What strategy would you employ to improve the Black lives / Police situation?

@thej6m: oh sorry, my bad, I thought we were speaking like people who have actual values, not trying to win a high school debate contest.

@realmajorpwnage:

I also take issue with your statement that anyone who brings up the fact that young black men (which is actually closer to 5% of the population) commit the majority of the violent crimes in the US is a “supremest” or arguing in “bad faith”. I didn’t come into this forum to troll; I love the Giant Bomb community and I’m open to alternative points of view but I need a valid reason why we shouldn’t expect the population committing the majority of the crimes would have the majority of the interactions with law enforcement which then increases the probability of having a violent interaction with law enforcement.

@thej6m: Sorry, I maybe overreacted, but you really need to understand whose rhetoric you're echoing and try to understand why it's a problem. The reason that statistic is regarded as a white supremacist talking point is that it's long been a favourite at actual white supremacist sites like Stormfront, but it's pretty popular among any "white identity" groups. Even taking it as a given, if we simply assume the cause to be some inherent or cultural quality to black people, we lose sight of the fact that any trend here can be more easily explained as a symptom of poverty.

It is poverty, not race that drive the behaviour that society has criminalized. Poverty creates ongoing traumatic effects and deprives a person of their material needs, and so criminal activity is a response to those traumas and unmet needs. There's plenty of good resources out there if you want to get informed on it.

https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co/#educate

Look, learning that the world isn't a fair meritocracy and that our institutions are, at best, deeply flawed really sucks. It's ok to be uncomfortable with accepting all this stuff, but it's necessary. White people like me (and ostensibly you too?) have got to do the work, because people's lives are at stake, and they can't wait.

@realmajorpwnage:

I appreciate the apology sir and I will absolutely admit that far too many will equate trends within ethnic groups with a genetic component and that’s total bullshit and, I agree, that is a supremest argument. I also agree wholeheartedly that the discrepancy in crime rates between white and black Americans is heavily correlated with the disparity in wealth between said groups.

I guess my ultimate argument is that, if we want to fix the supposed problem with policing in black communities we need to fix the problem with crime

in minority communities. If that facilitates a conversion about the cyclical nature of poverty, the discrepancy in schools/public services between black and white neighborhoods, etc. then I’m all for it.

There are a lot of needed changes, but I think most reasonable people should be able to agree on these:

1. All cops have to wear body cameras.

2. For civilian complaints and shootings/violence done by cops, a new independent organization investigates and prosecutes. The idea that Floyd's murderer had like 12 complaints against him and was still working is ridiculous.

3. Cops have to follow the law and constitution. There are so many videos of cops searching a car or house in an unlawful way. Also, there are a lot of videos of cops shooting rubber bullets, punching, pepper spraying, and doing other things to protestors who were't doing anything wrong. They should be held accountable.

Bullet number 2 that the OP had made me LOL. The interactions are higher due to profiling. Things like "driving while black" are definitely true, it's happened to my friends and family a lot. Even if that point was true, that really has nothing to do with cases like Garner, Floyd, or innocent black guys (and Hispanics) getting harrassed. By that logic, white boys in school should get searched harder and have other process changes compared to everyone else, since they're more likely to do a school shooting.

@thej6m: great, so let's start by reappropriating funds from police budgets and go from there. If only there was a movement that already had that in mind 😐

Also, I'd like to make it abundantly clear that I don't support the premise that the statistic in question proves anything, I'm just making a point that a lot of myths we absorb about crime, and the over value of the police is largely bullshit, and based on people protecting their power or abusing others.

@deathstriker:

Good afternoon sir.

Here is a link to a large, peer reviewed study on the traffic stop data In America’s largest cities: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-020-0858-1

The authors were unable to conclude that a racial bias in traffic stops.

As for your other two points I 100% agree. Body cameras on all officers and an independent investigator looking into all police shootings is something I definitely support.

You know, I'm willing to accept this is being jaded by the internet and general direction this discourse goes but I remain infinitely suspicious of anyone who just wants to settle down and focus on the numbers.

@realmajorpwnage:

While I don’t necessarily agree with reappropriating funds allocated to local police departments I certainly can support more funding for social services and our education system to be sure.

@thej6m: did you even read the study you cited?

"In all cases, we found qualitatively similarly results that are suggestive of racial bias against black drivers in stop decisions, as described in Methods and Supplementary Table 1."

"We found that black drivers were less likely to be stopped after sunset, when a ‘veil of darkness’ masks one’s race, suggesting bias in stop decisions."

"Finally, we found that legalization of recreational marijuana reduced the number of searches of white, black and Hispanic drivers—but the bar for searching black and Hispanic drivers was still lower than that for white drivers post-legalization."

"Our analysis provides evidence that decisions about whom to stop and, subsequently, whom to search are biased against black and Hispanic drivers."

@efesell:

Why sir? I mean the foundation of the scientific method is predicated on empirical evidence is it not? I honestly don’t understand why we wouldn’t apply the recognized standard in nearly all academic disciplines and apply to this particular problem?

If you would prefer we don’t use quantifiable statistics to analyze criminal justice I can understand that (at least philosophically) but I don’t think that those of us who wish to do so should be viewed with suspicion.

Huge topic that is probs best for in person conversation so Im just going to leave you a link in hopes you come out understanding better what the deal is.

https://www.themarshallproject.org/records/3382-police-abolition

I would start with the "Invention of police" tab and go from there.

Btw it took me two seconds to google this, so Im not sure you WANT to understand, but instead just want to confirm what you believe to be true instead of actual truth. Good day.

Just gotta say I love how this thread was necro’d by obvious spammers and the “race realists” come out in force flogging their bullshit statistics. The “sirs” are a nice cherry on the shit sundae.

"ah pray tell sir may i measure your skull"

@intradictus:

First off I appreciate you actually reading the study sir and you’re correct the authors did find potential bias in traffic stops based on the time of day. However, when they reviewed whether black suspects were more likely to be searched than white suspects, using a couple of different measurements, they were not able to conclude that blacks were searched more frequently than whites.

However it’s worth discussing all of the findings in large scale studies to be sure.

@kcin: "What lovely, large earlobes you have."

"All the better to commit crimes with, my dear."

Remove guns from America

Yeah, I'm not reading this thread, but this is probably the only way this ever actually gets solved.

@coldblood:

So I went to the Marshall Project and couldn’t find any tabs on the “Invention of Police”. However, I did review their “Police and Reform” tab and found almost no quantitive evidence.

It seems to me that this argument boils down to people like myself wanting quantifiable proof that systemic racism in the criminal justice system is a verifiable problem and those of you who believe that this particular issue isn’t quantifiable and anecdotal evidence is enough. I can respect that I look at this problem from a different perspective to be sure.

I also don’t appreciate some of the vitriol; earlier in the thread I wholeheartedly agreed that the discrepancy in crime rates between blacks and whites is the cause of socioeconomic discrepancies rather than any inherent racial characteristics but I suppose, when posting on an Internet forum, a certain level of rudeness is to be expected.

Okay. The reason you provided the study in the first place was as a counterpoint to the claim that:

The interactions are higher due to profiling. Things like 'driving while black' are definitely true, it's happened to my friends and family a lot.

The study you provided concludes that profiling of black drivers is a verifiable fact. Now you wanna talk about, among those who police do stop, whether or not black people are searched more than white people? In argumentative fallacies - which you've shown interest in! - that is called "moving the goalposts"

@thej6m: Regarding vitriol - You have to remember where you are. You're inviting vitriol to be poured all over yourself, literally dousing yourself in vitriol.

@kcin:

You know what; that’s totally fair. You’re right that paper did in fact demonstrate that black suspects were more likely to be stopped during the day than at night. I will concede that point to be sure.

Bad faith bullshit. You can't even read the study you cited. a.) it concludes that black and hispanic drivers are more likely to get pulled over and to be searched, and b.) it it demonstrated that black drivers (not suspects) are more like to be stopped during the day than white drivers than at night, due to the "veil of darnkess". No wonder no one wants to talk to you about this crap: you claim to fetishize data above lived experience and cant even absorb it yourself.

So I’ll just leave this article from the Wall Street Journal published last month:

www.wsj.com/amp/articles/the-myth-of-systemic-police-racism-11591119883

It links to two studies published in academic journals that dispute the widely held belief that there is a significant racial bias in law enforcement. You guys can disagree with the methodologies utilized in these studies (and others like them) but I hope that you can at least give those of us who don’t believe that America has a problem with racist cops the benefit of the doubt; many of us are approaching this debate in good faith.

Appreciate the dialogue gentlemen; if anyone has any additional resources they could recommend please post them and I’ll be sure to check them out.

Perhaps you would provide the studies yourself because there is no scenario where I am getting a WSJ membership for an opinion piece called The Myth of Systemic Police Racism.

@thej6m:

I'm glad you appreciate i read the study, but this is literally in the opening of the study, you should probably have read it.

"Furthermore, by examining the rate at which stopped drivers were searched and the likelihood that searches turned up contraband, we found evidence that the bar for searching black and Hispanic drivers was lower than that for searching white drivers. Finally, we found that legalization of recreational marijuana reduced the number of searches of white, black and Hispanic drivers—but the bar for searching black and Hispanic drivers was still lower than that for white drivers post-legalization."

I don't have a WSJ subscription and it doesnt appear to have a free article a month like some other online papers, but I do recognize the author and she is definitely someone who I do not agree with

@thej6m:

Its literally on the front page. Idk what to tell you. Im not trying to be disrespectful but I have no patience for willful ignorance.

Also, how many of you saying "racism is not a problem" are white? Cus maybe you should talk to literally any black person to see what they have to say on the matter. Also we can talk about law and order when the literal criminals who run this country are brought to justice instead of worrying about making sure people who commit very small crimes in comparison are throne in jail for years or decades.

@kcin:

So I conceded the point to you regarding being stopped; you’re right and I incorrectly cited the data. In regards to the searching criteria I’ll leave these two findings in the paper that I believe disprove the narrative:

“The outcome test thus indicates that search decisions may be biased against Hispanic drivers, but the evidence is more ambiguous for black drivers.“

respectively.

“Compared to by-location hit rates, the threshold test more strongly suggests discrimination against black drivers, particularly for municipal stops. Consistent with past work7, this difference appears to be driven by a small but disproportionate number of black drivers who have a high inferred likelihood of carrying contraband. Thus, even though the threshold test finds that the bar for searching black drivers is lower than that for white drivers, these groups have more similar hit rates“ -the paper these authors cite determined that there is a small but relevant black population in American cities that are repeat offenders; they consistently have contraband on them when stopped and thus the discrepancy in searches is more highly correlated with the propensity to reoffend than race.

While I would appreciate a more mild tone you’re right to call out the research that does indeed conflict with my conclusions; totally fair.

@thej6m: I'm not going to argue your point for you, but I do find it really important to learn about the different viewpoints. With that in mind, there are far better resources than Heather Mac Donald. Look into Coleman Hughes, John McWhorter, or Sam Harris for a far better reasoned perspective. Make sure you counter this with other viewpoints argued far more impactfully than the folks on here by Ta Nehisi Coates, and read some James Baldwin, what people are trying to say (through their foaming, seething vitriol) is that much of what Baldwin writes about still exists.

You won't convince anyone of anything by citing data, people have already told you they dispute the statistics.

A thousand years of vitriol before this fake as shit let's all sit around the fireplace smoking a pipe and having spirited discussion politeness..

@efesell: Well, Richard Spencer always wears a suit and is generally really soft spoken and polite in interviews, that must mean that his ideas about wanting a genocide of black people are super cool and correct

/s (hopefully that was obvious)

@thej6m: I see the whole calm, rational, polite thing you're trying to pull off with the 'sir' and 'gentlemen' stuff but there's literally no reason to assume you're hanging out at a gentlemen's club. You probably don't want to make those kind of assumptions on an online forum. That could be very rude after all.

@thej6m: Just gonna point out that you’ve spent the bulk of your arguments in this thread about “improving the black lives/police situation” asserting that black people commit crimes, that systemic racism in policing doesn’t exist, and crime must be dealt with (but of course it’s not genetics because *that* would be racist). How about you actually stop beating around the bush and assert an actual solution to this problem? This bullshit JAQ-ing off with statistics is not the point of the thread. Black Lives Matter have put forward a clear solution to this problem, namely defunding police. How about you put up or shut up with a better solution?

EDIT: I just looked up the names this guy just listed and they’re all right wing grifters that work the Fox News talking head circuit. This dude is straight up drinking the Kanye/Candace Owens kool aid.

@navster15:

Fair enough. To correct for the disparities in the education system how about we enable parents to send their kids to schools outside of the assigned district? As the majority of those incarcerated are in for nonviolent offenses how about we continue on our current path of drug legalization/decriminalization? In order to prevent the bad cops from remaining on the force (and bad teachers from remaining in the classroom for that matter) how about we drastically reduce the power and influence of public sector unions?

@onemanarmyy:

I honestly don’t understand what you mean here. This is obviously a touchy subject and I’ve never found being inflammatory when discussing such matters to be at all productive. I mean if we were just fucking around bullshitting about the Xbox showcase (which I wasn’t particularly impressed with by the way) Id approach the conversation in a different way.

Maybe the Giant Bomb forums isn’t the best place for a conversation on police reform but I didn’t start the thread; just was intrigued by some of the other posts.

@navster15:

Sowell and Williams are highly regarded economists. Larry Elder is a pundit but thats pretty dismissive of two career academics with sterling reputations.

I will never understand the argument for vouchers or charter schools. Unless you're providing a LOT of money to EVERY family, you're just furthering the disparity between students. Even if you DID provide families with enough money to send their kids to whatever school or district they want, you're then just going to overload the good schools and turn them into bad schools because of bloated class sizes and overworked teachers. If you want to argue that America needs to commit more money to education in general, I'm with you, but the solution isn't to say "let's just cut these parents a check so they can theoretically send their kids wherever they want" it's to actually fund the schools. Pay teachers more. Give better incentives, hire MORE teachers instead of doubling up some, etc... This would all be much easier to do if the vast majority of the money wasn't going to the police.

@sethmode:

If you want to pay teachers more and tie those raises to some sort of merit based evaluation that is definitely something I believe would have popular support....good luck getting the teachers unions to sign off on that though.

Bullet points 2 and 3 straight up blame Black people in a way that all the known evidence does not support. Is the OP Mike Bloomberg?

@thej6m: So your solution for fixing schools is to overload other districts and increasing poor student commutes? There is no logistical way to do that, unless you accept that some kids will get a shit education because other districts literally cannot take everyone in.

And nice try lumping in bad teachers with bad cops. A bad teacher will let students goof off in class and not teach them Shakespeare. A bad cop will kill a man by kneeling on his neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds. Maybe try not to hide your anti-union bias by equating teachers striking for better pay with the blue wall of silence.

How about a better idea. Let’s listen to what the overwhelming majority of Black people want, and that is to defund police.

Legalizing drugs, sure, that helps. But police brutalize people of color for far more than that. The rot is deep in the departments, as proven over and over in the past and even now with the brutality deployed against protesters. The defense of such a corrupt institution is not a union issue.

@thej6m: It's 2020 on a game forum. Not everyone wanting to discuss this topic is a sir or a gentleman.

@thej6m: I am certainly dismissive of the people who consider their reputations sterling..

By ratio, Black people interact with cops a much larger amount than any other group. This is due to criminal activity.

This is some racist bullshit. Fuck this.

So, after reading this thread, I’m troubled by how many comments are either dismissive or outright antagonistic towards the original poster.

Dismissing and antagonizing racist bullshit is appropriate. Stay troubled.

I would argue that stating, “the black people cops kill do not deserve to die” is an appeal to emotion and doesn’t actually advance the discussion.

To hell with whatever discussion you want to have that precludes people having emotions about human death and suffering.

Please shut this shit down. Coming in here and saying racist shit in a "calm, civil, rational way" is still coming in here and saying racist shit.

@onemanarmyy:

Should I address everyone as sir/madam then? I’m not being snarky I can totally do that I just want to demonstrate a certain degree of politeness. This is an important conversation and I believe it deserves a particular level of reverence.

Lol I would never consider anyone who pals around with rush limbaugh or george bush a scholar.

I have a feeling you didnt come here to have a discussion, but rather you wanted to put forth YOUR ideas and opinions as some sort of truth because of "statistics." Go back to 4chan of wherever you go and have these "discussions". Gtfoh.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_faith

https://medium.com/s/story/a-field-guide-to-bad-faith-arguments-7-terrible-arguments-in-your-mentions-ee4f194afbc9

@thej6m: Of course teacher's unions wouldn't sign something like that, because they never get any funding, or the offer for more funding comes couched in something where the funding comes AFTER some sort "good job" has been done, ensuring the funding never happens because they're so far behind the eight ball it's virtually impossible. Teachers want to be able to do their job and feel safe doing it just like anyone else...you implement a merit-based system in our current hellscape of underfunded horseshit and you have teachers getting blamed for being bad when they have outdated books, technology and buildings, on top of class sizes of 30 or so, sometimes more. The unions want legitimate, long-standing commitments to funding before they will EVER be interested in any kind of merit-based review of teacher's abilities, and rightly so.

Police, on the other hand, get tons of funding and have people on the payroll like Amber Guyger.