(06-06-2020 11:28 PM)At Ease Wrote:  

(06-06-2020 07:16 PM)illiniowl Wrote:  

(06-06-2020 10:01 AM)At Ease Wrote:  

(06-06-2020 08:17 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(06-06-2020 08:07 AM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  The protests are about systemic issues in our law enforcement system.

Issues? Yes, definitely. Systemic? I question that.

Police killed 235 blacks and 370 whites last year, the vast majority of them in situations where the killings were reasonably justified. The ones that weren't have been subjected to the criminal justice system. That does not justify an assertion of "systemic" issues.

Obviously from the coronavirus thread, you are familiar with the concept of per capita, so it's sad to see you frame the numbers to back the conclusion you desired.

Adjust these for the relative distribution of black (12%) and white (61-72%) residents in the US, and you'll see that blacks are significantly more likely to be killed by the police. The % of these deaths that involved an unarmed resident are higher for blacks as well. These numbers are also reflected in the general use of force by police, as Minneapolis PD used violence 7x more frequently with blacks.


And not directed at you specifically, but it is amusing how the same people who so vehemently react to being lumped with racists politically, fail to realize how those protestations lose any credibility when they feel the need to mock the obvious systemic issues of racial discrimination with our police forces.

In 2019 there were 28 police shootings of unarmed suspects. These would be the most likely to be unjustified. 19 were white, 9 were black. So no, the percentage of deaths-by-police of unarmed citizens is *not* higher for blacks than whites.

Now these totals and ratios do vary from year to year and it's not always more whites than blacks -- in 2015 it was 38 blacks, 32 whites -- but this is because these are infinitesimally small fractions of the much larger and more stable numbers of all police fatal shootings (about 1000 per year), all police gun discharges (3000 per year), all arrests (10 million per year), and all encounters (50 million per year).

But anyway, let's consider the argument that the fact that blacks consistently make up around 25% of the 1000 fatal shootings per year proves "obvious" and "systemic" police racism (ignoring the facts that nearly all the shootings are lawful, most big cities are progressive-dominated and shouldn't be hotbeds of racism, and the thorough racial integration of the police) because blacks are 13% of the population.

The inconvenient fact is that police do not shoot people randomly. It is "a function of how often officers encounter armed and violent suspects" and in this regard, according to the last available data year, blacks were responsible for 53% of murders and 60% of robberies. Thus, they actually lose their lives at the hands of police at a far lesser rate than what the crime rate would predict.

Studies also have shown "no significant evidence of antiblack disparity in the likelihood of being fatally shot by police" and that white officers have been less likely to shoot unarmed black suspects than black or Hispanic officers.

It's only "obvious" and "systemic" because of confirmation bias. You believe it, without sufficient evidence, and then when an outlier event happens in line with your belief, it reinforces it.

Nowhere have I tried to convince you it is ""obvious"" and ""systemic"". Those are beliefs I have built from my life experiences and from detailed articles like these, but obviously nothing I say is going to change yours, #'s, or anyone else's opinion, especially when Heather Mac Donald is there to provide a more comforting narrative. My only point was to: 1) convey how it looks-- if you're not a racist in the same way that blacks being on the receiving end of police violence 7x more frequently than whites (source, NYT) is not racist, then, uh..; and 2) if you are going to throw out numbers to dismiss the anger/concerns of the black community and justify the LAW AND ORDER !!!1! status quo, then don't pick ones that directly counter your conclusion.

Simplistic comparisons to raw population numbers are not statistically sound (but they're useful for advancing a "narrative," I"ll give you that). Crime rates matter - violent crime rates especially so when we are talking about police use of deadly force. The crime rate isn't made up...victims can't be invented just to support a narrative. The police are disproportionately going to be where the crime disproportionately is (the victims are disproportionately black, too; should we ask them if they're in favor of less policing in their neighborhoods?), and that has to inform drawing conclusions from the data.

Or you can form the equivalent of an unassailable religious belief about the collective behavior of hundreds of thousands of police officers from anecdotes, and then scream "RACIST!!!" at anyone who disagrees. You're right -- it's not convincing.