[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.

[prirun]

The politicians and elite ALWAYS want us to be focused on wedge issues - gay marriage, abortion, race, a candidate's tax return - because otherwise we might unite against the true crimes of our day, such as inflation and currency devaluation. They emphasize divisive issues to keep us fighting with each other instead of fighting against them.

[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...

[lutorm]

Just because minorities on average have a different experience than white people doesn't mean there are not white individuals who have exactly the same experience as some minorities. Telling those white people that their experiences don't matter because white people on average have a better experience isn't likely to make them feel better, though.

[serge2k]

Systemically getting targeted by police because of your race vs sometimes they happen to go after you.

Bit of a difference.

[CompanionCuube]

Bit of a strawman on your part.

Should it make them feel better to know they are simply being targeted by police because of their class rather than their race?

[mancerayder]

Can you kindly also cite the studies which show that the level of social mobility in America is now one of the lowest in the industrial world?

Luck, particularly how much wealth you were born with, plays a large role in your likely social outcome, in ways which cast serious doubt on the success of the layout and rules of the economic system under which we attempt to flourish.

If you follow that logic, when you look at historical state-sanctioned inequality, from slavery to Jim Crow to de-facto de-segregation to the present, what we're witnessing isn't a continuation of Jim Crow. The lack of social mobility here (a raceless consideration) has condemned those who've started off many meters behind the 'Start' line of the race.

THAT is the interplay between race and class.

The fact that we can only articulate this in terms of race is the genius of how the dialogue continuously shifts away from wealth inequality (in America the top 1% own 40% of the wealth) and into discussions of white versus black. Now, the average white person and the average black person are pitted against one another, instead of BOTH screaming against this very fact.

[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-...

[rhapsodic]

> 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?

If it were to happen to an upper class white person, it would probably not become a national news story in which the POTUS involved himself, as was the case with Henry Louis Gates. So the fact that I haven't heard of it happening to an upper class white person does not suggest, at least to me, that it hasn't happened to an upper class white person.

And as I recall from the news reports, Gates became confrontational and argumentative with the officers who were investigating the report of the possible break-in at his home, as was their duty. That might have been a contributing factor in his getting arrested.

[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.-...

[ta_donk_gt]

If true, that would further my point, which is that race is not the underlying problem with police shootings and use of force.

One additional note on this comment, sort of inversely related to my previous comment, focusing on race here also is not going to solve any problems. There are underlying issues leading to these statistics that are independent of race and are being ignored.

[r_smart]

Yeah sorry, you're evidence sounded like the thing people usually put out when they say it's a race thing, and it's also not an entirely accurate analysis (in my opinion), which is why I posted that link. I'm in agreement with you. I don't think race is the underlying issue, or certainly not in the ways it's being portrayed as.

[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.

[weberc2]

> It's well-known enough

Well-known is not the same as correct. It's well known that women will do the same work as men for 23% less. It's also disproven.

Here's at least one study that finds no such bias: researchgate.net/publication/256079484_No_evidence_of_racial_discrimination_in_criminal_justice_processing_Results_from_the_National_Longitudinal_Study_of_Adolescent_Health

[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?