Thinking it Through

[Isaac]

Some of my latest thoughts on this -

There is a fairly broad consensus on just "police brutality". There is a smaller amount of consensus on "police brutality because of racism towards blacks". Insert the whole racism and you open up a lot more debate.

Thus, the way we will be most likely to be able to move forward effectively and meaningfully on police brutality as a nation is if we just address it as THAT, and leave off the remaining opinions on race. Since there is a fairly broad consensus that police over-use of force does exist, and ought to be rectified if at all possible. I know I can't be alone in thinking this, since Congress has basically approached it this way so far in legislation.

I'm not saying that racism is not a worthy issue, but just that "adding" it to police brutality automatically takes the issue from something everyone is on board with, to get all bogged down in 1000 layers of discussion. Those were my thoughts for the day.

 

[moke123]

You may be using too narrow of a definition of racism while ignoring implicit bias which is something we all have.
We do it unconsciously.

a couple interesting quotes about implicit bias:

Studies have shown that a person's level of implicit racial bias predicts the amount of shooter bias — meaning, how much easier it is to shoot African Americans compared with white people in a video game situation. And when researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder and California State University Northridge reviewed a decade of empirical evidence about cops and implicit bias in 2012, they found police officers seem to possess implicit bias that might make them more likely to shoot black suspects than white ones.

A telling example was played out recently on a television show called “What Would You Do?” In this show three young actors were sent into a park separately to “steal” a bicycle. One actor was a young white man, one a young black man and one a young white woman. The young white man worked for quite a while, including using various tools, to break the lock on the bicycle he was “stealing” and was seen by many people before someone finally stopped him. The young black man hardly had a chance to start working on the lock when he had gathered a crowd who all insisted that he stop. The young white woman was working on breaking the lock when a man stopped and offered to help her!

The youtube of the tv show is interesting

 

[Jon]

@moke123 Let me explain how I believe others think about this situation.

A telling example was played out recently on a television show called “What Would You Do?” In this show three young actors were sent into a park separately to “steal” a bicycle. One actor was a young white man, one a young black man and one a young white woman. The young white man worked for quite a while, including using various tools, to break the lock on the bicycle he was “stealing” and was seen by many people before someone finally stopped him. The young black man hardly had a chance to start working on the lock when he had gathered a crowd who all insisted that he stop. The young white woman was working on breaking the lock when a man stopped and offered to help her!

Imagine it was 70 years ago, you are black and you live in Alabama. There is a fork in the road. The left route takes you through a black neighbourhood on the way to your destination, and the right route takes you through a white neighbourhood. The black person has to make a decision. Both are equal distance to their destination. As a black person, which route would you take, given no other information? I think we know the answer. Why? Because he is thinking probabilistically. He knows there is a higher risk of getting lynched if alone in the white neighbourhood than if alone in the black neighbourhood.

Given the above, let me ask you a couple of questions:

1. Is he acting irrationally?

2. Is he being racist?

I think we all know the truth that he is neither being racist nor being irrational. Or moke, do you think he is?

If you encounter a pitbull or a poodle, you might treat each differently, even if you know that each individual dog has their own personality. It is just a risk assessment.

If you take out house insurance, they will assess your risk based on postcode. Is that bias or just rational? They use the statistics to assess risk. If they don't, they go bust. End of insurance company.

Now lets take the "telling example" of someone trying to "steal" a bicycle. If you are black, you are more than twice as likely to do theft than if you are white. Source: https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2017/crime-in-the-u.s.-2017/tables/table-43

If you want insurance against bicycle theft in a black neighbourhood, the insurance cost will be higher than if in the average of all white neighbourhoods. Is the insurance company being biased or rational?

So, given no other information, if you see a black person looking like they are stealing a bicycle, the statistics say they are twice as likely to do theft than whites. Is it irrational to factor that into your perceptions? If it is rational, then it would explain the behaviour shown in the video.

If you believe it is irrational to factor that in, then why do you factor that in when looking at things like police brutality, saying blacks are more likely to be affected? Using statistics to support that argument means you believe in using probability to support your perceptions. Do you want to only use probability when it supports one of your arguments, but then ignore it for the inconvenient one?

 

[Steve R.]

You may be using too narrow of a definition of racism while ignoring implicit bias which is something we all have.
We do it unconsciously.

Bias exists. Nevertheless, I find it troubling that these examples seem structured to "document" racism on the part of Whites. There are many factors that need to be considered.

As a humorous observation. Jesse Waters has a type of "Man on the Street" interview where he asks, usually college students out partying on winter break, obvious questions, like: "In what year did the colonies declare their independence?". Some of the responses shown have been absurd. Since these "interviews" are being done for entertainment, I will assume that many of those giving a correct response, in many cases, have been edited out of the "interview".

Let me toss out this (overblown) concept. Brooks, was a Black man killed by a White police officer (Rolfe). The outrage went out into the Atlanta community that this was another example of police brutality against the Blacks, Now the White police officer is being charged by Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard, who is Black, for murder. Howard, in those charges seems to have selectively presented facts in a biased manner injurious to the White police officer. Consequently, we could say that Howard, a Black man, was turning his charges against Rolfe into a racial incident. (Think of all those cases were the Black community has been outraged over White prosecuters overcharging Black individuals.) It appears that if a Black person goes out of his/her way to inappropriately attack a White person, no one cares. That is not equal justice.

 

[AccessBlaster]

How do you rationalise that?

There is a hidden agenda. We tend to look at the numbers as though it's USA problem, as you can see it has spilled over to other countries in part because of the media over-inflating the issues.

If you start from the total population of the united states / all police encounters / then by ethnicity / death at the hands of police/ then by justified / I think the number is even lower by comparison.

 

[Jon]

I believe in tackling the root cause of problems. If it is just racism, then lets tackle that. But I believe there is a tendency (compulsion?) for the left to blame everything on racism. For me, I think the picture is far more complex. Racism has an impact to a degree. But don't turn a blind eye to other factors that you find inconvenient, because they do not sit nicely with your ideology.

The black on black homicide talked about in these recent posts is a major issue that cannot be just left to others outside of the black community. It requires internal cultural shifts and attitudinal change. If the left do not want to talk about this issue, they are doing the black communities no favours whatsoever. You will never solve or make decent headway if you turn a blind eye to important issues. In fact, you are harming those you claim to want to protect. You perpetuate the situation, leaving the root causes to do its nasty work.

As for the riots, it is all just misplaced hysteria. A rising up of anger around the world against racism, sparked by a non-racist incident, as far as we currently know.

Does anyone here know what the major cause of black on black homicide is? Is it drug wars or something along those lines? Dealers shooting one another?

Incidentally, I think homicide is just the tip of the spear. What about all the violence, theft, vandalism and so on that brings misery and fear to these neightbourhoods? The human cost is considerable.

Eight years of Obama presidency and it takes Trump to take action on police reform. Biting the hand that feeds you is not going to help.

 

[Steve R.]

As for the riots, it is all just misplaced hysteria. A rising up of anger around the world against racism, sparked by a non-racist incident, as far as we currently know.

The left was looking for an incident. Whether the incident was valid or not, was irrelevant. Obvioulsy they were extremely successful at inflaming the mob.

PS: I was chastised on another forum for using the word "hysteria". The Orwellian thought police must have forgotten send me the memo that that word had been depreciated.

Does anyone here know what the major cause of black on black homicide is? Is it drug wars or something along those lines? Dealers shooting one another?

Not directly. Indirectly, a significant amount of blame for the decline of the Black community (and the rise of crime) has been attributed to the implementation of the "Great Society" (implemented 60 years ago). The assertion has been made that the Black community has essentially become a "ward of the State" through programs such as welfare and affirmative action which have "destroyed" the Black nuclear family. Consequently, many black male children are growing up without fathers, who would otherwise serve as a role model.

Going a step further, the demands of those rioting would seem to affirm that the Black community feels entitled to more "free" stuff from the government.

A sample article: "How absent fathers are hurting African American boys". Of course, I also ran across some headlines for articles that appear to want to dismiss the concept of absent fathers as being a negative factor. From the article:

According to the latest Census figures, about 50 percent of African American boys under age 17 live with a mother only, compared with 16 percent of their white counterparts. Research shows that children in fatherless homes are more likely to drop out of school, exhibit behavioral problems, end up in the criminal justice system, suffer unemployment, and are at a greater risk of substance and drug abuse.

 

[Jon]

The absent fathers issue is one of the reasons I mentioned cultural change. That has to come from within the community.

It is a pity that many on the left wants to close down the debate with those of more Conservative viewpoints. Trying to shame others into your viewpoint will just push it underground. It creates division and hostility. Let debate flourish without fear of reprimand. Oppression and tyranny have no place in modern society. Then we get back to the freedom of speech issue. And we all go around in circles!

Take the debates here. Has anyone actually changed their mind? I doubt it!!

 

[Steve R.]

Why don't "social justice" warriors, such as Colin Kaepernick, never seem to demand that professional sports be appropriately balanced by "identity politics" as their commitment to diversity? Seems that all professional sports should have 50% women. A certain percentage of all players should be members of the LGBTQ community. All basketball teams should have an equal number of White, Asian, and Hispanic players; an "average" height based on national height averages since short people are currently being excluded. The "social justice" warriors started down this path, they need to live by it.

Just thought of another example. Obama beat Hillary in getting the Democratic nomination for President. He won the election and was re-elected. Since he could not serve another term, he came out stating that it was time for a woman to be elected President. Well, if that was the the case and he truly believed what he said, he should have graciously stepped aside to let Hillary get the Democratic nomination.

 

[Jon]

While I disagree with a lot of what the left says, I do agree from the perspective that it would be great if the black community had less poverty. Whatever the differences between left and right, whatever the underlying causes, for me, an improvement in education, higher average income, reduction in crime and so on is a positive thing. I think its all going to take a long time, but great progress has already been made. Equal rights under the law is now given. No more excluding someone from a cafe because they are black. After rapid early gains, smaller more subtle improvements will take time due to diminishing returns, in my view.

We all know there is the "sent to jail, get released, reoffend" cycle that goes on. If that can get broken somehow, it would be a step in the right direction. I'm a great believer in the bootcamp model. Part of the problem could be that with an absent father, there may be a reduction in good habits and discipline. Young black men could do with some decent roll models. By going to bootcamp, you get those drilled into your system. It gives people a chance. In some ways, I wish I was forced to go to bootcamp when I was a kid because I was damn lazy! It would have helped me throughout my life.

I read Mike Tysons biography. What a chaotic childhood! If you want an idea of life in the ghetto, read that one. When you are surrounded by violence, crime and chaos, it is so easy to get sucked up into it. It is a vicious circle. We need to flip it and get a virtuous circle.

The above is just my laymans understanding of it all. It is like a complex jigsaw and we need to identify where the pieces should go. Hopefully we will complete the picture over time.

 

[isladogs]

We all know there is limited time and resources. Given that, you need to allocate it efficiently to maximise your return. It is easy to say "tackle everything", but then you have the practical issue of allocating resources. Do you want to split them 50:50, or in accordance with the size of each issue? If you spend most of the energy on police brutality, and little of it on the biggest cause of black homicide, then you will save less lives.

Just looking at some data, it says that in 2019, 235 blacks were killed by cops. Source: https://www.statista.com/statistics/585152/people-shot-to-death-by-us-police-by-race/

I cannot find the data for 2019, so the next best is from 2016. Out of 2,870 black homicides, 2,570 were black offenders. Source: https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u....016/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-3.xls

So lets break that down. I will use 2016 and 2019 figures as though they are the same year, just to get an idea.

Black on black homicides = 2570/2870 = 90%

Police on black fatal shootings = 235/2870 = 8%

Worldwide riots for the 8%, silence for the 90%. Of that 8%, only a percentage of those deaths will be from police brutality. So if you look at the big picture, it is relatively small. If you want to argue that police brutality is not something small in absolute terms, then the 10x - 20x of black on black homicide, by your own argument, will be considered massive. Yet you feel that it is off-base to allocate a proportionate amount of energy and focus on a massive problem. Everything is back to front. Nearly all the energy and outrage is focusing on the small part, with whatever is left over for the massive part.

How do you rationalise that?

In my opinion, you continue to use statistics selectively in order to try and justify a point of view or perhaps your bias.
Using your same data sources and calendar years (as though they were the same year, which is in itself dubious as you've suggested) ….

The same US statistics for 2016 show there were 3499 homicides for white people of which 2854 were committed by white offenders. 2854/3499=81.6%. Once again, overwhelmingly by the same ethnic group. Using the same over simplistic argument as you did, should not funds be devoted to dealing with the overwhelming rate of homicides of whites-on-whites?

Your data source states there were 370 white people killed by police shootings in 2019. 370/3499 = 10.6%.

So you can apply the same dubious logic to the white US population as to the black US population.
Just as with your arguments, that really proves very little.

All fatalities caused by police action should automatically be investigated (as is the case in the UK) and where appropriate should be followed up with charges for criminal offences (which only very rarely happens in the UK)

 

[Jon]

Interesting perspective. I will, naturally, have to show you that your arguments here hold no water.

Firstly, you can say using different calendar years is dubious, but it does give a broad idea of the size of the problem. It is indicative. As the numbers get larger, you get less swings in the size of the data from adjacent years.

The same US statistics for 2016 show there were 3499 homicides for white people of which 2854 were committed by white offenders. 2854/3499=81.6%. Once again, overwhelmingly by the same ethnic group. Using the same over simplistic argument as you did, should not funds be devoted to dealing with the overwhelming rate of homicides of whites-on-whites?

I am afraid to say you have completely missed the point of my argument. Lets break this down into two areas:

Firstly, whites are not rioting against police brutality against whites. There is not the huge amount of focus, energy and campaigning of police brutality against whites. But blacks are spending nearly all the focus on police brutality against blacks. That is a distinct difference between the two situations. My argument clearly states that it is about where to spend the energy and resources. If you were allocating time and resources to minimise homicide to whites, then indeed you should spend nearly all your time and funds on white on white homicide. And that is what is currently happening. But it is not happening with black homicide. So I do not understand why you have ignored the disparity between these two situations, or why you think I would argue against devoting funds to dealing with white on white homicide for that group.

Secondly, you ignore the much higher homicide rate in the black community and so the problem is much bigger. Let's look at the numbers for 2016.

Percentage of white homicides by other whites by white population: 2,854 offenders / 195,883,246 white population = 0.001456% risk
Percentage of black homicides by other blacks by black population: 2,570 offenders / 43,457,541 black population = 0.0059% risk

So, what is the relative risk between the two populations? Divide one by the other.

The result is that black on black homicide occurs at 4 times the rate of white on white homicide. That is a big problem, do you not agree?

Your data source states there were 370 white people killed by police shootings in 2019. 370/3499 = 10.6%.

So you can apply the same dubious logic to the white US population as to the black US population.
Just as with your arguments, that really proves very little.

What you said there makes no sense. You haven't stating what logic you are referring to.

You have failed to rationalise your comments. My argument is about the need to effectively allocate resources to where they are needed the most. You seem to be arguing with yourself about something I am not arguing about. Setting up straw-man arguments will convince no one.

You also pretend that the situation between the black and white communities is the same regarding homicide, but they are not. You ignore the difference between where the black and white communities are focusing their efforts and outrage.

I think we all know who's arguments are over simplistic.

 

[isladogs]

My arguments were designed to what I believe to be fallacies in your use of statistics and conclusions arising from that.

I was referring to your own logical assumptions.

As for your final statement, whoever the 'we' are 'who all know' whose arguments are over simplistic, try reading my post again without prejudice and you'll find I didn't actually state what my own views are.

 

[Jon]

But you haven't stated what you think the fallacy is. You haven't stated why you think the logic is dubious. You haven't stated what you think is a faulty conclusion. You just criticised my logic saying it is faulty. I've pointed out very clearly why your argument holds no water, point by point. Yet your vague comments don't expose any fallacies whatsoever.

I would be interested to hear, perhaps a bit more clearly, what errors of logic you think I have made.

By "we", I am referring to those thinking rationally about both our arguments.

 

[isladogs]

I have stated the fallacies in your argument and from that why your logic is dubious.
I disagree that you have clearly stated anything of the kind.

So, by your argument, anyone who disagrees with your logic is not thinking rationally.

 

[pbaldy]

Several comments here reminded me of a columnist I read regularly, Walter Williams. He is an economics professor and for what it’s worth black. Here’s a recent article that discusses some of those issues:

http://walterewilliams.com/the-true-plight-of-black-americans/

Regarding poverty, an older article of his notes:

The Census Bureau pegs the poverty rate among blacks at 35 percent and among whites at 13 percent. The illegitimacy rate among blacks is 72 percent, and among whites it's 30 percent. A statistic that one doesn't hear much about is that the poverty rate among black married families has been in the single digits for more than two decades, currently at 8 percent. For married white families, it's 5 percent.

It can be inferred that marital/family status is a much greater indicator/cause of poverty than race.

In other articles he has noted that black unemployment was actually lower than whites until the 50’s or 60’s. It’s gotten worse during a time when racial discrimination went down. I won’t speculate on why, but it would imply racial discrimination isn’t the major cause.

 

[Jon]

@isladogs Is this one of them?

The same US statistics for 2016 show there were 3499 homicides for white people of which 2854 were committed by white offenders. 2854/3499=81.6%. Once again, overwhelmingly by the same ethnic group. Using the same over simplistic argument as you did, should not funds be devoted to dealing with the overwhelming rate of homicides of whites-on-whites?

What is the fallacy here?

So, by your argument, anyone who disagrees with your logic is not thinking rationally.

It seems that you started off saying I was not being rational. But I can clearly see how you are not being rational. And I have pointed out why.

Colin, you just don't know how to use statistics properly. You made a straw-man argument.

 

[Jon]

It can be inferred that marital/family status is a much greater indicator/cause of poverty than race.

That is a good argument. It helps give clarity to where the problem is. If you have an ethnic group where there are a lot of absent fathers, then you can at least understand perhaps part of the cause for the poverty. Only then can you effectively tackle some of the root causes.

 

[isladogs]

Well there we disagree and are unlikely to ever agree.
Although you believe you are good with statistics, in my opinion you use them selectively to promote your own viewpoint/bias.

Once again, I will point out that I haven't actually stated what my views are.
I have only used the same statistics as yourself.
Do try not to personalise any disagreement with your stated opinions.

 

[moke123]

Just to add fuel to the fire, the UCR is notoriously unreliable as it is a voluntary reporting system and not all jurisdictions participate. I believe it is being replaced by NIBRS. The UCR does not include many crime categories.