The Black Lives Matters thread.

[LioraVox]

BLM isn't the movement to end all problems within the black community and I think a lot of people mistake this movement for that. There's plenty of issues facing all communities everywhere, and there's plenty of people within those communities to address them- if they choose too. BLM is calling for the end of how overzealous forceful police (& people) misidentify, mishandle and mistreat black men, women, and children in America and then get excused from work with a paycheck of $25k or more with a slap on the wrist.

I agree that there is a long, long list of problems from within the political system that oversees black communities. But that's not a problem every black person faces. BLM isn't to address those problems, sometimes those problems come up - because they are relevant to the area. But to me, BLM is for every black person in America..because we are all affected by it despite where we live. And it's not even solely for just black people because BLM talks about and advocates for anyone who has been wrongfully killed by the police.

A lot of "outside" people have their opinions on what's more relevant, or more worth the acknowledgement, but to be quite frank & honest...a lot of those people forget that they don't have the privilege to determine that. If a group wants to focus on one thing, let them focus on it..and if they fix the thing then they have room to redirect and fix something else. You can't fix everything that's wrong with something in one big swoop, you have to give each individual thing its own attention and care to make sure the solution is fixed and things won't happen again.

 

[LioraVox]

ETA- but not a DP: In my experience, the people that don't want to talk about racism the most are typically "white". I don't know why this is but it may be because then they have to face some tough truths about how they interact with people of different races. Casual racism is very real, as are microaggressions to minorities but non-poc don't realise these things are lowkey harmful/highly annoying. And also, more often than not its because non-poc people just don't know how talk about race. For them, it's easier to keep a blind eye than to address it, or to say something wrong & offensive. But sometimes ya just gotta look like an idiot if you want to learn.

 

[AerynShade]

That polarization sometimes boils over into violence, which begets more violence and more polarization and more dehumanization in response. Those who would engage in retaliatory violence ought to go back and absorb the lessons of MLK and Gandhi.

Reminder that Gandhi was vocally racist against black Africans. Regularly using slurs against them and comparing them to animals.

 

[Guy]

Reminder that Gandhi was vocally racist against black Africans. Regularly using slurs against them and comparing them to animals.

He was also misogynistic http://www.vagabomb.com/Gandhi-Was-...-but-History-Will-Have-You-Believe-Otherwise/

 

[Osmia]

Reminder that Gandhi was vocally racist against black Africans. Regularly using slurs against them and comparing them to animals.

There's a voluminous literature contending that Abraham Lincoln held what today would be considered racist views. Just google Lincoln racism. My point is that, like every great leader, Lincoln was a product of his time and place, and should not be judged by today's standards. I'm not familiar with Gandhi's formative background in India regarding racial attitudes. Perhaps someone who is could address the question of whether he was representative of his time and place. One might need to restrict the comparison to other Indians who had experience actually living among black people, such as he did in South Africa.

In any case, while the point about Gandhi is valid and relevant to the discussion, I don't think his racial attitudes invalidate his accomplishments and place in history.

 

[Lexi Emerson]

This is such a weird and hard topic for me to open up on a lot besides a few Twitter posts here and there. But I guess I just want to chime in a little. It's gonna be a long one.

I am a white kid from Wisconsin and grew up with my aunt and uncle (who basically raised me) who are a part of law enforcement. My uncle is a pretty well known figure among the law enforcement community around the country and my aunt is a very prominent member in the local community. I was raised that police are people you always respect and that police are always heroes. I was told that police are what hold up our country and keep us away from any real danger. I was a nanny for several of my aunt's friends who were also all a part of law enforcement in some way. It surrounded my entire life and I honestly thought that police were always doing the best they could to protect our country.

Then I met my first girlfriend who happened to be black. My world turned around. My family met her and my aunt and uncle acted strange. I didn't get it. My mom later clued me in that their job made them hesitant of anyone who wasn't simply white especially black people. Shortly after I found out that many of the other officers on the crew (the very people who helped raise me and the people that let me help raise their children as a nanny) were also very racist. They all seemed to use the same excuses and it shattered my entire view of what police were to me. They throw out statistics. They tell you how black people tend to be thugs. They say how black people are violent. They swore they weren't racist, they just needed to be wary because of their line of work. I grew up in a quiet college town, with black people being a very very small majority. They were never people to fear to me. They were my girlfriend, my friend who lived down the street, my teacher. They were never thugs to me. They were never a threat. To suddenly have my world turned upside down and to find out that your heroes looked at other people you love and respect as an automatic enemy really confused me.

I still have a very general sense of respect for police. I don't have any respect for how they are taught to do their job. I have sat in on my uncle's classes before and they are taught that they need to be scared 24/7 and that people are always trying to kill you. Of course that isn't an excuse to murder people but what do they expect when they are telling their officers that every simple traffic stop is going to have a police hating murder sitting behind the wheel? I honestly think the first step in changing how the police react with people (not even just black people) is taking a note from Las Vegas and changing how police are taught.

I stand behind the idea of BLM. I don't agree with violence towards police because obviously violence is wrong and in the end that is just going to cause police to be more hostile towards the public. But I don't believe that the overall message of BLM promotes violence like some seem to think. So yep, I stand with it completely. There is a problem. When my ex-girlfriend is too afraid to go out with her other black friends because she knows they will be treated differently by the people who I grew up looking at as heroes because of the color of their skin, that shows there is a problem. When a police officer can shoot a black man when he is being a non-threat and there are essentially no consequences but when a police officer is murdered an entire team will come out and end the person's life on the spot.

To me police are suppose to hold up our country. Making an entire race of people fearful of you and feel like they don't have the option to call you for help even if their lives depended on it isn't a part of that. Murdering people in cold blood isn't a part of that. Not getting the same punishments as civilians when fucking up isn't a part of that.

In the end I do support police and I support black people. I think it is possible to do both. But something drastic needs to change with law enforcement. They need to act the way they're suppose to and follow the code that they're given. Right now, too many are not and as a result too many innocent lives are being lost.

And for all the people who spout #AllLivesMatter:

 

[Guy]

In Madison,Wisconsin (which is where I live) there was recently an act of police brutality against an 18 year old African American woman caught on video.

 

[fandango]

So if the media tells them they found a pink unicorn in Alaska some might doubt at first, but if they keep repeating this and all outlets tell them the same thing, and their professors at university also repeat it, eventually nobody will doubt there truly is a pink unicorn in Alaska. Only people who actually live in Alaska or who care enough to go there personally will see that it was a lie. It isn't the fault of the people. They are relying on the word and the experience of those they consider to be authorities on the subject. But when the authorities lie and twist the truth they create a new reality, a virtual one, they impose over this one that is very hard to dispel.

The difference here though is that were not talking about a unicorn in a remote place that only one person or very few people have ever seen being widely reported and expecting people to believe it. This is a thing being reported that can be verified first hand by millions of people who experience it on a daily basis, how many sources do you need? I don't know why it bothers you so much but you sound like one of those conspiracy theory people who are always searching for proof man never walked on the moon or the holocaust didn't happen. Those people who search the internet for anything that can back up their distorted view no matter how weak it is and acting as if they're the only person willing to tell the truth and everyone else is brainwashed by the mainstream.

There are many statistics which show black people get a raw deal. Not just with the treatment at the hands of the police but in courts where black people on average get much harsher punishments for the same offences as white people and where a black people don't have access to the same quality of education.

I could search for Klan rally videos with a few hundred people and try to convince you all white people are racists and this is really what they actually want but its simply wouldn't be true. This is the same as what you have done by cherry picking videos of extremists subverting the BLM movement. The vast majority of BLM people do not want to see anyone else get killed be it another black person or a police officer.

 

[Mila_]

CNN told me BLM was pacific and yet here is another BLM leader calling for the killing of cops today:

 

[Mila_]

The difference here though is that were not talking about a unicorn in a remote place that only one person or very few people have ever seen being widely reported and expecting people to believe it. This is a thing being reported that can be verified first hand by millions of people who experience it on a daily basis, how many sources do you need? I don't know why it bothers you so much but you sound like one of those conspiracy theory people who are always searching for proof man never walked on the moon or the holocaust didn't happen. Those people who search the internet for anything that can back up their distorted view no matter how weak it is and acting as if they're the only person willing to tell the truth and everyone else is brainwashed by the mainstream.

There are many statistics which show black people get a raw deal. Not just with the treatment at the hands of the police but in courts where black people on average get much harsher punishments for the same offences as white people and where a black people don't have access to the same quality of education.

I could search for Klan rally videos with a few hundred people and try to convince you all white people are racists and this is really what they actually want but its simply wouldn't be true. This is the same as what you have done by cherry picking videos of extremists subverting the BLM movement. The vast majority of BLM people do not want to see anyone else get killed be it another black person or a police officer.

I have never said there isn't racial tension in the US or that black people don't face discrimination in other areas in the US. What I keep saying is BLM is founded on a lie. The lie being that the police is targeting black people, killing them out of racism. This is simply not true. When you control all the variables there is no racial disparity in the people police are killing. They are killing whites, and blacks, and every other ethnicity at the same rate. I posted data that backs it up. It isn't a conspiracy theory. It is facts.

What is going on is media ONLY shows when police kills black men. So people don't get to see the other killings and they assume it is only black people the police are killing. I don't know if they are doing this because any sort of racial issue gives them better ratings or if they are doing this with a political purpose. It is up for debate. I will say though that they happen to do this during election years.

I also keep saying that this manipulation of the truth is dangerous, that BLM is not pacific, their heroes and gurus are all convicted cop killers, they call for violence against cops in their protests and elsewhere, and it has had a result: innocent cops are being brutally murdered just because they are cops and they are whites. If this isn't a violent racist movement they should be turning in the members who are promoting violence, and yet I see no serious condemnation or serious efforts to turn them in on the part of BLM. What I see is people defending the movement saying "not all their activists are like that" or "their leaders are not like that" or "that is not what the founders intended" and when you show them evidence of the contrary, like hundreds of activists shouting "we want dead cops now", leaders calling for the killing of cops, or the fact that the ideological hero of the founders is on the FBI most wanted list for killing cops in cold blood, you get poop ratings on your post. It is like being blind on purpose.

 

[JerryBoBerry]

I have never said there isn't racial tension in the US or that black people don't face discrimination in other areas in the US. What I keep saying is BLM is founded on a lie. The lie being that the police is targeting black people, killing them out of racism. This is simply not true. When you control all the variables there is no racial disparity in the people police are killing. They are killing whites, and blacks, and every other ethnicity at the same rate. I posted data that backs it up. It isn't a conspiracy theory. It is facts.

What is going on is media ONLY shows when police kills black men. So people don't get to see the other killings and they assume it is only black people the police are killing. I don't know if they are doing this because any sort of racial issue gives them better ratings or if they are doing this with a political purpose. It is up for debate. I will say though that they happen to do this during election years.

I usually end up disagreeing with you on a lot of things. But I have to agree with this. I don't know what data you posted prior (didn't search for it) but here's a recent study that shows there's no race bias in police involved shooting. If anything they might be shooting blacks less than Caucasians.

http://www.dailywire.com/news/7343/new-study-no-racial-bias-police-involved-shootings-james-barrett

A new study of over a thousand police-involved shootings found what researcher Harvard Prof. Roland G. Fryer Jr. calls "the most surprising result of my career": There is no racial bias in police-involved shootings. Not only are blacks not more likely to be fired upon by police than whites in tense moments, the study found that, if anything, they are less likely to be shot at.

Police are not more likely to fire on blacks than whites. In fact, blacks are 20% less likely to be fired on.

 

[Guy]

I usually end up disagreeing with you on a lot of things. But I have to agree with this. I don't know what data you posted prior (didn't search for it) but here's a recent study that shows there's no race bias in police involved shooting. If anything they might be shooting blacks less than Caucasians.

http://www.dailywire.com/news/7343/new-study-no-racial-bias-police-involved-shootings-james-barrett

But unarmed black men are killed at a higher rate
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...-by-police-yes-but-no/?utm_term=.d72e57880e95

 

[Mila_]

But unarmed black men are killed at a higher rate
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...-by-police-yes-but-no/?utm_term=.d72e57880e95

False. This is the actual data. Unarmed black men are shot at a rate of 2%



While unarmed white men are shot at a rate of 3%



If you get very technical, you would have to say they are killing more unarmed whites than blacks. But 1% is not enough of a margin to claim an actual difference.

 

[Osmia]

....In the end I do support police and I support black people. I think it is possible to do both. But something drastic needs to change with law enforcement. They need to act the way they're suppose to and follow the code that they're given. Right now, too many are not and as a result too many innocent lives are being lost.

I agree with your point about law enforcement (LE) needing to change. The things that need to be changed (IMHO) are practices and attitudes that just don't seem necessary, and make LE and the citizenry seem to be enemies, or at least unnecessarily antagonistic. Here are some examples that are trivial compared to people being shot, but these things add up peoples' minds.

Civil forfeiture. This has to be one of the most outrageous betrayals of due process short of being deprived of one's life. There was a good article about it in the New Yorker magazine a few years ago. You can imagine what types of people tend to get targeted by this.

Increasing militarization of local police forces. The police are increasingly employing military equipment and tactics. Sometimes, this may be necessary, but there is growing consensus that it's become excessive and counterproductive. Contributing to the problem is a federal government program that transfers used military equipment to police agencies.

Unmarked police cars. Unmarked cars are nothing new, but they are becoming increasingly hard to differentiate from civilian cars (both in absence of markings and the types of vehicles used). The police in my city even have what I call "semi-marked" vehicles: from a distance they look like a civilian dark Tahoe, but up close, the police insignia is just barely visible against the paint color of the vehicle, if you look at it just right. I'm like, do they sit around and try to come up with genius ideas like this? Might there be more important things to be focusing on? The problem with unmarked cars is that people may be reluctant to stop if they're being pulled over, especially at night. There have been cases of criminals impersonating police. And all of this is done in the name of traffic enforcement, which often seems to be just a revenue generating tool.

Finally, it's obligatory to state that I do support the police and their mission. I just think that their mission, as it's now practiced, has drifted away from a 100% focus on serving the people. I don't remember it being like this 20 years ago.

 

[justjoinedtopost]

I have never said there isn't racial tension in the US or that black people don't face discrimination in other areas in the US. What I keep saying is BLM....

Investigating the points you have raised has completely changed my view of BLM.

 

[Guy]

False. This is the actual data. Unarmed black men are shot at a rate of 2%

View attachment 64329

While unarmed white men are shot at a rate of 3%

View attachment 64330

If you get very technical, you would have to say they are killing more unarmed whites than blacks. But 1% is not enough of a margin to claim an actual difference.

Source?

 

[ACFFAN69]

I usually end up disagreeing with you on a lot of things. But I have to agree with this. I don't know what data you posted prior (didn't search for it) but here's a recent study that shows there's no race bias in police involved shooting. If anything they might be shooting blacks less than Caucasians.

http://www.dailywire.com/news/7343/new-study-no-racial-bias-police-involved-shootings-james-barrett

From your own source, here is something I find interesting:
----------------------------
3. Blacks are more likely to be treated worse by officers when it comes to physical contact.

"While the study found that black men and women were not more likely to be fired upon by officers, according to a study of NYPD stop-and-frisk records from 2003-2013, they were treated worse by officers when it came to physical contact, including "use of hands" (17% more often), being pushed to the wall (18% more), use of handcuffs (16%), having weapons drawn on them (19%), being pushed to the ground (18%), and having a weapon pointed at them (24%), and being pepper sprayed (25% more, though they only assessed 9 cases)."
----------------------------

Also related, there is a lawsuit in New York of illegal quotas for arrests happening in New York:
"The problem is, when you go hunting, when you pull any type of numbers on a police officer to perform, we are going to the most vulnerable, we are going to go to the LGBT community, the black community, we are going to go to those people that have no vote, no power, if we start doing what we are doing in midtown Manhattan, a phone call will be made to the mayor and that will be the end of it."


Regardless if black people are more likely to be shot by police officers or not, it certainly seems both from the unbiased statistics and through circumstantial evidence, that there is likely some form of systemic racism that needs to be investigated and fixed.

 

[Guy]

From your own source, here is something I find interesting:
----------------------------
3. Blacks are more likely to be treated worse by officers when it comes to physical contact.

"While the study found that black men and women were not more likely to be fired upon by officers, according to a study of NYPD stop-and-frisk records from 2003-2013, they were treated worse by officers when it came to physical contact, including "use of hands" (17% more often), being pushed to the wall (18% more), use of handcuffs (16%), having weapons drawn on them (19%), being pushed to the ground (18%), and having a weapon pointed at them (24%), and being pepper sprayed (25% more, though they only assessed 9 cases)."
----------------------------

Also related, there is a lawsuit in New York of illegal quotas for arrests happening in New York:
"The problem is, when you go hunting, when you pull any type of numbers on a police officer to perform, we are going to the most vulnerable, we are going to go to the LGBT community, the black community, we are going to go to those people that have no vote, no power, if we start doing what we are doing in midtown Manhattan, a phone call will be made to the mayor and that will be the end of it."


Regardless if black people are more likely to be shot by police officers or not, it certainly seems both from the unbiased statistics and through circumstantial evidence, that there is likely some form of systemic racism that needs to be investigated and fixed.

His source is far from unbiased. Daily Wire is a far right wing news website.

 

[JerryBoBerry]

His source is far from unbiased. Daily Wire is a far right wing news website.

The Daily Wire wasn't the source. It was merely one site commenting on the source. The source was the 63 page study done by a harvard professor and published by the National Bureau of Economic Research. Which is a private nonprofit research organization "committed to undertaking and disseminating unbiased economic research among public policymakers, business professionals, and the academic community."

http://www.nber.org/papers/w22399.pdf

 

[LioraVox]

I have never said there isn't racial tension in the US or that black people don't face discrimination in other areas in the US. What I keep saying is BLM is founded on a lie. The lie being that the police is targeting black people, killing them out of racism. This is simply not true. When you control all the variables there is no racial disparity in the people police are killing. They are killing whites, and blacks, and every other ethnicity at the same rate. I posted data that backs it up. It isn't a conspiracy theory. It is facts.

What is going on is media ONLY shows when police kills black men. So people don't get to see the other killings and they assume it is only black people the police are killing. I don't know if they are doing this because any sort of racial issue gives them better ratings or if they are doing this with a political purpose. It is up for debate. I will say though that they happen to do this during election years.

I also keep saying that this manipulation of the truth is dangerous, that BLM is not pacific, their heroes and gurus are all convicted cop killers, they call for violence against cops in their protests and elsewhere, and it has had a result: innocent cops are being brutally murdered just because they are cops and they are whites. If this isn't a violent racist movement they should be turning in the members who are promoting violence, and yet I see no serious condemnation or serious efforts to turn them in on the part of BLM. What I see is people defending the movement saying "not all their activists are like that" or "their leaders are not like that" or "that is not what the founders intended" and when you show them evidence of the contrary, like hundreds of activists shouting "we want dead cops now", leaders calling for the killing of cops, or the fact that the ideological hero of the founders is on the FBI most wanted list for killing cops in cold blood, you get poop ratings on your post. It is like being blind on purpose.

Mila, you are so educated and intelligent it boggles my mind at how daft you are. I just want to clarify that this is going to sound really personal, but you just trigger something in my core that I have to address- and while I do take issue with what you say.. your words represent the worst of people who refuse to acknowledge the experiences of others.

You are the type of person that can sit down in front of 10 people who tell you they have experienced something and deny them, then when 20 people come along you will deny them also and this can continue until the end of days before you say "you know what...you're right". All because you googled something that fits into your narratives and your opinion on the subject. People like you are the people who make change hard. People like you are what makes living in a "post-racial society" hard. Because you actively choose to ignore clear evidence, you actively choose to uphold and believe in stereotypes based & founded on racist principals.

This isn't the first time that you've been so adamant that black people are bad, violent or animals. You continue to paint black people & now BLM as violent people that you ignore what has happened for them to get there. Innocent men, women, and children are being murdered because they are black..and yet here you are saying that cops are being murdered because they are white? No, that's not how it works. People are being killed unwarrantedly by police, period.. the end. Black people just happen to be the ones who are tired of it, who are tired of having to have fear, the ones who are tired of having to fight for the freedom to just live and survive. I wished that people like you would just shut up for five seconds and listen instead of shutting out and disagreeing with something. So what if people call for the violence of cops... do you understand how fed up people are? Do you understand how people can be so angry and tired of feeling like they are being broke down & beaten from a system that they work hard to survive in? If everything in your house broke and stopped working you would either try to fix things one by one.. or throw all that shit in the trash and get new & current things. And while calling for violence directed at cops, as a whole, is extreme - this thought applies.. either scrap it all & start over or take the time to fix it.

And if police aren't killing unarmed black people because of the color of their skin, what are they killing them for? These police officers are going into situations with people of color with pre-existing racial bias. They have already determined that a situation is going to be met with a certain level of hostility because of how they are trained. Be it from their family members racist views to how the police train their officers. They are going in with the thought "this black man is a threat to me", "this black child is a threat to me", "this black woman is a threat to me" and its bullshit. And it's bullshit that you deny these things. And its bullshit that you paint this narrative that all black people are violent, and radical extremist when we aren't.

For every person in the world who says "(thing) is bad" - there's going to be people who don't fit into that narrative. "All men are rapists", "All women are weak and fragile." "All white people are racist" "All Asians like rice and math" "All black people are violent" "All Irish people like to drink themselves into liver failure" "All German people are nazi's"..Just because you say something, doesn't mean it applies to the whole group and I really wish you would learn that as a women who is worldly and educated at 30 something years old.

Do you realize that if the supporters of BLM were to agree to use violent force, America would have a HUGE problem? Like...America is one lucky bitch because black people haven't turned their anger into action. Black violence would incite violence from all people of color who are fed up with this fucked up system. And that's being completely honest.

And I know that I should just put you on ignore, and then I wouldn't have to see what you say. But I'll be damned if I actively ignore someone painting me, and people who look like me negatively.

 

[Worship Jaclyn]

Trying to become more educated about issues has just endlessly frustrated me. I feel like a lot of the time, as a passing white person I'm not allowed to have an opinion on this and I don't really understand that. We all have opinions about things that affect others but not our day to day lives, we all are passionate, it's called being a citizen of this Earth. It isn't a privileged thing but a human thing. If this needs to be something where only black people are involved that's great, then do that. But it's frustrating that I want to be educated and supportive however I can but I also am not allowed to talk and any opinion I have will be quickly dismissed without any explanation and even if there was an explanation it's not like I can dare disagree with a black person. Ideally I would love to just sit and listen to black people from different backgrounds with different lives talk about their day to day lives and the things they go through that I don't understand but what's the point if at the end of the day I feel like I better not take that information and form an opinion. I don't think people can have it both ways. It seems to be a fine line between educating people and dismissing them. I remember feeling hopeful about all this just a short time ago and now I feel like it's just one more thing that's further separating people. Maybe it sounds dramatic but half of the interactions I have kind of just make me want to throw my hands up in the air and not pay attention to this issue anymore. I feel like there's nothing I can do or say or learn apparently so meh. It all feels alienating for absolutely every person involved but maybe I'm just silly to think that changing the world would be easier if we all could work together as a team.

 

[Worship Jaclyn]

People are being killed unwarrantedly by police, period.. the end. Black people just happen to be the ones who are tired of it, who are tired of having to have fear, the ones who are tired of having to fight for the freedom to just live and survive. I wished that people like you would just shut up for five seconds and listen instead of shutting out and disagreeing with something. So what if people call for the violence of cops... do you understand how fed up people are?

I don't understand. If you think all kinds of people are being killed by police but black people just happen to be sick of it, then how does that result in blm? I'm just curious.

Also, I don't agree with everything that @supermila says but she is kind of entitled to her opinion. Just because she doesn't change her mind and agree with other people doesn't mean she isn't listening.

 

[ACFFAN69]

The Daily Wire wasn't the source. It was merely one site commenting on the source. The source was the 63 page study done by a harvard professor and published by the National Bureau of Economic Research. Which is a private nonprofit research organization "committed to undertaking and disseminating unbiased economic research among public policymakers, business professionals, and the academic community."

http://www.nber.org/papers/w22399.pdf

After having read the paper, as unbiased as it is, and as damning as it is in showing police racism exists. I've found many reasons why I think it's important we don't point to it as fact. It is not a study on the entirety of the United States, but cherry picked data from specific districts:

Quotes from the paper:
--------------------------------------------------------
"We use event summaries from all incidents in which an officer discharges his weapon at civilians – including both hits and misses – from three large cities in Texas (Austin, Dallas, Houston), six large Florida counties, and Los Angeles County, to construct a dataset in which one can investigate racial differences in officer-involved shootings."
(...)
""Our results have several important caveats. First, all but one dataset was provided by a select group of police departments. It is possible that these departments only supplied the data because they are either enlightened or were not concerned about what the analysis would reveal. In essence, this is equivalent to analyzing labor market discrimination on a set of firms willing to supply a researcher with their Human Resources data! There may be important selection in who was willing to share their data. The Police-Public contact survey partially sidesteps this issue by including a nationally representative sample of civilians, but it does not contain data on officer-involved shootings."
(...)
"Relatedly, even police departments willing to supply data may contain police officers who present contextual factors at that time of an incident in a biased manner – making it difficult to interpret
regression coefficients in the standard way.6 It is exceedingly difficult to know how prevalent this type of misreporting bias is (Schneider 1977)."
(...)
"To begin, fifteen police departments across the country were contacted by the author: Boston, Camden, NYC, Philadelphia, Austin, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, six Florida counties, and Tacoma, Washington.13 Importantly for thinking about the representativeness of the data – many of these cities were a part of the Obama Administration’s Police Data Initiative.14 We received data from all but three of these police departments – NYC, Philadelphia, and Tacoma, Washington – all of which have indicated a willingness to participate in our data collection efforts but have not yet provided data.15 This is likely not a representative set of cities. Appendix Table 14 investigates differences between the cities that provided us data and other Metropolitan Statistical Areas on a variety of dimensions such as population demographics and crime rates."
(...)
" There are no accidental discharges in our data and shootings at canines have been omitted."
--------------------------------------------------------

To be clear, I have no question that the author of the paper, and the eight research assistants who put together this paper are unbiased, I very much question the source they got the data from. Those specific police districts that provided the data to them. One thing is for sure, it's very damning in showing that racism exists when non lethal force is used (of which they were able to get data from throughout the nation for those studies). But it is far from definitive proof that black people are less likely to be shot from police.

 

[LioraVox]

Trying to become more educated about issues has just endlessly frustrated me. I feel like a lot of the time, as a passing white person I'm not allowed to have an opinion on this and I don't really understand that. We all have opinions about things that affect others but not our day to day lives, we all are passionate, it's called being a citizen of this Earth. It isn't a privileged thing but a human thing. If this needs to be something where only black people are involved that's great, then do that. But it's frustrating that I want to be educated and supportive however I can but I also am not allowed to talk and any opinion I have will be quickly dismissed without any explanation and even if there was an explanation it's not like I can dare disagree with a black person. Ideally I would love to just sit and listen to black people from different backgrounds with different lives talk about their day to day lives and the things they go through that I don't understand but what's the point if at the end of the day I feel like I better not take that information and form an opinion. I don't think people can have it both ways. It seems to be a fine line between educating people and dismissing them. I remember feeling hopeful about all this just a short time ago and now I feel like it's just one more thing that's further separating people. Maybe it sounds dramatic but half of the interactions I have kind of just make me want to throw my hands up in the air and not pay attention to this issue anymore. I feel like there's nothing I can do or say or learn apparently so meh. It all feels alienating for absolutely every person involved but maybe I'm just silly to think that changing the world would be easier if we all could work together as a team.

You are allowed to have an opinion, by all means, have one. Ask questions & learn. Because learning helps..but at the same time don't expect to have your feelings coddled and nurtured. Racism is not a subject that needs or even deserves to be sugarcoated. Racism needs to be exposed head on and with that you get strong passionate emotions. The issue is that a lot of the time people aren't ready for that. People aren't ready for the looks of confusion or the anger and frustration.. people still want to be educated as though they were a child. And so when you are asked to educate an adult on something, but then they act like a child it gets frustrating.. and people get dismissive because who has time or the energy to make sure your feelings aren't getting hurt. If you want to ask questions privately, I'm all for it and I don't mind, and I'm honestly not as aggressive as I may come off to be.

I don't understand. If you think all kinds of people are being killed by police but black people just happen to be sick of it, then how does that result in blm? I'm just curious.

Also, I don't agree with everything that @supermila says but she is kind of entitled to her opinion. Just because she doesn't change her mind and agree with other people doesn't mean she isn't listening.

- All people are being killed unjustly. Black people were tired of it and are using their voices to bring light to the matter- which is why BLM was formed. 3 women were tired of hearing about unarmed black people being shot by police & the police weren't held accountable. Any group of people could've voiced their opinions on police brutality but no group of people were ever as loud as BLM.

- And there's a difference between opinion and fact. She explains her opinions as though they are fact, and they are not. She googles reports and stats to support this opinion as fact, and it is false. Everything she types on the subject of black people is to fit the narrative that black people are thugs, criminals and violent while dismissing the common sense that that is a false statement. It is not fact and I am personally tired of it. I can respect peoples opinions, but I will not respect someone slandering a group of people based on nitpicked google searches.

 

[LioraVox]

on a broader level though.

 

[Ambers Troll]

LioraVox you are attacking the person not the argument. As an outsider I don't know the statistics, but I would assume there are many police shootings of unarmed people of all races. Statistics should always be taken in context, and compared to something like arrest rates/ search rates/ race of the officers involved and so on to be understood well. Unless they are clear, they can be easily manipulated to fit any argument.
Your earlier posts were far more helpful than this previous one.

And if police aren't killing unarmed black people because of the color of their skin, what are they killing them for?

All are based on a perceived or real threat, there could be many reasons and the ethnicity of the person being a small part of it. Where it is a racial bias, most likely it goes both ways, for example perhaps the one under threat of being shot doesn't believe the threat, whereas someone of their own race senses it immediately?

In reality most black lives would be lost needlessly by lower average incomes, and all the consequences from this. Poor lives matter would be far more appropriate movement. Poorer people would be shot more often needlessly, end up in jails, and die younger than all other groups, in my country it is the indigenous minority that this happens too. Police are so critical in poor communities, but they also get it wrong more often, and can show much more bias to those from these communities.

 

[yummybrownfox]

LioraVox you are attacking the person not the argument.

LioraVox isn't attacking anyone. She's speaking her mind just like the rest of you in this thread are doing.

 

[LioraVox]

LioraVox you are attacking the person not the argument. As an outsider I don't know the statistics, but I would assume there are many police shootings of unarmed people of all races. Statistics should always be taken in context, and compared to something like arrest rates/ search rates/ race of the officers involved and so on to be understood well. Unless they are clear, they can be easily manipulated to fit any argument.
Your earlier posts were far more helpful than this previous one.


All are based on a perceived or real threat, there could be many reasons and the ethnicity of the person being a small part of it. Where it is a racial bias, most likely it goes both ways, for example perhaps the one under threat of being shot doesn't believe the threat, whereas someone of their own race senses it immediately?

In reality most black lives would be lost needlessly by lower average incomes, and all the consequences from this. Poor lives matter would be far more appropriate movement. Poorer people would be shot more often needlessly, end up in jails, and die younger than all other groups, in my country it is the indigenous minority that this happens too. Police are so critical in poor communities, but they also get it wrong more often, and can show much more bias to those from these communities.

- I am very aware that I am attacking "the person" not the argument because this is something I've addressed with her many times. I'm tired of it. If a girl posted on this forum about how badly she hated men, and linked sources of men as a whole being rapist in multiple threads..multiple times after you have addressed the argument just as much. Would you not address the person? I get it, if people want to place her in the victim category and make excuses for her, or excuses her post as just simply opinions and then say I'm in the wrong or whatever you feel describes it best..then so be it.. it is what it is because I spoke my mind and I spoke up for myself and for my people. We are not all bad, we are not all criminals and we are not all violent.

- But most of the time, the perceived threat of black people is that they are violent or will be violent. People are often only violent when they have to protect themselves. The stereotype is that people think black people are inherently more violent than any other type of person and this isn't true. LexiSloan even addressed that she sat in police training sessions and recalled the officers in command telling police officers that black people are a threat. It's already in there heads. Black = threat. I don't understand where you're misunderstanding this. My point was why would any person of authority feel the need to kill an unarmed person?

- How would #PoorLivesMatter stop the unjust killings of unarmed people? How would #PoorLivesMatter hold police accountable for a traffic stop where a *white* kid got tasered into having his heart seizing and I think dying? How would #PLM stop police brutality? You have to realize that the movement is named what it is named for a reason & that BLM isn't a call for solutions for "black people problems"

Also in America, aren't lower income communities often primarily black communities? So if there is a movement that addresses their struggles & the struggles of black people not within those communities, what is the problem?

 

[yummybrownfox]

Mila, you are so educated and intelligent it boggles my mind at how daft you are. I just want to clarify that this is going to sound really personal, but you just trigger something in my core that I have to address- and while I do take issue with what you say.. your words represent the worst of people who refuse to acknowledge the experiences of others.

You are the type of person that can sit down in front of 10 people who tell you they have experienced something and deny them, then when 20 people come along you will deny them also and this can continue until the end of days before you say "you know what...you're right". All because you googled something that fits into your narratives and your opinion on the subject. People like you are the people who make change hard. People like you are what makes living in a "post-racial society" hard. Because you actively choose to ignore clear evidence, you actively choose to uphold and believe in stereotypes based & founded on racist principals.

This isn't the first time that you've been so adamant that black people are bad, violent or animals. You continue to paint black people & now BLM as violent people that you ignore what has happened for them to get there. Innocent men, women, and children are being murdered because they are black..and yet here you are saying that cops are being murdered because they are white? No, that's not how it works. People are being killed unwarrantedly by police, period.. the end. Black people just happen to be the ones who are tired of it, who are tired of having to have fear, the ones who are tired of having to fight for the freedom to just live and survive. I wished that people like you would just shut up for five seconds and listen instead of shutting out and disagreeing with something. So what if people call for the violence of cops... do you understand how fed up people are? Do you understand how people can be so angry and tired of feeling like they are being broke down & beaten from a system that they work hard to survive in? If everything in your house broke and stopped working you would either try to fix things one by one.. or throw all that shit in the trash and get new & current things. And while calling for violence directed at cops, as a whole, is extreme - this thought applies.. either scrap it all & start over or take the time to fix it.

And if police aren't killing unarmed black people because of the color of their skin, what are they killing them for? These police officers are going into situations with people of color with pre-existing racial bias. They have already determined that a situation is going to be met with a certain level of hostility because of how they are trained. Be it from their family members racist views to how the police train their officers. They are going in with the thought "this black man is a threat to me", "this black child is a threat to me", "this black woman is a threat to me" and its bullshit. And it's bullshit that you deny these things. And its bullshit that you paint this narrative that all black people are violent, and radical extremist when we aren't.

For every person in the world who says "(thing) is bad" - there's going to be people who don't fit into that narrative. "All men are rapists", "All women are weak and fragile." "All white people are racist" "All Asians like rice and math" "All black people are violent" "All Irish people like to drink themselves into liver failure" "All German people are nazi's"..Just because you say something, doesn't mean it applies to the whole group and I really wish you would learn that as a women who is worldly and educated at 30 something years old.

Do you realize that if the supporters of BLM were to agree to use violent force, America would have a HUGE problem? Like...America is one lucky bitch because black people haven't turned their anger into action. Black violence would incite violence from all people of color who are fed up with this fucked up system. And that's being completely honest.

And I know that I should just put you on ignore, and then I wouldn't have to see what you say. But I'll be damned if I actively ignore someone painting me, and people who look like me negatively.

I wish I could 'like' and 'agree' with your post 100 times. I noticed that folks have been really showing their true colors lately with this topic (not just on here, but also on social media), and I may be joining you in putting a couple people on ignore, because I can't stand to read any more of this DENY, DENY, DENY bullshit...

 

[Worship Jaclyn]

You are allowed to have an opinion, by all means, have one. Ask questions & learn. Because learning helps..but at the same time don't expect to have your feelings coddled and nurtured. Racism is not a subject that needs or even deserves to be sugarcoated. Racism needs to be exposed head on and with that you get strong passionate emotions. The issue is that a lot of the time people aren't ready for that. People aren't ready for the looks of confusion or the anger and frustration.. people still want to be educated as though they were a child. And so when you are asked to educate an adult on something, but then they act like a child it gets frustrating.. and people get dismissive because who has time or the energy to make sure your feelings aren't getting hurt. If you want to ask questions privately, I'm all for it and I don't mind, and I'm honestly not as aggressive as I may come off to be.



- All people are being killed unjustly. Black people were tired of it and are using their voices to bring light to the matter- which is why BLM was formed. 3 women were tired of hearing about unarmed black people being shot by police & the police weren't held accountable. Any group of people could've voiced their opinions on police brutality but no group of people were ever as loud as BLM.

- And there's a difference between opinion and fact. She explains her opinions as though they are fact, and they are not. She googles reports and stats to support this opinion as fact, and it is false. Everything she types on the subject of black people is to fit the narrative that black people are thugs, criminals and violent while dismissing the common sense that that is a false statement. It is not fact and I am personally tired of it. I can respect peoples opinions, but I will not respect someone slandering a group of people based on nitpicked google searches.

Eh, don't know how to rate that so thank you for the parts that are helpful.

I can say for myself it's a little annoying that the default is just that clearly I want to be coddled and I want to make sure no one hurts my feelings. I have said racism exists 1000 times so I can only hope that that is directed toward people overall and not me. I'm not crying and acting like a child, I'm saying I'm frustrated and aren't we all? If people can't help but dismiss anyone who gets frustrated then wow what a revolution this will be. I guess I feel like yes, people are willing to tell their story and educate us but we aren't allowed to say "but". To me saying wait a minute doesn't mean I'm disagreeing with you, it means I don't understand and/or want more information on a specific issue but it seems whenever it's said we are written off. But I do get that if your experience is that typically white people are going to disagree with you and then cry about what you have to say how that could turn you off to wanting to talk about it at all. I also realize it may be frustrating that as a black person it's now your job to educate all these people, but it's kind of just a shitty situation all around because who else is going to do it? I don't know. I used to feel like I could talk about things. I have talked to you in the past about a specific issue that I didn't understand. You gave me insight and I really appreciated it. Whatever the case, it seems that currently things are harder to talk about when we really need to be talking about them and that's just so unfortunate. It's not exactly something I'm attempting to discuss further (not that you can't if you want to of course) I just tend to carry on and on when I don't understand something.

I understand that @supermila talks that way and I too find it annoying as hell when people have opinions that they state like facts. I can't typically hold conversations with these kinds of people however, I happen to think that you are someone who talks the same way. For the longest time I wrote off most of what she said but then I took her tone out of it and realized I agree with a lot more of it than I thought I would. So as much as I get that you two clearly would never understand each other for very obvious reasons I actually think the way both of you speak also plays a role. I just think it's interesting that you say something about her triggering you when I see that similarity in you two and I'm sorry if how you feel about her makes that just super offensive. I know it's hard and if you don't want to cool but Mila could get 34987 poop ratings and keep going so while I understand wanting to stick up for this and fight back against everything she says I just think your energies could be put to much better use. When you're not coming off as overly aggressive I think you have a lot of insight to share and your aggressiveness is understandable. Most people probably still find your aggressive posts helpful. I fully admit to being a sensitive person who has a hard time deciphering language that comes off as angry to me.
P.S. Mila, you just seem like someone I don't have to worry about offending and as you have seen I like/agree with you quite a bit so I hope this doesn't come across as some kind of mila shit talking.

And on a completely different note. The image you shared, black lives vs blue lives. That is by far the most hypocritical and eerie thing that I have seen take place during all of this. I don't typically cut people off completely for any beliefs but seeing the amount of people I knew who shared the hell out of bluelivesmatter images after complaining about blacklivesmatter certainly made my acquaintance, friend and family list shrink.