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[alexf.1990]

The quote specifically said that there hasn't been an increased rate. The quote said that the videos illuminate what black people have been going through since abolition, which includes more than just physical violence. That is separate from the fact that black people are killed disproportionately by the police, but like I said earlier, we don't know which uses of force were justified.

How can you make the claim that black people are disproportionately subject to police violence while simultaneously claiming that we can't tell which use of force is justified? Every source you've listed adjusts the number of black deaths for the total population. This skews the data because, as I'm sure you know, black people have more encounters with police. As a criminal justice grad student, can you explain why they would do this? The only explanation I can see is that they are intentionally trying to skew the data.


We currently have a travel ban from certain Muslim countries, and our president wants to limit immigration from sh*thole countries. Do you really think today is as bad as the early 1900s were for black people? That is preposterous.

We have a travel ban from countries whose governments can't verify the identity of their citizens. Obama's Justice Department was the one who identified the countries 7 countries on Trumps list all the way back in 2015. As for the shithole comment, I've never understand the argument against that comment. The people coming from those countries are literally arguing that those countries are so unstable and dangerous that its unsafe for them to return. Either they are shitholes, or the people coming here are lying to get refugee status.

Additionally, most black people in that poll believed that discrimination was widespread. That poll isn't even specifically about black people supporting the police, so I don't even know what you're talking about there. There are plenty of more recent polls on police support, but there has been a change in recent years, which I already noted. Black people mainly differ on how the police should be held accountable and their experiences with the police.

It's your poll... You introduced it as evidence. I think its a bit silly to talk about that poll anyway, it's two decades old.

I never said that racial profiling is as bad as having a deadly disease. Statisticians just wouldn't consider 42% to be an insignificant number. 42% of Americans not having health insurance would be seen as bad. 42% of Americans having been incarcerated at one point in their lives would be seen as bad. 42% of Americans belonging to hate groups would be seen as bad. A 42% high school dropout rate is bad. A 42% obesity rate is bad. A 42% unemployment rate is awful. 42% of anything that's negative is a cause for concern. The disparities in sentencing between crack (mostly affected black people) and powder cocaine were seen as a huge negative even though most black people haven't gone to prison for anything.

I don't think you understand what "significance" means in the field of statistics. Statisticians don't determine causality nor do they make moral judgments about the results of their data. A significance test determines whether the data supports or rejects their null hypothesis. It's a bit troubling that you're claiming to be an academic and you don't understand the very basic tools of your trade.

You think that racial profiling has no effect on people? In Texas, for example, it was found that black people in certain towns had their possessions seized more often even when they were not charged with a crime. There is also something called the compounded effect, which is believed to be the reason why black people are more likely to be convicted of marijuana possession even though white and black people use at the same rate. More stops means more charges. Prosecutors favoring plea deals for some groups over others leads to higher rates of incarceration for some groups than others. Higher conviction and incarceration rates for some groups leads to higher conviction rates and tougher sentences on subsequent offenses due to an existing criminal history.

Most people who are arrested for marijuana are arrested for dealing it. Usage rates aren't relevant to this at all.

Why do you keep focusing on "more than 5 times?" I haven't been stopped by the police more than five times, but I've still had the police called on me because of my race.

The 5x is a measure of the intensity of racial profiling. You're claiming that black people are oppressed by racial profiling, and the data doesn't seem to bear that out.

Scientists, not forum philosophers with unsupported hypotheses, have found many reasons for failures in the black community. Anyone who knows basic history knows that the black experience is unique. No other group was enslaved in large numbers in the U.S. for hundreds of years. The U.S., like many countries, have a racial hierarchy system that puts black people at the bottom. Black people also far outnumbered any other non-white group for most of U.S. history. You're comparing black people to people who make up a very small percentage of the American population.

The history of black people in the US isn't unique. Every country had a class system as recently as the 20th century. The vast majority of Eastern Europeans were still slaves long after black Americans received their freedom. Black people also weren't slaves here for "hundreds of years." It wasn't until the cotton gin was popularized in the 1810s that African slaves were brought here in significant numbers. Even then, only 300,000 (roughly 4% of all transatlantic slaves) were brought here. The vast majority of African slavery existed between 1810 and 1860.

Poor nutrition in early childhood leads to lower IQ and difficulties in performing well in school. Single-parent homes have more difficulties. The percentage of single-parent homes in the black community has risen, but it was always significantly higher than what was seen among white people. The history of separating fathers from their families goes back to slavery. Also, after slavery was abolished, black men were incarcerated at disproportionate rates because of Black Codes. Prisoners and sharecroppers were used as replacements for slaves. And, unlike the Japanese and even some Jews who survived the Holocaust, black people received no reparations.

The Japanese, nor the Jews, nor the Chinese received reparations. 90% of the Jews came from the turn of the 20th century when Russia began purging them. I agree the single family homes is a problem, its a real problem, a problem that can actually be grasped and tackled. 75% of black children are born into unwed homes. More focus needs to be put on this problem, but its not even mentioned in the media. We'll never be able to focus on this problem as long as we're focused on the victim narrative.

Black students perform more poorly in segregated schools. Many black people still live in poor areas where there is lead in the homes, which leads to learning difficulties. Redlining led to black people being stuck in economically depressed neighborhoods. Black boys are put in special ed at higher rates. Since there is this big gap between black boys and black girls, then researchers have to look at sociological reasons rather than genetics.

There is a big gap between all boys and all girls. It's not limited to black people. This gap is increasing as we speak. Lead hasn't been a real problem in decades. They stopped putting lead in paint in 1978. Maybe lead pipes are an issue in isolated areas, but its not a country-wide problem.

In the 1980s, the U.S. government turned a blind eye to the Nicaraguans bringing in crack-cocaine to urban neighborhoods because it funded the American-backed group in Nicaragua. This is documented fact and relatively recent history. Today, the U.S. is using the treatment approach for the opioid epidemic and is even going after drug companies. The response to the crack epidemic was mass incarceration. Incarceration skyrocketed in the 1990s. As someone who works with parolees, it is extremely difficult to get a good job once you have a felony on your record.

The US government has been running drugs for decades. It's not limited to black communities. The opioid epidemic took off under the watchful eye of the FDA and the DEA. The companies that manufacture the drugs have been caught sending millions of pills to small pharmacies that are obviously part of drug running operations.

The disparity between crack and cocaine is another false narrative. The drugs are completely different in addictiveness and side effects. Black neighborhoods were being ravaged by crack in the 1980s. In fact, it was these troubled neighborhoods that were pleading for the dealers to be locked up and order brought back to the streets. I remember DC back then, it looked like a warzone. A better analogy is crack and methamphetamine. The destruction brought by both drugs is comparable, and they were both treated equally by the US Sentencing Commission. Meth is historically a white drug, and crack a black. The harsh sentences wasn't a racial issue, it was a result of the sheer devastation crack, and then meth, brought onto communities that caused the sentences to be so high.