Posted by Guitarguy567 on 6/11/2020 8:41:00 AM (view original):
What were these comments (microagressions) that were found to be so offensive? Were they legitimately offensive, or offensive to only the most sensitive SJW's?

Well now I'm curious: is this thing that you were so upset about, which apparently was completely wrong, seem legitimately offensive to you now or offensive to just the "most sensitive SJWs"?

To tweet support for police officers when they are committing racist violence against people in the streets is itself an act of violence. Defund the police.

Posted by coreander on 6/11/2020 11:26:00 PM (view original):
To tweet support for police officers when they are committing racist violence against people in the streets is itself an act of violence. Defund the police.

We tried that in the 60s and 70s. Throughout US history the general trend in crime rates has followed the global trend of generally declining over time. For example, there are only 4 periods in US history with meaningful increases in homicide - the prerevolutionary/revolutionary era, the period leading up to and during the Civil War, the Great Depression, and the period following decreased funding of police forces nationwide during the late 60s and early 70s until police funding was beefed back up in the 90s. And these elevated crime rates disproportionately affected people of color. Anyone who actually has the best interests of America's black community at heart - and functional analtical skills - will not support defunding the police.

Everyone who has the best interests of America's black community at heart will work to fight against them being literally murdered in the streets. How many more times will we have to say "hands up don't shoot" before we start to take this problem seriously. When we say defund the police, we are not saying that we wish to leave our communities without protection and support. We just need that protection and support from elsewhere. Nobody is protesting against firefighters right now, because firefighters are not harming their own communities. The concept of what it means to police and what it means to have a police force as a society needs to be radically reimagined. Clearly what we have is not working and it is putting our most vulnerable communities at risk.

If you opened your eyes just a liittttllleeee bit wider to the larger problems in society you might see things differently.

1990 - violent crime rates against blacks ~8000/100000 per annum
homicides with black victims >10000 per annum

present - violent crime rates against blacks ~2500/100000 per annum
homicides with black victims ~2500 per annum

Nobody's arguing (or at least I'm not arguing) that there isn't a problem. Police are killing 400+ blacks per year, 900+ total people, and that seems like too many. But trying to "fix" this problem by reverting to a time when we had 8000 more civilian murders with black victims is not an improvement. It's unfortunate that cops are negating 5% of the gains themselves (although it's not as if police killings were 0 in the 80s and early 90s). It can be improved. Reducing policing is not a good solution for our underserved communities.

You would be surprised how many people are arguing that there isn't a problem. I have been reading a lot of literature over these past few days about the push to defund police departments across this country. I think it is an essential next step in combatting police brutality and an idea that is gaining more and more widespread support. To waver in a time like this is to accept the status quo. While I understand what you mean when you say reducing policing is not a good solution, I would argue that that opinion is not helpful in regards to our current struggle. It minimizes the everyday violence that is accepted within our police force and does not acknowledge the systemic racism built into the system. When you equate my argument to wanting to reduce policing, what you are saying is that I am not actually interested in eliminating the systemic racism in the system. It is not good enough to do better. We have to change everything. I agree with you that reducing policing is a bad idea, only because it does not go far enough. Our communities will not be able to live in peace until we eliminate the police force altogether. Call me idealistic, but our movement is building.

Have you ever heard of the representativeness heuristic? Maybe not given your issue with old white guys, since Daniel Kahneman is in his 80s and Amos Tversky is dead. But it's fairly well-established at this point that this heuristic serves as one of the basic guides for human decision making. Basically, it states that our brains substitute how easy it is to recall examples of something for how common that thing is. It is the quick reference that causes most Americans to think that there are more Browns and Greenes in the world than Suns and Lals, even though in reality these English-language surnames are vastly less common in the world. Most Americans know of a Brown or a Green/Greene, so they assume it must be a common name. It allows us to make quick decisions. But it also causes us to make egregious mistakes. This is the heuristic that causes us to massively overrate the importance of issues that make good news stories.

BLM right now is largely focused on police "murders" of blacks. You just referenced his with your mention of being "literally murdered in the street" and "hands up don't shoot." But internal reviews by many police departments indicate that in all cases at least 98% of police killings are "justified" - ie the victim is posing an urgent threat to the wellbeing of the officer(s) or some third party. That means that actual murders by police are low double digits per year. Consider this - at BLM protests/rallies it is not uncommon to do the "Hell you Talmbout" rollcall of POC murdered by police over the past ~10 years. I've never heard this go longer than a few minutes. The reason it feels like a prevalent problem is that you know those names. The reason you're wrong is that it would take hours to go through all the names of POC murdered by people of their own races in a single year in the US.

The defund the police movement is a reaction to an incredibly narrow view of problems facing POC and poor communities in general in this country. If/where it happens, activists will see fewer LE killings and declare victory, meanwhile ignoring the significantly larger number of new homicides that don't make the national headlines. We already tried this solution. It didn't work.

Most local police in this country have almost no formal training in conflict resolution and crisis management. This is a far bigger problem. Instead of focusing on the 15 people per year who are killed in "hands up don't shoot" scenarios, why not focus on the 950 who are killed while pointing a gun at someone? There are far bigger gains to be made in teaching officers how to avoid ever getting to that point. And a movement who is telling people of color - largely against the statistical reality - that police are always a threat to their very lives are promoting negative interactions between POC and police. That makes the problem worse, not better.

But the absolute worst thing you could do is reduce policing. Because the number of people killed by police is dwarfed by the number of homicides they're preventing.

Posted by coreander on 6/12/2020 12:07:00 PM (view original):
You would be surprised how many people are arguing that there isn't a problem. I have been reading a lot of literature over these past few days about the push to defund police departments across this country. I think it is an essential next step in combatting police brutality and an idea that is gaining more and more widespread support. To waver in a time like this is to accept the status quo. While I understand what you mean when you say reducing policing is not a good solution, I would argue that that opinion is not helpful in regards to our current struggle. It minimizes the everyday violence that is accepted within our police force and does not acknowledge the systemic racism built into the system. When you equate my argument to wanting to reduce policing, what you are saying is that I am not actually interested in eliminating the systemic racism in the system. It is not good enough to do better. We have to change everything. I agree with you that reducing policing is a bad idea, only because it does not go far enough. Our communities will not be able to live in peace until we eliminate the police force altogether. Call me idealistic, but our movement is building.

Ok, I'm going to stop responding to you, because you are way off the rails. I'm not calling you idealistic, I'm calling you a complete idiot. Anyone who pretends they actually believe that crime rates - including violent crime - aren't dependent at all on policing, or that eliminating the police won't cause a massive spike in criminality, are so utterly ignorant of human nature that they're never going to propose realistic policy. Don't get me wrong, I've heard this same argument from BLM leadership. One of the cofounders just did an interview where he talked about how, when he was young, and somebody had a gun, you didn't call the police. You went to your neighbors.

This is blatantly a prosocial language description of vigilante justice. Nobody with any knowledge of history or understanding of power dynamics in this country would actually think that vigilante justice is going to be a net positive for the black community. It's frankly not worth my time trying to discuss real-world political decision-making with somebody who can't see that.

I'm still withholding my opinion until we see what happens where this is tried in local areas.

So you have a problem with BLM leadership? Very telling...

BLM is Black Lives Matter

POC is People of Color. Be careful using the term POC in the context of these protests. These protests are about BLACK lives. POC is a more inclusive term, which can be good, but it is important not to forget who is most at risk from police violence.

If your house was on fire and your neighbor's house was fine, would you tell firefighters that All Houses Matter? Or would you be like, in this instance, my house matters more right now, I need water?

shut it racist

You misspelled anti-racist