General / Off-Topic The safest place
- Thread starter Robin of Spiritwood
- Start date
- Status
The thing about anecdotes is that they are indicators of something underlying them. A trend if you will. It is a bit like points in a coordinate system: If you want to draw the simplest possible line through whatever points are there, you have full freedom to put any straight line through a single point. Add another point, however, and you are stuck with a single straight line as the simplest solution. Add a third line, and it should tell you if your original straight linear function is correct or if another function is needed (call it a test case if you want). After that, any other point added should just tighten up the resulting function. At least as long as we stay in two or three dimensions.
Of course, the issue when it comes to political, cultural and socioeconomic issues, there are a lot of factors. But a trend is a trend. If people keep getting arrested, shot or otherwise attacked for driving/walking/doing anything at all while black. And consistently by white people or police officers, then there is trend, that is likely to be seen as a problem especially by those disadvantaged by the trend. If that doesn't include white people, then it is definitely time to check those privileges.
Here in NZ we are almost back to "normal", after what today should be the 18th day without new cases of COVID, and no active cases either. Good stuff. Supposedly we got Mothered into behaving by our Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. Maybe, she certainly knows how to talk to people and get them to do basic stuff like washing their hands. It makes me wonder about the future. My inner vision is of Dallas from Alien going to visit Mother, and having his questions answered in Jacinda's calm Kiwi voice.
S
And all the above does how exactly dismantle the fact that the only way the murder on Mr. Floyd was immediately seen, and is since then widely "understood" and "used", is as an issue of "race" PURELY based on the skin colours of people involved ?
"Guilt by association", "guilty before prooven", "circumstancial evidence" come to mind . Anyone really think that Cop will be judged without the immense framing of this being a hate crime being motivated by racial discrimination playing a HUGE part ?
Last edited:
People see a trend, pure and simple. Most people are likely aware of the dangers of taking any footage on face value, as it is certainly out of context and the provider is unlikely to be capable (or willing) of providing the full context within our current 30-second attention spans.
But this is not the first time it has happened. It is the most recent, and one of the most blatant, examples. Whatever inquiries are set up to handle that particular incident better deal with all the complexities of it. However, at the same time, society will need to deal with that trend. And should have started to do so a long time ago.
SPeople see a trend, pure and simple. Most people are likely aware of the dangers of taking any footage on face value, as it is certainly out of context and the provider is unlikely to be capable (or willing) of providing the full context within our current 30-second attention spans.
But this is not the first time it has happened. It is the most recent, and one of the most blatant, examples. Whatever inquiries are set up to handle that particular incident better deal with all the complexities of it. However, at the same time, society will need to deal with that trend. And should have started to do so a long time ago.
The question I am asking is : "It is not the first time it has happened ." means what ? Not the first time someone killed someone ? Not the first time a white man killed a black man ? Not the first time a white cop killed a black man ? How does the answer to any of these questions assert anything about the motive(s) behind the murder of Mr. Floyd ?
The thing about anecdotes is that they are indicators of something underlying them. A trend if you will. It is a bit like points in a coordinate system: If you want to draw the simplest possible line through whatever points are there, you have full freedom to put any straight line through a single point. Add another point, however, and you are stuck with a single straight line as the simplest solution. Add a third line, and it should tell you if your original straight linear function is correct or if another function is needed (call it a test case if you want). After that, any other point added should just tighten up the resulting function. At least as long as we stay in two or three dimensions.
Of course, the issue when it comes to political, cultural and socioeconomic issues, there are a lot of factors. But a trend is a trend. If people keep getting arrested, shot or otherwise attacked for driving/walking/doing anything at all while black. And consistently by white people or police officers, then there is trend, that is likely to be seen as a problem especially by those disadvantaged by the trend. If that doesn't include white people, then it is definitely time to check those privileges.
Here in NZ we are almost back to "normal", after what today should be the 18th day without new cases of COVID, and no active cases either. Good stuff. Supposedly we got Mothered into behaving by our Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. Maybe, she certainly knows how to talk to people and get them to do basic stuff like washing their hands. It makes me wonder about the future. My inner vision is of Dallas from Alien going to visit Mother, and having his questions answered in Jacinda's calm Kiwi voice.
I never denied that such trends exist, and I sure as hell won't deny that there are discrimination problems that need fixing. You don't need to convince me because I agree with what you said.
What I do dispute, and find completely unnaceptable, is passing judgement on individuals based on shared traits and group stats, instead of actual proof based on the merits of the individual case. Or to put it in simple terms, I reject the notion of group judgement and find it unnaceptable.
Just as I won't accept that some arbitrary black man may determined to be guilty to some crime without evidence of himself having commited the crime, just because trends and stats show that there is a disproportionally high number of crimes commited by black males, I also won't brand a white cop guilty of a racist crime without actual evidence and just based on stats and trends of others who share race and profession. Until such evidence is produced, to me the cop is guilty of murder, not of a hate crime motivated by racism.
This is not the first time (white) police dealt with black people with excessive force. This also not the first time people mix up the issues of the trend with the issues behind a singular incident. Looking at each individual case, there are obviously many widely varied factors behind it, and it is easy as an outsider (especially one of us white middle-aged male privileged types) to feel offended by that because it is obviously not that simple in that case and it makes us look bad. However, that doesn't change the trend and we may have to have a long hard think about how that trend can be changed then.
Here in NZ, Polynesians in general and (urban) Maori in particular have some rather sad crime statistics associated with them. Especially young males. The police is also much more likely to use excessive force when dealing with them. Is it because the person being arrested is Polynesian? On the surface, yes. But that's not likely to be what's going through the mind of the arresting officer. Or is it? Not necessarily in an overtly racist way. But there must still be a fear of that which is different in play, and an inability (of both) to deal with the other. So the police will need better training, and the different cultures would need better understanding of each other.
SNone of us wants to be broken down into just categories of colour. I don't like being called white. My heritage is uzbek on my mothers side, moving from Uzbekistan to Moscow and then on to Denmark. My skin colour is darker than the average Norse, to the point I got yelled at for it when I was a kid after a good sunny summer. I probably look more like the original Celts than most Western Europeans. I prefer being called Norse, but have to deal with whatever boxes the authorities and neighbours like to put us in. So I have the blue eyes that gets me into places without getting second looks, and the gender that ensures I get paid for my work hours.
So whatever people call me, the main thing I'm predetermined to be is one that is approached in a friendly and respectful manner by most of the population here. Had my skin been a little bit darker (as I found out as a sunbaked kid), or had I been black, I would have been predetermined to be subjected to the prejudices and fear of that which is different that seems to be the trend we are discussing. Whenever that came to fore in the past, each incident could be written off as the actions of a dumb group of kids with other issues than just being racist, or of adults that were obviously already dinosaurs of their time. They could be laughed off. But these were trends of the inherent racism in Denmark, which when I grew up there and on the island I lived on was probably a good 98% white.
S
Not really. More like mutual truce..
That is unfortunately still a common thing in the world, people tend to fear what they perceive as different, and fear is the base for hate, it's an instict from our animal origins that we have yet to suppress completely.
However, the west in general (as well as the islands down under) has taken great steps in the right direction in recent times. Minorities living in the west enjoy standards of living, integration and success than they could not even dream in most of the rest of the world. Even in the US, there is probably no country in the world with such a large amount of highly successful people from ethnic minorities. You have many great examples of multicultural cities in europe. We in the west (and down under) have never been closer to equality in the entire history of humankind than now, even if there is still a long path ahead.
Things sure are still far from perfect, but looking at the passage of time, things are better than they ever were, so there's no reason to believe they won't keep improving until eventually we can finally start referring to each and every one of us simply as "people", regardless of physical traits, origin, sexual preferences, gender, etc.
It won't be in a day or two for sure, it will take time, it will unfortunately come too late for many, such as Mr. Floyd and many others. It won't be easy, as we'll need to fight and repress another of our species main natural instincts: tribalism. But I believe we will get there, because we have a long, successful history of overcoming our natural limitations. We have people flying through the world on fiery aluminum cans, and machines exploring on mars, so for sure we will be able to achieve equality.
Last edited:
One of the few good things about the Vietnam War was that it confronted the US military head on with the problem- and it was proactive. Training on racial relations was mandatory in Basic. Repeated again for me in OTS.
No one volunteers to be 'black' and even if that's a label one accepts or embraces, it doesn't make them responsible for what other black people do.
The police are an entirely different matter. You cannot become a police officer without volunteering to do so, undergoing training, and taking oaths. No one is born or drafted into the police. Even if they were, it's not the actions of a few that are the big problem here, it's the inaction of the many.
If you're wearing that badge and not doing everything in your power to make sure your colleagues don't cross the line, you're a bad cop. If you continue to wear that badge after it becomes clear your efforts to prevent the abuses of your colleagues are going unheeded, you're part of the problem.
I'm not sure where you think I've gotten history wrong, or where you think I've implied that blacks are a marginalized group where they are absent.
I think you're conflating anarchy with chaos.
Regardless, the idea that fewer police imply either is a fallacy, and police as they are now, are not a force for law, order, or stability. This is what these protests are about...police forces that have become expensive, self-perpetuating, liabilities to public welfare.
Because whites are statistically less likely to commit crimes and even less likely be charged with, or convicted of, committing crimes...because of systemic biases that give whites better opportunities, are less likely to falsely accuse them, and are softer on the ones rightfully accused.
I'm sure some have, but not as protesters or in obvious cases of murder where police were the perpetrators, which is rather odd as the majority of protesters after the first few days have been white.
And what exception is that?
The protesters, the overwhelming majority of whom are protesting peacefully, have a point that should be heard, but it's not the point you seem to be taking from it. That's not on them.
If you think non-blacks don't have legitimate grievances against police, or that black police officers don't contribute to and reinforce systemic racism against blacks, you're wrong.
If my experiences were a one-off, it would be easy to dismiss.
These problems would be problems no matter how much better or worse it was elsewhere.
What conclusion/assumption do you think I'm coming to? I was relating some of the anecdotal experiences that caused me to empathize with the problems others faced due to bias, not implying that I based any conclusion solely off of those experiences.
Never implied it was.
Never came close to implying that either.
I'm not even sure where this question is coming from. Who here is trying to justify hatred or bias along racial lines?
There are a huge number of presumptions in your responses that I find absolutely confounding.
People keep defining it, but you still don't know what sort of privilege is being referred to in this context and cannot seem to grasp the idea that being white may very well have made your particular circumstances easier than if you were counted among a more marginalized racial/ethnic group.
Probably because you haven't been paying attention.
I haven't seen anyone suggest it was.
Disbanding current forces doesn't mean there will be no policing, just that organizations that are tainted beyond repair will be replaced or significantly overhauled. People are well capable of policing themselves, and less formal, less militarized, more localy accountable, community groups will step up.
The status quo is obviously untenable in some areas, and holding on to them, in their current form, with all the same people, is the most lunatic idea of all.
This is an oxymoron.
There is certainly evidences that suggests Derek Chauvin was racist it's known that he personally knew Floyd. He also had a long history of complaints regarding and another officer involved had faced legal action for excessive force. Ultimately however, the motives of the officers involved are unclear and of little relevance, because it's not their possible personal racism, that is the main issue here.
The force used given the situation was extremely excessive, the claims of Floyd's resistance overstated or fabricated, and the initial reaction of the police department to the obvious crimes of it's officers was slow and far too soft. That it's almost impossible to imagine this situation playing out the same way if Floyd was white would certainly be in agreement with a long standing pattern of demonstrable systemic racism, and was obviously going to be viewed in such a context.
When I judge police, I judge them for voluntarily being part of an organization that harbors so many career criminals and bullies, that regularly asks it members to violate core principles in defense of their own worst elements. If they really wanted to protect and serve their communities, they'd have chosen a different line of work. Some people surely become police for all the right reasons, but I don't believe for a second that this sort of naivety can survive long in larger departments.
I cut local police some slack, but once you get to the city or state level, you have to be delusional, on a power trip, or be possessed of a callous indifference to continue in that line of work.
So yeah, I judge those with a badge for the group they willfully represent. Choose to wear the uniform, or brandish the symbols, of an aggressive occupying force, and be treated as such.
Dismantling certain systems and institutions that are habitual offenders against equality of opportunity--forcibly, if necessary--is one more small step along that path of improvement.
Getting the cops and the DA's to narc on each other (Brit: grass) is going to be really really hard.
I'm going slightly off-topic here for a sec and discuss COVID19. While in most of the western world the first wave is long past us, cases are approximating zero and the countries are carefully open up, one brave gallic village western country defies this trend.
Second wave says hi.
Second wave says hi.
I'm going slightly off-topic here for a sec and discuss COVID19. While in most of the western world the first wave is long past us, cases are approximating zero and the countries are carefully open up, onebrave gallic villagewestern country defies this trend.
Second wave says hi.
They just made the same mistake that Hokkaido did - early success then resting on the laurels while the next wave raced in.
S
.
I'll just post some actual stats here, cause I have no idea what that was all about..
The first pic suspiciously doesn't use per capita stats. Oh boy I wonder why! What it shows is that while there are roughly six times more Caucasians in the US (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_ethnicity_in_the_United_States) they only take less than twice the shooting victims. In other words, there is an over 300% disproportional increase in risk of being shot if you're African American. The second pic doesn't even counter any of my points anyway.
If you are genuinely interested: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1123070/police-shootings-rate-ethnicity-us/
There are hundreds of scientific studies about this. I encourage you to rely on those instead of cherry-picked excel graphs aimed to tell old white dudes what they want to hear.
Last edited:
Which is why working within existing systems has been slow to produce results and there are now widespread protests and calls to defund the most problematic PDs.
States do get to set their own policies with most mitigation efforts. Some will be worse than others.
That said, this is not surprising.
These are the same stats we're all using to highlight the significantly disproportionate representation of black Americans in police encounters and crime statistics.
Blacks, depending on how one counts, are 13-16% of the US population. If there weren't related biases at work here, they would also be 13-16% of the people killed by police, 13-16% of crime victims, 13-16% of suspects, and 13-16% of arrests.
These statistics suggest that blacks are at least 2-3 times more likely to be killed by police, get less effective police protection, and are blamed for proportionally more crime.
Which also supports the idea of systemic biases (education, employment, housing, law enforcement, and most other areas I can think of) against them.
The assertion isn't that blacks, statistically speaking, are not more often perpetrators of violent crime, but that the reason behind this is because they've long been a marginalized group. They are also disproportionately targeted with policing, and to lesser positive effect, which implies that the policing of black communities is of lower quality.
There is nothing intrinsic to being of African desent that could be responsible for any of this, so that leaves systemic inequalities as the cause.
It's also rather painful to notice none of his graph actually counter any of my original statements. Instead, they are attempts to build the narrative that while these clear systemic injustices exist they deserve it.
The average murder sentence should not differ depending on the race of the victim. Excusing it by arguing one race is more represented in crime stats is essentially arguing murdering members of onecrace is not as bad because they are 'worse people'.
Actual science instead of excel graphs: https://www.researchgate.net/public...d_Gender_on_Death_Sentence_Disparity_Findings
Last edited:
- Status