The problem with Black Lives Matter

[civver_764]

Starting a new thread so as not to derail the other one:

Do you have actual examples of this happening, or is this just a talking point you repeat whose validity you don't know or particularly care about?

From their website:

"Black Lives Matter is an ideological and political intervention in a world where Black lives are systematically and intentionally targeted for demise."

This is a true statement but phrased in a very dishonest way. You can actually say this about any murder victim, but they are trying to make it sound like black people are uniquely affected by this.

Anytime you hear the word "systemic" your BS-meter should be going off. It's nothing more than an attempt to make something sound worse than it is. Trayvon Martin's death wasn't just somebody in a fight getting shot, no, somehow we are all collectively responsible for his death because...well they never really explain that part.

I'm gonna keep this short, there are two key statistics that totally destroyed the myths of Black Lives Matter for me.

In 2016, only 16 unarmed black people were killed by police officers. If black lives were "systemically and intentionally targeted for demise", how on earth did they only manage to kill 16 of them? And if the problem is really systemic, how did the BLM become so popular in the first place? You would expect it to be brutally suppressed by police, wouldn't you? But no, we see the exact opposite. We see police officers standing by while BLM protestors riot and cause disruptions. If they truly thought that "black lives don't matter", then why didn't they shoot all of them?

Of course, we know why they didn't. Because "Black Lives Matter" is actually just a huge strawman. It is so painfully obvious that society does in fact care about the lives of black people.

Here's what I think is the most damning statistic:

According to that, if there is a "systemic" problem, then surely it is black people targeting white people, not the other way around. Of course, I don't really think this is a "systemic" issue, but I'm trying to highlight just how divorced from reality this movement is.

 

[Hygro]

Civver opens with "what about black on black crime," an old build that fell out of popularity against the Sommerswerd "5 paragraphs of calling BS".

I'm not really liking this opener, Hygro--

I'm not liking it either--

But let's see, let's see what he can get done. It all comes down to the defense of the other player.

Yeah, it could catch 'em off guard, this one is all-in guys there's no transition.

 

[Senethro]

Aight so at what point did America stop being systematically racist then. Because it seems reasonable to believe that a nation that kept people as slaves and disenfranchised residents for a few centuries might take a while to shake that legacy off.

Also did you read the article you stole that graph from? It helps contextualize it with more data such as that interracial killings being about 16ish% (my math) of total homicides (on which the FBI has data etc etc).

So your attempt to spin this the as being racial persecution the other way is super dishonest.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

So your attempt to spin this the as being racial persecution the other way is super dishonest.

And yet so unsurprising.

 

[Berzerker]

Slavery, Jim Crow and a drug war - thats more than a couple centuries of systemic persecution

 

[Senethro]

Slavery, Jim Crow and a drug war - thats more than a couple centuries of systemic persecution

Yes it is but best to start with things he has difficulty denying.

 

[Farm Boy]

Would that specific sentence work better for you if you took definition 2 of "demise?" Conveyance or transfer of property or title, then you could post graphs of incarceration statistics if you wanted.

 

[Berzerker]

"Black Lives Matter is an ideological and political intervention in a world where Black lives are systematically and intentionally targeted for demise."

yeah, thats hyperbole as your stats show

my problem with BLM is they endanger others

 

[civver_764]

Would that specific sentence work better for you if you took definition 2 of "demise?" Conveyance or transfer of property or title, then you could post graphs of incarceration statistics if you wanted.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Also from the BLM website, in fact from the paragraph immediately preceding the one the OP plucked his quote from: "When we say Black Lives Matter, we are broadening the conversation around state violence to include all of the ways in which Black people are intentionally left powerless at the hands of the state. We are talking about the ways in which Black lives are deprived of our basic human rights and dignity."

 

[Perfection]

Black people have legitimate grievances against how they are treated by the police.

I'd also like to point out that just because a black man is armed doesn't mean his killing is justified. Philando Castile being a case in point.

 

[civver_764]

Also from the BLM website, in fact from the paragraph immediately preceding the one the OP plucked his quote from: "When we say Black Lives Matter, we are broadening the conversation around state violence to include all of the ways in which Black people are intentionally left powerless at the hands of the state. We are talking about the ways in which Black lives are deprived of our basic human rights and dignity."

That's just a whole lot of abstract nothingness. It doesn't really mean anything, it just sounds scary. Let's keep this in the realm of facts and statistics.

 

[Farm Boy]

I'm not sure the latest graph says what I ?think? it is purporting to say. Does wherever it came from have a link to the FBI publication it used? I'm interested enough I might poke at it, but no promises if it's hella long.

 

[Senethro]

That's just a whole lot of abstract nothingness. It doesn't really mean anything, it just sounds scary. Let's keep this in the realm of facts and statistics.

Don't forget words. When you just copy and paste a sourceless graph without comment then we have to guess what you mean and even how legit any content it has is.

Like your previous post. Where is it from, what do you think the information presented means, and how does it reply to Farm Boy?

 

[Lemon Merchant]

Let's keep this in the realm of facts and statistics.

Ok. Now show us the facts and statistics where a person of color does not fear the police. Hell, I'm as lily white as you can get and even I fear the US police.

 

[civver_764]

I'm not sure the latest graph says what I ?think? it is purporting to say. Does wherever it came from have a link to the FBI publication it used? I'm interested enough I might poke at it, but no promises if it's hella long.

Here you go. Take a look at "offenders by race" and "arrestees by race".

Sorry, I guess I should have been more clear. The graph shows that there is little to no bias in arrest rates. The "black offenders" stat is based on victim testimony, and the "black arrestees" based on police arrests. We can see that in general the police are simply following through on the victims report. If there was bias we would expect to see a lot more black arrestees than black offenders.

 

[Farm Boy]

Ok, that's going to take me more time to poke through than I thought it might. I'll try to get around to it maybe 2nd half this week and see if I actually have any intelligent observations/questions(I might not). Thank you for getting that for me, I appreciate it!

 

[EgonSpengler]

Also take a look at the Data Declarations at the FBI site that Civver linked. They explicitly say that "offenders" are counted more than once for each incident and caution against comparing these two data sets. Whoever created that graph up above didn't do his or her readers any favors.

Offenders – count one for each offender, i.e., Offender Segment; offenders are counted more than once in this table for incidents with multiple offense types.

It is important to note that the arrest offense category may or may not be the same as one of the original offense types reported by the agency in the incident which contains the arrestee. Therefore, the user should exercise caution when comparing tables of offenders by offense category and arrestees by arrest offense category.

 

[civver_764]

Also take a look at the Data Declarations at the FBI site that Civver linked. They explicitly say that "offenders" are counted more than once for each incident and caution against comparing these two data sets. Whoever created that graph up above didn't do his or her readers any favors.

That's a fair point. But I think the consistent trend across all of the offense categories still points to a lack of bias.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Also, that FBI site claims that "Law enforcement agencies collect detailed incident level data regarding individual offenses and arrests and submit them using prescribed data elements and data values", except we know that they don't. For example,

CNN, 9 Oct 2014 - Study finds Boston police target African-Americans disproportionately.

Released jointly by the ACLU and its branch in Massachusetts, the report found that Boston Police gave no justification for 75% of the encounters with citizens and listed the reason for the stop simply as "investigate person."

"No justification" means, at best, Boston police officers weren't filing proper Field Interrogation and Observation reports, so the completeness of any data they submitted to the FBI must at the very least be suspect. That's just Boston, but I doubt BPD are the only ones slacking on their paperwork. fwiw, the ACLU report was based on data from a study BPD commissioned on itself, and the department has made an effort since this report was published to reform their procedures. I've no idea whether it's been successful or not, but it was perhaps illuminating that BPD didn't really argue these findings too strenuously.