thread is to explore a specific claim, which is that the factors which perpetuate certain inequalities are predominantly on-going and contemporary race based discriminations.
Historically blacks in America have been enslaved and then segregated right up until the 1960's. After that they were still a highly visible minority and most white individuals remained racist, which has decreased steadily and significantly over time, until today, where the majority of Americans do not hold traditionally racist views and who also hold the ideal of equal rights for all to be moral. This chart gives an idea of the decline on one traditionally racist position, that of disapproving of interracial marriage
This chart only tracks one particular racist belief rather than racism as a whole, and some might contend that racism remains more prevalent today in other respects, but it is a visible norm in the mainstream media and culture that blatant racism is highly frowned upon. Despite the culturally self-evident change in stance from being pro-segregation to pro-inclusion and equality in contemporary American culture, the disproportionate affectation of harmful police encounters and incarceration in black communities remains prevalent. Whether or not this is due to on-going racism is the precise question this thread seeks to explore.
A main factor which has always historically, and logically, contributed to crime is the existence of widespread poverty. A main motivation for many crimes is financial gain, and so in impoverished areas there is typically much greater rates of crimes committed for reasons of limited economic opportunity. Largely thanks to the recent history of slavery, segregation, and racism, black communities in America are much more likely to be highly impoverished, being the most impoverished visible minority in America:
A part of the cause for the main question posed in this thread must come at least in part from the existing economic disparity. On the one hand a broad determination that racism is what gives rise to increased incarceration rates could also be applied to what gives rise to economic disparity in the first place, and on the other, the fact that racism in western culture is at an all time low suggests that continuing inequalities are being perpetuated despite the contemporary shift away from racism.
The alternative explanation to racial supremacy as a main driver of blacks being the victim of police violence or incarceration arises in the form of a strictly economic description of historical and contemporary realities. In today's economy the gap between the rich and the poor continues to rise, the middle class continues to more closely resemble an impoverished group, and the group of people below the poverty line continues to get proportionally larger. People of all races who are impoverished tend to resort to crime more often than the affluent, and the existing impoverished state of the average black family in America is owed mostly to racist systems, laws, and attitudes that we have since struck down and moved away from as a culture. In today's less racist world the factors which keep poor people poor, such as a falling minimum wage (tied into the reality which sees the majority of wealth flow into the hands of a few corporations and their stakeholders), affect people of all races equally, not just minorities, and since the average black family must begin in this contemporary system in an already impoverished state the accompanying social problems like increased crime risk continue to disproportionately affect them.
In order to instigate change in the disproportionate affliction of police violence and incarceration on blacks, the main causes of the trend must first be recognized. Given the very high correlation between economic status and likelihood of committing crime, solving this particular inequality must involve extensive exploration of the economic factors which contribute to the growth and perpetuation of poverty, regardless of race, due to it's causative role in creating crime. Solving the economically oppressive realities for one race ought to include a solution for the same oppressive economic realities for all races. I personally do not buy into the claim that the majority of American police are racist. Although it is evident that in a country so populated there exist many individual racist police officers, some of whom have committed outright murder in the line of duty, to say they represent the majority in my view is not demonstrably true.
The importance of this topic has risen in recent years due to the rise of racial justice related activism, and with the goal of having this activism achieve positive results, an understanding of the main causal factors, which do extend beyond what is described in this post, is essential. Completely undiscussed in this post is the very nature of the American penal system itself, and it's many glaring faults due to a desire for specificity; even if the American penal system was fair and just, the ideas presented here could still apply.
A main issue being hailed as evidence for systemic racism against people of color in the U.S is the disproportionate rate at which people of color in the U.S experience the use of force at the hands of police. Dissecting this claim is made uniquely difficult by the long history and complex nature of the issue of racism in America, but also because merely discussing these topics can be highly emotionally evocative. With this in mind, the purpose of this thread is to explore a specific claim, which is that the factors which perpetuate certain inequalities are predominantly on-going and contemporary race based discriminations.
Historically blacks in America have been enslaved and then segregated right up until the 1960's. After that they were still a highly visible minority and most white individuals remained racist, which has decreased steadily and significantly over time, until today, where the majority of Americans do not hold traditionally racist views and who also hold the ideal of equal rights for all to be moral. This chart gives an idea of the decline on one traditionally racist position, that of disapproving of interracial marriage
This chart only tracks one particular racist belief rather than racism as a whole, and some might contend that racism remains more prevalent today in other respects, but it is a visible norm in the mainstream media and culture that blatant racism is highly frowned upon. Despite the culturally self-evident change in stance from being pro-segregation to pro-inclusion and equality in contemporary American culture, the disproportionate affectation of harmful police encounters and incarceration in black communities remains prevalent. Whether or not this is due to on-going racism is the precise question this thread seeks to explore.
A main factor which has always historically, and logically, contributed to crime is the existence of widespread poverty. A main motivation for many crimes is financial gain, and so in impoverished areas there is typically much greater rates of crimes committed for reasons of limited economic opportunity. Largely thanks to the recent history of slavery, segregation, and racism, black communities in America are much more likely to be highly impoverished, being the most impoverished visible minority in America:
A part of the cause for the main question posed in this thread must come at least in part from the existing economic disparity. On the one hand a broad determination that racism is what gives rise to increased incarceration rates could also be applied to what gives rise to economic disparity in the first place, and on the other, the fact that racism in western culture is at an all time low suggests that continuing inequalities are being perpetuated despite the contemporary shift away from racism.
The alternative explanation to racial supremacy as a main driver of blacks being the victim of police violence or incarceration arises in the form of a strictly economic description of historical and contemporary realities. In today's economy the gap between the rich and the poor continues to rise, the middle class continues to more closely resemble an impoverished group, and the group of people below the poverty line continues to get proportionally larger. People of all races who are impoverished tend to resort to crime more often than the affluent, and the existing impoverished state of the average black family in America is owed mostly to racist systems, laws, and attitudes that we have since struck down and moved away from as a culture. In today's less racist world the factors which keep poor people poor, such as a falling minimum wage (tied into the reality which sees the majority of wealth flow into the hands of a few corporations and their stakeholders), affect people of all races equally, not just minorities, and since the average black family must begin in this contemporary system in an already impoverished state the accompanying social problems like increased crime risk continue to disproportionately affect them.
In order to instigate change in the disproportionate affliction of police violence and incarceration on blacks, the main causes of the trend must first be recognized. Given the very high correlation between economic status and likelihood of committing crime, solving this particular inequality must involve extensive exploration of the economic factors which contribute to the growth and perpetuation of poverty, regardless of race, due to it's causative role in creating crime. Solving the economically oppressive realities for one race ought to include a solution for the same oppressive economic realities for all races. I personally do not buy into the claim that the majority of American police are racist. Although it is evident that in a country so populated there exist many individual racist police officers, some of whom have committed outright murder in the line of duty, to say they represent the majority in my view is not demonstrably true.
The importance of this topic has risen in recent years due to the rise of racial justice related activism, and with the goal of having this activism achieve positive results, an understanding of the main causal factors, which do extend beyond what is described in this post, is essential. Completely undiscussed in this post is the very nature of the American penal system itself, and it's many glaring faults due to a desire for specificity; even if the American penal system was fair and just, the ideas presented here could still apply.
Comments (85)
The approach of this paper has been to gather as much data on the circumstances of actual instances of police use of force (from police reports, public records, police-contact surveys, arrest records, etc...) in order to actually control for varying circumstances that may have contributed to the use of police force (such as the interaction taking place in a high crime area, the behaviors of the civilian, whether or not there was an arrest warrant, etc...), with up to 300 or so identifiable variables that they attempt to control for. The purpose of this is to compare like with like by isolating interactions between police and civilians where the only difference was the race of the civilian, in order to better assess if race alone increases the chances of police using force.
The two main takeaways are as follows: When it comes to the use of non-lethal force (i.e, pushing, punching, batons) the study could not identify any factor beyond race in order to explain the 50% greater occurrence of police use of force on hispanic and black civilians. However, when it comes to the use of lethal force (i.e, using tasers and discharging firearms), after environmental, circumstantial, and behavioral factors are taken into account, the study found that race does not actually factor in to the decision of police officers to use lethal force.
To reiterate, the study found that if you're black or hispanic you're 50% more likely than whites to have non-lethal force used against you in any interaction with the police. However, blacks and hispanics are no more likely than whites to be subjected to the use of lethal force, or to die as the result of having been subjected to the use of lethal force by police.
To state it again in another way: Race does not factor in to the police deciding whether or not to use lethal force, other factors do, but race may very well factor in when it comes to the use of non-lethal force.
The findings of this study do demonstrate that when you control for individual circumstances blacks and hispanics are no more likely to be killed by police than whites, however they also indicate that race may be a factor which determines whether or not a police officer is going to use some form of non-lethal physical force. It could be that the study, which is still looking to gather more data to reinforce it's findings, is simply not able to detect the necessary variables to explain the remaining 50% increased use of non-lethal force disparity, or it could very well be that the 50% increased chance of having non-lethal force used against you while black or hispanic is the direct result of a prejudiced police force.
There are many other findings in this study, some of them are quite shocking in fact, but it does seem to dispel the contemporary notion that American police are more likely to use lethal-force on someone because of their race.
I pointed out that it is odd that paper finds that race may account for non-lethal violence (you are 50% more likely to have non-lethal force used on you if you are hispanic or black) but that there is no link between lethal violence and race.
This is odd to me because to my mind non-lethal violence is more likely to lead to lethal force.
For example if you are attacked by the police without provocation and defend yourself it could quickly escalate to lethal force on behalf of the police.
At any rate it is also irrelevant to the issue in my mind.
As it stands now in the media the cases shown are examples where lethal force was quite clearly unjustified and yet there are no consequences for the officers involved.
To me race is irrelevant to that issue.
It does not matter if a white unarmed man is gunned down by police or a black unarmed man.
The issue is a failure of oversight of law enforcement and the resulting injustice.
You're right that it is an odd statistic, all other things being equal we might presume that if police are using some force more often on blacks that should lead to a disparity of lethal force being used on blacks because of escalation, but this might not be the case for several possible reasons.
Firstly, the actual decision making process that police undergo when deciding to use lethal force might be very different than how they decide whether or not to use non-lethal force. Initiating non-lethal force itself might actually render lethal-force a less likely outcome (I.E, the civilian gets restrained before the police decide to use lethal-force). It could also be that police take the use of lethal force very seriously compared to non-lethal force and thus take the decision more seriously and without bias.
Another thing to consider is that the study did not exactly demonstrate race as a definitive factor in the use of non-lethal force in the same way that it demonstrated race is not a factor on the use of lethal force. It was able to show that if you twist a bunch of control knobs you can demonstrate that in the same situations whites and blacks have the same chances of getting shot or killed by police. Regarding non-lethal force, they demonstrated that most of the racial disparity can be reduced by controlling for circumstances, but failed to discover the factors (if they exist) for a final 50% increased risk disparity in the use of non-lethal violence. That 50% could be race, or it could be largely due to yet unexamined environmental/behavioral/circumstantial factors.
Regarding the point you bring up about the issue of police killing unarmed civilians in the first place and not being held accountable, I'm not entirely convinced It's as prevalent an occurrence as we are lead to believe. Granted, police operating procedures seem to me too aggressive and the judicial process america uses for police seems extra-non-transparent. I have been supporting police reform for many years now but you must understand that my motivation for writing this thread is not the intent of broadly defending the police.
There's a cultural phenonemon taking place right now, I mentioned it in my reply on PF (threads don't update properly anymore, the place is basically garbage now, so I'll probably be living here from now on :) ). Racism has been redefined to mean "systems of oppression" and this definition has been broadly applied to the west. People are advocating for the checking of white privilege and presuming thatevery racial disparity that exists is perpetuated entirely thanks to on-going systemic racist oppression by the privileged white race who reaps constant benefit from it at the expense of all minorities.. The Black Lives Matter movement is rallying around the central idea that the issue is that blacks are being specifically targeted for death by a racist police force.
The extent to which crime/circumstance/behavior in and of itself (caused by things like poverty) is responsible for the increased rates (broad statistics) at which blacks are subjected to police violence of any kind, is the extent to which addressing the issue as "predominantly caused by racist systems of oppression" will fail to actually instigate any change in these disparities. Not only does the issue obscure the causal reality behind the events which have motivated contemporary protests, it stokes a good deal of resentment and tension toward the white race as a whole, let alone white police officers. Current events shock me to say the least. Writing about this topic feels difficult and tedious to me; I don't enjoy it. I'm motivated to do so however because I'm afraid of the detrimental impact that the claim this thread examines is having on the world.
Obama has a history of sponsoring legislation to monitor racial profiling and to videotape homicide investigations (this was before he became president). Knowing that, I listened to his comments with interest. Basically, he said that all Americans should be paying attention to what happened this summer because it's not an anomalous. He said that "best practices" have already been drafted and adopted by some communities, but not all.
He mentioned that the goal is to create trust between cops and communities. IOW, if cops are brutal, people are more likely to run and fight back. If people run and fight back, there's more likely to be police brutality. That's likely to be at least part of the problem.
Are policemen racist? Some, I'm sure. There are racist lawyers, racist doctors, racist dentists, racist just about everything. There's no such thing as outlawing racism. We legislate behavior, not opinion.
Hi Vagabond! Nice to see you! And you too M-theory!
The paper mentions that it does not factor in how use of non-lethal force escalates to lethal force so there are no findings on that matter.
I believe it is relevant and I did skim over the paper and agree with its conclusion.
To quote the papers final message...
To address your concern about the extent to which law enforcement commits unjustified homicide without consequence...I believe it should not be happening at all...and suggesting that it only happens rarely is not the solution to the problem that it has been happening.
Granted if it was more prevalent that would be worse...but the stories in the news are no less disturbing from having only happened rarely in police interactions with society.
I also doubt that it is consoling to the families of the victims.
I for one am not comforted by the idea that "it only happens rarely so that makes it ok."
Thanks for the welcome...I was slow to migrate over here...but the other site is plagued by constant coding problems so I finally decided to embrace this new format.
I
It's never O.K, but it is an inevitable occurrence. We can work to reduce the occurrence, but we are never going to get rid of it entirely in the foreseeable future.
The point that I would most like to have taken away from this thread is that a great deal more can be done to preserve black lives by examining the economic and cultural realities currently facing black communities which is leading to a host of deleterious behaviors rather than focusing on only part of the problem (police procedures). Being more likely to resist arrest or brandish a gun against police are some examples of what I would call possible deleterious behaviors that might be caused by economic, cultural, and environmental circumstances.
Almost nobody, including myself, wants to bring up the fact that the magnitude of the problem of police killing unarmed civilians is utterly dwarfed by the problem of black on black homicide. It might seem like I'm trying to make it seem like police behavior is not a problem, but all I really want to do is point out that this is a problem too, and a highly related and interconnected one at that. We need to make room, the BLM movement needs to make room, for these questions.
I agree that minorities communities are responsible in some way with being part of the solution.
But I also agree that policies changes are probably in order among law enforcement.
Better training and better oversight.
I do not envy a law enforcement officer their job...it is no doubt a difficult one...but that fact should not excuse them from justice when they are in error.
I believe there is still some systemic oppression of minorities and that we should be vigilant and aware of that as a society that would wish to be considered just.
It may be tempting to reassure yourself as a society that "it's not as bad as it used to be" but if there are still blatant examples of institutional discrimination of minorities...well I believe we should seek to eliminate that if possible...again, that is if we wish to deem ourselves a just society.
I don't agree that the central message of black lives matter movement is that only blacks are being targeted. You can choose to interpret their message in that way I suppose (fox news sure does)...but I do not agree that what they seek politically falls in line with that interpretation.
What they intend to accomplish politically is more oversight in police shootings...especially involving the unarmed.
In my opinion that would be beneficial to everybody...not just blacks.
Like I said before race should be irrelevant to the real issue...which is the failure of oversight for law enforcement.
Blacks aren't the only group that have, or have had, divergent cultural practices; and generally people have found that divergent cultural practices are not very well rewarded, if not actually punished. Back in the 1970s, for instance, white 'counter-cultural' practitioners got the cold shoulder in job interviews fairly often.
Where racism isn't a foreground reality, it is quite often a background reality, and sometimes is not the cause of an individual's behavior.
This gets into the claim that race based systematic or systemic oppression is still a large causative force in the west. However to me they are invisible systems and their structures covert, perhaps because of my necessarily inherent white privelage, as some would argue.
Perhaps I am not abreast of the organizations political intentions.
It was my understanding, not so long ago, that the primary political intent of the movement was promote more oversight of law enforcement...particularly surrounding cases of officers killing the unarmed.
If they have become a movement seeking only to benefit black people and are unconcerned with other races that would be a disappointing development that would be more harm than benefit because it would only serve to further divide people along racial lines.
I don't envy their job either.
rI feel that they resort to deadly force too quickly -- but they don't have much time in many cases to make a decision. A recent traffic stop in Milwaukee resulted in the death of the driver -- who got out of the car and ran, and was carrying an automatic gun (with 17 rounds in the magazine). Deadly force seemed reasonable there. It seems much less so when a subject is on the street, is not holding a gun, and appears to be deranged. Killing them because they would hurt the cop if they got close enough seems like... overkill.
I agree...they are trained "there is no such thing as a routine stop" they are trained to always have their guard up and to be ready to escalate to violence if necessary.
Is that necessary though?
But I do not think it would hurt to look at the facts of the data and ask is it always necessary to be ready to escalate to violence?
The vast majority of stops are routine after all.
Should we be training the police that they should be ready to escalate at the slightest sign of concern?
Should we be more lenient on police when they do make a mistake because of this training?
Does having a hard job make it ok for you to loose your cool and go off the handle violently?
That is the debate we should be having...we need to decide as a society if being a police officer means you are allowed to shoot first and think about it later or if we are going to hold the police to the same standard we hold citizens to.
If we decide that we should hold law enforcement officers to the same standard as citizens then we need to put better oversights in place...oversights that avoid the conflicts of interest I see in the current regulation system.
Information on the culture of poverty came from a seminar at the MN Dept. of Health for MDH-funded projects working with poor people, about 8 years ago, "Bridges Out of Poverty" Ruby K. Payne.
Information on the relationship of poverty, crime, imprisonment, and employment has been discussed at great length in the NYT, The Nation, NPR, PBS, etc. over several years.
Information on the relationship of the kind and quantity of spoken language and performance in schools came from NPR and NYT articles about the Harlem Children's Project.
It's simple, really: work in a variety of unrelated jobs, read widely, remember a lot--especially useless information unrelated to making a living, and digest it at one's leisure.
You sound disappointed, but lots of books are essentially assemblages of sources.
I've been thinking about class, crime, poverty, and race for quite a while. I don't know, maybe 30 years--not as a criminologist, but politically, religiously, morally. I believe that there are explanations for criminal behavior that present mechanisms and rise above stereotypes. People don't just commit crime because of age, race, and place of residence. The bullets in the list were instances of good explanatory mechanisms I remembered. Some of them come from books, some from seminars, articles, and the like.
If you want a book quote, Stephen Pinker noted in THE BETTER ANGELS OF OUR NATURE that blacks are almost living in a different nation. He was talking about both exclusion and divergence (language, clothing, styles of personal presentation, etc.). It's a nice thick book with a single author, lots of references, dense prose, footnotes, graphs, etc.
One point in particular that I find very pertinent is the relationship between crime and poverty. Initially it's very easy for many to understand how poverty might motivate for-profit crime, but it's also very true that the more someone engages in rime, the more likely they are to get caught, and when, caught, their economic future economic success becomes even more unlikely.
Poverty leads to crime, and crime leads to poverty; it's a self reinforcing feedback loop.
On top of this, It seems that the american penal system does anything but rehabilitate those it incarcerates. The colloquialism is "con-college" (convict-college) and there's a great deal of truth to it. The supremely low standards of american prisons and jails create an environment bereft of the civilized morals we sent them there for supposedly lacking in the fist place. Whichever came first, the impoverished egg or the criminal chicken; it matters not. This particular cycle requires broad changes to certain economic and judicial structures seemingly inherent in american institutions in order to be interrupted.
Cultural divergence is a necessary requirement for cultural conflict to emerge in the first place, and it also stands to reason that it would be the minority culture usually being at risk, but if we take asian american culture as an example, they are a somewhat divergent minority group which happens to be in the best economic position on average, performs the best in school, commits the least crime, and have the lowest chance of an interaction with the police involving violence. It seems difficult to know what might be a useful or detrimental cultural difference. With that said, there are blatant aspects of hip-hop culture, which is heavily associated with black culture in some ways, which do nothing but support detrimental attitudes and outright criminal behavior. Free speech and all that, I support their right to say whatever they want in their songs, I even like some of them, but it seems quite obvious to me that this is something which is contributing to that on-going feedback loop between crime and poverty, and represents just one of the many causal factors that prevent it from being extinguished.
The third issue I find intriguing is for somewhat tangential reasons: state welfare. In some ways I think that welfare programs, while necessary for many reasons, can also in some ways be a hindrance. Wealth accumulation generally does not occur when people are the beneficiaries of welfare programs. It's not that I think welfare programs are necessarily bad, it's just that if people stuck on welfare ever want to have better living standards, either welfare benefits need to be massively increased or currently impoverished families/individuals need to get the opportunity to generate their own income. When I was a kid I was grateful for food stamps, food banks, thrift/charity bins, and welfare checks, but the amount of food we could get was not as nourishing as it could have been and the clothes could have made me stand out a fair bit less. My overall "privilege" was lacking, shall we say. Not that I didn't benefit from it, it was all there was at the time for a single mother of two, but it was not enough to escape poverty, and the welfare system itself.
The upper, ruling class -- before the very first colonial governors on down -- have always loathed the poor, and have not had a lot of fondness for the "working class" either. They all came from wealth and judged goodness in terms of wealth. Everybody else was dirt under their fine leather boots. Throughout American history, the ruling class has always begrudged assistance to the poor, and would sooner hang a thief as pay for his upkeep in prison.
Poor assistance has been grudging, stingy, complicated, punitive, demeaning, insufficient, shaming, (and more) since the get go. The ruling class (pretty much everywhere, I suspect) ranks "sloth" as the very worst sin among working people. GET BACK TO WORK!!! It certainly worried the founding fathers subsequent administraitors, wonks, do gooders, etc. They feared that any assistance would increase workers' tendency to be "work shy". Food distributed during the great depression, according to a book on depression-era food, was of the blandest variety without any seasonings, so that people would go back to work to earn money for flavoring!
Given our history, it is not surprising that our social benefit programs have been burdensome to beneficiaries.
WHITE TRASH
The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America
By Nancy Isenberg
Illustrated. 460 pp. Viking. $28.
White Trash reviewed
It was my understanding, not so long ago, that the primary political intent of the movement was promote more oversight of law enforcement...particularly surrounding cases of officers killing the unarmed.
If they have become a movement seeking only to benefit black people and are unconcerned with other races that would be a disappointing development that would be more harm than benefit because it would only serve to further divide people along racial lines"
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The BLM movement has become so large and diversified that it's really not possible to say whether it is distinctly more inclusive or distinctly more exclusive in terms of race and solutions to the problems the BLM movement is protesting. I really am hesitant to give specific examples because any number of anecdotes I could bring up which show this disturbing racial exclusivity could also be done showing examples of inclusive BLM protests and rhetoric. I am however fairly convinced that certain positions currently gaining traction within the movement (or have gained traction in the previous years) are having a very tangible impact in furthering real and perceived racial divides.
Here are some clippings from a 2004 work called "Chronic Disparity: Strong and Pervasive Evidence of Racial Inequalities: POVERTY OUTCOMES" produced for a "Race and Public Policy conference" out of UC Berkeley. Most of the document is spent (re)defining terms which amounts to to an ideological world view given the suppositions contained in many of their proposed definitions:
"
To me it seems very rational that if the above definitions can aptly be applied to the west then severe moral repulsion is warranted. When BLM leaders bring up things like wealth redistribution (in some form) to address poverty it will inexorably take the form of "reparations" (i.e, wealth being redistributed specifically and only toward blacks (as opposed to impoverished people of all races)). When they talk about addressing necessary cultural changes, it will likewise inexorably take the form of "the racist white oppressors need to change and fix the problem, not people of color".
So with two of perhaps the most important avenues for change made in-navigable by the unhealthy focus on race in trying to explain poverty and crime, the third relevant remaining avenue for change, which is more police oversight, is now at risk of being marred by a similar strategy of blaming white supremacy. The disproportionate number of blacks subjected to police violence understood through the lens of the above definitions stirs repulsion and resentment to the point that nobody seems to be bothering with the specifics of any actual litigation or comprehensive reform strategies. The BLM movement lacks organized direction and specific objectives and instead broadly seeks justice. But unless their ideas and protest objectives on the ground align with what is rationally or actually justice, they may wind up achieving a good deal of the opposite.
Thanks for pointing this out...I did not realize the rhetoric of BLM had shifted to such a divisive tone.
That to me is tragic not only because it is nonproductive to my mind but also because I believe the only hope for addressing these issues is greater unity and cooperation among communities.
The "us" verses "them" mentality is a step backward not forward.
I believe there is still some racism in our society to be sure...but I do not agree that racism permeates all of our societies institutions and policies.
So I don't agree with that message.
The fact of the matter is most of our society is white, that is true, but that in and of itself does not mean that our policies and institutions are necessarily intolerant of other minority ethnicities.
Starting from that assumption does not address the issue...there are problems on both sides of this issue.
Within black communities there needs to be some change of culture...and within law enforcement there needs to be a change of culture.
There should be a common goal that each side is helping one another to achieve in my opinion.
Simply laying off all the responsibility onto a racists system is a cop out and promotes a culture of victimization that only serves to diminish the possibility of living with dignity.
sigh
To me it seems that race is merely an excuse for failing to be introspectively. It seems that for most people, violence and antagonism, "war" and the perpetuation of problems, the pinning of issues upon identifiably distinct "oppressor" groups and such is easier than introspection. Honestly, if one really cares about an issue because it is important to them, I'd expect the rational thing to be to find the optimal state to reduce the issue, taking the action of things in one's control to make things better...then again, sadly, many people are not very rational. I'm not gonna lie, it makes me question democracy.
One part of the movement is the reactionary protests to police killings of black civilians. This is the origin and core of the movement, and ideologically speaking it's only inherent message is "state killing of civilians is bad, with the awareness that blacks are being subjected to it way more often than any other race", which is quite unassailable, morally speaking. It's also in my view the main phenomenon which renews and expands BLM activism on the whole as a sustaining force. It is a very emotionally evocative entry point into the movement. When we see video of police literally murdering an unarmed black man, the thought "There is a serious problem." rightfully passes through our minds, but I think our extreme moral disgust over what we just witnessed primes us to have emotion and bias cloud, oversimplify, or otherwise inhibit our attempt at understanding the issue with sufficient depth and clarity.
Sometimes protests are more organized and leaders with actual formed messages or demands emerge, and while they all seem to have fallen under the moniker of "#BlackLivesMatter", they can have somewhat different standards, messages, and approaches. This is where a major layer of diversification and simplification occurs. The emergence of specific slogans and chants is one obvious example that shows diversity in the movement. "Hands up, don't shoot" is one that cuts very close to the real issue of police practices when interacting with civilians, as well as civilian behavior when interacting with police; I could not come up with a better slogan. ""We have nothing to lose but our chains" has seemingly become quite popular among university crowds, and I find it fascinating. The interesting history of this phrase is somewhat irrelevant to how it is wielded and the point I'm making, but originally it was a popularized English interpretation of a slogan from the communist manifesto "Workers of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains!". Re-coined with modern meaning by Assata Shakur, a polarizing figure to say the least, it is a part of a larger quote that is chanted repeatedly and with frequency by protest groups, and also repeated as a kind of oath at some speaking events. It strikes me that the picture of America that this paints is figuratively no different than institutionalized slavery in the southern U.S states circa 1830. There's an inherent contradiction to being a university student and having nothing to lose but chains, but that aside, this slogan is exceptionally emotionally evocative, and it also stokes racial resentment/guilt. The final slogan I'll use as an example to show this diversity has seen much less actual usage than the others I've mentioned, which I'm grateful for, because it's terrible and represents the worst of and a minority of the BLM protestors. It speaks for itself: "Pigs in a blanket, fry em like bacon"...
The most organized leaders in the BLM movement are well connected with campus groups, are very savvy with social media, and have been able to reach may traditional media platforms such as news and talk show interviews. These leaders are typically very intelligent and in my opinion very moral people. They distance themselves and the BLM movement as a whole away from any rhetoric that might call for violence, but the grassroots and reactionary nature of some BLM protests on the ground unfortunately renders them somewhat less of a governing force than might be ideal. Of these most organized and well connected leaders, most of them subscribe to the same school of thought when it comes to viewing inequality in the west. In many social science departments of many western universities, they now teach that the west is fundamentally patriarchal, and fundamentally white supremacist. Racism is "power + privilege". They accept it as a brute fact that whites have all the power and all the privilege in the west, making all white people racist. It's hard to believe that this comes out of actual university curriculum, but it's becoming more and more evident. We're being told that as white men we're unaware of the naturally ingrained systems of oppression, which can be complex and subtle, that benefit us at the expense of women, of people color, even more so at the expense of women of color (and so on with a litany of possible identities which might entail facing any sort of obstacle in life which white men might not face). "Intersectionality" they call it, which is in itself worthy of it's own discussion.
In some ways, any would be leader of the BLM movement is going to somehow have to put the "black" in "#BlackLivesMatter". It is very difficult to do this without amplifying a racial lens, but my own approach would be to address the issue of police use of force without focusing on racism or race as a fundamental causative factor behind the problem, and to also address the larger issue facing the black community, which leads to many of the events which spark BLM protests, which is crime in and of itself in black communities. The discussion must necessarily involve economics, politics and culture, and while it runs the risk of being obfuscated by likewise presuming that the economic, political, and cultural realities facing many black communities are symptoms of that larger white supremacist system contemporary schools of thought point to, it could still bare fruit. In summation, the BLM rhetoric at large is not outwardly "us against them", it is rather an idea lurks just under it's surface, and because of lost complexity and some inherently evocative underpinnings, it's now beginning to rear it's ugly head.
I don't agree with this...I would argue that academia teaches that because blacks are a minority that they will have a psychological propensity to view the majority white culture with suspecion especially in a historical context.
I imagine that if I was a minority ethnicity it would have some psychological effect on me as well.
The view that this automatically amounts to racism is more popular among minorities sure...but I would still suggest the majority of minorities don't believe it.
And certainly the majority of whites do not believe it.
We have real examples of history to informs us what white supremacists institutions and policies look like.
And that is not what our current system is.
The same goes for patriarchy, we have real examples of cultures where women amount to property...and that is not how the west operates in terms of social values.
At least in my experience most people don't agree with such views...I would say that is more of an extremist fringe.
Quoting VagabondSpectre
Agree that BLM should have a more inclusive tone...after all police brutality affects all of our society.
I did do a google search and reviewed two different BLM sites.
The rhetoric was very racially charged and as a white male I felt alienated by that message.
As though my support or involvement would not be welcomed as anything but part of the problem.
That is sad to me...I am certainly not motivated to be sympathetic to such a view.
I tend to agree with this, and It would be nice if it were possible to talk in a more nuanced way about things. But I think it misses an important feature of the lived experience of women and of black people in the culture.
I speak as a white middle class dude who likes to think he is liberal and for equality in such matters. Having a partner and children who are mixed race has rather changed my perspective about things.
I would like to distinguish racism as a belief system held by a few and not implemented in social institutions beyond marginal groups, from prejudice, an unconscious attitude that alters behaviour based on race or gender as the case may be. This latter is what your account leaves out, and since it is more or less universal, it is quite devastating in its effects.
Mrs Un goes into a shop, and is immediately under suspicion; if there is a random check at the airport or the roadside, she is randomly chosen. Every relationship is tainted by not only racial prejudice, but also the performance of non-prejudice. White women in particular go out of their way to talk and act friendly, in a somewhat patronising way that quickly turns to resentment when it is not particularly appreciated. They want to have her as a friend as a symbol of their lack of prejudice - but at a safe distance, especially from their menfolk.
This plays out in wider society cumulatively; each little incident is deniable, no racist language is used, no views expressed, but when one dude is stopped twenty times in his car by the police, and another never, with no violation recorded for either, there is something going on statistically that is unidentifiable in any single incident.
Given that our recent past is that white supremacy and patriarchy were institutionally sanctioned and enforced, it is inevitable that there is a legacy of prejudice. And given the experience of this prejudice alongside its universal denial, it is inevitable that there is some anger and paranoia amongst the sufferers. It is especially the denial of the existence of a problem that is the daily experience of black people that becomes - maddening.
So I do urge all you thoughtful people to investigate a little more carefully and sympathetically the complaints that are made. It's not special pleading, there is a real problem for black people day in, day out, and it is fair-minded folks like us that are the source, if we do not pay close attention to ourselves and to those 'others'.
This is valuable insight unenlightened...to get their points across both sides will resort to exaggeration.
Forgive me if I exaggerated the extent to which minorities experience differences in attitudes that whites do not.
Quoting unenlightened
There has been a great deal of effort in the west to insure that intuitions and policies do not discriminate despite possible prejudices held by those that create those intuitions and policies.
While I grant the system is not a perfect one, it should not be denied that these efforts are made and are the concern of many in positions of power, be they one race or the other, such that these efforts are still continuing to be made.
If this fact is lost in narrative of systemic segregation of equality it creates the impression that whites are collectively deliberate in their prejudices as well as the impression that whites are unwilling to change and that fosters resentments within minority culture.
Whites do not collectively as a majority conspire to agree upon how minorities should be prejudiced against so political narratives surrounding racial issues should not encourage that view.
I believe that this is counterproductive and should be avoided.
That is not to deny the experiences of minorities or that those experiences do not have any role in political discourse about racial issues.
It is only to say that being white should not be considered synonymous with being racist or being prejudice anymore than being a minority should.
I remember a thread on the Dutch Zwarte Pieten when you opened my eyes to that prejudice in me and around me. Thank you for that.
A major point of contention in the ideological foundation of many social justice activists is that we should make effort to distinguish "racism" (power plus privilege) from "prejudice" (traditional definition of racism, i.e: unjust discrimination based on race). I'm certainly O.K with redefining terms, but very often people wielding this definition turn around and say "all white people are racist, and minorities simply cannot be racist". This is a major part of what I'm trying to address with this thread, and some of the statements you make come very close to requiring this redress.
You're equating past patriarchy and white supremacy with a "legacy of prejudice" that exudes constantly from "fair-minded folks"... I think you implicitly meant fair-skinned folks here because surely it is possible for a fair minded person to not actually discriminate against black people in any meaningful or perceptually significant way. If it is not then how can we possibly reduce prejudice? A cloud of prejudice looms over all our heads as a part of the legacy of white supremacy, but exactly how thick and covering is this cloud? How prejudiced is the white race as a whole? How widespread or homogeneous is this prejudice?
I know prejudice exists, but you make it seem like every single black person in America experiences racism "day in - day out", and we're all to blame. I'm acutely aware that some police departments have problems with pulling over black people when they are driving expensive cars, and that many store managers will be more likely to suspect a black youth of being a shoplifter, and that there are many other examples of prejudiced interactions taking place - and that they happen every day in America - but they do not happen to every black person every day in America. The actual impact these aggressions and micro-aggressions are continuously having on the black race is certainly tangible; the impact exists, but the intensity and prevalence of this impact needs to be accurately projected when trying to assess the general question "What are the major problems, and their causes, which are currently facing the black demographic of America?".
The geography of racial prejudice in America certainly is not an even spread. The strongest argument that I can muster for the legacy of prejudice that you describe is that it exists in the minds of prejudiced individuals, and where there are higher densities of these prejudiced individuals this leads to increased racial discriminations against persons of color. I can readily accept that some police departments are downright filled with racists, some whole towns even, but in order to make this argument really stick to "America", fair minded folks like you and me must also be painted with some shade, albeit a lighter shade, of bigotry. When I entertain the idea that I'm a bigot who is too stupid to realize it, I always wind up asking whether or not the civil rights movement accomplished anything at all, and whether or not it is even possible, given decades of exposure to the relevant progressive moral teachings, to accomplish anything at all toward reducing racial discrimination in a multi-racial society. I cannot buy into that. All we need to do in today's world is to point out racist discrimination when and where it occurs, and social or legal sanctions levied against prejudiced individuals, businesses, and police forces will continue to address racial prejudice as I believe it has been doing, with great success, for a few decades.
When it comes blacks getting pulled over by police way more often for driving expensive cars (under suspicion of having stolen it), yes it is prejudiced discrimination on the part of the police; it's not fair to make a presumption of guilt based on race ("presumption of guilt" is unlawful entirely). But there's an underlying problem that is totally missed when we think to ourselves "Ahh, these police who pull over blacks more often are simply racists". It's an uncomfortable reality that vehicle theft is a crime very prevalent in black communities. Cops in certain areas are actually arresting blacks for auto theft way more often because they happen to be committing vehicle theft much more often. The police then go on and allow these experiences to affect their decision and judgment of who to randomly (a questionable act in and of itself) pull over, and wrongfully so. It's in my view not actually a legacy of racism that makes some police more likely to pull over blacks, it's the result of ongoing stereotyping caused by disproportionate vehicle theft rates in the black community. That is a much more significant and direct causal factor in giving rise to this ongoing discrimination than is our historically inherited prejudices. That is to say, this prejudice some police departments exhibit is not caused by history; it is learned contemporarily. The factors which lead to increased rates of car theft committed by blacks are very likely many of the same factors which lead to very disproportionate crime of many kinds, including black on black murder, which to me represents the most severe effect of the underlying causes.
Police reform is certainly something I support, but no matter how much police reform we attempt the same problems will continue to persist in high degrees. We also need economic and political reform (political reform if only to accompany the economic reform) to more directly address the prevalence of crime itself in black communities. We need judicial and punitive reform to not only better decide what we lock people up for, but also how we lock them up, and whether or not prison itself is about "punishment and deterrence" or "reform". We need to look for and confront each and every reality that comes to bear on why many black (and de-facto, why many white) communities are trapped in cycles of poverty and crime. Fair minded folks being unaware of their own prejudices in today's world is but one drop in that massive and complex causal bucket. Acknowledging my white privilege is neither going to make actual bigots less bigoted, nor address the factors that see young black men disproportionately resorting to lives of crime and the resultant incarceration, being shot and killed by the police, and being shot and killed by each-other in massively higher numbers.
Edit: The wider discussion at hand may or may not warrant a separate thread.
OK. So the OP kicked ass. This last post did. Where do you publish your writings?
The US is a multi-racial society. I know of no country on earth that has more experience with creating that on a mass scale. I believe one of the things we've learned is that calling "racist!" doesn't accomplish anything. Legislation and enforcement does. If our ability to enforce laws is crippled by a diseased police force, that will essentially render us impotent. We'll be stuck knowing what we want to be with no way to get there.
That's why the question is important.
Quoting 21st Century Policing Report
The document does deliver what seem like good strategies for reducing police violence and restoring community trust (more oversight, transparency reform, accountability reform, better and more training, better technology, more engagement between police departments and the communities they police, and more!) and even addresses some social factors which contribute to police violence indirectly (poverty and crime namely). Hopefully this report will have substantial impact.
It is however unable to address the legislative realities of the criminal code (such as the fact that drug addicts can be arrested and incarcerated for an unreasonably long time simply for possession or growing/selling marijuana) which give rise to a staggeringly high prison population (the highest in the world in fact, bar none). It cannot address the reality that many who spend time in a federal prison come out a more hardened criminal than when they went in, and with much less of a chance of recovering economically by legal means...
Ensuring that we have fair and balanced police force is a natural and I think necessary first step toward reducing the racial disparities we see in law enforcement, and though this alone is a complex task (an eminently achievable one however, in my opinion), next to the greater social, cultural and economic factors that drive crime in and of itself, it feels like less than a half-measure.
P.S: Thanks for the compliment Mongrel! I don't know why but something drives me to occasionally put a great deal of effort into Philosophy Forum exclusives. I've considered self-publishing some stuff (I most like to write about moral philosophy, atheism, and global politics) but I guess I've never found a medium that can beat the satisfaction and depth that ye olde forum has been able to provide. Any suggestions on what kind of medium might be conducive for exporting some of my better formed views?
I'm specifically not equating them, but relating them. No, I meant fair-minded. I know from my own case that one can be minded to be fair but fall into prejudice. Indeed prejudice is how the mind works - once bitten, twice shy.
Quoting VagabondSpectre
I am not in America, and so My experiences are of British society, but I am telling you the truth of my life. I don't imagine that Americans are less prejudiced that the British, so my expectation would be that indeed every single black person experiences negative stereotyping prejudicial behaviour multiple times every day, day in day out.
When I was a kid there was a nasty little trick we used to play on each other; sticking a notice on someone's back without their knowing, saying 'kick me', or some such. One could spend some time wandering around wondering why folks were behaving oddly, staring, pointing, giggling, and occasionally kicking.
The nice thing about carrying such a sign, is that as soon as you know about it you can take it off, and that is why folks straighten their hair with caustic soda and try to bleach their skin.
Quoting VagabondSpectre
This is one small example of how prejudice is self sustaining. Because it is 'known' that black people are more likely to be involved in car crime, black people receive more attention from the police; because they receive perhaps twenty times more attention, more black people are discovered to be involved with car crime. So the statistics prove the prejudice. It's an excellent of how the legacy of racism is an ongoing sustained stereotyping.
Quoting VagabondSpectre
Some people say this, but I am not one of them. I would say that everyone is prejudiced in various ways against short people, ugly people, women, gingers, the disabled, the poor, the foreigners, whatever. No one is immune, and black men, for example are quite capable of overt sexism, and very prone to stereotyping white folks.
There is however an important difference between the racial prejudice of a minority and a majority; power. The prejudice of black folks has little impact on the lives of whites.
Quoting unenlightened
I repeat myself for emphasis, and to make clear that when I say 'maddening' I mean it literally. To have one's experience systematically denied by society at large is to be thrust into a solipsistic nightmare world of paranoia - is it a conspiracy or am I mad?
It is neither, of course, but it is real and it is being denied. Quite often the understandable response to having one's experiences denied is to exaggerate, to become angry, to separate from that group that is denying, and you will see all this in the media. It is not helpful, but it is understandable, just as it is understandable but unhelpful that white folks of goodwill quite honestly deny their prejudice because they fail to see it. It is the nature of prejudice that one looks through it, like tinted glasses, and doesn't look at it.
"..the current study only measured the alpha waves of participants drawn from the general public, not law enforcement or the military. Consequently, wrote the authors, “results from this sample are not generalizable to sworn officers.”
It only speculates that it can be generalized to police officers in the field.
I can also speculate, and I speculate that this lady is manipulating information to foster her conservative ideology.
I think there is reason to believe that the war on drugs was partly driven by racism. Trump's "law and order" agenda is covertly linked to racism, if not in Trump himself, in some of his supporters. The fact that David Duke has publicly expressed appreciation for Trump's message says it all.
This link is by no means recent. It goes back at least to the Nixon administration. I'm not sure what the solution to that is.
I wonder if it's similar to the Prohibition era, where in some areas anti-Irish sentiment piggy-backed concerns about alcohol abuse. The solution was legalization of alcohol.
There may be something to that, but I think there is also a deal of truth to the general thesis that black neighbourhoods are badly policed and black on black killing is a far bigger problem than police on black.
The whole gun thing is very far from my experience in the UK, where carrying a knife in public without good reason is an offence. But I notice the phrase "armed suspect" and wonder what makes an armed person into a suspect in the circumstance where being armed is not itself suspicious?
Snopes.com outlined the information in the paper. It was anonymously funded, and it relied on police statements and information, which are the one of the very things we have come to question based primarily on citizen videos...the police's own cameras always seem to go on the fritz when one of these tragic events occur.
http://www.snopes.com/2016/07/15/harvard-study-officer-involved-shootings/
Perhaps when they have a weapon in their hand and are pointing it at you?
If someone is prejudiced, then they're not fair minded.
Prejudice is not how the mind works... Prejudice may be a natural phenomenon of minds, but so is acceptance and loyalty, learning, and even open-mindedness.
On the one hand you say humans are just naturally prejudiced, on the other hand you say that we are prejudiced because of a "legacy of prejudice" which is due to the history of "white supremacy and patriarchy".
So which is it? Both? Which prejudices are inherent to all minds and which are the prejudices I inherited because of history?
You're saying that people who straighten their hair are doing so to escape the social pangs of being black in the west? A lot of them do it because curly black hair is typically notoriously hard to manage, and a lot of people like the aesthetic.
How many black women actually bleach their skin? This might sound controversial, but I submit to you that black women are not bleaching their skin (in whatever numbers they happen to be doing so) to escape social inequality and the average racial discrimination that they are want to experience while black; they're doing it because that's their idea of what is beautiful.
The culture of dark shaming that exists specifically within the black community itself (putting down blacks who are darker than you on an aesthetic level) might be the result of people thinking that there is something not beautiful about having very dark skin, but there's nothing me and my inherent prejudices can do about that.
Here's the thing though, blacks do commit vehicle theft more often in America right now. You're suggesting they're not committing vehicle theft any more often than whites, that rather a prejudiced police force simply goes after them for vehicle theft more often, simply due to prejudice, and that this explains the statistical disparity; prejudice reinforcing prejudice right?
This may be true to some degree, but there is a distinct and massive degree to which it is not true. Crime rates in black communities really are higher than any other racial demographic and no amount of police training and acknowledgement of prejudice can affect the root causal forces that contribute to this undeniable reality. The unyielding presumption that every statistical racial disparity can be explained by prejudice is outright detrimental to any comprehensive effort to understand and address crime and poverty in black communities. These are really severe problems whose causes extend far beyond just prejudice.
This is exactly the rhetoric I think naturally leads to racial resentment and guilt. This is the (re)definition of white supremacy.
It's proof begins with the lived experiences of persons of color.
Individual experiences of racist discrimination are pointed out and a picture of America is painted that there is a severe on-going day-to-day white supremacist system afflicting all blacks. This is a massive leap and it has grand implications. "White supremacist" might not be your choice of words, but it IS the choice of words of the popular intellectuals who would weigh in to support your assertion, and from whom I suspect your assertions originate.
Quoting Chronic Disparity : Strong and Pervasive Evidence of Racial Inequalities
At this point if I were to deny that I had been the recipient of "privilege" because of my race, I would be told that I was simply unaware of it, and that this unawareness is evidence of the privilege itself.
What is being denied is that the experiences of individuals are necessarily representative of the entire demographic that person belongs to. I'm all for listening to people's lived experiences, but I'm also for questioning whether not individual experiences are representative of the majority, or in this case,the whole majority white race.
What is also being denied is that all white folks of good will carry out prejudiced aggressions and micro-aggressions. Whether we're talking about offensive behavior or a police officer choosing whether or not to pull someone over, I reject your assertion that prejudice is ingrained in all of us.
I reject that racism still has the institutionally and culturally reinforced power that it once had. I contend that we have in fact made progress since the 50's and the ensuing civil rights movements, and that this progress has been significant and lasting. I believe that humans beings can live among one another without being prejudiced against each other because of differences between them. Prejudice exists, certainly it does, nobody is actually denying that. Nobody is actually denying the lived experiences of individual people; what's being denied is that prejudice from white people is the main causal force holding black communities down (i.e, the factors which perpetuate crime and poverty in black communities at disproportionate rates).
I reject the assertions that all white people contribute to and benefit from this white supremacy (through inherent or historically inherited prejudice that they may or may not be aware of), and that all black people suffer and are burdened because of it, daily.
It's odd that you should accuse the entire human race of wearing the tinted glasses of inherent or historical prejudice. The assertion that we all inherently are prejudicial is itself an ideological lens all of it's own. I'm not opposed to lenses, they can help us to see things after all, but what about an economic or cultural or political lens? It's not surprising that people wielding only one of these lenses will attribute it's focus as a predominant causal force in the world where other lenses, or a combination of other lenses, would have been much more appropriate.
Yes, perhaps. But perhaps when you suspect they might be going to point it at you. And perhaps you might be more inclined to suspect that of a black man. This is the difficulty, that the world is made of expectations. My hope is that we philosophers at least can try to see some of the difficulties and complexities and show some charity to both the police and black people. I suspect that both have faults and virtues in full measure.[
More access to information would go a long way to strengthening the conclusions of this research paper, wherever they might lead. And even though PragerU might jump on the chance to create the most drastic impressions they can muster by cherry picking figures from the report (as is I believe their political marketing agenda), I'm not convinced that the paper is valueless. Here it is if you're interested: http://www.nber.org/papers/w22399
Prejudice is the mind's heuristic in action. Quick and dirty - women are ... something probably comes to mind and when you see a woman, that comes with it. In this sense it is a natural process. I've seen some swans and they were all white, therefore...
And one learns, not only from experience, but also from the culture, and culture is the presence of history. So I am saying there is a natural proclivity for prejudice on the one hand and that one, not inevitably, but inevitably if one does not struggle to make oneself aware of them, inherits the prejudices of one's culture.
Quoting VagabondSpectre
Yes, I do not wish to deny the fact that crime rates in black communities are higher. But please try to see that the 'true to some degree' has a huge impact psychologically, and hence socially. 'To some degree' the police are the enemy out to get you if you are black; even you admit it. It is really important to try to turn this around, because the police being seen as the enemy is a major contributor to crime in black neighbourhoods. So it is really important to acknowledge the limited truth underlying the perception, and act on it, in order then to be able to gain the support and confidence of the black community at large.
The rest of your post seems to be largely addressed to a position to which I do not subscribe - You might consider that it could be that prejudice leads you to assume that if i make this claim, then I am the kind of someone who makes that claim.
I didn't see your post, kinda scanned through posts until I watched the incredible rant that the lady on the video put up against BLM.
The DOJ, report after report, has found fault in the police systems in Chicago, Baltimore, and Ferguson. So I am suspicious of any report that relies on police information. Report after report finds systemic problems in the US criminal justice system in large urban areas.
I am not surprised that the author Dr. Fryer was surprised by his own results...probably due to faulty police reports. Remember Sandra Bland's horrific death at the hands of the police, happened just outside of Houston, TX. They said she committed suicide...bullshit!
"Culture is the presence of history"...
So you're not saying that all white people are inherently prejudiced, just that white culture itself is prejudiced, and unless we as white people struggle against our culture, we will inevitably succumb to that racist prejudice?
I'm not opting to be selective in trying to understand why crime rates are higher in black communities, I'm looking for as many sources as possible, nor am I making any final conclusions on the matter beyond what amounts to saying "Hey guys, I think racism is a smaller causal force in the west today than many of us feel it is". I think it's healthy for us to begin to accept that racism and prejudice are becoming less and less prevalent because, A: it's true, and B: It allows us to begin to focus on and understand the non-prejudice oriented factors perpetuating today's social problems in a way that is not distracted and obfuscated by inflated perceptions of racism and the ensuing racial tension/guilt that must then be dealt with. "Police are out to get black people" is not a rational portrayal of the American police force as a whole...
The rest of my post was about how presuming that everyone is prejudiced, and then claiming that their denial of their prejudice is evidence that it exists, is a divisive tautology.
I deny your presumption that every black person suffers from prejudice every single day in the west, or America. If that claim is true than it stands to reason that every single fair-minded white person in the west contributes to the oppression of blacks every single day in the west, right? I'm sympathetic to your experiences, but this is not the world that I see.
I'd say it's just the opposite. The "non-prejudical" aspects aren't separate to social problems and how our society is failing black people. Consider the higher crime rate. What does this mean? What happens when someone is committing crimes? They become targets for the police.
The police are quite literally out to get black people who are committing crimes. Before we even get to the question of specific racial abuse enacted by police, there is already a racially charged element which affects the black people-- the police, by their very mission, are out to get more black people and have an impact on the individuals in their community.
Racism is not merely a question of one individual abusing another. It's also about the social context and the impact it has on people's lives. To be poor, committing crimes and to be sort after by the police (even if the person is guilty and justly pursued) are factors of prejudice themselves.
I quite understand that white folks don't see it and don't want to see it. I could present experimental evidence, as I have in the past, and reference psychological theories to support my position, but if you deny my direct experience, then you will easily deny the supporting evidence, so I won't trouble.
It is, alas, the smallness of each incident that makes it deniable; how the good looking people always 'accidentally' get the best table at a restaurant, how the concerned citizen chooses to intervene on the occasion when the suspect just happens to be black, how the store detective just happens to be watching the foreign woman for some very good reason. You know it took me a while to notice it myself; perhaps if you chat to some of your black friends and neighbours about it they will start to point it out to you as you go about town. Each time it will look like bad luck, or coincidence, until eventually that cannot be sustained.
Some people are just so convinced that they know everything that they aren't able to listen and gain something from the experiences of others.
If the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness reflect the trans valuation of religious ideals into democratic 'secular' society, then sin, barbarism and the worst of religion, its intolerance of diversity, are also trans valued, just not overtly. These negative values show up in class structure, as in the dominant class's superiority over other classes in society. In how society subsidizes the poor and is antagonistic about it.
This 'antagonism' is not overt, it is denied. Instead of promoting economically blighted areas in large cities, they are earmarked for the 'war on poverty', the 'war on drugs', the 'war on____'. The solution to urban issues, I think, is impossible from with-out these communities, it can't be imposed upon them, these communities must see the benefit of acting in a manner consistent with a better life from their point of view.
So yea, I think racism is all around us, and we don't see it because we breath it, it is institutionalized.
We don't share the same world as much as logic might suggest. Sometimes within the same geographic space multiple worlds rub shoulder without seeing each other... "From the penthouse apartment to the knife on the A-train... it's not that far." That's from a song that sums up my experience travelling around from one world to another and I know there are many I don't know about... possibly right beside me now.
I'm a woman who worked in electronic engineering for 10 years. I'm a white person (I can pass for that) who grew up in an area where the black population was pretty high. I specifically remember becoming aware of the concept that there are only two races. I remember how weird that seemed considering that people are all different colors. Most black people aren't black. Patrick, a little boy I grew up with... his skin was actually black. Patrick's deal was he thought going around kissing girls right in the mouth was awesome. Looking back... it was a really good way to pass on viruses. All the girls in my first grade class would run from him when they saw him coming. Not because he was black. We all knew he was black. We didn't understand that he was black. The notion that racism is innate is bullshit. It's not. For some people, the information just isn't there in the little world they inhabit to let them know that.
I say the issue of sexism, sexual harassment, racism, racial intolerance.. it's all very complicated when we get past real discrimination regarding employment and housing. I could go on for some time explaining why it's so complicated. Racism is different from sexism (obviously). The only people I've talked to about that were black females. I don't know a black-male perspective (which...let's be honest.. it is black males that this thread is mostly about). The perspective that has the ring of in-depth examination is Bitter Cranks. I've noticed that before.
False. There was higher black employment without the minimum wage, and this was during segregation.
Quoting VagabondSpectre
This is due to the fact that blacks commit more crimes, overwhelmingly against each other, which shows the moral vacuity of a movement like Black Lives Matter. The people in this movement do not care about and felt no need to protest the dozens of black lives being mowed down by their fellow blacks in places like Chicago. No mass vigils with faux civil rights leaders like Sharpton and Jackson flying in. No media frenzy. No comment from the president. Nothing. It's only when a stray white cop who seems to murder a black man that people go ballistic. Never mind the fact that at least half the officers involved in these high profile cases have been acquitted once further evidence is brought to light and are not even white. No matter, it's all one vast conspiracy of "systemic racism."
I would also add that poverty doesn't have to or always lead to crime. My family was extremely poor for a time, to the point of being on food stamps, but it never occurred to me or my parents to result to violence or illegal behavior. And why was that? Because we were raised in an environment that respected the rule of law, morality, education, and high culture (music, art, literature). The "culture" many blacks cultivate and associate with is revolting, with its glorification of violence and illiteracy, hatred of police and authority figures, the denigration of women, etc. You can go on about other causes for the present situation, but the primary one is cultural. Until blacks in greater numbers lay down their guns, stop having unprotected sex and abusing the women in their lives, respect authority and education, and attempt to find jobs, however entry-level they may be, that pay for their and their family's basic needs rather than tricking out their cars or buying iPads, then nothing much will change.
Sorry you didn't like the MTV video...hoped it would make it easier for you to understand.
Apparently pew research did a survey and found that about 2/3 of white people don't talk about race issues on social media.
Where as about 68% of blacks participate in sharing or viewing content related to racial issues on social media.
Perhaps one of the problems surrounding the issue of race relations is that most white people are not discussing that issue.
That, it could be argued, is structural impediment to progress in creating a more just society for everyone.
The way you say it though, "police are quite literally out to get black people", is unnecessarily divisive and somewhat misleading given the larger context of the question we're asking which is "How much of a causal force is racism against blacks regarding police use of force". The answer to that question is informally contained in the mantra "police are out to get black people".
You must understand that in order to get an accurate picture of how much a factor "racism" is in the use of force by police, we also need to get an idea of the "non-racism" factors which lead to police use of force (incompetent police/procedures, deleterious criminal law, and also the behavior of the civilians themselves (i.e: behavior; are they brandishing a weapon, are they responding to commands, are they attacking an officer, etc...))
If we want to say with any kind of confidence and accuracy the role that racism plays in today's world, we MUST separate it out from other worldly causes, or at least TRY to.
The fact that police (of any kind) have increased presence in high crime communities exacerbates tensions between police and civilians, which indirectly contributes to even more negative interactions between police and civilians, and is a causal force we ought to make an effort to understand, but this is not even inherently a racial issue. Many poor white communities which see higher rates of crime than the rest of society also have increased police presence and also have a staunch resentment and hatred of the police.
By saying that "the police by their very mission are out to get more black people" you're concealing the other realities as to why police end up arresting disproportionately more blacks than whites. It's not so cut and dried; prejudice does not explain all.
You say that to be poor, committing crimes, and being sought after by the police are all symptoms of prejudice. How is this racial prejudice responsible for the disproportionate rates at which poor white people are sought by the police for being criminals? Would it not be a different kind of prejudice?
A "non-racial-prejudice" perhaps?
Your experiences alone simply cannot help me get a picture of the overall magnitude of the problem of racism, all they can really do is give me examples of how racism plays out day-to-day. This could be useful since these examples of racism, if prevalent enough, surely could contribute to the continued economic depression that traps many black communities. You have however opted to provide examples of subtle racism; micro-aggressions. And while micro-aggressions are very prevalent, they simply do not amount to much in the way of keeping whole communities economically depressed.
I understand that it can be a horrible experience to be collected as a token black friend, or to question the beauty of your own skin, or to be stared at because you are different, but frankly this kind of prejudice concerns me the very least because all it hurts are people's feelings. I'm much more concerned with whether or not the police themselves are allowing prejudice to affect how they carry out their policing, and the direct factors which are currently leading to more crime, incarceration, and death in black communities. Are young black men killing each other in such terrifying numbers because of day-to-day prejudice? Do the psychological theories you have referenced explain it? Do your personal experiences have anything at all to say about this?
Quoting unenlightened
There are many differences between the set of factors that keep individuals and whole communities (black or white) impoverished and afflicted by perpetual crime, and the set of social pangs that being a minority can come with. There is some overlap, but the contribution that a prejudiced individual picking on a minority individual has in comparison to the wider set of cultural and socioeconomic factors at hand, is minimal.
Regarding economic vs cultural factors of crime specifically, there is a lot of inter-play between the two. Economy does have at least something to do with the prevalence of absentee fathers in black communities, which itself goes on to have broad economic and cultural implications of it's own. Being poor doesn't necessitate criminality, but it does incentivize economically motivated crimes. That said, I share many of the same sentiments that you do. The BLM movement needs to make room for all black victims of crime, not just the victims of crime carried out by the police. If it is unable to do so, it will in fact have demonstrated that it doesn't actually care about the lives of black people.
The speaker in the video very passively acknowledges that the black community is concerned with gun violence, and this somehow is meant to be equated with the BLM movement, while nearly the entire remainder of the video is spent explaining how the BLM is specifically an issue about police killings of civilians. She states:
It's great that she brings up actual contemporary problems, but unfortunate that she equates it all to "institutional racism". She goes on to unequivocally state that "black on black crime is not a thing" and justifies this claim by bringing up the fact that most people who are murdered are murdered by someone of their own race. What she tacitly ignores, which is the actual contextual meaning of the term "black on black crime", is that blacks are killing other blacks at around four to five times the rate that whites are killing whites. She goes on to say that bringing up black on black crime is just a diversion to delegitimize outrage at police killings of black civilians, so if there was any doubt that her version of the BLM movement is specifically concerned with the police vs blacks, let it be put to rest.
The MTV video was mean't to be cheeky.
But, you must compare apples to apples. Comparing White on White crime to Black on Black crime is not appropriate because of the economic disparities within these groups. The following conclusions from the Bureau of Justice Statistics:
For the period 2008–12—
Persons in poor households at or below the Federal Poverty Level (FPL) (39.8 per 1,000) had more than double the rate of violent victimization as persons in high-income households (16.9 per 1,000).
Persons in poor households had a higher rate of violence involving a firearm (3.5 per 1,000) compared to persons above the FPL (0.8–2.5 per 1,000).
The overall pattern of poor persons having the highest rates of violent victimization was consistent for both whites and blacks. However, the rate of violent victimization for Hispanics did not vary across poverty levels.
Poor Hispanics (25.3 per 1,000) had lower rates of violence compared to poor whites (46.4 per 1,000) and poor blacks (43.4 per 1,000).
Poor persons living in urban areas (43.9 per 1,000) had violent victimization rates similar to poor persons living in rural areas (38.8 per 1,000).
Poor urban blacks (51.3 per 1,000) had rates of violence similar to poor urban whites (56.4 per 1,000).
Cities like Chicago have areas with 40 to 60% of people living below the poverty level. Black on Black crime and White on White crime within the same economic level are near parity.
I believe that poor people black and white are discriminated against institutionally. Look at the Bail Bonds system in this country. A poor black or white person who cannot raise bond has to go to jail, while a person with the cash can avoid jail and work, earn money, and fight whatever crime they have been accused of committing. A poor person has to work, so the prosecutor will offer a deal, they plead guilty to a crime and they get off, even if they were innocent, but now with a criminal record. The Department of Justice just filed (http://www.courthousenews.com/2016/08/19/Bail.pdf) an Amicus curiae brief suggesting the system is unconstitutional.
To say that the police are not complicit in their subjugation of black communities to to fly in the face of recent Department of Justice reports that suggest that cities such as Chicago, Baltimore and Ferguson are systematically racist.
"The Baltimore Police Department engaged in a pattern of stopping African-Americans without any real justification. Between 2010 and 2015, there were three hundred thousand police stops, of which less than four per cent resulted in a citation or arrest. Forty-four per cent of those stops occurred in two small, mostly black neighborhoods, and ninety-five per cent of people who were stopped ten times or more were African-American." The New Yorker 8/12/16
The Department of Justice found the " Ferguson Police Department was egregiously biased and mercenary"
Here from Washington Post 8/16/16 regarding the DOJ task force study of Chicago's police department:
,
"The task force offered a bleak assessment of how the department treats people of color. In their report, the task force members recounted how residents said officers treat minorities poorly and then paired this with police department data that “gives validity to the widely held belief the police have no regard for the sanctity of life when it comes to people of color.”
And, these are just some of the studies cited.
No, the institutionalization of racism is endemic, to deny this is to put your head in the sand.
Racism isn't an idea that causes. It's the existence of an act or state of disadvantage or abuse. Whether we are talking about a cop deliberately shooting black people or the fact higher crime rates mean police action has a greater impact on black individuals, they are states of the world. A person has their life turned upside down and restrictions placed upon them.
To speak of racism as a "cause" is to ignore it's presence. It's to pretend racism is some seperate thing to people's lives in our society, so we can pretend it isn't really there.
If someone points out the white community doesn't suffer from having their families torn apart by police action at the same rate, you will dismiss the difference in opportunity, respect for agency and power. You will say: "But the police were just doing their jobs. Racism is not the cause."
But the cause was never the point. The point was black people being torn away from their lives and families. It's about the suspicion directed at black people that results in abuse. Description of what is done to black people is the point.
I'm not concealing the realities of why the police arrest black people. Even if it a justified action against criminals who commit henious acts, it still locks a black person up and tears them away from their family and friends. Opportunity, power, property and respect for agency are removed. The black community suffers from this imposition more often than the white community. My point is it is racist no matter why the police acted ( and even if they ought to).
It's interesting that you suggest economic factors might play a role in causing higher crime rates in poor communities; that's what I've been doing in just about every one of my posts, including this being a main focus of my OP.
It's interesting because poverty leading to crime is a separate or discrete causative force from racism/prejudice leading to crime.
Please understand that I'm not bringing up "black on black crime" to make a point about blackness, I do so when people suggest that crime in black communities is all the fault of racism and white supremacy or alternatively that that there is no such thing (as the MTV video did). By our new found reckoning a possibly more causative force towards perpetuating crime in black communities is the existing poverty in black communities. If we tried to present a solution for crime in poor black communities, how good of a solution do you think we would come up with if we blamed racism for the problem while ignoring the economic factors that many (disproportionately across america) black communities face? We would get nowhere.
Quoting Cavacava
I would love to help champion human rights on behalf of the poor, regardless of their race.
If we try this through the lens of white supremacy or institutional racism, how do you feel about "reparations"? (like it or not, it's currently creeping in to our cultural zeitgeist).
Quoting Cavacava
If a racist police officer or police department behaves in a racist manner, I guess that's one way to fill out the term "institutional racism" but I think it's another to assume that all police departments across America fall are fairly represented by this description.
You say it's endemic, but how endemic? Quantitative and qualitative assessments of the prevalence of racism among police officers across America may not reflect so accurately that widely held belief that police have no regard for the sanctity of life when it comes to the people of color.
You suggest my head is buried in the sand, but to alternatively bury one's head in the most severe portrayal of racist police brutality possible as the American norm is likewise not a strategy conducive to healthy sight.
Your point is that the police arresting black people, regardless of why, is racist?
What is racism?
Is police arresting a white person, regardless of why, also racism?
I'm terribly confused.
Racism is an act or acting system which is a restriction of opportunity, disrespect for agency, dissolution of property or expression of power over one particular ethnicity. The presence of a society which particular hunts for black criminals, for example. Society and individuals which act on individuals of an ethnic group in a particular way.
Arresting a white person is not racist in the US. The white community does not have the same crime rate and not targeted in the same way by police (though the arresting of a white person may well be classist, as poor communities sometimes have higher crime rates and expectations of criminality).
I would like clarification on whether or not police arresting a black person is necessarily racist...
If a black cop arrests a black man, is that still racist?
What if a white cop arrests a black man in order to, let's say, free his hostages. Is that racism?
If one police officer commits a racist action in the line of duty, is the whole system therefore racist?
How did we get here....
I am not saying it is endemic in our system, the Department of Justice is saying this, with all it reports looking at how police departments around the county. It is the system calling the system rotten.
The hypocrisy of the USA, its utter disregard its horrible history of dealing with blacks is not all over because some laws were passed. Pisses me off. To say it is over patiently absurd, upsetting and untrue.
Look at Wells Fargo's sub prime lending that targeted the "mud people" in 2005. It lent them subprime loans, which became infamous a few years latter. They ended up settling for around $355 million. The money does not matter, the ruined lives matter. The president of this bank should have gone to jail...that would have been proper reparation.
A black officer arresting a black person (whether guilty or not) is part of the society which is restricts opportunity, disrespects agency, takes power over them, etc.,etc., so yes, it is racist.
It's part of the racist system which sees a greater number of black people died opportunity, property and life (in the sense of being a self-directed person free to move, interact with their finds and family, etc., etc.)
The same is true when the white officer arrests the hostage taker. So, yes, also racist.
With the individual racist action, it's a single act of abuse by an officer, so no it does not mean the system is racist. However, such actions can be indicators of the presence of a culture of racism within the system. Or the system might be a wider imposition of the lives of individuals of the black community. Just becasue an individual racist action doesn't define the presnece of a racist system, it doesn't mean there isn to a racist system present.
All I'm asking for is some kind of measurement of racism within the system. You have qualified racism as being a component of the system we live in, but how can we measure it?
You're essentially saying "everything is racist". This is an unneseccarily emotionally evocative, logically confusing and empirically false position.
How rotten?
You say that American hypocrisy pisses you off because America's disregard for it's horrible history of treatment of blacks is not all over because some laws were passed...
Have we at least gained some regard for America's horrible history of treatment of blacks?
Since there is a central body within the rotten (a.k.a racist) system evaluating individual police departments around the country and suggesting that some of them have problems with racial bias, is it possible that the whole system is not rotten?
While TheWillowOfDarkness is convinced that the very nature of the system itself is defined by racist oppression in every way and pertains to all black persons, perhaps you are willing to take a more nuanced position on the matter?
Quoting Cavacava
Surely this is evidence that racism still exists in America, but is it evidence that America is a racist system?
Here's some justice that seemingly was doled out by the rotten system. Was the judge who found merit in this particular discrimination case also rotten?
Keep in mind, it is not and was never my position that America is a completely un-rotten and fresh fruit. I'm contending that it is far less rotten than it was in the past (in terms of a racist system), and that overall, the rot of racism is much less a causative force than it once was, and in comparison to some of the other varieties of rot that currently afflict America. I contend it is not the all-encompassing and all-powerful force in today's world that many people are making it out to be.
Are social systems and individuals such that individuals particular ethnic group is denied opportunities, has the agency disrespected, their property taken, their freedom of movement removed to a greater extent than another ethnic group? If so, there is a racism system and individuals present. Is this true of US society with respect to back people. Yes, so it is a racist.
My position is only confusing for those who have not understand what racism is, for those who think it is about some specific intention which exist separately to the social system and people's lives. You are ignoring the standard of measurement I've given. I've given it in pretty much every post I've made to you here.
That was never claimed. Society and individuals being racist doesn't mean it's everywhere. It doesn't preclude back people being treated justly by the police or other social organisation. All it means is that there is much racism is our society embedded much deeper than just bashing someone up because they are black. Not "everything," just many instances.
1) Restriction of opportunity.
No part of the American legislative or economic system explicitly restricts the opportunities of one race over another. Typically the opportunities someone has will depend on their individual circumstances such as wealth and connections. A white family can be in just as impoverished and lacking opportunity as a black family can be, and so I submit to you that access to opportunity is not distributed based directly on race, but instead a more complex set of factors.
2) Disrespect for agency.
I can only assume that by this you mean to say "racist people devaluing the lives of black people". All I can tell you is that outward or open racism is heavily frowned upon in most social and political circles in America these days. Even the mexican hating islamaphobic trumpeters who are perhaps the largest visible group of "racists" right now in America, are easily identifiable as a minority. At some point between the american civil war and the legacy of the civil rights movement, the system did in fact begin to consider that black people have agency too. White people have their agency deprived by incarceration the same as how black people have their agency deprived when they too are incarcerated. Again, I submit to you that there is an important set of factors other than racism that you are not accounting for.
3) Dissolution of property
As the prevalence of racism has subsided in the west since the 60's, and it has, so too has the prevalence of specifically racially segregated or state funded communities being gentrified into different areas as the real-estate value begins to exceed the value of those living there. In today's world the dissolution of property no longer spares white communities while specifically targeting the black ones; it targets all communities where corporate or state control can be enacted on a community for long term utility or profit. The government at large, corporations at large, and the american public at large look down upon impoverished communities with fairly equal disdain and pity regardless of a given community's racial demographics. Race is certainly often stigmatized by the surrounding inhabitants of an impoverished area, "they're poor because they're mexican", "They're poor because they're black", but an equally popular stigma is "They're poor because their white trash". That said, stigmas have a hard time dissolving property on the basis of race...
4) Power over one ethnicity; Death at the hands of police.
You could say that addressing this issue is the entire purpose of this thread. The sheer fact that police use of force exists and that black people experience it at disparate rates is not being debated or denied. If you want to argue that the mere existence of a disparity between races is the definition of racism, that's fine, but I'm interested in understanding the full scope of causes which lead to these disparities in the first place. The ensuing argument about whether or not the existence of a statistical racial disparity of any kind (your definition of racism) is evidence of racism in the first place, is circular.
------------------
I'll try asking you one last question to see if we can at least somewhat get on the same page semantically speaking:
"If a black person is mass murdering other black persons, and a black police man arrests the mass murderer, thereby saving countless black lives, is that racism?
Yes, Americans are hypocritical (as is the entire human species--it's what we do, it's what we are). Very little was done to undo the racial rift until roughly a century after slavery ended. Since Brown Vs. Board of Education in 1954, a great deal of effort and money has gone into compensatory programs. There are programs in education (like Head Start), health (like Medicaid, food aid), welfare, housing (like HUD), employment (like EEO programs), civil rights legislation, and so on. Many, many billions of dollars have been spent on these programs. But the rift still exists.
Parts of these programs were unsuccessful. Everyone who knows about endemic racism knows how the programs failed (and at the same time ignore the ways in which the programs succeeded).
Police have always had a repressive role with respect to all groups the ruling classes have not liked. Blacks are one of the groups the ruling classes are least fond of, and much of working classes aren't either. Hence, continued discrimination. Some of the discrimination is subtle, some gratuitous, and some egregious.
The hard part about finding solutions is that the black community itself is largely not in a position to do much about it's own situation. They are trapped just as many other communities are or have been trapped. Is this just blaming the victim? As Jesse Jackson once said, if somebody knocks you down, that's their fault. If two weeks later you haven't got up yet, that's your fault. Sometimes that's the problem. At other times a general rejection of white culture closes avenues of advancement. Developing a subculture of strong difference doesn't help either. There's always the problem of insufficient resources, the missing input from previously successful generations, and so on.
None of this is a new crisis, it's an old one which has been addressed again and again for around 65 years. I don't see any new thinking in the current criticisms that suggests the outcomes will be different now than in the past. Sorry deeply sensitive, consciousness raised, anti-racist, anti-sexist, anti-imperialist, etc. thinkers: you're not saying anything new, insightful, or likely to succeed.
I used to think that too. It's more complicated than that. Black people in the South were making progress entering into politics, starting businesses, accumulating wealth (it takes time to do that.. generations.) Blacks and whites were working side-by-side. They associated as friends.
That all came to an abrupt stop in the economic depression of 1890's. White supremacists rose to prominence and hired thugs called red-shirts (the KKK wasn't active at the time.) The thugs were used to stop blacks from voting by scaring the crap out of them. That was one method for taking over Southern governments. Another was to run standing governments out of town (as happened in Wilmington, NC. Black votership dropped from around 50-70% to 3% in the South.
Whites who protested (such as a professor at UNC) were threatened. The vibe was: you're either with us or you're against us.
But where was the National Guard when this was happening? Why didn't anybody in the rest of the US object?
1. They didn't know.
2. They knew, but they didn't know what to do about it.
3. They knew and they agreed with it.
Yes, the laws that have been put in place over the last 70 years have had the effect of mitigating overt racism. Lynching is not occurring (last one in 1981 in Mobile, Alabama, by two Ku Klux Klan members), black people do not have to sit at the back of the bus, and, while it is still being contested in some states, blacks can vote unmolested. The police as upholders of the law, have not choice but to obey it.
No, racism is not gone, but it has gone undercover. Voter id registration laws, stop & frisk programs, the US bail system, an other legal means keep racism alive. Some police department have to do much better.
Humans discriminate naturally, we know what we like and how it differs from what we don't like. Prejudice in the wide sense of the word, is natural. We live on the surface of a world that appears in its various forms and characteristics. As I stated previously I think racism is chromatic. (think about the George Zimmerman fiasco), in agreement with Parmenides 'like knows like'. I read a psychology experiment in which babies in the crawling stage were brought into a room and set between two groups of women. One group of women were white and the other group black. The babies tended (like 80%) to crawl to the group of women most closely matching their skin color. The author of the study speculated that these infants did so because they felt more comfortable with the color they knew.
I remember my grandmother giving me a bath, drying off my toes, saying
Eeny, meeny, miny, mo
Catch a nigger by the toe
If he hollers, let him go
Eeny meeny miny mo
It was common then, and while I doubt many mothers or even grandmothers today use this version of the rhythm, it along with other not so nice expressions are embedded in the history of our culture. These expressions, the chromatic quality of race as well as our lack of comfort with difference in general are ingrained in who we are as a people. We can outlaw racial discrimination, but we cannot stop it.
While I don't think this means that we are doomed to be a racist society, I think it does mean that we must be cautious for racial bias, in ourselves and others. Powerful organizations, such as the police, the symbol of law and order in our society must be carefully monitored, or we not like the consequences.
People who appear to be able to hire a lawyer will be treated better by cops no matter what color they are.
To some extent, I think we're swinging to and fro on the dog's tail. The dog is a broken political system that allows too much economic disparity. People of any color who have money will find life pretty enjoyable in the USA.
Not that money is power. Knowing who you are.. that's power.
Certainly Jim Crow laws were a very caustic fact of life post reconstruction through the 1890s and on up into the1950s. Are you familiar with the book [u]Slavery by Another Name: The Re-enslavement of African Americans from the Civil War to WWII ?
It gave white supremacists an opening. By that time frustration was deep-seated in the South. There was some pretty serious grinding poverty. During any depression the crime rate increases. The crime rate amongst black men went up in the 1890's. White supremacists combined concern over that increase with a fascist message. 'Stop feeling so badly about yourself. It's not your fault. It's what we've been telling you for years... it's black people." The white supremacist message is that white people are endangered by association with blacks.
The cure is to separate the races. That was primarily the point of Jim Crow. I used to know a lady whose mom remembered the change. She said it became dangerous to be seen in public with a black person. Definitely couldn't eat publicly with them and couldn't even share a carriage.
Whites who didn't conform received death threats. The point of lynching was to suppress and control the black population.
I'm concerned that the greater economic realities at hand that contribute to many white and black communities' cyclical poverty might be too difficult for society to isolate and address or even to overcome if they can indeed be isolated.
According to Bernie et al, (I've never seen actual numbers myself) the middle class is currently shrinking. That correlates with what I've been seen first hand and given the undeniable reality (whose numbers I HAVE seen) that more and more of the newly created wealth flows to the existing economic elite (which may or may not influence the shrinking of the middle class and the growth of poverty) it's really not surprising.
In a world where upward economic mobility is by default unlikely (below a certain wealth threshold), even if we could suddenly solve the culture of crime and the other exacerbating and cyclical forces, we would still require some sort of drastic change in the economic landscape of the west in order to see change in the future prospects of poor communities.
A stronger economy would be one possible landscape change; Reaganomically speaking if there are enough scraps to go around a lot of the raw realities facing the poor could be addressed, although relative poverty could still come with some deleterious effects. Another possible landscape change would basically be a reorganizing of the tax structure such that the middle and lower economic classes receive more benefits or shoulder less burden. The classical dilemma with this approach is of course whether or not over-taxation will cause economic stagnation in the overall economy to the point that it winds up costing more than the wealth being redistributed in the first place. In order to actually make state welfare or state mandated wealth distribution actually work (state funding of universities to make them free for students, for example) I am of the opinion that it would require nothing short of fundamental and sweeping economic changes to the current landscape of American business and industry in addition to the necessarily cultural adaptations that would need to accompany them.
A minimalist welfare system can function as a safety net for those who trickle downward, as it were. In an economic landscape where there is adequate chance of upward economic mobility, wealth redistribution of this kind only needs to act as a temporary charity until people do that boot-strap-self-hoisting thing. But in an economic landscape where unless you're already at the minimum required economic status then you're on the way down, state welfare will inevitably function as a permanent means of existence for the masses trapped at the bottom. If the economic world we live in is the latter, and I do believe it is, then the current form of taxation and entitlement programs needs to be re-arranged and amplified such that the basic standard of living for those requiring these programs is actually something above that invisible equitable minimum required to stay afloat.
In the complex system of today's national and global societies, racism certainly continues to play a role in influencing the outcomes of many individual events, and by most reckoning surely has an impact on the statistical trends that we find worrisome. A thorough understanding of the magnitude of this impact however is extraordinarily difficult to grapple with for a host of reasons (complexity, controversy, etc..).
It is definitely important that we closely monitor our institutions for the range of errors we know from history such constructs are want to commit, not least among them discrimination based on race, but we would be remiss to only focus on our social institutions themselves as a means to explain social disparities of any kind between demographics.
For instance, violence and incarceration being inflicted on an individual by police is something which disproportionately affects black men when compared with white men. In order to understand why this is the case, one approach would be to hypothesize that unfair or arbitrary discrimination based on race is the "main or major contributing factor" leading to this disparity (specifically, the thing that when eliminated also eliminates the prevalence of the disparity). We could (and should) closely monitor the police for acts of arbitrary discrimination based on race in order to force accountability and reduce discrimination (and other malpractices), thereby eliminating the statistical disparity of who violence is applied to by the police. However, if racist discrimination from police officers is not in reality the sole or even the main contributing factor which creates this disparity, then no amount of transparency and accountability, nor the height of any standard on the part of the police will actually succeed in eliminating the disparity itself.
I'm not trying to argue against more oversight of the police per se, rather I'm trying to show that there is an upper limit on the efficiency and the difference that more and more oversight can make toward reducing the statistical disparity of police use of violence used against black men. If we assume that police racism is the singular cause behind force being used against black men, then the other fundamental factors which contribute to the statistical disparity will remain obscured and unchanged while we would continue to place more and more suspicion of innate responsibility and blame for these statistically disproportionate outcomes broadly upon the police force as a whole which we would inexorably come to understand as thoroughly racist. At some point, spending more and more money on improving police quality will do less and less to alter crime trends and the accompanying results. We're perhaps not yet even near such a state but I would argue that we may currently be at a point where divesting our attention to a broader scope than just "police racism" is required if we're going to improve the efficiency with which we can actually reduce the statistical disparity or reduce the problem of widespread police use of force as a whole.
I don't disagree with anything you have outlined. I think there are endemic issues in our system that may not have had racial implications when implemented but because of social stratification have had disproportionate effects on the poor. Mandatory minimum sentencing, the bail/bond system and perhaps other judicial systems have a much greater effect on the poor.
The gentrification of cities is also affecting the poor. Why should poor people not have a place to live as in cities like San Francisco ( here 'poor' is not necessarily at poverty level). I think this is and will be a major challenge for our society.
This was a nicely nuanced post. No disagreements. Let me draw a contrast that might further illustrate the problem.
Quoting VagabondSpectre
In the 1970s and through most of the 1980s, there was a lot of hostile interactions between gay men and the Minneapolis Police Department, particularly among the Vice Squad and Park Police. These two units had the official charge and the opportunity to act oppressively toward the gay male community.
Over a 10 year period of time, gay community-police relations evolved into a more positive and/or at least tolerant attitude on both sides. There were sacrifices on both sides, and gains too. Evolution was fostered by efforts in the courts, public relations efforts, some heavy weight political pressure, and community activism.
If the black community and police departments are to similarly evolve into a more beneficial relationship, more (much more) of the same sort of efforts will be required as was required by the police and the gay community.
One of the differences between the gay community and the black community is that in the latter part of the 20th century, the political, social, even religious acceptability of the gay people was in the ascendent. The period of black ascendency is over; what was rising is no longer. If anything, black people seem to be on a descending track (economically, and hence socially and politically).
Theoretically, carefully designed, properly deployed, and adequately funded social engineering can improve police/black community relations, but not in isolation from economic, political, and social trends. IF black people are to rise, then changes need to be made that will also help the large white working class, and other minority working class groups rise too.
Changing the nation so that all working class people can advance economically is where we hit the reinforced concrete wall that defines the lower limit of what is going to happen under the current regime. (The upper limit isn't even in sight).
God damn that is some intense mental gymnastics you've got there!
Why are people so afraid of facts? Black people get caught driving stolen cars more often than other races because .... they steal and drive more stolen cars than other races. Black people are involved in more non lethal violent encounters with police than other races because .... Black people instigate violence towards police at a far greater rate than other races. Black people get murdered more often than other races, not because of white systemic racism but, surprise, they murder each other at a disgusting rate compared to other races. And to the cherry on the cake here is that there is increasing evidence that blacks are actually, when the far higher rate of overall criminality is accounted for (for nearly every category of crime in America blacks are SIGNIFICANTLY over represented as offenders.
BLM is founded on a false victim complex helpless narrative, their members advocate black supremacy, violence towards police (and whitey) and the only thing they've achieved is to further destroy and damage their already fragile communities. You have to quite frankly be a complete imbecile to Believe that setting your neighborhood on fire and looting what remains (while blaming whitey for your base behavior) is going to do anything but further antagonize people towards you, break down the already fragile law and order within the black community, and INCREASE the very thing you're supposedly protesting against (unjustified police shootings) - because this animal behavior does nothing but increase the chances of a violent police encounter.
What's missing from this whole picture is black responsibility. Poverty doesn't make you murder your neighbor or abandon your children (at the disgusting rate of 80% freaking percent), it doesn't make you strong arm rob a store owner of their cigars, or refuse to drop a loaded gun while being commanded to by multiple armed police. Poverty or police brutality or 'systemic racism' (whatever that means) is not responsible for your actions, YOU (and only you) are.
Here's a hypothesis: black people per capita, simply choose to commit crimes at a far higher rate than other races. The good thing about this hypothesis is that it's so easy to correct - all that needs happen is blacks to choose not to commit crimes at such a society destroying rate.
BLM, to who? Certainly not to other black people. The most dangerous thing to a black man is not a racist 'pig', or an evil white supremacist society - no, the most dangerous thing is it another black man.
The criminality of the black male (although black females also choose crime at a higher rate than other females - by and large the problem is young violent criminal black men) is the problem. Some of the stats are shocking, for example if New York City were all white, the murder rate would drop by 91 percent, the robbery rate by 81 percent, and the shootings rate by 97 percent. In an all-white Chicago, murder would decline 90 percent, rape by 81 percent, and robbery by 90 percent.
You buy an illegal firearm and commit a robbery, or commit murder, or assault someone, it's nobodies fault but your own. And the only thing that caused your actions is your own immorality.
Black people need to be held responsible for the dire state of their own community. It's a cop out to blame some racist white boogie man. Asians faced historical oppression in America, Jews races historical oppression in America, so did the Irish. The only difference between them and black people is they didn't use that oppression as an excuse to abandon their children, sell drugs, join a street gang, and commit violent crime en mass.
I am so sick of this (false) victim narrative. If blacks truly are equal to white people (which they are) then they should be held responsible in the same way. It's not white peoples responsibility to give you money or fix your community. A good start would be to stop murdering each other, and start taking care of and loving your own children. Nobody make 8/10 black males abandon their own sons and daughters and the mothers of their children like their trash.
The black community really has some truly reprehensible, immoral and disgusting features. And I suspect the only reason wider (mostly white) society isn't as outraged as they OUGHT be, is because deep down they don't truly believe black people are their equals and hold them to a lower behavioral and moral standard.
If there was say an Italian community in the USA with the same rampant homophobia, single motherhood, fatherhood abandonment, child abuse, sexual assault, gun/thug glorification, anti-intellectualism, tall poppy syndrome, victim-hood, entitlement, violence, welfare dependency, police/law and order disrespect, criminality, and outright murder, people would be utterly and rightly disgusted and outraged. Why is it any different for black people? Because they're black?
BLM is a violent black supremacist and separatist hate group. Something has gone terribly wrong when your response to a black man getting shot by a black cop in a city with a black mayor and chief of police because he refused to stop endangering everyone around him with a loaded gun, is to corner innocent motorists, trash, burn and loot their trucks and cars (even thse containing children), break into stores, Walmart, vandalize and steal private and public property, shoot other black people in the process (even killing one), and just generally act like an out of control escaped chimp from the zoo - and ALL of this is racists whitey 'dey evil pigs' fault. It's disgusting and immoral. You hate whitey, oh but it's also up to white people to fix your problems (which seems to mean nothing more than literally giving you cash)? Quite frankly, fuck off.
/rant
[quote=]Major Findings
The evidence suggests that if there is police racial bias in arrests it is negligible. Victim and witness surveys show that police arrest violent criminals in close proportion to the rates at which criminals of different races commit violent crimes.
There are dramatic race differences in crime rates. Asians have the lowest rates, followed by whites, and then Hispanics. Blacks have notably high crime rates. This pattern holds true for virtually all crime categories and for virtually all age groups.
In 2013, a black was six times more likely than a non-black to commit murder, and 12 times more likely to murder someone of another race than to be murdered by someone of another race.
In 2013, of the approximately 660,000 crimes of interracial violence that involved blacks and whites, blacks were the perpetrators 85 percent of the time. This meant a black person was 27 times more likely to attack a white person than vice versa. A Hispanic was eight times more likely to attack a white person than vice versa.
In 2014 in New York City, a black was 31 times more likely than a white to be arrested for murder, and a Hispanic was 12.4 times more likely. For the crime of “shooting” — defined as firing a bullet that hits someone — a black was 98.4 times more likely than a white to be arrested, and a Hispanic was 23.6 times more likely.
If New York City were all white, the murder rate would drop by 91 percent, the robbery rate by 81 percent, and the shootings rate by 97 percent.
In an all-white Chicago, murder would decline 90 percent, rape by 81 percent, and robbery by 90 percent.
In 2015, a black person was 2.45 times more likely than a white person to be shot and killed by the police. A Hispanic person was 1.21 times more likely. These figures are well within what would be expected given race differences in crime rates and likelihood to resist arrest.
In 2015, police killings of blacks accounted for approximately 4 percent of homicides of blacks. Police killings of unarmed blacks accounted for approximately 0.6 percent of homicides of blacks. The overwhelming majority of black homicide victims (93 percent from 1980 to 2008) were killed by blacks.
Both violent and non-violent crime has been declining in the United States since a high in 1993. 2015 saw a disturbing rise in murder in major American cities that some observers associated with “depolicing” in response to intense media and public scrutiny of police activity."[/quote]
And some relevant info on justified and unjustified police shootings:
[quote=]"In the absence of government data, the Washington Post investigated every reported case of a fatal shooting by the police during 2015. It found 990 cases, with the following racial distribution of victims:
White: 50.0 percent (495 victims)
Black: 26.1 percent (258)
Hispanic: 17.4 percent (172)
Asian: 1.4 percent (14)
Other/Unknown: 5.2 percent (51)
Given their proportions in the population, a black person was 2.45 times more likely than a white person to be shot and killed by police, a Hispanic was 1.24 times more likely, and an Asian was only one third as likely. It is reasonable to expect people of different races to find themselves in potentially lethal confrontations with the police in proportion to their likelihood to commit violent crime, with blacks most likely and Asians least likely.
As noted in Table 4 above, in California — a large state that keeps consistent statistics on race and ethnicity — blacks are arrested for violent crimes at 5.35 times the white rate, and Hispanics at 1.42 times the white rate. The low likelihood of Asians being killed by police is in keeping with low Asian arrest rates for violent crime. The black and Hispanic multiples for police shooting deaths are well within the arrest multiples — the black multiple is less than half — and certainly do not suggest undisciplined police violence.
Moreover, FBI data show that from 2005 to 2014, blacks accounted for 40 percent of police killings. Since blacks were approximately 13 percent of the population, it meant they were 4.46 times more likely than people of other races to kill a police officer.
In its study, the Post found that men were 22.9 times more likely than women to be shot and killed by officers. No one suggests that law enforcement bias accounts for this huge multiple, which is undoubtedly caused by differences in behavior between men and women. In the case of racial multiples, police bias cannot be ruled out, but it is reasonable to assume that the multiples are explained by race differences in behavior.
The Washington Post noted further that all but 93 of the 990 people fatally shot by police were armed, usually with a firearm or knife. The unarmed victims had the following racial distribution:
White: 34.4 percent (32 victims)
Black: 40.8 percent (38)
Hispanic: 19.4 percent (18)
Asian: 0 percent (0)
Unknown: 5.4 percent (5)
An unarmed black was therefore 5.6 times more likely than an unarmed white to be shot by police, and a Hispanic was 2.6 times more likely. The black multiple is certainly high, though not that much higher than the California violent-arrest multiple of 5.35 noted above.
There is no obvious explanation for why unarmed blacks were shot and killed at a white multiple that was twice that for armed blacks. If police bias is the cause, there is no clear reason why it should be worse in the case of unarmed suspects. The sample size of 93 is small, so random events produce a large effect.
It may be that race differences in how suspects behave when they are arrested explain at least part of the difference. There are no national data, but a five-year study of non-felony arrests in San Francisco found that blacks were 9.6 times more likely than whites (including Hispanics) to be charged with resisting arrest, and whites were 8.6 times more likely than Asians to be so charged. In Chicago, from September 2014 to September 2015, blacks accounted for 77 percent of arrests for obstruction of justice and resisting arrest (page 4 of report), meaning they were 6.8 times more likely than non-blacks to be arrested on these charges. If these findings are typical, they help explain why the arrest of a black non-felony suspect — who would more than likely be unarmed — could escalate into potentially lethal violence.
The Post’s analysis was intended to throw light on police bias but failed to indicate the races of the officers involved in fatal shootings. This would be useful information. A 2015 Department of Justice study (page 3) of police shootings in Philadelphia found racial differences in “threat perception failure,” that is, cases in which an officer shot an unarmed suspect because the officer thought the suspect was armed. Black officers were nearly twice as likely as white officers to shoot an unarmed black (11.4 percent of all shootings by black officers vs. 6.8 percent of all shootings by white officers). The percentage of such errors by Hispanic officers — 16.7 percent — was even higher.
Black officers may be somewhat more prone to error in general. About 12 percent of police officers in the United States are black. Between 2005 and 2015, 16.6 percent of the 54 officers criminally charged for fatally shooting someone while on duty were black.
Homicide is a serious problem for black men. Since at least 2002 and up to 2013 (the latest data available), murder was the leading cause of death for black men, ages 15 to 34. Their murderers are almost always other black men. According to a Department of Justice report, (page 13), from 1980 to 2008, 93 percent of black homicide victims were killed by blacks.
By contrast, the 256 police judicial killings of blacks in 2015 would be only 4.2 percent of the 6,095 blacks who were murdered in 2014 (the most recent year for which national data are available). The 38 unarmed blacks killed by police accounted for just 0.6 percent. Police shootings of unarmed blacks is a very small problem compared to murder in the black community."[/quote]
Pretty shocking stuff!
It seems to me that the most obvious explanation for these statistics is that there is a not insignificant biological component to criminal behavior. So what I mean is something like 'people of Asian descent are significantly less likely to commit violent acts than Black people, and a large part of this can be explained by biological differences between the two sets of populations.' A lot of this difference (I believe) can of course be explained by social/environmental factors such as poverty, education, family structure, etc, but not all of it. Controlling for factors like these still ends up with significant racial differences in crime rates. These remaining differences I think are due to biology - things like IQ differences between races, prevalence of 'warrior type genes' between races, testosterone differences, - and perhaps even the amount of muscle the different races have (I have no stats for this but anecdotally Asian men seem to be less 'muscly' than black men, with perhaps more muscle meaning someone feels more confident committing acts of violence or robbery - just a thought). I certainly don't think the remaining differences in crime rates can be explained (for blacks) by an appeal to some vague, invisible, ill-defined thing like 'systemic racism' or 'a legacy of oppression'.
Nobody seems to want to go anywhere near racial biological factors in crime rates! It's as if even thinking about perhaps maybe just entertaining the mere hypothesis makes one automatically a racist. But nobody (sane) thinks its sexist to state that men are biologically more prone to violence, so I don't see why its any different when it comes to race. Politically uncomfortable sure, but willful ignorance gets us nowhere.
Quoting dukkha
The site does, indeed, have a lot of information. Quite a bit of the site is frankly slanted in favor of conservative racial inferiority/superiority viewpoints. Of course, that doesn't mean that it is all wrong, but it merit some blinking bright orange traffic warning lights.
Quoting dukkha
That is the sort of statement that gets a warning beacon.
At the present time, Asians may be the group of people least likely to launch the next major Crime Wave, but it is absurd to suggest that they are less capable of violence than another group. Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Vietnamese, Laotians, Cambodians--to name the examples that readily came to mind--all proved themselves eminently capable of sustained and severe violence--WWII, the victory of the Chinese Communists over the Chinese Nationalists, the Korean War, the war in Vietnam, the khmer Rouge, Pol Pot, the Cultural Revolution, the pacification of Tibet, etc.
There are a number of aspects of American black culture that many people think are really unwholesome, but we do not have nearly enough information to blame genetics. It's far more likely that unwholesome black cultural traits are the result of sustained and enforced social forces -- like exclusion from paths to prosperity, like exclusion from civil society, and so on.
White people may be behaving more or less nicely right now, but Whites, just like Blacks, Asians, American Indians, and all other racial groups are perfectly capable of behaving in gawd-awful ways that bring shame upon the species as a whole. NO GROUP is better than any other group -- when viewed in even the intermediate run--never mind the long run.
So while we can say "Many blacks are performing very poorly in the United States." we should be looking at possible causative factors about which something can be done. Societies can be reformed. Genetics can not (not on the time scale with which humans are capable of working). Besides that, there used to be successful black communities in most major cities. I think it is safe to say that many of these communities were crushed through urban renewal programs, interstate highway construction, conspiracies by banks and the government to deny credit to black communities, and so on. There was certainly a time when other groups -- among them Jews and Italians -- ran the criminal rackets. There was a time when dangerous slums tended to be white. White hippies, for instance, could run into serious trouble in very square, unhip Irish Catholic South Boston in the 1960s.
The huge market in illicit drugs and licit/illicit guns can't be overlooked here. Guns and drugs are highly corrosive agents in most communities. But guns and drugs are way, way too big to blame on blacks. These two huge industries are largely controlled by and feed white appetites. Blacks are not manufacturing guns, and as far as I know, ghetto riff raff are not in charge of high-level wholesale drug importing, distribution, warehousing, or marketing. Sure, down at the street level blacks are dealers. They shoot each other. A few steps up the ladder, and there won't be too many blacks (as far as I know).
So, some welfare clients are smoking dope--wasting the state's money, and starving their children. Of course that happens sometimes. There's a few white welfare parasites doing exactly the same thing. But higher up the supply chain and there are no welfare recipients in the criminal enterprises. There are no uneducated, socially retarded blacks running the show. Higher up it's a sophisticated criminal enterprise spawning dysfunction and misery coast to coast. It's largely not pot. It's heroin, cocaine, meth -- hard stuff. And it's very dangerous pharmaceuticals being added to the mix. The upper levels of the drug business involve South Americans, Chinese, SE Asians, Africans, Europeans, Americans, Afghanis, Pakistanis, Russians, and so on. At the upper levels we're dealing with tonnage, not ounces.
And guns. They don't grow on trees and ammunition is not a backyard crop. Big business makes the stuff, and the big businesses are mostly white owned.