[tt24]

> They also falsely stated that the officers are “white supremacists,”

> Statistically that's a pretty sensible assumption.

Interesting, is there a source or some data you’re aware of that suggests that it’s a statistically safe assumption?

[alpha_squared]

The American police force originally started as a formalized slave patrol to capture runaway slaves [0]. It's well-documented [1]. We can try to argue whether modern policing carries that tradition, but case [2] after documented case [3] keeps bearing out more of the same. It's been the topic of research [4] and pop culture [5].

[0] https://www.nas.org/academic-questions/36/3/did-american-pol...

[1] https://time.com/4779112/police-history-origins/

[2] https://www.britannica.com/biography/Rodney-King

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Floyd

[4] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7331505/

[5] https://genius.com/123154

[janalsncm]

Pretty clear issues with this line of reasoning.

One, even if all police in the U.S. did start as slave patrols it is a textbook case of a genetic fallacy.

Two, your article discusses several origins of police forces in the US. In Boston it had nothing to do with slaves because Massachusetts was not a slave state when they created a police system in the 1830s. And since Afroman was raided in Ohio, also never a slave state, it does not make sense to carry over southern slave-catching history into modern police culture.

[ceejayoz]

> In Boston it had nothing to do with slaves because Massachusetts was not a slave state when they created a police system in the 1830s.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fugitive_Slave_Act_of_1793

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fugitive_Slave_Act_of_1850

"It required that all escaped slaves, upon capture, be returned to the slave-owner and that officials and citizens of free states had to cooperate."

Boston's police department was founded in 1854.

[janalsncm]

> The first publicly funded, organized police force with officers on duty full-time was created in Boston in 1838.

This is from your Time.com article.

Second, fugitive slave extradition was controversial in northern states and from your Wikipedia article several northern states even passed legislation to protect fugitive slaves.

And why would northern states spend their own tax dollars to fund police forces to capture slaves? It doesn’t make sense. They created police for public safety reasons in cities.

And even if none of that were true it still does not address the genetic fallacy. Just because some police forces started as slave patrols does not imply that all police today are inherently white supremacist.

[tt24]

> The American police force originally started as a formalized slave patrol to capture runaway slaves

I don't see how this supports the claim

[alpha_squared]

You don't see how an organization founded to enforce a cornerstone of white supremacy may have a statistical likelihood of its members being white supremacists?

[tt24]

No, I don't think that this supports the claim that it's a safe assumption that any given cop is a white supremacist.

[alpha_squared]

I've attempted to take your responses as made in good faith twice now, despite evidence to the contrary in other threads. I understand if this topic is uncomfortable for you, either because it challenges your world view or because it feels personally invalidating. It appears as though you're looking for one very specific statistic or logical vulnerability in what others are sharing to refute the overall claim. However, I can only lead you to water.

[tt24]

Sorry, just looking for evidence that supports the claim that was made. So far there isn’t any.

[defrost]

Not the claim made.

> Statistically that's a pretty sensible assumption.

was the claim, ie. quite likely, tending toward more often than not.

Versus your phrasing that any given cop is

[ahhhhnoooo]

Your post is essential. No one is claiming 100% of cops are white supremacists. One is claiming that it's sensible to assume they are.

If 20% of cops were white supremacists, and I was a minority, it would be sensible to behave as if every encounter had a significant chance of being with someone is looking to ruin my day.

The majority do not need to be unsafe for me to feel unsafe around the community. You have to factor in the potential power they wield (to kill you or take your freedom or seize your assets), combined with the odds that one will do it because they have wrong headed ideas about race.

[tt24]

Is there evidence to support the claim that, more often than not, a given cop is a white supremacist?

[ahhhhnoooo]

You seem to be under the mistaken impression that the claim here is "majority of cops are white supremacists". Thats not the claim. The claim is that it is sensible to assume a cop is.

A very different bar. A minority of cops can be white supremacists and because of the power they wield it's still sensible to treat them like every interaction is with a a white supremacist. As an example, a cop can legally kill you in many cases (or deny you freedom or seize your assets). If you had, say, a 20% chance of encountering a cop who was a white supremacist it would be sensible to treat every interaction as if that were the case.

Consider how unevenly weighted the outcomes depending on whether you assume a cop is racist when factoring how sensible it is to assume they are.

[ceejayoz]

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/fbi-white-supremacists-i...

[parineum]

You understand that white supremacist groups existing as cops doesn't make the majority of cops white supremacists, right?

I'd hate to see someone use this kind of bad logic when deciding who is a criminal.

[ceejayoz]

> I'd hate to see someone use this kind of bad logic when deciding who is a criminal.

Oh dear. I have bad news about cops.

[parineum]

Which is, apparently, a strategy you wholly endorse.

[pear01]

People walking around with guns and badges should be held to the highest of standards. Suggesting an equivalence between the burden of proof on a hackernews commenter and individuals authorized by the state to detain, arrest, and potentially deprive citizens of a free country of their life, liberty or property is asinine and shameful.

Cops want the power to do all this, do it incorrectly, be unable to be held accountable, and then cry like babies when someone makes videos and mocks them. He could have just sued them directly to recoup his financial losses from them destroying his house over a bs warrant but cops have qualified immunity. The justice system gives him no recourse. They sued him for videos meanwhile his countersuit was thrown out on this basis.

If you support the cops on this I see no reason why one should not conclude you "wholly endorse" the ongoing "law enforcement" assault on free Americans. What principles do you take the nation to be founded on? You realize red coats coming into people's homes under the color of the law is what instigated the war that bought this country its liberty 250 years ago? I fail to see how this is much different, armed goons with guns and badges invading private property that cannot be held accountable. No election he can take part in will reasonably solve this so he can sue in a timely manner, as the unelected justice system has unilaterally decided you cannot sue cops over this. This is anti-American. Go read the bill of rights and tell me it is consistent with the spirit of those hard fought liberties to support the cops on this. I hope if you actually endorse burdens of proof you will at least support local, state and federal representatives who will codify into law a "repeal" of qualified immunity so that cops who fail to meet that burden can be held personally accountable.

Note a case on that count would still need to prevail on the merits. That is how justice is supposed to work. Instead a carve out for law enforcement has been created where you can't even take them to court. Your case is going to get thrown out. The justice system should not be creating this special class of people, with great power and depriving them of the responsibilities common between neighbors in a free society. What they have done is really not unlike the British sending armed men into American cities to violate rights and then insisting they cannot be held accountable in colonial courts as a matter of principle. This is criminal. People should be able to sue police officers. If that makes the cost of waving guns in people's faces more expensive then so be it.

[parineum]

> People walking around with guns and badges should be held to the highest of standards. Suggesting an equivalence between the burden of proof on a hackernews commenter and individuals authorized by the state

Let's take a step back. OP, essentially, made a very basic logical error (actually not an error IMO, but a willfully misleading statement).

They said, "Statistically, [assuming a cop is a white supremacist] a pretty sensible assumption."

In my mind, what makes something a statistically safe assumption would mean that, more times than not, you'd be right. So it'd mean that greater than half of police are white supremacists. They then posted a link to support that statement which said that some white supremacist groups are instructing their members to join the police force. He's gone from the evidence of "some" white supremacist groups are telling "some" of their members among the police force to justify saying that it's a safe assumption to assume any officer is a white supremacist (greater than 50% chance for any random cop to be a white supremacist).

Considering that I strongly doubt the quantity of white supremacists that are members of white supremacist organizations in this county is even more than half of the amount of police officers, I very much doubt that the subset of individuals in the subset of organizations who were given this instruction and actually followed through on it comprises more than half of the police officers in the country.

To which I facetious said, "I'd hate to see someone use this kind of bad logic when deciding who is a criminal." Implying that, if the cops used the same logic on a neighborhood with criminals, it'd be sensible for them to assume every member of the neighborhood is a criminal. That point seemed to go over OPs head as he replied as if I wasn't making a facetious point and implied that cops do indeed do that. Presumably he thinks that's a bad thing when they do it but is perfectly reasonable for him to do.

I don't think anyone should be using faulty logic to make claims about groups of people.

> If you support the cops on this

I never said I did and, as such, the rest of this comment is not directed to me.

[tt24]

Where in this article does it suggest that it’s a statistically safe assumption that most cops are white supremacists?

[ceejayoz]

It's one data point in a pretty large body of evidence; the FBI thinks they're infiltrating law enforcement in a widespread fashion.

A fascinating study from Stanford looked at police traffic stops nationally around the daylight savings switch (as a natural experimental control) and found pretty hard evidence cops treat black drivers very differently during the day (i.e. when they can see their skin color).

https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2020/05/veil-darkness-redu...

Additional aspect of this: "you're a white supremacist" is almost certainly a First Amendment protected statement of opinion that can't be defamatory.

[throw0101d]

Warnings going back to 2006:

* https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/media/24350/ocr

[kstrauser]

Behold, the sea lion in its native habitat.

[ethagnawl]

Do you personally know any police officers? I do and, as a group, I've found them to be more racist than the general population. I don't know what the working definition of "white supremacists" is in this context but it doesn't make me blink.

[Spivak]

This phenomenon happens with more than just police too—I've seen it happen with medical professionals, firefighters and EMTs as well.

0. Be a white person who has little to no interaction with non-white people in your day to day life.

1. Get a job where you interact with some of the dumbest people in the general public on the regular.

2. Some of those dumb people will invariably be, say, black. And you'll interact with way more black folks than the none you're use to interacting with.

3. Because you have no other association with that group your brain pattern matches and draws the connection.

4. Boom racism.

I find it hard to judge these people too hard because I haven't been "tested" in the same way. Like I want to believe I wouldn't fall down this pipeline but everyone says that.

[allan_s]

We can't on one side ask for people to not make judgment based on statistics and on the other side saying that making a shortcut based statistics is valid.

[mothballed]

Won't someone think of those who falsely accuse someone of kidnapping when they get a similarly ridiculous accusation against them?

This is part of why we have juries. The letter of the law must be nullified sometimes in the interest of justice.