There's no statistics for this kind of thing

[Timsup2nothin]

Delayed response to the OP...

This is why you should NEVER get within arms reach of a cop, or speak to them, without a recording device streaming to a remote location. The guy's mistake was opening the door. When they knock, the proper response is "I have a camera pointed at the door, so when you kick your way through you better have a warrant."

 

[Lexicus]

This is a joke, right? You can't seriously think that looking at random cases you find by googling can give you an objective view of what is happening. Especially that Gawker link, who the hell would actually copy-paste that link instead of thinking: "Nah. Naaah. That link would probably make me look stupid."?

Well, I already knew you aggressively avoid coming anywhere near something vaguely resembling a clue.

I also find it fairly amusing that you'd think I care about looking stupid to the likes of you.

Just for fun, let's pose a question: what evidence would make you admit that there is a problem with racism in US police departments?

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Just for fun, let's pose a question: what evidence would make you admit that there is a problem with racism in US police departments?

I know the answer to that one...if US police departments had a sudden crisis of conscience and started self reporting. But since the reporting agency is the same as the offending agency and no crisis of conscience is likely, Ryika remains comfortably convinced that all is hunky-dory.

 

[Commodore]

Well done commodore. With a single reference to a high profile murder case from 20 years ago, the thread has been derailed into talking about posters and insults.

With the precious cops successfully white knighted once again, shall we close the thread and move on?

I just wanted to make a joke. I now realize humor has no place in CFC OT.

 

[Lexicus]

I just wanted to make a joke. I now realize humor has no place in CFC OT.

Huh, that's funny, because I seem to recall you being pretty butthurt when I made a joke about Scalia the other day...

 

[Ryika]

Just for fun, let's pose a question: what evidence would make you admit that there is a problem with racism in US police departments?

Note how you've moved the goal-post from this:

There isn't much discussion to be had, there is manifestly an enormous problem with racism in the US justice system, many police departments are not just "structurally racist" but full of bigoted white supremacists who'd be Brownshirts if they were transplanted to Germany during the 20s.

Is anyone really surprised that some people are willing to go to any lengths to deny the problem or that others are minimizing it with jokes about OJ Simpson? I mean, you want to talk about getting away with murder, the police get away with murder pretty much on a daily basis. The officer who shot Akai Gurley dead and then had a text conversation with his union rep instead of administering first aid is getting off with community service, for Christ's sake. I mean to be a cop charged with murder you have to literally shoot a man in the back as he runs away and get caught on film doing it.

To:

what evidence would make you admit that there is a problem with racism in US police departments?

But sure, I'll answer that question. Not much evidence. In fact, I am convinced there is a problem with racism in US police departments, as I said in a previous post: Racism probably widens the gap between black and white crime statistics.

If the OP didn't make the claim that the effect is so big that we can in fact not trust any statistics to be even vaguely representing reality, and if you didn't claim discrimination to be a problem much larger than any data has ever shown, in fact so far that your argument is inconsistent with the data available, we'd not have a disagreement at all.

Or in other words: Stop pushing the narrative into the extreme and stick to the facts then I'd have nothing to even oppose. Instead what you do is say something ridiculous, be called out for how ridiculous your statement was and then conclude that the people making fun about your nonsense must totally be racists who deny the real problem that you've never touched upon in the first place. If you want a serious discussion don't say things a lunatic would say.

 

[Commodore]

Huh, that's funny, because I seem to recall you being pretty butthurt when I made a joke about Scalia the other day...

Like I said, humor has no place in CFC OT.

 

[Lexicus]

If the OP didn't make the claim that the effect is so big that we can in fact not trust any statistics to be even vaguely representing reality, and if you didn't claim discrimination to be a problem much larger than any data has ever shown, in fact so far that your argument is inconsistent with the data available, we'd not have a disagreement at all.

In what way is my argument inconsistent with "the data available" (which you are definitely not an authority on in any case)? Nothing I said was factually inaccurate- the Brownshirt thing was not intended to be a statement of fact, obviously.

In any case your obsession with "the data" is wrongheaded for a couple of reasons, as Hygro pointed out in the OP the crime statistics are themselves filtered through a lens of racism. There is no comprehensive data on racial discrimination by the police AFAIK, and finally racism and discrimination have a qualitative aspect which cannot be captured by quantitative data.

 

[Senethro]

I just wanted to make a joke. I now realize humor has no place in CFC OT.

Yeah, what was the punchline though? Black guy got away with murder therefore rasism don't real?

Of course, the real punchline you didn't intend by bringing OJ up is that racist cops failed to get a conviction because they were so racist and incompetent that they just had to manufacture extra evidence, thus undermining the case. Now that is funny in a really awful tragic kind of way.

Racism hurts everyone and you should stop trying to find excuses for it.

 

[Commodore]

Racism hurts everyone and you should stop trying to find excuses for it.

1. Where did I make any excuses for racism?

2. Don't lecture me or take a lecturing tone with me. Don't tell me what I should do and shouldn't do either. I am reasonably sure you are significantly younger than me and have considerably less life experience than I do, and I take great offense when someone with less experience (and thus, less perspective) tries to talk to me like they are my superior.

 

[Farm Boy]

Ah, foehunting. It's an interesting urge.

 

[W|M]

Like I said, humor has no place in CFC OT.

Maybe you just don't have a sense of humour

 

[Hygro]

I'll quote my very best friend here:

Haha I remember when I was an RA, one of my kids was from the outer edge of the Sacramento Suburbs. His dad's close friend lived there, was a cop in Oakland and around my resident and his dad was openly hateful of black people. Dude literally lived in a white enclave 115 miles away from the largely black city he policed. Live as far away from black people as possible while still going to where they live en masse to exert authority over them.

Again, dunno what your block is on this issue. You'll construct a reasonable narrative, but not a secure one, of why crime stats could be accurate, due to poverty, (and perhaps the relationship to poverty and the drug war). But how about the more demonstrated and effectively studied relationship between authoritarian personalities and a) increased beliefs in racial hierarchy or division as well as b) a preference toward police work? Why does that invite your skepticism, that a chunk of them are the persons who would be the brownshirts etc.?

I think there's a pretty straightforward case that we managed to push the recreational drug industry onto the urban poor, specifically black folk. And it's pretty straightforward that industries without sanction still require policing, and in the absent of policing, disruptions to distribution, be in competition, theft, snitches, etc., policing has to be done by the drug firms ("gangs") and you are going to embolden a small section of the agents of these drug firms who are already predisposed power hungry youths (as that's common among all demos, just that becoming a lawyer is an easier way to do it for many) who don't even expect to live to see 30 to adopt something of a fighter ethos so as to be able to withstand the rigors of enforcing contracts and order in their markets.

Of course disrupting those markets by policing internal enforcement of contract violations instead of policing the contract violations themselves is only going to keep rival firms in flux and prevent a peaceful equilibrium from arising, generating more policing against internal enforcement of contracts That would literally be institutionally racist policing causing a demo-specific crime spike, aka the cops are driving the murders even if not committing them.

Like I said, humor has no place in CFC OT.

I liked your joke, even if it didn't contain the nugget of truth it pretended to.

and finally racism and discrimination have a qualitative aspect which cannot be captured by quantitative data.

Which is the point of the thread, and again why you run into problems waiting for statistics by the police departments themselves to report that they actually beat a dude up because prejudice and that they could, and then arrest him for something he didn't do.... in fact the only stat collected is the arrest for the thing he didn't do!

 

[rah]

In Chicago, city employees are required to live in the city. It doesn't mean they life in racially diverse neighborhoods, but at least they're in the same city.

 

[Hygro]

When I lived in Chicago it felt like I was living in the only racially diverse neighborhood in the city. Most places seemed really segregated.

 

[trader/warrior]

There isn't much discussion to be had, there is manifestly an enormous problem with racism in the US justice system, many police departments are not just "structurally racist" but full of bigoted white supremacists who'd be Brownshirts if they were transplanted to Germany during the 20s.

I do think an important takeaway from this article would be more towards how pervasive the "structural" bit can be, and how it manifests in the field.

The event described in the article involved one white policewoman and two black policemen, the white officer and one black officer perpetrated the assault while the other black officer, while apparently not participating, ended up writing this article but did not report the event to the authorities and did not correct the officer who claimed assault when he had witnessed it was a lie.

I doubt any of these officers were of the brownshirt white supremacist variant, but they still perpetrated this horrible event, this shows just how important it is to remember how significantly "just" structural racism can affect the actions of people you would never have thought to be racist.

 

[GoodEnoughForMe]

I think when I lived in Chicago I feel like I was living in the only racially diverse neighborhood in the city. Most places seemed really segregated.

Most segregated city in the US, actually, but also one of the most diverse. It's not surprising that it has been the site of prominent police reform movements.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

There may not even have been any racism involved in this particular case. There is no real proof that the blue thugs would have conducted themselves any differently had the guy at the door been white.

 

[trader/warrior]

There may not even have been any racism involved in this particular case. There is no real proof that the blue thugs would have conducted themselves any differently had the guy at the door been white.

You might of course be right. But that brings us back to the thread topic, there's no proof because its the police who make the statistics and reports with little oversight.

I am basically taking the anecdotal evidence of the officer writing this article on his word that this kind of event disproportionately affects minorities to a huge extent, and combined with all the earlier controversies and events of racism in US police, so I conclude that this is probably right. Though I certainly wouldn't expect you to ever take a police officer on his word, and I do know that US police (and police elsewhere) have a surprising ability to inflict violence upon almost anyone.

 

[Ryika]

I am basically taking the anecdotal evidence of the officer writing this article on his word that this disproportionately affects minorities to a huge extent combined with all the earlier controversies and events of racism in US police, so I conclude that this is probably right.

That's selection bias though. "What he says matches the extreme cases we've seen in the past." - yeah, obviously. But how many cases are that compared to the overall number of cases? How many thousands upon thousands of cases every day happen without anything problematic to be reported? You only see the extreme cases, you simply cannot look at these and then draw the conclusion that that's "probably what's happening everywhere all the time."