[Winstonm]

barmar, on 2017-September-29, 08:42, said:

Suppose you were explaining what was special about Obama becoming President, could you replace "African-American" with "person"? If you're talking about the reason for the "Black Lives Matter" movement, would you say it's because cops have been killing too many unarmed people?

It would be nice if we lived in a post-racial world, where we didn't have to mention someone's skin color in conversations like these. But we don't, so we do.

The whole reason Trump used Bolt as an example was because he's black. Would it really have made sense for him to then ignore his race when talking about what he did?

No, what I am saying is that we cannot help but notice any appearance differences between ourselves and others but this should not factor into any discussion or choice made. The distinction is the difference between seeing a "black man" and a "man who happens to have darker skin than me". Instead of subdividing ourselves by races, we should be assimilating ourselves as one common species.

[barmar]

Winstonm, on 2017-September-29, 09:11, said:

No, what I am saying is that we cannot help but notice any appearance differences between ourselves and others but this should not factor into any discussion or choice made. The distinction is the difference between seeing a "black man" and a "man who happens to have darker skin than me". Instead of subdividing ourselves by races, we should be assimilating ourselves as one common species.

We certainly should be seeing people that way. But in the society we have, that's not possible. You can't just pretend that race is not a factor, and avoiding the use of race-based words will not make racism go away.

It was critical to the point that Trump was making that Bolt is a black man. It would have been almost meaningless if he just referred to him as a "person".

[Winstonm]

barmar, on 2017-October-01, 15:29, said:

We certainly should be seeing people that way. But in the society we have, that's not possible. You can't just pretend that race is not a factor, and avoiding the use of race-based words will not make racism go away.

It was critical to the point that Trump was making that Bolt is a black man. It would have been almost meaningless if he just referred to him as a "person".

Of, course, we cannot help but notice if someone looks different from ourselves; however, we can help not allowing that difference to matter in how we treat and speak of others.

[barmar]

Winstonm, on 2017-October-01, 18:49, said:

Of, course, we cannot help but notice if someone looks different from ourselves; however, we can help not allowing that difference to matter in how we treat and speak of others.

Except when you're discussing a race-related issue in the first place. The whole "take a knee" thing is because of race-biased killings.

[Winstonm]

barmar, on 2017-October-02, 07:59, said:

Except when you're discussing a race-related issue in the first place. The whole "take a knee" thing is because of race-biased killings.

The whole race-related issue is caused by white identification, i.e., by identifying others as non-whites.

I live in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where unarmed Terence Crutcher was shot and killed by sheriff deputy Betty Shelby. In the videos of that were released at the time, the police helicopter overhead showed the victim with his hands in the air, walking slowly towards his car. He was large, probably 300 pounds, over 6 feet tall, wearing pants and a shirt. The audio from the helicopter officers was as follows: "Looks like a bad dude!"

Now, I ask you: would he have looked like a "bad dude" to the deputies if he had been white-skinned?

[rmnka447]

Winstonm, on 2017-October-02, 09:00, said:

The whole race-related issue is caused by white identification, i.e., by identifying others as non-whites.

I live in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where unarmed Terence Crutcher was shot and killed by sheriff deputy Betty Shelby. In the videos of that were released at the time, the police helicopter overhead showed the victim with his hands in the air, walking slowly towards his car. He was large, probably 300 pounds, over 6 feet tall, wearing pants and a shirt. The audio from the helicopter officers was as follows: "Looks like a bad dude!"

Now, I ask you: would he have looked like a "bad dude" to the deputies if he had been white-skinned?

It seems like your rhetorical question seems to imply that they wouldn't have.

But I would ask if the identity politics that the left engages in doesn't contribute to a greater divide between groups by emphasizing the differences rather than recognizing the commonality we all have. I would also ask why members of an identity "group" that don't agree with progressives are regularly called out as not being members of that group. For example, progressives regularly call Blacks who are conservative "Uncle Toms" and deny their blackness. That's ridiculous. It fails to recognize that these "groups" are diverse in order to explain things in terms of creating neat little monolithic boxes that people can be put into.

The term "white" is also insulting because it fails to take into account the extremely diverse cultural heritages and differences of the people lumped into that "group". A person of Slavic heritage from Central/Eastern Europe is far different from a person of Nordic heritage or a person of Germanic heritage or the varied groups of Mediterranean peoples or Gaelic/English heritage of groups from Britain.

[Winstonm]

rmnka447, on 2017-October-02, 11:23, said:

It seems like your rhetorical question seems to imply that they wouldn't have.

But I would ask if the identity politics that the left engages in doesn't contribute to a greater divide between groups by emphasizing the differences rather than recognizing the commonality we all have. I would also ask why members of an identity "group" that don't agree with progressives are regularly called out as not being members of that group. For example, progressives regularly call Blacks who are conservative "Uncle Toms" and deny their blackness. That's ridiculous. It fails to recognize that these "groups" are diverse in order to explain things in terms of creating neat little monolithic boxes that people can be put into.

The term "white" is also insulting because it fails to take into account the extremely diverse cultural heritages and differences of the people lumped into that "group". A person of Slavic heritage from Central/Eastern Europe is far different from a person of Nordic heritage or a person of Germanic heritage or the varied groups of Mediterranean peoples or Gaelic/English heritage of groups from Britain.

I recognize your points as having some validity but they are quite minor in comparison to discrimination against minorities.

As for identity politics, when the right wing talks about reverse discrimination they are using identity politics. As for "whiteness" as an issue, I refer you to
this article by Ta-Nehisi Coates published in The Atlantic for a relevant (and long) discussion.

And as far as white heritage is concerned, I don't think it mattered in the south during slavery whether the white skin was English or Swedish, but black skin was an automatic disqualification from humankind. We can't address our heritage of discrimination against non-Ayryan people by pretending it is not relevant in our modern world or by creating a "yeah, but whatabout" argument about the very whiteness that we allow to separate us.

[kenberg]

Winstonm, on 2017-October-02, 09:00, said:

The whole race-related issue is caused by white identification, i.e., by identifying others as non-whites.

I live in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where unarmed Terence Crutcher was shot and killed by sheriff deputy Betty Shelby. In the videos of that were released at the time, the police helicopter overhead showed the victim with his hands in the air, walking slowly towards his car. He was large, probably 300 pounds, over 6 feet tall, wearing pants and a shirt. The audio from the helicopter officers was as follows: "Looks like a bad dude!"

Now, I ask you: would he have looked like a "bad dude" to the deputies if he had been white-skinned?

It would help, in fact it might help a lot, if when you bring up such matters you described the incident more fully. I would very much like nobody to get shot. Not black motorists, not the police. I only vaguely recalled this so I tired the web.

https://www.nbcnews....rutcher-n761206

As I read the story: Terence Crutcher at one time had his hands up. He walked toward a vehicle and then reached inside, presumably taking his hands down as he reached inside, The way you phrase it one is left with he impression he was show while his hands were up. If you think it is important that he at one time had his hands up, then presumably you think it is important that he his hands were ot up when he was shot. The officeer said she thought he might be on hallucinogenic drugs. Of course this can be an after the fact invention, but she had training in recognizing the effects of hallucinogenic drugs and an autopsy revealed two hallucinogenic drugs so I think we might at least allow for the possibility that the reason she said she thought he was on hallucinogenic drugs was because he in fact was on hallucinogenic drugs and her training helped her to recognize that this was likely so. Other officers had given orders to Crutcher, which he ignored. The article says "It took at least two minutes after Crutcher was shot before police attempted aid, according to officers. ". Why would that be? My direct experience with PCP is zip, but my understanding is that you do not want to be too near someone who is on it. The drug is dangerous and being near someone who is on the drug is dangerous, and that includes when the person on the drug has been injured.

A reasonable person might or might not find these circumstances, if the description in the article is accurate, sufficient for acquittal, but describing the even as "unarmed Terence Crutcher was shot and killed by sheriff deputy Betty Shelby. In the videos of that were released at the time, the police helicopter overhead showed the victim with his hands in the air, walking slowly towards his car." is seriously at odds with the description given in the article.

I repeat that I do not want anyone getting shot. I think if we are going to improve matters we need a good understanding of what goes wrong. We could ask ourselves, for example, would Crutcher be alive today if he had not ignored the orders of the officers and if he had not reached into his car, reaching for who knew what? In my younger days I have been stopped by police, I have been searched, I have been handcuffed, I have been in a paddy wagon, I have been in a holding cell. I have not been shot. This could be because I am white. It also could be because I didn't act like an idiot. Probably some combination of the two.

[Winstonm]

kenberg, on 2017-October-02, 13:46, said:

It would help, in fact it might help a lot, if when you bring up such matters you described the incident more fully. I would very much like nobody to get shot. Not black motorists, not the police. I only vaguely recalled this so I tired the web.

https://www.nbcnews....rutcher-n761206

As I read the story: Terence Crutcher at one time had his hands up. He walked toward a vehicle and then reached inside, presumably taking his hands down as he reached inside, The way you phrase it one is left with he impression he was show while his hands were up. If you think it is important that he at one time had his hands up, then presumably you think it is important that he his hands were ot up when he was shot. The officeer said she thought he might be on hallucinogenic drugs. Of course this can be an after the fact invention, but she had training in recognizing the effects of hallucinogenic drugs and an autopsy revealed two hallucinogenic drugs so I think we might at least allow for the possibility that the reason she said she thought he was on hallucinogenic drugs was because he in fact was on hallucinogenic drugs and her training helped her to recognize that this was likely so. Other officers had given orders to Crutcher, which he ignored. The article says "It took at least two minutes after Crutcher was shot before police attempted aid, according to officers. ". Why would that be? My direct experience with PCP is zip, but my understanding is that you do not want to be too near someone who is on it. The drug is dangerous and being near someone who is on the drug is dangerous, and that includes when the person on the drug has been injured.

A reasonable person might or might not find these circumstances, if the description in the article is accurate, sufficient for acquittal, but describing the even as "unarmed Terence Crutcher was shot and killed by sheriff deputy Betty Shelby. In the videos of that were released at the time, the police helicopter overhead showed the victim with his hands in the air, walking slowly towards his car." is seriously at odds with the description given in the article.

I repeat that I do not want anyone getting shot. I think if we are going to improve matters we need a good understanding of what goes wrong. We could ask ourselves, for example, would Crutcher be alive today if he had not ignored the orders of the officers and if he had not reached into his car, reaching for who knew what? In my younger days I have been stopped by police, I have been searched, I have been handcuffed, I have been in a paddy wagon, I have been in a holding cell. I have not been shot. This could be because I am white. It also could be because I didn't act like an idiot. Probably some combination of the two.

Ken,

I watched this video the day of or day after the shooting. This guy had his hands up and was slowly walking back towards his vehicle, which was a good 20-30 yards away. There were two deputies and a helicopter on the scene.

Crutcher did not follow the police instructions to get down. Instead, he raised his hands, turned, and slowly walked back toward his vehicle. There was ample time - more than ample time - for the two officers to take this guy down from behind if they wanted him down. Instead, they allowed him to walk all the way to his vehicle before tasing, then shooting him.

I'm not claiming right or wrong action by the police - obviously, Crutcher's failure to follow orders led to his demise. What I am saying is that I strenuously doubt the outcome would have been the same had Crutcher been white and done exactly the same things - not because the police are overt racists but because white privilege makes us all racists if we don't consciously work to prevent its influence.

[kenberg]

Winstonm, on 2017-October-02, 15:32, said:

Ken,

I watched this video the day of or day after the shooting. This guy had his hands up and was slowly walking back towards his vehicle, which was a good 20-30 yards away. There were two deputies and a helicopter on the scene.

Crutcher did follow the police instructions to get down. Instead, he raised his hands, turned, and slowly walked back toward his vehicle. There was ample time - more than ample time - for the two officers to take this guy down from behind if they wanted him down. Instead, they allowed him to walk all the way to his vehicle before tasing, then shooting him.

I'm not claiming right or wrong action by the police - obviously, Crutcher's failure to follow orders led to his demise. What I am saying is that I strenuously doubt the outcome would have been the same had Crutcher been white and done exactly the same things - not because the police are overt racists but because white privilege makes us all racists if we don't consciously work to prevent its influence.

I don't doubt that race plays a role. Fear plays a role. And fear and race are related. So what to do? We could demand that the fear go away. Lots of luck. Police can be fearful of whites also. Some whites more than others. Some large guy who appears to be drugged up, mumbling, and not following instructions would scare the crap out of me if my job was to question him. If he then went over to his car and reached inside, after he had been told not to do that, I would be very scared. So would anyone.

It is in the interest of everyone that these difficult situations do not result in anyone getting shot. In that WaPo article I posted by the football player he spoke of riding with cops. I think this could help. We can acknowledge that part of the reason for fear is race. Part of it. But it would help a lot if people could grasp the simple fact that cops, in difficult situations, fear for their lives. Race may well play a role, more with some people than with others, but there are always other matters. Everyone has a role to play in getting through such a situation without someone getting shot.

Here is a much much milder version, a story that I think I told before. It is not directly applicable, but maybe it has a metaphorical value. I was going to a math meeting ion downtown Baltimore. The traffic there is a mess. I was over on the right, planing to go into a parking garage. opps, lot full. Ah, but there is another one directly across the street. So I carefully pull back into traffic heading across the street. A cop is standing across the street, and she waves me over. When I was ready to turn into the first ramp, I was over in the right turn only lane. I had moved out of it before crossing, but I had been in it and I did not turn right. She had it made, she just stood there handing out tickets as fast as she could write them .
Now in Maryland we have a weirs system. When you get a minor ticket you go to court , you plead guilty, you pay a reduced fine, and there are nno violation points assigned. You go a t maybe 1pm and sit on your butt until they get to you after an hour or two.
While waiting, a young black guy is up in front of the judge. The guy is black, the judge is black, the ticket was from the same cop, a youngish white woman. The guy is not claiming prejudice. His claim is that one of the passengers in his car had made racial slurs toward the white cop and that made her mad and she gave him a ticket. I thought of standing up and pointing to my own skin and explaining that she was ticketing everyone but I didn't. But he wouldn't let it go, was thoroughly obnoxious, and then rude to the woman who handed him the slip saying what the fine was. As he started walking out the judge ordered him to come back and apologize to the clerk He kept walking. The judge send the bailiff after him, and there was a physical scuffle and the guy was hauled away.. When I got my fine and paid it, the guy's girlfriend was trying to find out where she had to go to try to get him out of jail

Nobody got shot. But really. People need to learn how to not make a bad situation worse. I am all for having cops try to solve problems without shooting anyone . But I expect cops, with few if any exceptions, want to get through situations without shooting anyone. Everyone could work on this. People are people, and we should not shoot someone because he acts like an idiot, but the chances of him getting through it all go up substantially if he doesn't.

[barmar]

kenberg, on 2017-October-02, 16:51, said:

I don't doubt that race plays a role. Fear plays a role. And fear and race are related. So what to do? We could demand that the fear go away. Lots of luck. Police can be fearful of whites also. Some whites more than others. Some large guy who appears to be drugged up, mumbling, and not following instructions would scare the crap out of me if my job was to question him. If he then went over to his car and reached inside, after he had been told not to do that, I would be very scared. So would anyone.

Yes, police can be fearful of whites, too. But given two perps who are similar except for their skin color, I think it's pretty clear that the black one will engender more fear and would be more likely to be shot.

There are no absolutes in this, just general tendencies and biases that make it more dangerous to be a black person.

[rmnka447]

Winstonm, on 2017-October-02, 13:21, said:

I recognize your points as having some validity but they are quite minor in comparison to discrimination against minorities.

As for identity politics, when the right wing talks about reverse discrimination they are using identity politics. As for "whiteness" as an issue, I refer you to
this article by Ta-Nehisi Coates published in The Atlantic for a relevant (and long) discussion.

And as far as white heritage is concerned, I don't think it mattered in the south during slavery whether the white skin was English or Swedish, but black skin was an automatic disqualification from humankind. We can't address our heritage of discrimination against non-Ayryan people by pretending it is not relevant in our modern world or by creating a "yeah, but whatabout" argument about the very whiteness that we allow to separate us.

Yeah, I read that article. It was the usual progressive BS. That became clear when Mssr. Coates started claiming that the only reason Obama's policies were being reversed were because he was black. He apparently refused to consider that they might be taking the country in the wrong direction like something like 78% of the electorate thought.

[rmnka447]

barmar, on 2017-October-03, 10:21, said:

Yes, police can be fearful of whites, too. But given two perps who are similar except for their skin color, I think it's pretty clear that the black one will engender more fear and would be more likely to be shot.

There are no absolutes in this, just general tendencies and biases that make it more dangerous to be a black person.

I don't have a reference, but I believe that there was a study made of police shootings black versus white. It showed that on a per encounter basis that whites were more likely to be shot by police than blacks. It may be that the number of blacks shot are larger because of a much greater number of encounters than whites.

[Winstonm]

rmnka447, on 2017-October-03, 12:36, said:

I don't have a reference, but I believe that there was a study made of police shootings black versus white. It showed that on a per encounter basis that whites were more likely to be shot by police than blacks. It may be that the number of blacks shot are larger because of a much greater number of encounters than whites.

From Reuters:

Quote

In the current study, Dr. James Buehler of Drexel University’s Dornsife School of Public Health in Philadelphia turned to death-certificate data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

From 2010 until 2014, death certificates identified 2,285 legal-intervention deaths in the U.S., 96 percent of them fatal shootings and 96 percent of them deaths of males.

Though white males accounted for the largest number, blacks were 2.8 times more likely to be killed by police than whites, the study found. And Hispanic men were 1.7 times more likely than whites to be killed by officers.

From another post:

Quote

He apparently refused to consider that they might be taking the country in the wrong direction

Could you expand on this. What was the wrong direction in which Obama taking the country?

To be fair, here is the direction I saw from Obama:
These things I liked: 1) He tried to move the country toward fair health insurance laws for all citizens 2) to a higher dependence and use of diplomacy rather than military intervention, leading to good results like the Iran deal 3) to the targeted use of drones rather than troops to attack and kill our enemies 4) to a forward looking view of energy and climate change.

What I didn't like: 5) was that there was no justice department indictments of any bankers from the Great Recession 6) that there was not a push from stronger regulation of the financial sector and 7) that there was a pragmatism shown that dampened the enthusiasm of the progressive base in the face of right wing ideological-based opposition - which may well have helped contribute to the 2016 election loss.

[rmnka447]

rmnka447, on 2017-October-03, 12:36, said:

I don't have a reference, but I believe that there was a study made of police shootings black versus white. It showed that on a per encounter basis that whites were more likely to be shot by police than blacks. It may be that the number of blacks shot are larger because of a much greater number of encounters than whites.

Here are a couple of references:

https://www.washingt...m=.98c300a0cee5


http://tribunist.com...ing-conclusion/

[jjbrr]

lol at those articles.

[Winstonm]

rmnka447, on 2017-October-03, 13:53, said:

Here are a couple of references:

https://www.washingt...m=.98c300a0cee5


http://tribunist.com...ing-conclusion/

From the same Reuters article: (emphasis added)

Quote

A new analysis of death certificates calculates that black males were almost three times more likely than whites to die at the hands of U.S. police, but the study fails to fill gaping holes in national law-enforcement reports about deadly use of force.

“We’re really good at counting all sorts of things, but not when police departments kill citizens,” epidemiologist Cassandra Crifasi said in a phone interview.

The new report online December 20th in the American Journal of Public Health relies on what she described as “poor” death-certificate data on police killings. Crifasi, a professor at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, was not involved in the new study.

“I’m not going to say there are not racial disparities in use-of-force deaths, but we just don’t have good enough data to get a national estimate,” she said.

FBI Director James B. Comey also has lamented a dearth of statistics on police use of force.

He told a gathering of police chiefs last year that “Americans actually have no idea . . . whether black people or brown people are more likely to be shot during police encounters than white people.”

The problem is that the federal government bases its count of police killings on data provided voluntarily by police departments, which in the past has “resulted in a significant underestimate of the number of annual arrest-related deaths,” according to a report this month from the Bureau of Justice Statistics at the U.S. Department of Justice.

That sounds right to me - without valid statistics, there is no real way to know.

[jjbrr]

The second article is just hopeless obviously

Quote

If you ever need an argument settled, once and for all, just ask a Harvard professor to conduct a study. They do it right.

Quote

The study examined more than 1,000 police shootings from 10 large police departments in California, Florida and Texas.

Uhh... lol...

The first one seems equally hopelessly wrong.

Quote

For the new study, James enlisted 80 patrol officers from the Spokane Police Department, which handles a city of about 250,000. The participants were almost all white (76 of 80) and nearly all male (71), which James said was reflective of the Spokane department, and they had an average age of 40 and experience of more than 14 years. The officers came into the lab on four occasions between August 2012 and November 2013, before the uproar ignited by police shootings in Ferguson, Mo., and elsewhere in 2014. On each day, they would face six scenarios, involving both armed and unarmed suspects who were both black and white. A total of more than 1,500 scenarios were recorded. The officers were not told the reason for the tests nor was any mention made of race, they wore full uniforms to enhance the realism, and they were paid for their time.

Black population in Spokane is under 2% according to whatever census I just googled. And frankly I don't think 1500 scenarios spread over 4 occasions in some obscure simulator can be translated in any meaningful way to what these cops are actually doing. It's also nice the officers were not told the reason was race. What assurances do we have? How do we know they didn't speculate? From earlier in the article -- And in 2004, David Klinger at the University of Missouri-St. Louis interviewed more than 100 officers and found “evidence of increased wariness about using deadly force against black suspects for fear of how it would be perceived and the associated consequences.”

These seem like articles written by people who don't understand studies for people who don't understand studies. The clickbait-y titles should have been a pretty clear giveaway.

[Winstonm]

Is this what you voted for?

[cherdano]

rmnka447, on 2017-October-03, 12:30, said:

Yeah, I read that article. It was the usual progressive BS. That became clear when Mssr. Coates started claiming that the only reason Obama's policies were being reversed were because he was black. He apparently refused to consider that they might be taking the country in the wrong direction like something like 78% of the electorate thought.

LOL you believe 78% thought Obama took the country in the wrong direction? The same Obama who had 51-45 job approval ratings at the time of the 2016 election? Life is more complicated than that.

Either you are trolling, or you are deliberately citing misleading figures in the futile attempt to win arguments (while making yourself look ridiculous), or you are so deep in the ***** of your own echo chamber that you don't even realise what kind of B.S. you are regurgitating. To be honest, I don't want to find out which of the three it is.