If Mort Divine ruled the world

[Einherjar86]

What is the issue/problem? That blacks are often anxious around the police?

Saying "prone to targeting" comes off sounding, again, like they are so many herd of deer just doing their thing and then bam, Bambi Killers strike. Law enforcement are paid to enforce the law. YBMs are prone to breaking the law, particularly in violent ways (relative to other populations), thus attracting law enforcement and creating situations which are more likely to be violent in nature. If we set a standard that a suspect has to kill or nearly kill a cop to determine lethal intent, you're going to get 100% SWATified police departments (already moving in that direction as it is). The final solution of BLM et al is for everyone to be anxious around the cops. Kind of like communist equality was to make everyone starve.

Indeed, it's a vicious cycle. Seems premature to just settle on the side of law enforcement and assume justifiable intent.

I'm not saying to ignore the specific facts of a given case, but I think it's conceptually (i.e. theoretically) vital that we keep in mind the structures of meaning that inform behavior and decisions, even irrational ones. This isn't for the purpose of maintaining those structures, but rather for hopefully ameliorating relations between opposed parties.

I can understand this. If one has consumed an education of victimhood ideology, no amount of agency (or aid) will help them.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/27/opinion/sunday/the-real-victims-of-victimhood.html

I could post a near infinite amount of psych literature on the benefits of "self efficacy" or "internal locus of control".

A clever baiting! But I won't bite...

Liberal education has had numerous deleterious effects, from the weakening of subjective agency, to the "social construction = easily changeable" equivocation, to the weirdly persistent insinuation that there is no reality, only language.

All of these are potentially dangerous ideas when posed as mere speculative or imaginative possibilities, hence the new elective approach to identity politics: "I identify as black because I feel black." (and hence why I'm opposed to identity politics) Education needs to follow through and remind its students that these are conceptual tools, means for navigating complex social problems: like, which came first??? black criminality, or violence against blacks.

It's pointless to try and solve the problem linearly/singularly when it's a multifaceted issue.

 

[Jimmy... Dead.]

How bout a little positivity in this thread.

This is actually fuckin awesome

http://brobible.com/life/article/rapper-the-game-officer-norman/

 

[Dak]

Yeah I saw the thing about Snoop and The Game, impressed with that.

 

[Jimmy... Dead.]

guy is great
https://www.instagram.com/p/BHunEICAQYE/

 

[CiG]

This is great!

 

[Jimmy... Dead.]

 

[Funerary_Doom]

Why can't neighborhood watch follow people? I think he was doing it voluntarily anyways.

Watching and following are not the same thing. He did his "job" once he called the police.

never mentioned an altercation in his call to his girlfriend. He just said he was being followed and wanted to teach Zimmerman a lesson. Neighbors only called 911 once they heard Zimmerman screaming for help. There isn't 100% perfect evidence for one case or the other, but the evidence in general leans towards Martin instigating the entire conflict.

This is where we disagree. I think in terms of criminality the intention is very important to look at. Zimmerman approached the situation with a gun, Martin did not. And before all the gun people come for me, but one could speculate that him having the gun gave him that reassurance to continue on with his dangerous "investigation" though he was told not to. I'm not saying that guns are bad, but I'm saying that he created a dangerous situation because he had a gun. Therefore, he should be held responsible for creating that situation. That's how I see manslaughter, his actions lead to the situation.

Simply being followed is not sufficient to demonstrate fear for your life, unless maybe it's an active chase (e.g. if a woman was literally running from a big silent dude chasing her, I don't think people would complain about her shooting in self-defense). Martin was sitting on top of Zimmerman for around 30 seconds and had hit him multiple times. Castle Doctrine laws will result in some people being shot unjustly and the shooter getting away with it, but that can happen with anything. The alternative is that people shooting in self-defense are now assumed guilty of homicide unless they can prove they had no other choice.

If George Zimmerman wasn't doing the provoking and Martin approached him, and a similar situation went down then I could see that being more self defense because he did not approach a dangerous situation with a weapon. If you have a weapon like that, I think an added responsibility of excercising caution should be the expectation.

 

[Funerary_Doom]

I thought the whole reason police even had an interaction with him was because someone called 911 complaining that Sterling had threatened him/her with a gun, which it turned out he did actually have on his person? Maybe I'm confused.

Mostly what I've known from this case have been from reading the articles here. I'm not sure about the 911 call. The cops didn't seem as though they knew he had a gun in the video. I mean if they were aware they should've disarmed him before.

I have a problem with just calling every black person that has a run-in with the law a "thug" and I actually agree that in a way it is a gutless version of calling someone a n***er, but there is also a place for the word and a threatening bootlegger with a criminal history and "goldfronts" in his mouth who probably called himself a thug or celebrated thug culture through entertainment with a gun he had illegally is possibly it.

Heh, idk, I guess. I'm from an urban neighborhood and no one uses the word "thug" seriously unless they are an older uptight person or just prejudice and trying to hide it, but I suppose it can be different within other places too.

man shot in his car who was legally armed was not a thug in my opinion, Sterling though? Very debatable.

Agreed on the first part. Sterling, I just don't know. More so the point I guess I was trying to make was that just because he might have been perceived as some to be a menace, doesn't mean he deserved that situation and the cops handled it poorly.

To the race part, sure thug is more commonly used for blacks but blacks also commonly sag their pants, wear teeth jewellery, glorify "gangsta" culture, so on and so forth. But I have actually seen people call white delinquent types thugs, seen it a lot with Hispanics abd Latinos too. Hell, seen it with Asian gang types.

Hispanics I often include when I say black, tbh because they usually live in similar or within the same communities as African Americans. Asians typically don't, at least in NY/urban neighborhoods. Idk I guess I was being hotheaded with the word, but it's a bit outdated and yeah the double meaning that it can have.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

Is there any evidence that Martin knew Zimmerman had a gun? The gun had nothing to do with the situation until Martin got on top of him. iirc, Zimmerman even claimed that he shot Martin after Martin discovered the holstered gun and attempted to grab it (although that is probably impossible to verify). Why should patrolling a neighborhood be a dangerous situation? It was a previously nice neighborhood that had growing cases of break-ins. The only ones creating a dangerous situation are ones initiating crimes, including violent ones like Martin had started. What you're saying is that people should just avoid dangerous situations entirely; sound advice if we're talking about the option between a main road or a poorly-lit park to get home at night. In a person's neighborhood, telling people to just avoid the situation or waiting for police to arrive (Zimmerman had previously called in multiple burglaries, where the police arrived too late) is just telling criminals that they're the ones that shouldn't fear. Zimmerman had only made things dangerous for people willing to assault him.

 

[Einherjar86]

This is just one Canadian's perspective. He's a pretty smart Canadian though...

It's a pretty inflammatory take, but I appreciate mixture of passion and distance.

http://www.rifters.com/crawl/?p=6782

The usual aftermath. People “coming together”. Pastors and politicians urging calm. The same old Kingisms and Ghandi-isms popping up like impetigo sores all over Facebook. Everyone expressing support for the members of the Dallas Police Force, chiefed by a black man who has, by all accounts, turned that department into a model of progressive policing and perhaps the worst target Micah Johnson could have chosen. (Although it bears mention that that same progressive chief, and those same progressive policies, are apparently quite unpopular with the DPF rank-and-file.) As usual, none of this seems to have had much impact on the tendency of certain cops to gun people down and lie about it afterward (I mean, Jesus— by now you’d think they’d dial back the shootings on account of the optics if nothing else). So far, nothing out of the ordinary.

Except now, here and there across the US, these other people have begun threatening reprisals against other cops. There’ve been some actual shootings. Copycat attacks, you might call them. Or perhaps “inspired reprisals” might be a better term.

Micah Johnson is becoming a role model.

So what now? Have we finally reached critical mass? Is this a smattering of isolated blips, or the start of a chain reaction? Have we finally reached a tipping point, will black lives matter enough to starting shooting back? Given the stats on the ground, who among you will blame them if they do?

 

[Dak]

The guy acts like these YBMs never shot anyone before the other day. It's been relatively common behavior for decades.

 

[CiG]

Only criminals will be "shooting back" because all the other blacks in those communities will be hiding in their bathroom, hoping a stray bullet doesn't hit them or their children while they wait for more police to arrive and protect them.

 

[Einherjar86]

The guy acts like these YBMs never shot anyone before the other day. It's been relatively common behavior for decades.

This kind of thinking invites a causal argument, though - i.e. trying to figure out "who shot first" and justify everyone's behavior based on that.

Obviously black crime is a causal factor in police behavior, but Watts is pointing out that police regularly target black men for crimes they don't target white men for (black men with a little bit of pot are at risk of suffering a hell of a lot more than white men with the same amount of pot). Now, you've said before that the onus is on blacks to behave themselves. Watts is simply saying that that's unreasonable to ask of people in a game-theory scenario.

He isn't saying there's no big-picture context in which we should try and treat the problem, but he is saying that this big picture matters very little to those actually suffering because of it (there's a connection here to our discussion about people in rural areas accepting the data on global warming).

Only criminals will be "shooting back" because all the other blacks in those communities will be hiding in their bathroom, hoping a stray bullet doesn't hit them or their children while they wait for more police to arrive and protect them.

There's a circularity in this language. Once someone shoots back at the cops, he is a "criminal." They may have only committed petty crimes until that point, but at that moment they're a seriously dangerous criminal.

You cannot logically make the argument that they were already a dangerous criminal prior to that act; and in some cases it's perfectly reasonable to believe that the shooter didn't want to shoot, but felt that he had no other choice (again, in a game-theory scenario).

 

[Dak]

He isn't saying there's no big-picture context in which we should try and treat the problem, but he is saying that this big picture matters very little to those actually suffering because of it (there's a connection here to our discussion about people in rural areas accepting the data on global warming).

You're going to have to explain the application, or justification, for violent behavior etc via game theory that you are appealing to here.

There's a circularity in this language. Once someone shoots back at the cops, he is a "criminal." They may have only committed petty crimes until that point, but at that moment they're a seriously dangerous criminal.

You cannot logically make the argument that they were already a dangerous criminal prior to that act; and in some cases it's perfectly reasonable to believe that the shooter didn't want to shoot, but felt that he had no other choice (again, in a game-theory scenario).

1. I haven't seen people "shooting back", as in, police fired at them unprovoked and it turned into a firefight. These are premeditated homicides: Simple murder.

2. If they were indeed petty criminals at worst before. On GT see above.

 

[CiG]

I hope all the white leftist saints that want so badly for police to leave black communities will be ready to step in, stand on so-called principle, and protect those vulnerable when the time that police decide to stop policing them altogether comes.

Oh that's right you're also against firearms, maybe you can throw a copy of Das Kapital at them?

 

[Dak]

The NYT just published a piece from black researchers showing no difference in shooting incidents by race, however there were differences by race in other physical uses of force - which makes sense given crime differences.

But yeah, the same people dismissing crime differences when it comes to police responses are the first to use crime numbers without controlling for race when pushing gun control. 100% intellectual bankruptcy.

 

[CiG]

The irony of the Philandro Castile incident to me is that apparently (and if I'm wrong correct me) he was stopped partially or totally because he resembled a criminal there was an APB out on, a robber or something.

So, in some way, he died at least in part because of black crime statistics. This whole situation is so complex.

 

[Einherjar86]

He died at least in part because he was trying to combat them.

You're going to have to explain the application, or justification, for violent behavior etc via game theory that you are appealing to here.

No, I really don't. Watts talks about it. You can take it up with him.

But what if, for every cop who gets away with murder, some other random cop within a certain radius— say, 200 miles— was shot in reprisal? It wouldn’t matter that they were innocent. In fact, their innocence would be central to the whole point: to make the nonvenomous 95% stop covering for those “few bad apples” we’re constantly being told is the heart of the problem. The point would be to raise the price of collusion enough make those 95-percenters think twice. Simple economics.

Of course it’s not justice; you’d be killing an innocent person. But we’re way past the point at which justice should have any say in the matter. There doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of justice in the number of people who get gunned down by police on an ongoing basis. There’s little justice in the statistical finding that on average in the US, unarmed blacks are 3.5 times more likely to be gunned down by cops than unarmed whites (over 20 times as likely in some corners of that benighted country). Anyone who tells you that you must remain polite, respectful, and most of all nonviolent while your fellows are being mowed down like mayflies has either chosen a side (hint: it ain’t yours), or drunk about ten litres of Kool-Aid.

When it comes to game theory, tit-for-tat remains the most effective strategy.

1. I haven't seen people "shooting back", as in, police fired at them unprovoked and it turned into a firefight. These are premeditated homicides: Simple murder.

2. If they were indeed petty criminals at worst before.

Your first point is moot. It's clear from Watts's post that he doesn't mean "shooting back" in reference to shootouts or firefights. He means acts of retribution.

Regarding your second: sure, some may have been violent criminals. But lots of them weren't; that's the frustration.

 

[Dak]

Your first point is moot. It's clear from Watts's post that he doesn't mean "shooting back" in reference to shootouts or firefights. He means acts of retribution.

Regarding your second: sure, some may have been violent criminals. But lots of them weren't; that's the frustration.

"Retribution"? Because all police are the same, all black people are the same, etc etc. So a black guy in Dallas can snipe a white transit cop (justifiably, because retribution) because a Chinese guy a thousand miles away in Minn shot a black guy potentially(probably) without cause. More likely, given closer proximity and difference in coverage, maybe because of white guys shot a black guy in Baton Rouge potentially (probably) with cause. Ok. So let's try to apply this uniformly:

https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/u...f_vicitm_by_race_and_sex_of_offender_2012.xls

https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/u...f_vicitm_by_race_and_sex_of_offender_2013.xls

https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/u...f_vicitm_by_race_and_sex_of_offender_2014.xls

Without getting into any other crimes, and without looking at weighted percentages etc., we can see that in the most recent years available that homicide numbers are pretty steady, as is the racial discrepancy: Blacks kill more than twice as many whites as whites kill blacks in a given year. So now we wave our hands over the masses of whites and blacks (hocus pocus homogeneousus) and now I can go gun down random blacks because Retribution?

As to your last comment: Do we have a percentage to look at re: Number of police shooting victims with A. No violent criminal history and/or B. Not being violent at or around the time of the shooting? "Lots" could be 10. It wouldn't be 100.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2015/10/24/on-duty-under-fire/

In 74 percent of all fatal police shootings, the individuals had already fired shots, brandished a gun or attacked a person with a weapon or their bare hands, according to an analysis of actions immediately preceding the shootings, which draws on reports from law enforcement agencies and local media coverage. These 595 cases include fatal shootings that followed a wide range of violent crimes, including shootouts, stabbings, hostage situations, carjackings and assaults.

Another 16 percent of the shootings came after incidents that did not involve firearms or active attacks but featured other potentially dangerous threats. These shootings were most commonly of individuals who brandished knives and refused to drop them.

The 5 percent of cases that are often second-guessed include individuals who police said failed to follow their orders, made sudden movements or were accidentally shot. In another 4 percent of cases, The Post was unable to determine the circumstances of the shootings because of limited information or ongoing investigations.

So on those numbers, if we assume all 9 remaining percent were unjustified and were black, that's 59 people. That's bad (and a lot). But this is the worst case imaginary scenario, not the actual one.


http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/12/u...police-use-of-force-but-not-in-shootings.html

In shootings in these 10 cities involving officers, officers were more likely to fire their weapons without having first been attacked when the suspects were white. Black and white civilians involved in police shootings were equally likely to have been carrying a weapon. Both results undercut the idea of racial bias in police use of lethal force.
..................
Mr. Fryer found that in such situations, officers in Houston were about 20 percent less likely to shoot if the suspects were black. This estimate was not precise, and firmer conclusions would require more data. But in various models controlling for different factors and using different definitions of tense situations, Mr. Fryer found that blacks were either less likely to be shot or there was no difference between blacks and whites.

However:

That gap, adjusted for suspect behavior and other factors, was surprisingly consistent across various levels of force. Black suspects were 18 percent more likely to be pushed up against a wall, 16 percent more likely to be handcuffed without being arrested and 18 percent more likely to be pushed to the ground.

Even when the police said that civilians were compliant, blacks experienced more force.

Mr. Fryer wonders if the divide between lethal force — where he did not find racial disparities — and nonlethal force — where he did — might be related to costs. Officers face costs, legal and psychological, when they unnecessarily fire their guns. But excessive use of lesser force is rarely tracked or punished. “No officer has ever told me that putting their hands on inner-city youth is a life-changing event,” he said.

For Mr. Fryer, who has spent much of his career studying ways society can close the racial achievement gap, the failure to punish excessive everyday force is an important contributor to young black disillusionment.

Not good, but "racizm" isn't necessarily the reason:

“Who the hell wants to have a police officer put their hand on them or yell and scream at them? It’s an awful experience,” he said. “Every black man I know has had this experience. Every one of them. It is hard to believe that the world is your oyster if the police can rough you up without punishment. And when I talked to minority youth, almost every single one of them mentions lower-level uses of force as the reason why they believe the world is corrupt.”

I assume the reason it was "almost every single one" instead of every is that he included Asians in that minority sample.

 

[Einherjar86]

Well, your response seems to suggest that you didn't actually read his post, so I'm not going to bother responding to all your comments on "retribution."