RolStoppable said:
No, it's not. Kriegman's appendix is first and foremost about explaining how to read statistics correctly when an actual bias against a specific race actually exists. In the example you cited in your previous post, you said that violent crime reduced by 23% between the two timeframes you compared, but at the same time there was a 24% increase in the police killings of black people. What your numbers also show is that there was a 26% increase in police killings of white people, so these statistics do not support a claim that the police has been singling out black people specifically, but rather that police violence as a whole has increased regardless of the race they are dealing with (all groups are up by at least 10%). In other words, there's a general police problem, not a race-specific one. So the example you provided does not contradict Kriegman's article, but rather reinforces his findings. Given how complex the subject here is, it's important that we all are on the same page regarding what Kriegman has been arguing. This is not about whether or not police reform is necessary, it's about whether or not the claims of BLM and its strong supporters are actually valid, that the police specifically targets the black population and is out for the demise of blacks. It's about the effects that the BLM movement has had, and the resulting reduction in proactive policing specifically in districts with high black populations has led to notably higher rates of homicides. The error I see in BLM is that it tends to brush the whole police force with the same stroke instead of focusing on the bad apples. This must be why even the good police officers begin to hesitate to continue to do their job in pre-dominantly black communities, because too many people begin to view any police officer as an enemy and it becomes an incredibly ungrateful job. The lower presence of police force naturally invites more crime to occur in the affected districts. The core idea of BLM may be good, but the way they go about may not bring good results. I think that's the entire point here. Police reform and work against systemic racism - such as the topic of the war against drugs which has resulted in many fatherless black families and creates a weak foundation for good and honest lives since generations - are issues that need to be tackled, but BLM at its core strikes me as a movement that divides rather than unites due to its hyperbole. As such, it would be more beneficial to address the problems without carrying the BLM banner. Of course, as the timeframe between Ferguson and Minneapolis shows, doing nothing regarding police reform cannot be the answer. Ideally, a movement like BLM shouldn't exist, but as long as the people in charge keep doing nothing about police violence, a movement like BLM will be necessary to remind everyone that there's still a big problem in the USA. I am aware that the typical opponents of the BLM movement would like to see the problem solved by simply striking the movement down, but it should be clear that that is not my stance. Rather BLM will disband on its own once good police reform has taken place, because BLM is a consequence of police violence. |
The stat to look at if you wish to see if police killings of black individuals is higher than the police killings of white individuals would be the mortality between races, not the mortality over time. You'll notice the mortality for black individuals is roughly 3 times higher than the mortality for white individuals in that chart. I'm not sure why you would use the change over time to try to make that distinction. I don't think anyone would try to argue that police bias didn't exist twenty years ago.
Again, it is a question of ensuring the data is fit to the argument.
As for the rest of your post, I'm not really sure what to say about it. You say that BLM is wrong, but then you spend several paragraphs explaining why they are right.
| pokoko said: The entire premise of BLM--that black lives "matter" less than other lives--is flawed. That it's presented as some kind of absolute truth is just another example that liberal media is just as garbage as conservative media, only more dangerous because it's more wide-reaching and insidious. |
If the truth is "that poverty is the most meaningful factor in determining if someone 'matters'", should it not be noted that the history of the United States is largely a history of fighting to keep minorities impoverished?
