[jcrei]

In many cases, the police doesn't care that they are being filmed. There's this new documentary coming out called Do Not Resist, and there was an article on the WSJ about it with the following quote "The most disturbing thing is that it simply doesn’t occur to the sheriff that the footage might be disturbing. He has no problem letting a film crew show this massive contraption built to withstand roadside bombs in a military convoy lumbering through his small town, because the notion that military vehicles aren’t appropriate for domestic policing is foreign to him." https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2016/09/30/...

[hvidgaard]

That is absolutely terrifying to read!

  The striking thing about the footage is, again, the utter mundanity of the raid.
  A family was just violently raided over an unmeasurable amount of pot. A man was
  arrested over that pot. The money he needed for his business was taken from him.
  Yet there’s no shame or embarrassment from the officers. There’s no panic that
  the whole thing was captured on video. That’s when it hits you.  They don’t think
  they’ve made a mistake. This is what they do. The lead officers later tells the
  camera, matter-of-factly, that the raid turned up “a personal use amount of
  marijuana.” Perhaps realizing that he was also on camera back at the police
  station promising a much larger stash of drugs, he adds, “It happens. Drug
  warrants are, you know, 50-50.”

If they raid a home on the pretense that he has a large stash and is selling, fine. But when it turns out to not be true, they better pay for damage - no matter what else they find.

[pjc50]

I wondered what the ethnicity of the person raided was, and of course he's black.

That's why there's no shame or embarrassment from the officers. That's why the Black Lives Matter campaign exists: the police have, in this case, done a substantial amount of damage to someone's life but not killed them. And there's not even an acknowledgement of that.

[JPKab]

I'd hate to burst your bubble, but this shit happens to white people all the time. Just not the white people that HN folks are surrounded by (urban, upper class, educated).

I grew up in a poor, rural area of Appalachia, and this shit is routine.

Your assumption that the race of the victim is the reason the cops are cool with it is based on zero evidence other than your own preconceived notions. I've had my car seats slashed open in a vain search for drugs after I'd already been handcuffed and laid on the pavement with zero fucking apologies, and I'm not black.

Just because you live in a sphere of the world where white people are all rich and privileged doesn't mean that it's like that in the rest of (most of) America.

[mrgoldenbrown]

I doubt you'll find anyone saying this stuff doesn't happen to white folks at all.

The issue is that given the same set of circumstances, a black person is more likely to be searched/shot/whatever than a white person. In the case of police shootings, yes some white dudes have been shot as well as black dudes. But if you look at all the cases of police shootings in the FBI database and compare the cases of white dudes waving knives at cops vs the sample of black dudes waving knives at cops, the police are N times more likely to shoot and kill the the black dudes. (I can't recall exactly what N is but I think it was 5 or 6).

If you're going to "burst bubbles" when talking about privilege, I encourage you to learn about intersectionality first. Otherwise you're bursting a straw man version of the concept, which doesn't achieve anything. Privilege exists on multiple axes, and you still have white privilege even if you're poor and don't have class privilege.

[JPKab]

Feel free to post the source for your statistic, because the studies I've seen showed that blacks are much, much more likely to be subject to police encounters a (probably due to a mixture of profiling and densely populated, high crime areas caused by a legacy of red lining and other discriminatory housing policies).

"But if you look at all the cases of police shootings in the FBI database and compare the cases of white dudes waving knives at cops vs the sample of black dudes waving knives at cops, the police are N times more likely to shoot and kill the the black dudes."

This study directly contradicts your statement:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/12/upshot/surprising-new-evid...

Another thing that drives me crazy about these "privilege" discussions is how insanely qualitative and emotion driven they are.

What's the outcome for a white kid born in a trailer park vs. a black kid born in a wealthy suburb? Is class privilege completely nullified by racial privilege, meaning the white kid is likely to earn more than the black kid as an adult? The data doesn't show this, and puts a much heavier weight on class and geography being the bigger barriers.

The result of these emotionally driven discussions is that once again, Americans are focused on race being a primary driver of inequality and distracted away from the much bigger issue of class. It's a very convenient tactic for the corporate elites who own our government and want to prevent real change. Racism is a convenient target, because it allows people to blame a problem whose solution doesn't involve massive overhauls of tax policy to better redistribute the wealth that is accumulating with the .01%.

[mancerayder]

"The result of these emotionally driven discussions is that once again, Americans are focused on race being a primary driver of inequality and distracted away from the much bigger issue of class. It's a very convenient tactic for the corporate elites who own our government and want to prevent real change. Racism is a convenient target, because it allows people to blame a problem whose solution doesn't involve massive overhauls of tax policy to better redistribute the wealth that is accumulating with the .01%."

I'd upvote this tenfold if I could. I think the race discussion in America pits us against one another and creates Trumps and anti-Trumps, instead of pinpointing the elite (both the leaders of the Trump and anti-Trump camps are elites).

It's horrifying how far away we are from talking about class. Racial privilege exists, but by focusing on it as the number one priority, the number one problem in America, we've turned it into a wedge issue.

[droopybuns]

>>Another thing that drives me crazy about these "privilege" discussions is how insanely qualitative and emotion driven they are.

Asserting another person's privilege is a specific tactic for silencing speech. It is literally a method of supression if you believe in freedom of expression.

The positive side of this is that once you realize this, you can treat people who focus on "privilege" with the exact same tools you use on Mormons and Jehovas Witnesses. Race theorists behave in ways that earn them uncomfortable status in the BITE model.

[quinnchr]

Except it's not an emotionally driven discussion, it's an issue that has been studied for decades. Saying "it's an issue of class not race" is not a hot take on the issue, it's a distraction that had been quantitatively disproven over and over again.

Believe it or not people have done quantitative studies on the interaction of race and class. You can go read pretty much any study on intergenerational income mobility and find what you want to know: At every single income level blacks are less likely than whites to transition from their parents income bracket to a higher one [0]

And by the way it's not just police shootings that are the issue. Minorities are overrepresented at literally every stage of the criminal justice system. They're more likely to be searched following a traffic stop [1]. More likely to be charged with a more serious crime [2]. More likely to receive worse bail terms [3]. And more likely to receive longer sentences [4].

Please try to not let your emotions overwhelm the mountain of evidence pointing to the fact minorities really do have a different experience than white people.

[0] https://www.chicagofed.org/~/media/publications/economic-per...

[1] https://www.unc.edu/~fbaum/TrafficStops/DrivingWhileBlack-Ba...

[2] http://www.fjc.gov/public/pdf.nsf/lookup/NSPI201213.pdf/$fil...

[3] https://www.pretrial.org/download/research/Testing%20for%20R...

[4] http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/summerprog/2009/nijworkshop/Steff...

[cestith]

It's not just a convenient target once you realize that as recently as the 1970s it was typical to redline neighborhoods so darker-skinned people wouldn't be shown certain homes. It was common to have white suburban flight, leaving all-black neighborhoods in the inner cities with little commerce or industry and few jobs. It's so easy to conflate class and race in some cities because a couple of generations out one still has been so informed by the other.

[rhizome]

What's the outcome for a white kid born in a trailer park vs. a black kid born in a wealthy suburb?

I don't think this is a productive framing when there is a huge excluded middle in there, but to your point, when have you seen an upper class white person treated like Henry Louis Gates?[1]

See also: Paul Mooney's "Nigger Wake-up Call"[2]

Americans are focused on race being a primary driver of inequality and distracted away from the much bigger issue of class.

Class is a function of race in the US.

"The latter argument—“the issue is class not race”—claims that because we have poor and well-to-do people within all racial groups, what matters is really class difference. As the argument goes, differences in average wealth across racial groups are in fact caused by persistent class differences; race no longer has a measurable effect. Again, this dismissal of the issue of race does not hold up to empirical scrutiny. Class matters to be sure, but so too does race. Moreover, studies find that minority groups are not able to pass middle or upper-class status on to their children with the same frequency as Anglos. And the “class not race” argument simply avoids the most pressing question: Why should there be such drastic class differences between racial groups to begin with?"[3]

1. http://archive.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/specials/...

2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uw8cDmLpuzg

3. http://www.guleninstitute.org/publications/analyses/240-how-...

[hackuser]

> Is class privilege completely nullified by racial privilege, meaning the white kid is likely to earn more than the black kid as an adult? The data doesn't show this, and puts a much heavier weight on class and geography being the bigger barriers.

What data? This is counter to any data I've seen.

> these emotionally driven discussions

To suggest that there is no rational, factual basis to racism in the U.S. is not helpful to a discussion of serious issues.

[Domenic_S]

Rich black man in a dress shirt drunkenly waving a Wusthof in one hand and a glass of wine in the other in his granite-countered kitchen vs. a dirty white trash kid in a torn hoodie brandishing a machete. Who gets shot?

Details matter.

[ta_donk_gt]

I think alienating two-thirds of the population and focusing on only a subset of the problem is generally counterproductive. I can support the gp with another anecdote of growing up in an overwhelmingly white small town watching cops harass, beat up, (and much worse that I'm not even going to mention) plenty of poor white folks. Race is just a proxy for a power imbalance that cops seek out and abuse, and focusing on race will guarantee the actual problem is never addressed.

I'm not sure where you are getting your numbers, but as far as murders by police, the numbers are generally 50% white, 25% black, 15% hispanic, and 10% other ([1] shows one year). The U.S. population is 60-75% white (depending how it is measured), 12% black, 12-25% hispanic (depending how it is measured).

So, these numbers seem to show that if you are black, you are 2x the average, white you are roughly 0.8x the average, hispanic right about 1x the average as far as likelihood of being killed by a cop. That puts black at about 2.5 as likely as white.

Point is, if you are black, you are absolutely more likely to have these problems than if you are white. This distracts from the actual problem though. The actual problem is the power imbalance that is being exploited by the cops in these situations, and race is just being used as a shortcut by the cop's brain to identify a power imbalance that can be exploited.

Again, focusing on race will guarantee the actual problem never gets addressed (even if it might make you feel like a really great person).

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/fatal-police-shootin...

[r_smart]

>That puts black at about 2.5 as likely as white.

You are ignoring the representation of blacks in violent crimes, where they are disproportionately highly represented [0]. If a population represents between 30% and 50% of the violent crime, you would expect them to represent between 30% and 50% of the police shootings, no?

[0]: https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2014/crime-in-the-u.s.-...

[BurningFrog]

> If you're going to "burst bubbles" when talking about privilege, I encourage you to learn about intersectionality first. Otherwise you're bursting a straw man version of the concept, which doesn't achieve anything. Privilege exists on multiple axes, and you still have white privilege even if you're poor and don't have class privilege.

I've read a lot of Social Justice texts the last few years, and it's usually a mix of moralistic preaching, loudly asserting articles of faith as fact, and tearful wonderment at the moral superiority of the author and their ingroup over the common people.

"Intersectionality" writings are often the least coherent, as they try to make quite disparate theories of injustice fit together in some Grand Unified Theory.

I won't rule out that there is intellectually honest writing that quantifies these alleged real world phenomenons in a verifiable and falsifiable way. But if so, it is hiding real well.

[westoncb]

I've done a little looking into this after trying to read the wikipedia article on intersectionality. This paper is interesting: http://kathydavis.info/articles/Intersectionality_as_buzzwor...

If you examine this particular use of the concept though:

>... I encourage you to learn about intersectionality first. Otherwise you're bursting a straw man version of the concept, which doesn't achieve anything. Privilege exists on multiple axes, and you still have white privilege even if you're poor and don't have class privilege.

—you can see that the concept of intersectionality isn't actually used: they are just saying it was the victim's lack of class privilege (that caused them to be discriminated against) in this case, rather than something race related (and that this doesn't negate their white privilege). Intersectionality is related to issues of individuals belonging simultaneously to multiple social groupings and claims that the interactions of these groupings must be taken into account—but at least in the above quote, I'm pretty sure all the term adds is a sort of attempted intimidation factor.

[kbenson]

If the premise of the GP is that it's a class/wealth problem, not a race problem, and police disproportionately use excessive force or degrading tactics against the poor, you haven't really provided a counter example. Since black people are more likely to be poor (and racism, institutional and otherwise, likely plays a role in this), you would see more cases of excessive force used against them under this premise.

It's entirely possible, and I think quite likely, that both are occurring. The question then arises as to which is a stronger factor. I suspect that they are close enough in strength that it may change from region to region, city to city.

[PravlageTiem]

Your borderline autistic model of privilege is being used as club to justify systemic abuse from the same authoritarian forces you are attempting to describe with your faulty model.

You should feel bad, but I know you won't.

[int_19h]

The more interesting thing is that it also happens to rich and affluent white people. Here's one example:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berwyn_Heights,_Maryland_mayor...

So the state police have went over the heads of the local PD to raid the local mayor's residence. Raid went about as well as they usually do - no-knock, shoot the dogs, handcuff everyone inside, turn the place upside down, leave without any apology.

And here's what the sheriff who ran the raid had to say afterwards: "We've apologized for the incident, but we will never apologize for taking drugs off our streets. Quite frankly, we'd do it again. Tonight."

The one good bit that came out of this story was that the mayor, being in a position to influence other people, rammed through a law that required the state to collect statistics on SWAT raids (like, what laws SWAT is used to enforce, how many raids are no-knock, how many shots are fired etc), and publish it regularly. Police unions have pushed back on that big time, but it passed anyway. The results were entirely unsurprising - SWAT is mostly used to enforce drug laws, many raids are over simple possession charges, and there's a disturbing number of no-knock warrants.

[ahoy]

I grew up (white) in rural NC, and it's happened to a family member of mine.

If we were black, he'd be in prison. Since we're white, he got off with just probation.

Rich have it better than the poor, regardless of race. And whites have it better than blacks, regardless of income levels.

[fucking_tragedy]

Class based discrimination exists along side of racially based discrimination. Often, "white trash" is used as class and racially based slur. Ironically, it is often seen as a moral failure for a white person to be less educated and poor or very poor. I have not seen the same class based discrimination towards racial minorities, as lower to middle income is expected.

While I agree with your closing statement, I've sat in a few courtrooms where it has been very clear that white people with less education, income or job security are treated with a harsher temperament than some others.

[JPKab]

It's impossible to prove a hypothetical. I'm sure you know that. "If we were black, he'd be in prison" is an opinion based on a gut instinct.

[delecti]

I would replace both of your uses of "regardless of" with "independent of", both because different types of privilege aren't directly comparable, and because it results in a weird "both > and <" situation if you compare a rich black person to a poor white person.

[hackuser]

> zero evidence other than your own preconceived notions

Let's not forget overwhelming research and other evidence, and hundreds of years of history, of discrimination against people with black skin.

But I agree we shouldn't assume.

Nobody said it doesn't happen to other people. Factually, it happens to black people much more.

[weberc2]

> overwhelming research

Do you have any evidence that the research is "overwhelmingly" one-sided?

[hackuser]

It's well-known enough I'm not going to spend valuable time producing it. While it's reasonable to ask for evidence, we don't have time to find and produce evidence on everything.

[ldehaan]

Incorrect, I have lived in many poor places, grew up poor and in a very racist part of Colorado. (I'm white)

I now live in a nice area and am no longer poor.

I can tell you from personal experience that cops are much nicer to white people All the time.

The worst white trash human being is still white and when confronted with arresting a white person or a black person, white people go free.

Even after you're arrested and put in jail when you go to court with all the inmates on the docket that day you will see harsher sentences for any non white person, and what essentially is a slap on the wrist for the white people.

Just go to your local court and sit in for a day, you will leave deflated and unimpressed by our judicial system.

Sure they'll put white people in jail but listen to the charges and you will see firsthand that although someone who is not white has 4 priors and gets sent away for a year, a white guy who comes in on his 10th, but has a suit on, and a lawyer might get supervised probation and 10 days.

How often are white people allowed to come back to court on their own recognizance vs. Black people that always have to post bail.

Always wear a suit, always hire a external lawyer and never talk to the police until they tell you the charges (and when they do, only say, not guilty).

[WallowC_33]

The details can vary wildly between regions.

For example, early-90s, me growing up in the sticks. Poor people were busted for growing/selling pot. It was reasonably their only choice, there were no jobs. 19 year old gets his car confiscated, and loses his job. Has no way to support his new wife/baby. It just happened to be at the house where the pot was being grown. He did not live there. This kid gets hit with a felony, now he'll never get a job.

Meanwhile, 20 year old son of local construction company owner gets his plants confiscated, and a few hundred in tickets.

Everyone involved here was white. Judge, poor family growing pot, and the family that owned the construction company. The only difference is poor rednecks versus rich rednecks.

[st3v3r]

"Your assumption that the race of the victim is the reason the cops are cool with it is based on zero evidence"

How many black people have been shot by police the past few years? And how many white people?

[kefka]

This whole clusterfuck is thanks to Reagans (Nancy and Reagan).

Prior to the 80's "War On Drugs", it was only an offence to MAKE drugs. In Prohibition, only those who made alcohol were violating the law. You could still possess and drink it. That's why Speakeasys were a thing.

Fast-forward to the Drug war. And now, even a single pill is enough for a felony. Sure makes sorting out "undesirables" easier. And Harry Anslinger back in the late 30's put a fine point on it.

_______________________

" “There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the US, and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos, and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz, and swing, result from marijuana use. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers, and any others.”

    “…the primary reason to outlaw marijuana is its effect on the degenerate races.”

    “Marijuana is an addictive drug which produces in its users insanity, criminality, and death.”

    “Reefer makes darkies think they’re as good as white men.”

    “Marihuana leads to pacifism and communist brainwashing”

    “You smoke a joint and you’re likely to kill your brother.”

    “Marijuana is the most violence-causing drug in the history of mankind.”"

_______________________

Crazy, I say! These negroes think they're somehow equal to us whites!

All I can do is shake my head, and wonder why such an obvious racial discrimination with regards to culture is still banned today. We got rid of the "colored water fountains"....

[rangibaby]

The genesis of the War on Drugs was Richard Nixon wanting a way to harass blacks and hippies

[Symmetry]

More as a way to appear to be doing something about increasing crime rates. Hitting people he didn't like was just icing.

[warfangle]

> “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.”

John Ehrlichman, Assistant to the President for Domestic Affairs under Nixon.

http://harpers.org/archive/2016/04/legalize-it-all/

[int_19h]

Nixon is definitely to blame for starting the whole thing, but practically every administration since than has contributed - and not just Republicans.

For example, you know that progressive darling, Joe Biden? Well, that guy has been instrumental in expanding civil asset forfeiture in collaboration with the Reagan administration, which put in place the economic underpinning of the whole "war on drugs" thing that makes the law enforcement agencies so heavily invested in continued prosecution of it. He was also behind the "COPS" program, which evolved into the present system of police departments militarizing by acquiring surplus and retired equipment from the military, all funded by the feds.

[pc86]

Just because $policy has a disproportionate effect on one race or another doesn't make $policy racist or mean that we should abolish it. The reasons why marijuana should be legal have nothing to do with racially disproportionate effects of enforcement.

[eyelidlessness]

> Just because $policy has a disproportionate effect on one race or another doesn't make $policy racist

Yes it does, even if it is completely accidental and without malice. Racism is not only a way people feel about other people who are racially different from them, it is also a construction of systematic discrimination.

But the fact is that the "war on drugs" happens to be racist with malice.

> or mean that we should abolish it.

It does if you want to live in a more just society; or even if you just want to live in a healthy, functioning society. Policies which disproportionately harm a group of people lead to a permanent underclass. Even if you don't care about the people who are impacted the most, it undermines all of the other institutions of society.

> The reasons why marijuana should be legal have nothing to do with racially disproportionate effects of enforcement.

There are many, many reasons to legalize marijuana (and nearly all of them apply to all other drugs). One of those reasons is absolutely the harm that its prohibition has caused to people of color and poor whites.

[kefka]

You start out in 1954 by saying, “Nigger, nigger, nigger.” By 1968 you can't say “nigger” — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me — because obviously sitting around saying, “We want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “Nigger, nigger.”

By Lee Atwater, an American political consultant and Republican party strategist. He was an advisor of 40th U.S. President Ronald Reagan, the campaign manager for 41st U.S. President George H. W. Bush, and Chairman of the Republican National Committee.

Interview with Alexander P. Lamis (8 July 1981), as quoted in The Two-Party South (1984)‎ by Alexander P. Lamis. https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Lee_Atwater

_______________________________

So, the talking point here is: "When does it migrate from blatant full-on racism(Darkies, nigger, etc.) to policies that directly are racist and affect certain races much more negatively (totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse)?"

Or, further, should we be taking data on how our policies affect different demographics, and adjust how policies are done? Should we not strive for equality, even in areas where it's simple economic decisions that do disproportionately affect certain peoples?

[dannypgh]

There are multiple definitions/types of racism, but one of the most significant ones to enter discourse and study in the 1960s was institutional racism, which more or less defines policies that are disproportionately being used to affect one race as racist.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutional_racism

[pc86]

My point was that there is a difference between a policy used to negatively impact one race and a policy that happens to negatively impact one race. Statistical anomalies and/or demographic trends are not racist.

[microcolonel]

The only drug that leads to both pacifism and violence.

That said, War on Drugs was Nixon; and it was incredibly popular with people who would show up to vote, which is likely why Reagan let his wife get on the bandwagon and didn't fight it.

[tjic]

> This whole clusterfuck is thanks to Reagans (Nancy and Reagan).

No, the war on drugs started during the same Progressive era that pushed alcohol prohibition and eugenics.

The "controlling what people do with their lives" ball really got rolling under Wilson.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_history_of_cannabis_in_t...

[M_Grey]

The actual "War" on drugs was started by Nixon.

[toss1941]

Where do those quotes come from?

[wfunction]

> That's why there's no shame or embarrassment from the officers.

Is there shame and embarrassment when they do it to white people? Or do they just not do it to white people?

[jshevek]

They do it to white people, and they do it without shame, just as they do to black people.

[minikites]

They just don't do it to white people:

http://www.vox.com/2014/7/1/5850830/war-on-drugs-racist-mino...

>White and black people report using drugs at similar rates, according to the latest data from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

>A 2009 report from Human Rights Watch found black people are much more likely to be arrested for drugs. In 2007, black people were 3.6 times more likely to be arrested for drugs than white people.

>Human Rights Watch found more than four in five arrests in the war on drugs are for mere possession, while the rest are for sales. That suggests police are targeting drug users, not traffickers.

http://articles.latimes.com/2008/oct/23/opinion/oe-ayres23

>For every 10,000 residents, about 3,400 more black people are stopped than whites, and 360 more Latinos are stopped than whites. Stopped blacks are 127% more likely to be frisked -- and stopped Latinos are 43% more likely to be frisked -- than stopped whites.

>Now consider this: Although stopped blacks were 127% more likely to be frisked than stopped whites, they were 42.3% less likely to be found with a weapon after they were frisked, 25% less likely to be found with drugs and 33% less likely to be found with other contraband.

[hueving]

>They just don't do it to white people:

That statement directly contradicts your evidence:

>black people were 3.6 times more likely to be arrested for drugs than white people.

Please don't exaggerate, particularly when it comes to politically heated topics like this. Otherwise rational people disengage because it's clear you have some kind of axe to grind and the only people that push back are other axe grinders.

Also, as the other poster pointed out, it's not clear if any of this data has been correctly normalized for income level. This same lazy tactic is used by racists to associate crime with black people, so it's very counterproductive to perpetuate stats that don't adjust for income.

[lukeschlather]

There's a lot of deliberate misinformation by people who want black people to be arrested at a higher rate than whites.

And part of the genius of their misinformation campaign is deliberately coming up with policies that target poverty, so that it's difficult to tease out how much of the racism is just a natural outcome of the policy vs. biased policing.

But that's the thing. Even if the policing isn't biased against blacks (you know it is) the policy is deliberately biased against blacks.

Adjusting for income demonstrates that the police aren't totally to blame - and that's correct. They may not even be primarily to blame. But adjusting for income also understates the scope of the problem.

Arguably, the deeper problem is that doing drugs while poor will land you in jail for 15 years while doing the same drugs while rich will get you a slap on the wrist.

[geofft]

> Otherwise rational people disengage because it's clear you have some kind of axe to grind

There is an axe to grind. I live in a country which has had about three centuries of experience finding every possible way to marginalize black people, and in the last few decades has found every way to dress up the marginalization of black people to preserve plausible deniability and work around laws preventing the direct marginalization of black people (for instance, finding things like income or geography that are correlated with race, and then applying disproportionate policies based on that, so they can convince kind-hearted people like you that they're not discriminating on race when that is totally the intention of the policy). Why should we not have an axe to grind here?

Please stop pretending that this is some sort of dispassionate "politically heated" issue that you can have a friendly watercooler discussion about. Otherwise rational people disengage because it's clear you are making the irrational assumption that both sides are being equally reasonable and participating in equally good faith.

[noobermin]

I can read it as expanded phrasing. He clearly meant "they don't do it to white people as often."

[minikites]

How does that directly contradict my statement? Also, you left out the very important context, which is that while they are 3.6x as likely to be arrested, black people use drugs at the same rate as white people, so what justifies the 3.6x increase?

And, how does income affect stop-and-frisk or drug possession arrests? Do cops have some sort of x-ray vision where they can see a suspect's W-2?

[activ3e]

Aren't the poor side of cities mainly black ? If that's the case then that's just a consequence but it kinda makes sens. If police patrols more in those sides of the cities, the probability for someone black to be arrested then goes higher.

The real problem would be that the poor side of the city is mainly black and that it is trapped in a vicious circle where they have less education and are then more likely to turn to crime and not succeed in life.

[loup-vaillant]

Still, being less likely to be found with contraband and such heavily suggests blacks/poors are being frisked more often than nescessary --at the very least, there's some unjustified bias.

[BurningFrog]

Whether the core problem is (1) unchecked police power or (2) racism is an important question that deserves to be figured out seriously.

If you try to fix one problem when in reality it is the other, you will spend decades making failed reforms while the problem continues unaddressed.

In that context, I think that this...

> I wondered what the ethnicity of the person raided was, and of course he's black. That's why there's no shame or embarrassment from the officers.

...is not good analysis. You're basing a strong opinion on a sample size of 1, that's been selected by a film maker for best effect.

[tangent128]

There's no reason we can't try to reform both at once.

[bigtex]

I have seen instances with no knock raids on white families homes and the police did damage that they didn't pay for.

[jshevek]

It sounds like you've bought into a narrative unsupported by facts.

[wcummings]

> If they raid a home on the pretense that he has a large stash and is selling, fine

If you ask the police, anyone who owns a scale (which lots of users do, to verify the weight of what they're buying) is a "drug dealer" with intent to distribute.

[rhizome]

In many jurisdictions the police do have to pay for damage during a search/raid. You do have to file a claim, though.

[ablero]

So the police raid a house and only find barely a gram of weed in a book bag. If the police arrested the kid for possession with intent to distribute based on some other minor factor (e.g. two empty plastic bags) then what will happen is the prosecutor will offer a standardized deal to the public defender.

The public defender will say to the defendant, here's the deal - 1 year in jail, 3 years probation where you lose your 4th amendment right and also these drug classes that are costly and burdensome.

The public defender will encourage the defendant to take the deal. "Or you will lose at trial and you will be sentenced to 3 years in jail."

The point is, the police can arrest anyone for anything. And the prosecutor can add charges that are unrelated 6 months after the fact. Anything goes in a plea deal and it is a terrifying and troubling reality.

[stef25]

The trailer looks quite spectacular but here's a comment from Roger Ebert that nuances things a bit

"I have to wonder if a calmer, more reflective tone might have benefited the project in the long run. Anyone who already agrees with the movie's arguments likely won't have any problem with its methods, but a larger opportunity to open minds might've been lost somewhere."

[faitswulff]

Besides the misquote, people of color, and especially black folk, are regularly told to "calm down" to "get the message across better." But what happens when an athlete like Colin Kaepernick calmly and quietly takes a knee in protest? The dialogue explodes around his being disrespectful and not about the issues he is actually protesting.

This comic literally illustrates the hypocrisy of reactions to Black Lives Matter protests: https://www.instagram.com/p/BK8vHj4g1yb/

Besides which, responding to someone's call for help on life and death issues with "calm down" is patronizing to the point of inhumanity.

[jamestnz]

Just a minor side-note: that quote is actually from a review by Matt Zoller Seitz. Roger Ebert has, sadly, been dead for years.

[WalterBright]

Ebert is still the only professional movie critic I bother to read. He's missed, as well as the banter between him and Siskel.

[int_19h]

If you want a calmer, more reflective treatment of the issue, I would recommend Radley Balko's book "Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America's Police Forces".

Although it's pretty hard to discuss it calmly, precisely because once you start digging into it, there's so much stuff that's plainly damning and disgusting. For example, Balko also collected a significant number of quotes from law enforcement in his book; let me share some:

"Why serve an arrest warrant to some crack dealer with a .38? With full armor, the right shit, and training, you can kick ass and have fun."

"The officers with SWAT and dynamic-entry experience interviewed for this book say raids are orders of magnitude more intoxicating than anything else in police work. Ironically, many cops describe them with language usually used to describe the drugs the raids are conducted to confiscate. “Oh, it’s a huge rush,” Franklin says. “Those times when you do have to kick down a door, it’s just a big shot of adrenaline.” Downing agrees. “It’s a rush. And you have to be careful, because the raids themselves can be habit-forming.” Jamie Haase, a former special agent with Immigration and Customs Enforcement who went on multiple narcotics, money laundering, and human trafficking raids, says the thrill of the raid may factor into why narcotics cops just don’t consider less volatile means of serving search warrants. “The thing is, it’s so much safer to wait the suspect out,” he says. “Waiting people out is just so much better. You’ve done your investigation, so you know their routine. So you wait until the guy leaves, and you do a routine"

"One day, with a big smile on my face, I popped in to tell my deputy chief, Ed Davis, that I thought up an acronym for my special new unit. He was still, as we all were, glued to the classic concepts of policing, which discourage the formation of military-type units. But he realized some changes would have to be made. “It’s SWAT,” I said. “Oh, that’s pretty good. What’s it stand for?” “Special Weapons Attack Teams.” Davis blinked at me. “No.” There was no way, he said dismissively, he would ever use the word “attack.” I went out, crestfallen, but a moment later I was back. “Special Weapons and Tactics,” I said. “Okay?” “No problem. That’s fine,” Davis said. And that was how SWAT was born."

[clouddrover]

An interview with Craig Atkinson, the film-maker:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bl_XHxrd45I

It's around 37 minutes long. There's some interesting discussion on the making of Do Not Resist and the problems with the way police departments are operated and officers are trained.

[richmarr]

Not sure what your point is. Are you contradicting the study? Trying to suggest a different explanation for the findings?

[mtgx]

He's saying that cameras may reduce complaints by 90%, probably because people think that if there was a camera involved and the cop did something wrong, then he would be punished for it, or alternatively if he didn't do anything wrong, then he wouldn't be. Either way, that person probably thinks it's not necessary to file a complaint.

The issue is that for one, the person may be wrong. Cops rarely get punished. And second, the complaints may drop by 90%, but the abuses may not drop by nearly as much. Let's say maybe they drop by only 20%.

So in practice, this could lead to an overall drop in police abuse, but not by nearly enough to cover all the abuses. However, now it seems the vast majority of people won't even complain about most of the abuses, so those abuses will remain hidden/unpunished, unless you expect the police chiefs or some other oversight body to watch all the videos and then decide for themselves when to punish the cops (which should probably happen - or at least have a "police behavior alert system" that notifies the oversight bodies by scanning the videos).

[richmarr]

Cameras were assigned randomly on a week by week basis and complaints also dropped when cameras weren't worn, so public perception is an unlikely explanation.

[bigiain]

Doesn't mean the "bad apple" cops weren't abusing as normal, and taunting their victims with "Ha! It's all on camera, complain all you like!"

[DanBC]

I think police-worn video will reduce the amount of abusive policing.

But I'm making a big assumption there. I'm assuming that the police know that they're being abusive, and don't want the public to know how they're policing.

What happens if the police are in fact proud of what they do? Convinced that it's the right thing?

For one example see how some police seem to go to maximum escalation at the earliest opportunity. They do this in the name of "officer safety", but ignore the increased danger it poses to members of the public.

[BurningFrog]

> What happens if the police are in fact proud of what they do? Convinced that it's the right thing?

If a court disagrees after seeing the proud footage, they get punished.

[XorNot]

That's not the point. The point is that it's hard to make criminal cases without hard evidence.

[thomasz]

"Many cases" does not mean that those are a majority. Or even a significant minority.

[throwmenow_0139]

I talked to a police officer in Germany and he told me that police abuse happens even if they wear cameras. He said that those who wear cameras simply don't record their colleagues who are hitting people i.e. looking to another direction deliberately. And I'm sure that if you start to punish them based on those body cameras, you'll see that the police officers will give you biased footage.

Although I can imagine that police officers start to change their behaviour because they're watched (there are studies showing positive changes in behaviour due to surveillance), there must also be more education for the police officers in regards to baseline probabilities so that they realize that black and white people aren't different in behaviour, this could help them to realize that their intuition is not profound. I think helping them to understand cognitive biases is a good way to start a shift.

All of this requires that they aren't doing abuses deliberately, though.

[knightofmars]

Humans game every system, it is our nature. Awareness of our behaviors is the first step in taking measures to alter those behaviors. A body camera, while it may be subject to the same human gaming in some regards, provides awareness of police interaction that has previously been unavailable. Additionally, identifying those individuals who are willing to game the system provides value as well.

[dragonwriter]

> there must also be more education for the police officers in regards to baseline probabilities so that they realize that black and white people aren't different in behavior

Black and white people are different in behavior, on average. There are many reasons for this, among them that black and white people (both directly and through their social networks and family histories) have very different experiences of how the police (and public authorities more generally) act toward them going back in an unbroken chain for several centuries.

[gerbilly]

>And I'm sure that if you start to punish them based on those body cameras, you'll see that the police officers will give you biased footage.

And in a way this may be worse than no footage, because the biased footage may be used to discredit eyewitness accounts of abuse.

[NoGravitas]

Police officers have started putting their car hoods up when they make stops, to block the dash cams.

[jws]

This is not true. A pair of images recently made the rounds of the internet with that speculation, but that was not a traffic stop.

Some models of police cars overheat if left running and parked on very hot days. The officers leave the cars running to power their electronics and lights. Some officers were trying to ameliorate that situation.

Snopes can tell you more.

[st3v3r]

I honestly cannot trust that. With all of the abuses the police have pulled off over the years when it comes to this sort of thing, I cannot trust them. They do not deserve the benefit of the doubt.

[NoGravitas]

The Snopes story seems to just take the response from the police department at face value. The story on Jalopnik[0] is more skeptical.

[0]: https://jalopnik.com/is-this-virginia-police-department-popp...

[jessaustin]

The officers leave the cars running to power their electronics and lights.

Those could be powered by the two giant batteries installed in every police vehicle. The engine is left running for the air conditioner. If "experts" are claiming the above, they are not experts.

[fil_a_del_fee_a]

Snopes is biased. Police cars are engineered to run 24/7 in the blistering heat with all electronics running. That is why there are specially created models from GM, Ford, and Dodge that are beefed up to handle the stress of every day police use.

[hx87]

And if that fails, they can always buy hybrid models that don't need the engine idling all the time.

[treehau5]

Then make it a law -- In order to police, you must be capturing. Zero tolerance, and we all know American society loves Zero tolerance.

[JshWright]

According to...?

[eth0up]

Not sure if it's been verified, but the parent reference itself is legit: https://jalopnik.com/is-this-virginia-police-department-popp... - from 9/26/2016

[lazyant]

Thought the same thing when I watched a bit of the Cops tv show, if they had no problem with what was being filmed, what would they do without cameras? (off the top of my head: grabbing by the hair and insulting a drunk who was already in a cell, shoot a guy in the back who was walking with a knife)

[nashadelic]

That's fine. This will enable a feedback loop where they can be directly be rewarded/punished for right/wrong actions by investigators as need be. Once they see repercussions, they'll care more and use/abuse this accordingly but the result will be a net improvement.

[anotheryou]

but based on the videos you could educate them

[jomamaxx]

While it is odd that a sheriff might lack some self-awareness on this issue, it's not really an issue WRT police cameras.

That the cops have a 'bullet proof vehicle' is not necessarily a problem in and of itself. It's presence does not violate anyone's rights, moreover - there actually may be circumstances in which such gear might be useful that we are not aware of.

For example : a couple of times a year, a group of officers may be sent to 'take down' some very violent and armed people. Imagine if your 'daily job' required to you to face massively armed and violent bad guys. Wouldn't it make sense that your employer provide you with the basic means to protect yourself.

I'm not entirely justifying it, rather pointing out that 'having an armed vehicle' is largely outside the issue of whether or not cops change their behaviour, or whether civilians change their behaviour - when they know there are cameras present.

[soVeryTired]

>For example : a couple of times a year, a group of officers may be sent to 'take down' some very violent and armed people. Imagine if your 'daily job' required to you to face massively armed and violent bad guys.

Surely there are special forces to deal with that sort of situation? I know there are in the UK.

[dec0dedab0de]

Yes and no. It depends on the urgency/severity of the situation, and how remote of a location it is. Either way I would much rather have police driving around in obvious armored vehicles, than in unmarked cars.

[int_19h]

SWAT is supposed to be for that kind of thing.

The problem is that most places don't have the funds to run a completely separate dedicated SWAT. So what they do is place a bunch of regular cops on it, so that they end up sharing their time between SWAT training and door-busting, and regular policing. Needless to say, it doesn't go well, because SWAT training and practice instills the kind of us-vs-them "warzone" mentality that is extremely detrimental to day-to-day policing.

The other problem is that once SWAT is there, cities start using it everywhere on the basis that they have already paid a lot for it, and might as well get their money's worth. This is encouraged from below (i.e. by the officers) too, because raids are more "fun", but also because civil asset forfeiture proceeds from a well-timed raid can be immense, and goes towards the police budget - from which they can buy more SWAT toys like APCs, battering rams or .50 BMG rifles... which then become things begging for an excuse to use, and so the cycle closes.

[hueving]

No, not in smaller cities (i.e. The one with a 50k pop I lived in).

[talmand]

If you live in the US I bet your state police does.

[hueving]

The state police swat team could be hundreds of miles away. That's unacceptable to respond to an active shooting/robbery.

[talmand]

You work with what you have. But, I would be curious if the state doesn't have different teams to cover different sections of the state to alleviate that problem. If they don't, then they're doing a bad job of it.

I would hope that if the local police force has decided to not budget in a response team of that nature then likely they don't need one. But, if they needed one and don't have the budget, then that's a different problem.

[lutorm]

The police, ie the R.U.C, rode around in precisely that kind of vehicles in the part of the UK called "Northern Ireland", didn't they?

[Chris2048]

As an aside, UK police in Northern Ireland drive armored vehicles, though regular police aren't usually armed.