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[YouTube] The Truth About Michael Brown and the Ferguson Riots


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How many times on the show have we all seen when Steph ask a simple question and instead of just answering the question the caller floods Steph with a ton of information. This seems to me to be a defensive tactic. in your response the first thing you do is rewrite the question. The question is "could you point me to statistical studies showing racism by cops".  You say "I can identify the history of racism by the police and the entire criminal justice system." and lets be honest no one is really going to go through all that information you posted and I think you know that. At the very least you should realize that going through all of that would take probably more time than Stephan has. If you cant answer the question than dont answer the question. But please dont reword the question then shoot out a bunch of information. Not trying to be harsh but it just seems like you really cant answer the question directly as I dont see any links to any studies. 

 

The first link is to a study exposing racism and includes statistics.  Now think about it, statistics proving racism are complicated, because racism is a thought.  Are black people randomly stopped and frisked more than white people? Yes.  Thats proof.  

 

I don't really know why I am replying to someone who didn't read what I wrote.

 

If cops were being racist during slavery, and cops were being racist during jim crow, and cops are racist during the war on drugs.... thats proof cops are racist.  Just because the crimes were real doesn't mean the police don't spend more man power enforcing those laws on black people, or that those laws don't include a racial bias.  

The ignorance of the history of police racism in black communities seems to inform the argument.  That cops are NOT racist, but that black people are simply more criminal.  The system is much more complicated.  For example Black people who commit murderer are likely to have already been arrested and imprisoned for drug offenses.  Gang culture is a byproduct of the government's actions as well, disrupting the Black Panthers and the welfare state.  Drugs which were popular amongst black people carry higher sentences than drugs popular amongst white people.  

 

Prison sentences of black men were nearly 20% longer than those of white men for similar crimes in recent years, an analysis by the U.S. Sentencing Commission found.

 

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887324432004578304463789858002

 

  It continues...

 

In the two years after the Booker ruling, sentences of blacks were on average 15.2% longer than the sentences of similarly situated whites, according to the Sentencing Commission report. Between December 2007 and September 2011, the most recent period covered in the report, sentences of black males were 19.5% longer than those for whites. The analysis also found that black males were 25% less likely than whites in the same period to receive a sentence below the guidelines' range.

 

 

So, Black people, according to statistics, are harassed (search and frisked without warrant or probable cause) 400% more than white people.  Then they receive less leniency during sentencing, resulting in 20% higher sentencing for the same crimes.  

 

 

 

  • "Of the 303 exonerees, 188 were African Americans, 86 were Caucasian, 21 were Latino, 2 were Asian American, and 6 are racially unidentified.  "

https://www.dosomething.org/tipsandtools/11-facts-about-wrongful-imprisonment

 

More black people in jail have been wrongfully imprisoned than any other ethnic group.  

 

In South Carolina, a little over 50% of the inmates on death row were black or hispanic, yet black and hispanic people were 3.5 times more likely to actually receive the death penalty than their white inmates. 

 

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/jan/03/racial-bias-us-death-penalty

I don't get the theory that cops aren't racist.  Have you grown up entirely in white neighborhoods and are genuinely clueless to the experience?  If we get that 50 years ago the police were enforcing separate but equal.  And those cops were never fired or removed, plus the high levels of nepotism within policing.. at what point exactly did the police stop being racist?  And genuinely I think they are less racist than in the past, in large part thanks to the peaceful and violence protests by the black community.  

The average America commits 3 felonies A DAY.  Everyone is a criminal on a daily basis, who the government targets and which laws they uphold are their choice, and they choose to police the crap out of black neighborhoods.  

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Okay, let's be honest: you're projecting.  I admit that I didn't read every single word in the links he provided, but you don't have to.  I read enough to understand his point and how he came to it.  

Im not projecting at all. I explicitly said "all" that information. Nor did I say I "have to" read everything in a response to an argument. The entire point my argument is to say that he changed the question. Reading enough to understand his point doesn't matter if his point has nothing to do with the question at hand. I will admit that is does annoy me when I see people change the question and then answer a completely different question. If you dont know then you dont know but dont change the question. Also Im also saying what I think happened. It really is just a guess as I did say "This seems to me".

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Again, the issue I am arguing is not "this police officer was racist" or "all police officers are racist" but that the laws and enforcement of the laws are prejudicial, and that the history of state oppression (of which cops are the foot-soldiers) within the black community deserves to be included in this discussion.  Statistics that police are racist are very hard to prove, because if they equally prosecute the guilty, but target more black people for investigation then stats are going to show only that black people commit more crimes.  And I think there is room in the argument that black people do commit more violent crimes, but that violence within the black community is in large part a byproduct of state intervention.  

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Again, the issue I am arguing is not "this police officer was racist" or "all police officers are racist" but that the laws and enforcement of the laws are prejudicial, and that the history of state oppression (of which cops are the foot-soldiers) within the black community deserves to be included in this discussion.  Statistics that police are racist are very hard to prove, because if they equally prosecute the guilty, but target more black people for investigation then stats are going to show only that black people commit more crimes.  And I think there is room in the argument that black people do commit more violent crimes, but that violence within the black community is in large part a byproduct of state intervention.  

I totally get that and completely agree with you on all that you have said so far. But my problem is if stats are hard to find then just say stats are hard to find. Which I do see you said but you then seem to go off and talk about common knowledge stuff. I honestly dont believe Steph is unaware of the fact that black people are prosecuted arrested and jailed more than other groups. He has talked in the past about how disproportionate the stats are. So if he already knows that then it seems unlikely to me that pointing out these very same stats would be the answer he was looking for. Steph's question maybe should be clarified as it is difficult to prove racism. I hope that clears up what I meant by my first post.

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  • 2 weeks later...

http://reason.com/blog/2014/09/03/study-people-more-likely-to-shoot-white

 

Money shot: Quoting the press materials from the underlying study: "Participants in an innovative Washington State University study of deadly force were more likely to feel threatened in scenarios involving black people. But when it came time to shoot, participants were biased in favor of black suspects, taking longer to pull the trigger against them than against armed white or Hispanic suspects..."

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