FBI Opens Investigation into Shooting of Michael Brown

[jeff061]

Originally Posted by RainMaker

I wish things like this would result in protests, FBI agents, black leaders flying in, comments from the President, and the Attorney General coming to town. But the 9 year old is not as important as an 18-year old criminal.

Parents visit block where boy, 9, was slain: 'Where he took his last breath' - Chicago Tribune

I'm not seeing the parallel? Is anyone out there saying the shooting of the kid was justified?

[RainMaker]

Originally Posted by Noop

Colin Ferguson, DC Snipers, Nathan Dunlap, Arthur Wise, I could go on and on. And then I could fill in a bunch of white people who were shot dead by cops and come to the complete opposite conclusion. Shit like this has only one purpose and that is to cherry pick cases to create a narrative.

[RainMaker]

Originally Posted by jeff061

I'm not seeing the parallel? Is anyone out there saying the shooting of the kid was justified?

Just that the black community doesn't care as much about a 9-year old being gunned down as an 18-year old criminal because the 9-year old was likely gunned down by a black gang member.

The black community values the life of a person killed by a white person more than anyone else.

[jeff061]

Originally Posted by RainMaker

Colin Ferguson, DC Snipers, Nathan Dunlap, Arthur Wise, I could go on and on. And then I could fill in a bunch of white people who were shot dead by cops and come to the complete opposite conclusion. Shit like this has only one purpose and that is to cherry pick cases to create a narrative.

This I agree with. That picture is pretty pointless, good for propaganda when you are preaching to the choir, but it really doesn't mean anything.

[chadritt]

Originally Posted by RainMaker

Just that the black community doesn't care as much about a 9-year old being gunned down as an 18-year old criminal because the 9-year old was likely gunned down by a black gang member.

The black community values the life of a person killed by a white person more than anyone else.

or that theyre more likely to lash out when the one who fired the fatal bullet is a cop...

[JPhillips]

Originally Posted by RainMaker

Just that the black community doesn't care as much about a 9-year old being gunned down as an 18-year old criminal because the 9-year old was likely gunned down by a black gang member.

The black community values the life of a person killed by a white person more than anyone else.

Just because the media isn't covering it doesn't mean it isn't happening.

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/...-crime/378629/

[RainMaker]

Originally Posted by JPhillips

Just because the media isn't covering it doesn't mean it isn't happening.

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/...-crime/378629/

That article says nothing. It just begs people to stop bringing up much bigger and more important issues in the black community when cases like this arise.

Playing the victim and deflecting blame hasn't worked for decades. At some point it needs to stop.

[JPhillips]

Did you click through on any of the links to efforts by blacks to combat violence? Do none of those count?

[RainMaker]

I did. I know there are efforts to combat the violence. I live in a city where every month you'll see some rally or some politician shaking hands with community leaders. They just never gain any traction. The community doesn't fully get behind them. There isn't a tenth of the vitriol that you find in situations like this.

The strategy for the last few decades has been to focus on how the white man is keeping down black communities. To focus most of the efforts on complaining about racism. To blame the lack of jobs, education, parenting, and so on on white people. You can see the results of these efforts. It doesn't work.

And that's the problem with someone like Coates. He wants to downplay many of the issues that plague the black community. He wants to call anyone who brings it up racist. To him it's about pointing out how evil white people and conservatives are. Because if you write enough articles on that things will magically get better in the community. Until people like him are willing to call out the real issues plaguing the community, nothing will change.

And by the way, Coates writes a lot about how downtrodden the black community is. How white people fled for better areas. Guess where Coates doesn't live? A black community. The minute he got a nice job he got the fuck out. He's a hypocrite race hustler.

[RainMaker]

An example of someone who did is Don Lemon. He got on CNN and said "dress appropriately", "stop having kids you can't support and who won't have a father around to raise", and "go to school". Some things that I think every single community could benefit from. Yet he was hailed as an Uncle Tom for daring to criticize the culture. Mainly from black celebrities who profit off that culture but want to live nowhere near it.

[nol]

Originally Posted by RainMaker

Colin Ferguson, DC Snipers, Nathan Dunlap, Arthur Wise, I could go on and on. And then I could fill in a bunch of white people who were shot dead by cops and come to the complete opposite conclusion. Shit like this has only one purpose and that is to cherry pick cases to create a narrative.

Or you could look up more than a cherry-picked handful and have enough to identify a statistically significant trend. Do you honestly believe that statistically significant trend would be counter to the what the picture presented for bite-size consumption suggests, or are you just a contrarian whose track record of making points on your own is practically nil?

Originally Posted by RainMaker

And that's the problem with someone like Coates. He wants to downplay many of the issues that plague the black community. He wants to call anyone who brings it up racist. To him it's about pointing out how evil white people and conservatives are. Because if you write enough articles on that things will magically get better in the community. Until people like him are willing to call out the real issues plaguing the community, nothing will change.

And by the way, Coates writes a lot about how downtrodden the black community is. How white people fled for better areas. Guess where Coates doesn't live? A black community. The minute he got a nice job he got the fuck out. He's a hypocrite race hustler.

Sorry, didn't catch anything in your rant about whether Coates is right or wrong about the points he makes. Sounds like by living in a downtrodden black community and a wherever he lives now (all I can gather is that he lives somewhere in New York City because he's a writer and that's where the jobs are for writers, but I'll just assume for your benefit he moved somewhere super white and wealthy like Park Slope) he has a couple data points on his experience as a black man and can point out the differences between those communities in which he's lived. If he's a race hustler for that, then what does that make a white man who has lived in a white neighborhood his entire life and makes sweeping generalizations about the black community? Does Coates need to get Michael Jackson surgery so he can experience living in black and white neighborhoods as a white person?

[RainMaker]

Originally Posted by nol

Or you could look up more than a cherry-picked handful and have enough to identify a statistically significant trend. Do you honestly believe that statistically significant trend would be counter to the what the picture presented for bite-size consumption suggests, or are you just a contrarian whose track record of making points on your own is practically nil?

I don't know what statistically significant trend that chart is showing. It cherry picked some white murderers and put them next to non-murderers who had been killed by cops. If it's trying to say that the police kill shoot more black people than white people, that may be true. I'd also argue that the crime rate in black communities is significantly higher and perhaps more interactions with police are a cause for that. I would expect the rate of white people killed by cops to be higher in communities that have high crime rates too.

If it's trying to say that white murderers get treated nicely and apprehended instead of shot, I don't know how you'd even begin to sort that statistically. How do you parse out instances of murderers who willingly turned themselves in as opposed to those who wanted to go out in a blaze of glory. I'd also argue that in black communities the clearance rate is much lower so perhaps they are treated better by not having the police catch them at all. Chicago for instance has a clearance rate of around 25%. So 75% of murderers don't even get caught.

Originally Posted by nol

Sorry, didn't catch anything in your rant about whether Coates is right or wrong about the points he makes. Sounds like by living in a downtrodden black community and a wherever he lives now (all I can gather is that he lives somewhere in New York City because he's a writer and that's where the jobs are for writers, but I'll just assume for your benefit he moved somewhere super white and wealthy like Park Slope) he has a couple data points on his experience as a black man and can point out the differences between those communities in which he's lived. If he's a race hustler for that, then what does that make a white man who has lived in a white neighborhood his entire life and makes sweeping generalizations about the black community? Does Coates need to get Michael Jackson surgery so he can experience living in black and white neighborhoods as a white person?

I think I made it clear that I think he is wrong on most counts. I don't think the problems in the black community are all a result of white supremacy as he states.

[nol]

Originally Posted by Grammaticus

These are also two cases that were decided by the US Supreme Court. It is apparent that our Supreme Court gets it wrong at times and sanctions oppression on the people of the US.

"Wait, wait, wait.. don't go putting words into my mouth!" - half of FOFC

Originally Posted by nol

No, the evidence is the evidence. I'm already assuming the most cop-friendly position where the anonymously-sourced report from the St. Louis police department is true and Darren Wilson suffered an orbital blowout fracture.

What I'm saying is that it's entirely consistent for someone to have minor bruises and swelling that don't require immediate medical attention while also having a broken bone. Conversely, it would be incredibly easy to put a spin on that information and convince a dumb person (aka a potential juror) that an orbital blowout fracture is a big, scary life-threatening injury (Whoa, a broken skull!) that demands a lethal escalation of force when it isn't even close. In fact, you could probably argue that in court without having to provide a definitive answer about whether the orbital fracture was the result of an unprovoked attack or self-defense.

Originally Posted by mckerney

Source: Darren Wilson did not have a fractured eye socket - CNN.com Video

Sometimes it can be good to think of what could potentially undermine your argument and go from there rather than completely relying on some Hail Mary of an unconfirmed report being true.

[nol]

Originally Posted by RainMaker

If it's trying to say that white murderers get treated nicely and apprehended instead of shot, I don't know how you'd even begin to sort that statistically. How do you parse out instances of murderers who willingly turned themselves in as opposed to those who wanted to go out in a blaze of glory. I'd also argue that in black communities the clearance rate is much lower so perhaps they are treated better by not having the police catch them at all. Chicago for instance has a clearance rate of around 25%. So 75% of murderers don't even get caught.

It's true that figures on how many people the police kill are notoriously incomplete, but there's always somewhere to start. You could break down the people killed by police by race and by prior criminal history (you could draw the line at only counting being wanted for murder, including stuff like assault, weapons charges whatever you think). That could be a relatively easy linear regression where you assign 0/1 dummy variables for race (0 = black, 1 = other) and criminal history (0 = no history, 1 = yes history). Race of the officer could be relevant too.

You might ask, "why don't you do it then?" and the answer is because the person making the claim less supported by evidence should have the burden of doing the legwork to find some evidence. The current counterargument lists five black murderers who were taken in to custody (two were sleeping, one was unconscious following a suicide attempt, and one was unarmed and subdued by multiple bystanders) and zero innocent white people killed by police (but it happens).

The clearance part could be a confounding factor, but in light of the fact that the vast majority of murderers are the same race as their victims due to proximity, could just verify several of the links posted that discuss how "Black people don't pay any attention to black-on-black violence" is closer to "White people don't care as much about black-on-black violence," especially given what we know about the demographics of police forces.

Originally Posted by RainMaker

I think I made it clear that I think he is wrong on most counts. I don't think the problems in the black community are all a result of white supremacy as he states.

Again, the more audacious the claim, the more evidence required. You are a random message board poster saying someone who is a professional writer who is pretty well-regarded by other professional writers is actually wrong about most stuff, but you are right. Going to need more than "he's just a race hustler because he has not stayed in West Baltimore his entire life."

[Neon_Chaos]

Originally Posted by cuervo72

There's video of the Kajieme Powell shooting out now too. I don't know if this was suicide by cop, or goading them to prove a point. Either way...the police certainly didn't hesitate to do what he told them to, or to even attempt to talk him down.

Just saw this on youtube.

Holy. Shit. Wow. That was... something else. He dropped from the first bullet, and they just kept pumping in shots, nine in total.

And they cuff the dead body. WHAT.

[DaddyTorgo]

Heh

Michael Brown Shooting: Why Ferguson Police Never Filed 'Incident Report' - NBC News

Police in Ferguson, Missouri, did not file an “incident report” on the fatal shooting of 19-year-old Michael Brown because they turned the case over to St. Louis County police almost immediately, the county prosecutor’s office tells NBC News.

Critics and news media outlets have questioned why Ferguson police released an incident report from a robbery in which Brown was a suspect, as well as security video showing the stick-up, but not the report on the shooting of the unarmed 18-year-old a short time later by Officer Darren Wilson.

The reason, according to the office of St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Robert P. McCulloch, is that it doesn’t exist.

[Logan]

Would seem important to have a sense of what "almost immediately" means.

[JPhillips]

The Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice reports that violent crime by young blacks has plunged 60 percent.

In 1995, the FBI reports, 9,074 blacks were arrested for homicide. In 2012, the number was 4,203—a decline of 54 percent.

[Toddzilla]

All these details that would have - in theory - supported the police and the police department are coming forth awfully late after the fact.

[Easy Mac]

Originally Posted by JPhillips

The Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice reports that violent crime by young blacks has plunged 60 percent.

In 1995, the FBI reports, 9,074 blacks were arrested for homicide. In 2012, the number was 4,203—a decline of 54 percent.

So then the heavy policing in urban areas is a rousing success.

[saldana]

Originally Posted by Neon_Chaos

Just saw this on youtube.

Holy. Shit. Wow. That was... something else. He dropped from the first bullet, and they just kept pumping in shots, nine in total.

And they cuff the dead body. WHAT.

Im trying to figure out 2 things

1. Why didnt the taze him?

2. Why was this idiot taping everything unless he was in on the plan to have his buddy get beat down and it didnt go to plan?

[JPhillips]

Originally Posted by Easy Mac

So then the heavy policing in urban areas is a rousing success.

I'm a big believer in the lower lead levels explanation.

[RainMaker]

Originally Posted by nol

Again, the more audacious the claim, the more evidence required. You are a random message board poster saying someone who is a professional writer who is pretty well-regarded by other professional writers is actually wrong about most stuff, but you are right. Going to need more than "he's just a race hustler because he has not stayed in West Baltimore his entire life."

It is an opinion. There isn't any chart that will show you empirical evidence that one opinion is correct over the other. If there was there would be no debate.

I think Coates is a hack writer who has such little regard for the black community that he feels they can't possibly be successful without the white man allowing it. A person who has such disdain for upper-middle class white people who have trampled on black communities that he decided he wanted to be next door neighbors to them. He offers no solutions, just excuses. A tactic that has failed spectacularly over the last few decades.

[Dutch]

Originally Posted by mckerney

Source: Darren Wilson did not have a fractured eye socket - CNN.com Video

Well, there you go, guilty as all hell. I knew he was lying about that.

[NobodyHere]

A member of St Louis's finest.

Suspended St. Louis Police Officer: "I'm Into Diversity, I Kill Everybody" - The Wire

I hope he gets committed.

[Dutch]

Originally Posted by NobodyHere

A member of St Louis's finest.

Suspended St. Louis Police Officer: "I'm Into Diversity, I Kill Everybody" - The Wire

I hope he gets committed.

I wouldn't necessarily associate him with an entire police department until after we figure out what the police department does with him.

I'm going to assumed this dude will be fired...or committed.

[Young Drachma]

Tomorrow's cover of the STL Post-Dispatch

[CraigSca]

Couldn't they have done better than to include University City?

[JonInMiddleGA]

Of course those numbers don't take into account some other facts

roughly 24 percent of African-Americans in Missouri have been convicted of a felony, according to unpublished estimates by academic researchers.

Or that roughly 1/3rd of the young black population in Missouri doesn't graduate from high school

Or that nearly half of police officers (AZ and MN used as representative sample states) in a study reported having four year degrees ... a standard met by only 10% of blacks nationwide (15% of whites)


Bottom line: the pool of potential applicants is a number lower than the total population ... but that doesn't fit the narrative so it should probably just be ignored

[Solecismic]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Of course those numbers don't take into account some other facts

roughly 24 percent of African-Americans in Missouri have been convicted of a felony, according to unpublished estimates by academic researchers.

Or that roughly 1/3rd of the young black population in Missouri doesn't graduate from high school

Or that nearly half of police officers (AZ and MN used as representative sample states) in a study reported having four year degrees ... a standard met by only 10% of blacks nationwide (15% of whites)


Bottom line: the pool of potential applicants is a number lower than the total population ... but that doesn't fit the narrative so it should probably just be ignored

It should fit the narrative. It's an incredibly difficult problem to solve. We can't just wall off towns like Ferguson and say, "sorry, no police for you," because giving up on policing difficult areas - letting felons operate with impunity - only ensures that another generation grows up facing even worse challenges.

Something has to break this cycle. Compromising the standards for new officers isn't the answer. Insisting that officers are a specific color isn't the answer. What do you do to get everyone invested in his or her community? What will make the people of Ferguson feel pride in their home town?

For now, I think police have to use cameras - both on their cars and in their hats or vests. There should be maintenance rules for these cameras just as there are for radar guns and other equipment. There have to be independent panels to investigate complaints. Communities need to be involved and supported. There's no short-term answer to this problem. We've allowed this situation to fester for decades. It may not be our fault - the America of today isn't the America of the 1960s when MLK was shot simply for expressing peaceful strength. But we have to work to find real solutions rather than just throwing money at the problem and hoping it goes away. America doesn't work well with walls and artificial separation.

[panerd]

Originally Posted by Young Drachma

Tomorrow's cover of the STL Post-Dispatch

OMG! And St. Louis and Ferguson both have white mayors! Those stupid black people don't even know how to vote for someone who represents them best!

EDIT: The other problem that only locals probably fully understand is the fact that there are like 100 municipalities most of whom exist only to write traffic tickets for their town of <1000. They all could conceivably be under the St. Louis police department or at least St. Louis and St. Louis County police departments. Beverly Hills, MO is probably the worst offender. About a 1/4 mile of road outside a major commuter university for traffic ticket writing.

DOUBLE EDIT: Some of the statistics appear to be outright misinformation/wrong. Was looking up Beverly Hills just to see how small the police department really was. Turns out the website has a picture. Not sure how this is 64%? Maybe newspaper spin math?

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Solecismic

America doesn't work well

Increasingly, that snippet is something I can agree with.

[Dutch]

Probably shady math...but I'll bet that Beverly Hills, MO is poor and downtrodden because of that white cop. He's holding the entire community back!

[panerd]

Originally Posted by Dutch

Probably shady math...but I'll bet that Beverly Hills, MO is poor and downtrodden because of that white cop. He's holding the entire community back!

Yeah but the problem is now that St. Louis seems to be in the center of the national spotlight stories like that one will make the rounds on twitter etc like they are on here. Actual statistics be damned!

Much like how Ferguson (and sometimes the implication St. Louis) is made out to be a war zone when in fact like 95% of Ferguson is completely removed from the CNN/FOX cameras. They focus on the one stretch of street in the worst part of town like that is St. Louis.

[Dutch]

Originally Posted by panerd

Yeah but the problem is now that St. Louis seems to be in the center of the national spotlight stories like that one will make the rounds on twitter etc like they are on here. Actual statistics be damned!

Much like how Ferguson (and sometimes the implication St. Louis) is made out to be a war zone when in fact like 95% of Ferguson is completely removed from the CNN/FOX cameras. They focus on the one stretch of street in the worst part of town like that is St. Louis.

Never forget that CNN and FOX need $$ more than they need a cut back on drama and if you look at this thread alone, they know for a fact that we eat this shit up, real, perceived, or even fabricated.

However, there is an imbalance in Ferguson, and that shit needs to be fixed. The problem I'm hearing is that the young men and women of the community rule themselves out from those positions. Either by getting involved in gangs, doing drugs, dropping out of high school, or getting pregnant. That's not a white people problem, that's a community problem and it's almost laughable to not see those problems being addressed seriously. Why are we so afraid to discuss that nationally? Or are we just concerned it won't make money.

[Dutch]

In Missouri, Ferguson's high school tries to prepare for its season | The MMQB with Peter King

[Warhammer]

The problem is solving the problem is difficult and requires people to seriously look in the mirror. It is much easier to moan, complain, and point the fingers at others.

[Young Drachma]

Originally Posted by Dutch

Never forget that CNN and FOX need $$ more than they need a cut back on drama and if you look at this thread alone, they know for a fact that we eat this shit up, real, perceived, or even fabricated.

However, there is an imbalance in Ferguson, and that shit needs to be fixed. The problem I'm hearing is that the young men and women of the community rule themselves out from those positions. Either by getting involved in gangs, doing drugs, dropping out of high school, or getting pregnant. That's not a white people problem, that's a community problem and it's almost laughable to not see those problems being addressed seriously. Why are we so afraid to discuss that nationally? Or are we just concerned it won't make money.

Do you have stats to indicate that this is a legitimate issue in Ferguson or are we just relying on some snapshot of national data as reality?

Like you can't just say things like "there are no qualified people," and even reading the actual article rather than looking at the graphic, people realize that the article has a lot of "well we tried, but no one was interested" and yet, I bet if we're throwing out statistics these same communities surely tend to send disproportionate amounts of men & women to the military.

The thing is, police and other civil servant jobs are good paying jobs, have long been one of the many sources to a middle class lifestyle and so, if these people are so qualified, why can't they get hired in their own towns that they choose to live in?

There isn't a shred of evidence anywhere that supports this myth of no qualified people living in their communities and I'm not arguing people should be hired from within, shit...just force these paragons of quality and upstanding morality to live within the borders of the communities they police.

[nol]

Originally Posted by panerd

EDIT: The other problem that only locals probably fully understand is the fact that there are like 100 municipalities most of whom exist only to write traffic tickets for their town of <1000. They all could conceivably be under the St. Louis police department or at least St. Louis and St. Louis County police departments. Beverly Hills, MO is probably the worst offender. About a 1/4 mile of road outside a major commuter university for traffic ticket writing.

I think most people understand this and also understand that the burden of funding these 100 municipalities' police departments by being disproportionately stopped and fined for traffic tickets falls on St. Louis's poorer black people. Therefore, it's not BS for these communities to feel unfairly targeted by law enforcement - racism takes more forms than just shooting unarmed people.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by nol

disproportionately stopped and fined for traffic tickets

It couldn't possibly be that they're disproportionately, you know, breaking the fucking law.

No, that couldn't POSSIBLY be it.

It's just GOT to be racism. It's just GOT to be "da man". It's just GOT to be something.

[Young Drachma]

Originally Posted by RainMaker

I did. I know there are efforts to combat the violence. I live in a city where every month you'll see some rally or some politician shaking hands with community leaders. They just never gain any traction. The community doesn't fully get behind them. There isn't a tenth of the vitriol that you find in situations like this.

The strategy for the last few decades has been to focus on how the white man is keeping down black communities. To focus most of the efforts on complaining about racism. To blame the lack of jobs, education, parenting, and so on on white people. You can see the results of these efforts. It doesn't work.

And that's the problem with someone like Coates. He wants to downplay many of the issues that plague the black community. He wants to call anyone who brings it up racist. To him it's about pointing out how evil white people and conservatives are. Because if you write enough articles on that things will magically get better in the community. Until people like him are willing to call out the real issues plaguing the community, nothing will change.

And by the way, Coates writes a lot about how downtrodden the black community is. How white people fled for better areas. Guess where Coates doesn't live? A black community. The minute he got a nice job he got the fuck out. He's a hypocrite race hustler.

Ta-Nehisi Coates lives in Harlem. He writes about it often.

As for this canard that he doesn't talk about the "the many issues that plague the black community," and he's not the only that talks about it. Despite what Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams and Larry Elder tell you, colored folks actually care about what happens in their communities, because they have to live in them.

If you believe in freedom, this idea that one person has a responsibility to live amongst the squalor they themselves did not create in an effort to lend authenticity to the very real things they're exposing.

It's reality. It's history. And that history has been codified into the realities that we're seeing now. None of that excuses criminal behavior. But trying to detach pathology from the realities of how things got that way -- and that those actions were intentional and deliberate, with no disregard for how the future would play out as a result -- doesn't excuse those of us living in the present from reflecting on how those things got to where they did, how they impact what we do now and if we continue to perpetuate half-truths about the reality of the circumstances of millions of Americans (not just black ones) that were legislated and put into the public code using their tax dollars...

The Ghetto Is Public Policy - The Atlantic

Just a quick search:

Black People Are Not Ignoring 'Black on Black' Crime - The Atlantic

Why Don't Black People Protest 'Black-on-Black Violence'? - The Atlantic

The Myth of Black-on-Black Crime - The Atlantic

Black Pathology Crowdsourced - The Atlantic

Black Pathology and the Closing of the Progressive Mind - The Atlantic

But stop with the fake even handed concern trolling, like "oh I'm really objective, but the reality here is...Negroes need to take care of their own house."

They do. And they are. But it's complicated. Like everything is complicated. But dismissing a wide swath of people that you don't agree with as race hustlers is unproductive and unbecoming of the serious person you're purporting to be and rids you of the supposed moral high ground flying carpet you're using to drone around and point fingers at communities that you don't approve of for whatever reason.

[Young Drachma]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

It couldn't possibly be that they're disproportionately, you know, breaking the fucking law.

No, that couldn't POSSIBLY be it.

It's just GOT to be racism. It's just GOT to be "da man". It's just GOT to be something.

The whole crux of this argument falls when the main premise appears to be "there are just more black criminals and so it's okay if we target them more than we target white people."

I mean, if that's the starting point...it's a hell of a place to find common ground from.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Young Drachma

The whole crux of this argument falls when the main premise appears to be "there are just more black criminals and so it's okay if we target them more than we target white people."

No, it's that there might just be areas where there is a higher rate of criminal activity by blacks than whites. So if everything else were perfectly equal there would obviously a higher rate of arrests of blacks than whites.

But few of those crying about "disparity" seem to give a damn about that. I guess we're just supposed to overlook X amount of criminal activity by blacks in order to keep their arrest/conviction/incarceration rates down.

Screw reality, let's just keep the math nice & neat.

[CU Tiger]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

No, it's that there might just be areas where there is a higher rate of criminal activity by blacks than whites. So if everything else were perfectly equal there would obviously a higher rate of arrests of blacks than whites.

But few of those crying about "disparity" seem to give a damn about that. I guess we're just supposed to overlook X amount of criminal activity by blacks in order to keep their arrest/conviction/incarceration rates down.

Screw reality, let's just keep the math nice & neat.

Of course then there is the middle ground where both of you are right.

What if Blacks do committ crimes at a higher rate than whites in a given community, and as result blacks get increased scrutiny.

That seems to be logical based on Jon's thought process. The law of unintended consequences states that then blacks will be arrested/ticketed at a higher rate than whites. Even the ones who arent "hardened criminals" since the crime rate is higher among one community as a result all members of that community get increased scrutiny. As a result you are more likely to get an average traffic ticket if you are black than if you are white.

Chicken meet egg and the cycle repeats.

[Dutch]

Originally Posted by Young Drachma

Do you have stats to indicate that this is a legitimate issue in Ferguson or are we just relying on some snapshot of national data as reality?

I look at the end result of growing up in Ferguson. 67% Black/5% Black Police Officers. I see that as a community failure.

But to get away from race for a second...I've spoken with a couple of cops since this shooting (Tampa PD) and they say the same thing...most kids in the poor neighborhoods simply aren't eligible to be cops by the time they are 18 for one reason or another (and that goes for whites, browns, and blacks).

I would add that some (most?) kids in bad neighborhoods have a negative perception of the police department and refuse to join. But nobody is telling them that the way to fix that perception (particularly a racial divide) is to join those departments.

Like you can't just say things like "there are no qualified people," and even reading the actual article rather than looking at the graphic, people realize that the article has a lot of "well we tried, but no one was interested" and yet, I bet if we're throwing out statistics these same communities surely tend to send disproportionate amounts of men & women to the military.

Off-topic a bit, but the poor communities should be exploiting the fact that anybody can join, not bitching that not enough of those jobs go to middle and upper class kids. I know that we should all be pulling our weight equally in the military, but damn, that's opportunity right there, don't let that pass you by! It's a great way to get out of those shitty neighborhoods with no future. But I'll admit, I'm a bit biased on that one.

[Young Drachma]

So what's happening here? The answer, after digging into some census data, seems to be massive demographic change. In 1990, the city of Ferguson had 5,589 black citizens and 16,454 white citizens, making it about three-quarters white. By 2000, blacks were a slim majority of the population. As of 2010, they made up 69 percent of the city, and it seems likely that trajectory has continued over the last four years.

This may be part of the "Great Inversion" that seems to be taking place in St. Louis; as the white population begins to reverse its 1950s-era migration to the suburbs, the black population is migrating out toward the suburbs.

Why Ferguson, Missouri's, police department is so white - Courant.com

The town just got majority black. Can't fire a bunch of cops just because things flip.

Off-topic a bit, but the poor communities should be exploiting the fact that anybody can join, not bitching that not enough of those jobs go to middle and upper class kids. I know that we should all be pulling our weight equally in the military, but damn, that's opportunity right there, don't let that pass you by! It's a great way to get out of those shitty neighborhoods with no future. But I'll admit, I'm a bit biased on that one.

Right, okay. I give up.

[RainMaker]

Originally Posted by Young Drachma

If you believe in freedom, this idea that one person has a responsibility to live amongst the squalor they themselves did not create in an effort to lend authenticity to the very real things they're exposing.

I believe in freedom and he can live where he wants. But for someone who writes incessantly about white supremacy and the evils of gentrification, it's odd he would use that freedom to live in one of the centers of it.

Originally Posted by Young Drachma

It's reality. It's history. And that history has been codified into the realities that we're seeing now. None of that excuses criminal behavior. But trying to detach pathology from the realities of how things got that way -- and that those actions were intentional and deliberate, with no disregard for how the future would play out as a result -- doesn't excuse those of us living in the present from reflecting on how those things got to where they did, how they impact what we do now and if we continue to perpetuate half-truths about the reality of the circumstances of millions of Americans (not just black ones) that were legislated and put into the public code using their tax dollars...

I'm just saying the strategy of constantly looking back and constantly blaming everything on the white man has not worked the past few decades. Maybe a different approach is in order.

[nol]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

No, it's that there might just be areas where there is a higher rate of criminal activity by blacks than whites. So if everything else were perfectly equal there would obviously a higher rate of arrests of blacks than whites.

But few of those crying about "disparity" seem to give a damn about that. I guess we're just supposed to overlook X amount of criminal activity by blacks in order to keep their arrest/conviction/incarceration rates down.

Screw reality, let's just keep the math nice & neat.

If only there was some nice and neat math that said vehicles driven by blacks in Ferguson were searched twice as often even though finding contraband was only two-thirds as likely.

Bloomberg - Injustice in Ferguson, Long Before Michael Brown

The ArchCity Defenders study found that 86 percent of vehicle stops involve a black motorist, even though blacks make up only two-thirds of the population. After being stopped, blacks are twice as likely to be searched, even though searches of blacks discover contraband only two-thirds as often as searches of whites, the study found.

Who’s to blame in the confrontation that led to Brown’s death has yet to be sorted out. But the ArchCity Defenders report is the clearest evidence to date that Ferguson’s justice system was discriminatory in practice, if not intent, long before the police force’s heavy-handed response to the riots that followed the fatal shooting. Harvey and his co-authors found that middle-class drivers stopped by police routinely hire lawyers who knock speeding tickets down to non-moving violations; poorer drivers, mostly black, who can’t afford lawyers, often find themselves caught in a downward spiral. They get points on their licenses, they can’t afford their fines, they’re jailed, they lose their jobs, they drive with suspended licenses and get into deeper trouble.

One can question ArchCity Defenders’ blunt claim that “defendants are incarcerated for their poverty.” It’s harder to dispute the defense attorneys’ warning that Ferguson’s practices “destroy the public’s confidence in the justice system and its component parts.”

In the meantime, continue trying to obfuscate the truth. Keep insisting that people in St. Louis have no need to make any changes as the city becomes more and more synonymous with urban decay and brain drain.

[Dutch]

Originally Posted by Young Drachma

Why Ferguson, Missouri's, police department is so white - Courant.com

The town just got majority black. Can't fire a bunch of cops just because things flip.

Okay, so let's break down the article.

The Great Inversion:

1990 - 75% white, 25% black (~5% black cops)
2000 - 50% white, 50% black (~5% black cops)
2010 - 35% white, 65% black, ~5% black cops

To be fair, parenthesis indicate my assumptions.

What else am I missing from the Great Inversion beyond that? In twenty years since the Great Inversion the Ferguson PD could only muster 3 black cops? Seriously?

[Dutch]

You also have to bypass the normal methods that small-city governments often use for recruitment, such as asking your current employees if they have any friends or family who would like to work for your department. That itself is often fraught, as no matter how sensible this is, your current officers are going to resent having something such as the ability to help friends find jobs taken away from them.

This is the only area where I think it would help the community from an external point of view. First dibs should go to people who live in the community, second goes to "by-name" requests. The article didn't dive into the possibility of whether or not Ferguson actually has a qualified and willing pool to draw from...which I don't know for sure, but suspect they don't.