Black Lives Matter and Systemic Racism

Tamagochi said:
In the end it can be fully explained by a function of police calls to the scene.
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This in and of itself is problematic, though. Crime statistics rely on people calling the police. Have you ever lived in multiple cities, or multiple areas of cities, and wondered why sometimes reported crimes in areas considered more dangerous were actually less?

It's because people often don't call the police. However, when someone is afraid enough, they will, which is why you'll often see a higher % of reported crimes when you get two different demographics living next to each other, and this can be racial, income-based, etc.

If we were to isolate a hypothetical area of a town that was divided by a predominantly black and white neighboorhood, we may expect to see more reported crimes if we expect these groups to respond more in "fear" with each other. However, I would argue that the group that has a perception of mistrust/distrust in the police force would probably pick up the phone to call the cops much less frequently. It's not too far-fetched to assume that this hypothetical area of town would have more white people calling on cops than the other way around.
 
noisebloom said:
Data released during a lawsuit against Harvard shows they admit a disproportionately low % of Asian American students, who on average were shown to have better academic performance.
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I know of this one. It's actually a product of "positive" discrimination efforts by the left. The idea is that university enrolment should reflect the demographics of the population. So roughly 70% whites, 20% blacks and 10% asian. The "problem" is that asian people are very hard working consistently get higher scores than other groups. So they must be brought down in order to achieve the desired statistics. I agree that this is an example of intentional systemic racism, but not in a way that OP meant it.

noisebloom said:
There's a massive racial bias with arrests in the U.S. Black Americans are arrested and convicted at a much higher rate than White Americans, to the point where the Bureau of Justice indicated that there was over a 30% chance that a Black American born in 2001 would go to prison.
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The video that I linked tells a story of how black people from Caribbean descent seems to defy that statistics, even though you can't tell them apart from african americans. So the real issue can be elsewhere: single parent families for example.

noisebloom said:
A white high-school dropout is more likely to own a home than black college graduate (I think the difference is something like five % points). There are plenty of testimonials about middle to high income Black Americans struggling to get home loans.
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College alone does not guarantee you a house or a high paying job. You have to account a lot when making such a comparison: family background (and financial support), individual work ethics, health issues etc.
The same case is with the pay gap of men vs women.
 
SpecialEdition said:
People don't see evidence of it being true because they won't take the 5 minutes it took me to pull up all those resources by googling "systemic racism in the USA."

What this says is that people will read a statement and their FEELINGS won't want to acknowledge that this actually might be the case and they don't want to do the uncomfortable work of actually looking it up and then following through by reading it and trying to understand it. This doesn't even touch on the fact that after acknowledging that this is a real problem that those of us who benefit from this very system have to speak up and call ourselves out to help make progress where it's long overdue.

It's not up to Black people to have to prove to us that it exists. There's already a ton of organizations and research centers doing that work - all the information is there for us. We have to be willing to actually seek it out and not dismiss it because we're "ignorant" and read a sentence we don't want to face.

Don't misconstrue this as me targeting you personally - I think it's a start that you raised the question to begin with and are willing to have the conversation. But we can't see something like that and dismiss it because Black people aren't laying out the facts for us. That's just US being too lazy to do a little googling to find what Black people have been trying to tell us for CENTURIES.
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I hear what you are saying, but I feel like you are missing my point.
When an issue is being addressed I feel there should be absolute honesty in regards to the nature of an issue. If there isn't then I would think it's more likely then not for the issues to be addressed in ways that can be more damaging.
(And I would venture to say that's part of what's happening with the riots.)

Or maybe you do agree that blacks are being systematically targeted for demise?
 
Tamagochi said:
The video that I linked tells a story of how black people from Caribbean descent seems to defy that statistics, even though you can't tell them apart from african americans. So the real issue can be elsewhere: single parent families for example.
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The examination into why West Indians have historically had more "success" when it comes to law enforcement, home ownership, etc. is complex, but there is a lot of literature on this subject. One of the major themes is that West Indians were able to secure housing in white, middle-class neighborhoods with much more prevalence earlier in history. In fact, in the early 1900s, West Indians were permitted to live in "white only" neighborhoods in Harlem, NY. There is debate as to why this is, but the fact is that this inequality has most likely perpetuated into the modern era. I would argue that cultural and racial inequality goes beyond skin color (though it does make it easier for people to apply stereotypes without much information about a given individual). Italians were considered to be PoCs in the U.S. at one point, as well.

Tamagochi said:
College alone does not guarantee you a house or a high paying job. You have to account a lot when making such a comparison: family background (and financial support), individual work ethics, health issues etc.
The same case is with the pay gap of men vs women.
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It doesn't guarantee you a house or high paying on job, but on average, college graduates do make higher incomes than non-graduates. On average, the discrepancy between black college graduates and white dropouts is pretty compelling. If you don't believe that, I would be willing to bet that you could do comparisons of dropouts vs. graduates within a single race and see a very clear correlation... so when that correlation does not apply across races, this is concerning or worth examination.
 
Tamagochi said:
We can look at the same data that you have linked but come to very different conclusions. There is a useful philosophic tool called Occam's razor - which means that if there is a simpler explanation to observed phenomena, then it should be preferred one. An example could be statistics that indicates blacks are twice more likely to be killed by police than whites. You can look at it and exclaim - see here's proof for systemic racism. But when you look at it more closely, blacks also commit a disproportionate number of crimes, so cops are called to the crime scene more often, ergo more deaths. In the end it can be fully explained by a function of police calls to the scene. No need to invoke a grand conspiracy.

Larry Elder in one interview gave a reference to a study in which when accounted for the frequency of calls and the seriousness of situation encountered, cops are statistically less likely to pull a trigger on a black person.
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Let's assume your interpretation of the stats is correct and Larry Elder is correct and we can table the discussion of police brutality against Black people. Then we have to look at things such as racial bias that leads some prosecutors, for example, to file charges against African-Americans for low-level drug offenses more frequently than against whites, even though studies show that white people use illicit drugs at higher rates (this doesn't even get into racial profiling and the War on Drugs which there's a lot of debate about). Why are there studies indicating that White people are more likely to have charges dropped against them than Black people? There's also concerns that Black people get longer sentences than White people. I believe there are a few studies out on this specifically including this one: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3036726

San Francisco is experimenting with Blind Charging for this reason to see if it makes a meaningful difference in this area. We will see what comes of that.

Black people are also more often wrongly convicted for crimes as well.

But if you want to put all that aside, we can think about what sociologist William Wilbanks says about this. His argument is that yes, there, are inequalities between White and Black people in arrest rates, incarceration and other areas of criminal justice but it's not necessarily racial, it's due to poverty. Assuming that's true then why is the rate of poverty so much higher among the Black population? There is a LOT to unpack there as well.
 
hithere said:
I hear what you are saying, but I feel like you are missing my point.
When an issue is being addressed I feel there should be absolute honesty in regards to the nature of an issue. If there isn't then I would think it's more likely then not for the issues to be addressed in ways that can be more damaging.
(And I would venture to say that's part of what's happening with the riots.)

Or maybe you do agree that blacks are being systematically targeted for demise?
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So far I am inclined to believe that yes, systemic racism exists.
 
hithere said:
So are you saying that there is no difference between systemic racism and being systematically targeted for demise?

Or are you saying that it doesn't matter?
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Oh there's evidence for it being systematic, too.

John Ehrlichman (an aide to Nixon), for instance, admitted that the 'War on Drugs' was a measure specifically designed to target black people. You can find it quite easily.

EDIT:
John Ehrlichman said:
The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I'm saying? We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin. And then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders. raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.
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hithere said:
So are you saying that there is no difference between systemic racism and being systematically targeted for demise?

Or are you saying that it doesn't matter?
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There are a lot of studies linked in this article (I have read as many as I can) that leads me to believe that there are both systemic and systematic issues at hand:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/grap...ce-evidence-criminal-justice-system/#Policing

I am sure there are countless studies about this and I am sure people who do not believe there are systemic and/or systematic issues will be able to find studies that support their position as well however I have yet to come across those.
 
The idea that people discussing this issue amongst each other is productive, and furthermore, will somehow aid in solving the problem is one of the funniest things I've ever heard of in my life. How many conversations do we have to have about these topics before we realize all we are doing is chewing our own cud? Like cows. We feel satisfied but have accomplished nothing. It is the biggest trap social media has given us. It is the best way to feel good about yourself while doing absolutely nothing
 
slant said:
The idea that people discussing this issue amongst each other is productive, and furthermore, will somehow aid in solving the problem is one of the funniest things I've ever heard of in my life. How many conversations do we have to have about these topics before we realize all we are doing is chewing our own cud? Like cows. We feel satisfied but have accomplished nothing. It is the biggest trap social media has given us. It is the best way to feel good about yourself while doing absolutely nothing
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It seems to me there are a lot of people doing a lot of things outside of talking about this online though. Maybe that's just what I see in my own network. Maybe there is just a bunch of empty talk. I couldn't say. We can only speak for our own selves.
 
SpecialEdition said:
It seems to me there are a lot of people doing a lot of things outside of talking about this online though. Maybe that's just what I see in my own network. Maybe there is just a bunch of empty talk. I couldn't say. We can only speak for our own selves.
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Then why talk about it online at all?

Why not just act? Seems like a waste of resources and time. Action would be far more impactful.
 
SpecialEdition said:
Probably because there are still too many people who think there's not a problem at all.
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So it's better to discuss it online than to take actions in the real world towards change because there's too many people who do not think it's a problem at all?

Online discussion will resolve this better than real world action?
 
slant said:
The idea that people discussing this issue amongst each other is productive, and furthermore, will somehow aid in solving the problem is one of the funniest things I've ever heard of in my life. How many conversations do we have to have about these topics before we realize all we are doing is chewing our own cud? Like cows. We feel satisfied but have accomplished nothing. It is the biggest trap social media has given us. It is the best way to feel good about yourself while doing absolutely nothing
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Yeah it's not really productive, for the most part. I think I only do it because my life is lacking so much positive connection at the moment that I gravitate towards being an asshole and starting arguments when I see things that don't look right.
 
slant said:
Let's review. I asked you:


You responded with:


Can you see the confusion?
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I made a guess hence starting my response with "probably."

Are you wasting your time by asking people why they're wasting their time having a discussion about it instead of acting?

I don't know why people can't do both. There's value in having these conversations. If someone brings up a point from the other side of the argument that I haven't heard or don't have information on, then I can then take the time to actually look into it for myself and learn more. If I don't have the information, how do I know what I can actually do to be helping? How do I know who to vote for? How do I get the information needed to write to my MPP about my concerns? How do I encourage others to do the same without having a discussion? If there are a lot of people who don't think there's an issue and no one takes the time to share with them information to demonstrate that there is, then they may never change their mind and step up to the cause.

Sharing information, reading the studies, engaging people with different ideas are all different forms of action. Protesting is a form of action. Voting for people who are about equality is taking action. Willing to engage in the discussion is an action. Is it the "right" action? Is it "enough" action? Is it performative and self congratulatory to talk about what action we're all taking or is it an opportunity to share with others what they can also do? I don't know.

Is this response a waste of time?
 
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