The Pathology of Activism

[White Crane Feather]

On 6/15/2020 at 10:23 AM, Kittens Are Jerks said:

Perhaps I've misunderstood your comment, but I do not see how racism, police brutality, etc., are fueld by quirks of the human mind.

Also, could you expand on what you think those illogical principles are? 

 The mind is a differential machine having evolved for survival. It can be demonstrated in studied done on police that even black police will shoot quicker and make more mistakes against perceived black targets. Why? Racism? That’s the answer to everything? 
 

Subconscious racism (as opposed to the idiots who are apart of racist subcultures) is a symptom and reflection of reality. About 50% of all violent crime is committed by black people. You can’t hide from this fact even if it’s uncomfortable. We know why this disproportional violence exists. It’s not a mystery. Subconscious and systemic racism on the part of police and average people is a direct result of the human mind making probability calls behind the scenes. Does the innocent black man deserve to be grouped with criminals? HELL NO! Police especially need to be aware of their own cognitive quirks, but the problem isn’t going away without addressing root issue, and inflating the issues with false narratives and confirmation biases.

Simple facts to ponder.

Black people are killed by police in a greater proportion to their population than white people. 

Black people are not killed by police in a greater proportion to their participation in violent crime.

Startling l, more white people are killed in proportion to their participation in violent crime than black people.

Some simple conclusions.

We have a severe socioeconomic problem that leads to black people participating in far more crime than proportion to their population. 
 

Because of this, simple statistics tells us that there will be more violent encounters between police and black people than other races regardless of their proportion of the population.

Also because of this bias against black people will be unavoidable because of how the human mind is wired. 
 

Selection bias from the media will then  perpetuate the narrative that black people are target more because of “racism.” This doesn't fit the facts when compared to participation in crime instead of proportional population. 
 

Then we have confirmation bias. If it is a cultural narrative that you are oppressed and targeted then many of the crappy things that happen to all of us will be confirmed as racism  when they happen. It’s not to say profiling doesn't happen, but the incidence of racism is often a filter. That’s not to say it dosn’t exist. I have read about crappy police work That looks racist to me, but those stories are again inflated by selection bias. Crappy police work does exist against other races as well. 
 

It’s a complicated subject with several layers. What’s happening in our culture right now is equivalent to stopping at the second layer and ignoring how and why we got there. If we can’t understand that then we cannot address the real problem to one day end this madness. 

 

 

 

 

Edited June 19, 2020 by White Crane Feather

[+Sherapy]

On 6/15/2020 at 12:10 PM, Liquid Gardens said:

 

As is all human behavior, so I'm not sure why you're bothering to note this.

All racism, all 'isms' are 'natural outcroppings of human cognitive behavior'.  And if you are looking for statistics, there are statistics that support the existence of systemic racism as more than just a 'perception'.

The reason I mentioned 'racism and selfishness and cruel indifference' with respect to white culture is because it is the counterpart to the also 'dramatically' mentioned 'absent father's, single motherhood and a culture of gang violence' with reference to black culture.  Both are of course stereotypes and apply to a subset of those groups, but to the extent that the 'worst' representations of black culture supposedly reflect issues facing blacks as a whole, it seems only fair to call out the worst representations of white culture as possibly 'the real problem' also. 

LG, I agree, we need to be accountable for our horrible human behavior to other humans. 
 

My grandmother taught me there is only one race and it is the human race and for me, I will damn well listen with empathy and ask how can I help. All lives matter and healing starts at validating the harm inflicted. As Piney, I get this as a child of abuse, I healed because I was heard and validated and given the tools to stand up for a better way. 

I didn’t protest personally due to Covid, but as you, I think using our voices collectively does work, we see it with the Me too movement and the LGBT community. 

Edited June 19, 2020 by Sherapy

[+Grim Reaper 6]

2 minutes ago, Sherapy said:

LG, I agree, we need to be accountable for our horrible human behavior to other humans. 
 

My grandmother taught me there is only one race and it is the human race and for me I will damn well listen with empathy and ask how can I help. All lives matter and healing starts at validating the harm inflicted. As Piney, I get this as a child of abuse, I healed because I was heard and validated and given the tools to stand up for a better way. 

I don’t protest personally due to Covid, but as you, I think using our voices collectively does work, we see it with the Me too movement and the LGBT community. 

Very good post, and directly on point, thanks very much for sharing!!!!!!

Peace

[+Liquid Gardens]

13 hours ago, White Crane Feather said:

Statistically this means that violent interactions with police should be  heavily skewed towards black men when compared to their proportion of the population (13-17%).

Although those statistics are interesting they are awfully selective and incomplete.  "Killed by police" is only one metric.  "Violent crime" is also only one slice also, and of course since as you admit there are racists it is unknown how the skew in policing based on race has affected those numbers by either convicting innocent people or just not solving a greater proportion of violent crime committed by white people due to the same factors.  Most of the incidents that have come to national attention and outrage were people being killed by the police for non-violent crimes, let alone the ones where the crime was by a white civilian (Arbery) but they are not charged by the prosecutors.  Most of the people released from death row due to being found innocent are black, and part of that is because blacks are on the receiving end of the death penalty more than whites for the equivalent crime which isn't a plus either.

13 hours ago, White Crane Feather said:

nature has decided that it’s a good idea to assign probabilities to things that have similar traits. It’s an effective survival strategy.

When you are assigning probabilities based on irrelevant similar traits, it's pretty much prejudice.  And of course skewing policing to certain groups increases your statistics disproportionately for those groups, which just further exacerbates this 'natural' inclination to assign bad probabilities based on superficial traits.

13 hours ago, White Crane Feather said:

where as the redneck guy no one even lifts a Camara.

You have evidence or statistics for this?  No rednecks are interested in filming their buddies getting asphyxiated by a cop's knee on their neck? 

13 hours ago, White Crane Feather said:

As long as Black men continue to commit so much violent crime, the brain will always and subconsciously take notice. screaming Racism, and pointing out how “privileged” other people are compared to black people will only make things worse.

Yea, I don't buy that either, I haven't seen that pointing out privilege is making things worse.  Considering that the increased attention and support right now, by white people, for these causes correlates with the increased mentions of white privilege, I doubt this.

There is an excellent, very long, summary of racial bias in law enforcement by Radley Balko who has been documenting these kind of issues for quite a while now.  Plenty of statistics to chew on:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/opinions/systemic-racism-police-evidence-criminal-justice-system/?itid=ap_radleybalko

Edited June 19, 2020 by Liquid Gardens

[White Crane Feather]

2 hours ago, Liquid Gardens said:

Although those statistics are interesting they are awfully selective and incomplete.  "Killed by police" is only one metric.  "Violent crime" is also only one slice also, and of course since as you admit there are racists it is unknown how the skew in policing based on race has affected those numbers by either convicting innocent people or just not solving a greater proportion of violent crime committed by white people due to the same factors.  Most of the incidents that have come to national attention and outrage were people being killed by the police for non-violent crimes, let alone the ones where the crime was by a white civilian (Arbery) but they are not charged by the prosecutors.  Most of the people released from death row due to being found innocent are black, and part of that is because blacks are on the receiving end of the death penalty more than whites for the equivalent crime which isn't a plus either.

When you are assigning probabilities based on irrelevant similar traits, it's pretty much prejudice.  And of course skewing policing to certain groups increases your statistics disproportionately for those groups, which just further exacerbates this 'natural' inclination to assign bad probabilities based on superficial traits.

You have evidence or statistics for this?  No rednecks are interested in filming their buddies getting asphyxiated by a cop's knee on their neck? 

Yea, I don't buy that either, I haven't seen that pointing out privilege is making things worse.  Considering that the increased attention and support right now, by white people, for these causes correlates with the increased mentions of white privilege, I doubt this.

There is an excellent, very long, summary of racial bias in law enforcement by Radley Balko who has been documenting these kind of issues for quite a while now.  Plenty of statistics to chew on:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/opinions/systemic-racism-police-evidence-criminal-justice-system/?itid=ap_radleybalko

Agreed that no statistics are ever 100% and complete. The difference in negative contact with police whit the stats that we do have is far beyond margins for error. It’s obvious that with 350 million people that there are going to be all kinds of outliers one can latch on to anecdotally. Especially if it has gone media viral which is a huuuuuugeeeeee boon for our friend selection bias. 

Many “not charged by persecutors” actually went to grand Juries. The Ferguson debacle comes to mind. The “hands up” slogan, still Used today, turned out to be a complete lie. All forensic science showed that the police Officer was being charged by the individual. Are police officers going to have to face prison and life ruining circumstances because they are doing what they were trained to do and vast majority of people do not evaluate information critically? The three incidents that come to mind, where in my mind were heinous crimes by police officers, were all prosecuted (or being prosecuted) and the s officers will serve prison.

There is also a language issue. “Being killed for non violent crimes” is a use of language that implies execution. In many of these popular incidents, that is not what happened. The circumstances all seem to have similar Circumstances. A black person is somewhat combative with police, they are restrained, usually over zealously (in my opinion), the person suffers from severe health issues and most of the time are on drugs, they die. It’s not that they should have died, but when you roll the dice enough times, occasionally a set of bad circumstances will line up. Kneeling on a guys neck for any amount of time is unacceptable and worthy of manslaughter charges, but I haven't been convinced that a white person would have had special quarter. It was ****ty and uncaring police behavior, no doubt, but was it racism? 
 

If black men are heavily over represented in crime, it shouldn’t be a surprise that they will be over represented when things go wrong too. If that over representation is disproportional to their participation in crime, then it’s clear race is an issue in policing. If it is not and it is proportional or less than proportional, then a conclusion that race is major issue in policing is a position not based on facts. All data, no matter how unpopular or uncomfortable points to the former. By all means critically look at the data collection methods too, but it’s pretty overwhelming for errors in reporting or collection to make a huge difference. 

Non of this is to say that there are not real issues in individual cases. Cognitive bias will lead to jumping to conclusions far to easily. I don’t mean to trivialize those cases, but are they representative of the whole or are they outliers? Media’s job is to “generate” heat for ratings and clicks. Outlying incidents can appear to be 1000 times more prevalent than they really are if it stirs emotions. Selection bias has huge ramifications. 

No. That is the problem with selection bias. Videos of police ruffing up white people simply don’t have the viral component that other videos have if they are even taken. This is why looking at the stats paints a more accurate picture. As I mentioned. It’s a stat not talked about, but as a proportion of their participation in violent crime, white people are actually killed more than black people. 

https://www.statista.com/statistics/585152/people-shot-to-death-by-us-police-by-race/

I don’t think racial bias in law enforcement (LE) can be denied. All I have been pointing out is that LE officers are human. When you are confronted with the reality that we are faced with, it’s even expected given what we know about the human mind. Because we know it exists we all also have to be extremely careful not to fall for it on both sides of the coin. An LE officer doesn’t belong in prison for shooting a guy that points a cell phone at him in the dark anymore than an innocent black man does after being railroaded by police and not having enough money to hire a competent attorney. An LE Officer doesn't deserve to go to prison after tackling a career criminal high on fentanyl and meth with severe high blood pressure issues and the complications of the struggle lead to his death anymore than a black man deserves to die because a of a skittish Police Officer should have never been given a gun. We have problems, no doubt, but succumbing to the very issues that cause the problems in the first place won’t make it better. 

We are entering territory that is reminiscent of the Mcarthy era. We need to progress carefully and thoughtfully. 
  

 

 

 
 

 

[spartan max2]

On 6/11/2020 at 8:40 PM, Hankenhunter said:

I went and watched some of his 500 hrs. On You Tube. They are right. Indoctrinator is good word to describe him. Joe Rogan is a societal leach who changes his opinions like I change my socks. Daily. Just another right wing trumpet.

Did you miss where Rogan endorsed Bernie? Lol

[+Liquid Gardens]

9 minutes ago, White Crane Feather said:

A black person is somewhat combative with police,

Says who though?  As long as we're fishing through anecdotes, the number of incidents where the cops flat-out lied about the suspect resisting arrest or other details is not that small.  Considering how rarely we actually have video evidence of these interactions, it's amazing how many times that video has disproven the story of the police. 

Furthermore, one natural and understandable reason for being combative with police is that they are afraid for their life.  For non-resisting George Floyd and way too many others, that fear was justified.

23 minutes ago, White Crane Feather said:

If black men are heavily over represented in crime, it shouldn’t be a surprise that they will be over represented when things go wrong too.

Keep moving backward though - if black men are heavily over represented as the focus of policing, which they are, then they will also be heavily over-represented in 'crime', and thus you have a nasty feedback loop that is unfortunately racist and is distorting our statistics, or at least the conclusions from them.  The FBI's stats show that 40% of murders go unsolved as do 50% of violent assaults and 65% of rapes; that seems like a very large hole in our data set that needs to be accounted for before concluding 'black men are heavily over represented in crime'.

Quote

but I haven't been convinced that a white person would have had special quarter.

Since statistics show that white people commit more violent crime than blacks in the US, then we should expect some evidence of this equality in police brutality.  I at least haven't seen the equivalent of George Floyd or Tamir Rice with white people, and considering the drivel that people do post on youtube for example, I don't think the suggestion that white people are proportionately the victims of brutality too except they don't go viral is supported at this point.

[+OverSword]

On 6/12/2020 at 7:43 AM, seanjo said:

I know exactly what is happening. Identity politics driven by the left: The left needs division to thrive. You are being taken in by nutters. Are you concerned at all by the numbers of young Black Men murdered by other young Black Men? Are you at all concerned with the abandonment of these people by BLM and the Democrats?

 

You are right, the organization, BLM, is a political organization that contributes literally billions to democratic campaigns and notably to white campaigns more often than black.  However you are making a common mistake when arguing about the proposition that black lives matter by bringing civilian on civilian crime into the argument.  It is irrelevant because the concern is about raising awareness of police brutality not ensuring that no black person ever dies again.  Police behavior toward the black community overall is different than what white people experience which has led to too many deaths of black persons.  Bringing the old tired statement "But black people kill each other more than cops do" shows a true shallow ignorance of the subject in general.

[+OverSword]

On 6/12/2020 at 7:58 AM, Horta said:

Out of curiosity, does your support for free expression of opposing viewpoints extend to holocaust deniers?  What about "hate speech"? Where do you draw the line (if at all)?

 

Mine does.  There should be no lines.  I think it best that people tell the world exactly how they feel so we are ready to stop them should words turn to actions.

[+OverSword]

On 6/12/2020 at 8:09 AM, Peter B said:

As for deplatforming, I'm curious why you're so determined to associate it with Nazism and Fascism in particular.

Personally I would also include theocracies.  If you don't see that the modern left desires to be able to tell you what to think and say and make it law you are not paying attention.

[+OverSword]

1 hour ago, Liquid Gardens said:

Keep moving backward though - if black men are heavily over represented as the focus of policing, which they are, then they will also be heavily over-represented in 'crime', and thus you have a nasty feedback loop that is unfortunately racist and is distorting our statistics, or at least the conclusions from them. 

This

[White Crane Feather]

31 minutes ago, Liquid Gardens said:

Says who though?  As long as we're fishing through anecdotes, the number of incidents where the cops flat-out lied about the suspect resisting arrest or other details is not that small.  Considering how rarely we actually have video evidence of these interactions, it's amazing how many times that video has disproven the story of the police. 

Furthermore, one natural and understandable reason for being combative with police is that they are afraid for their life.  For non-resisting George Floyd and way too many others, that fear was justified.

Keep moving backward though - if black men are heavily over represented as the focus of policing, which they are, then they will also be heavily over-represented in 'crime', and thus you have a nasty feedback loop that is unfortunately racist and is distorting our statistics, or at least the conclusions from them.  The FBI's stats show that 40% of murders go unsolved as do 50% of violent assaults and 65% of rapes; that seems like a very large hole in our data set that needs to be accounted for before concluding 'black men are heavily over represented in crime'.

Since statistics show that white people commit more violent crime than blacks in the US, then we should expect some evidence of this equality in police brutality.  I at least haven't seen the equivalent of George Floyd or Tamir Rice with white people, and considering the drivel that people do post on youtube for example, I don't think the suggestion that white people are proportionately the victims of brutality too except they don't go viral is supported at this point.

Says video. Yes agreed anecdotes, especially famous ones, are rarely useful. It’s interesting though how one person can see clearly a struggle ensue and come up with different perspectives in how it started. Having taught selfdefense and martial arts form most of my life, I have watched and scrutinized many thousands of human struggles, and even put thousands of people in artificial ones. Having also mentored a number of black children with incarcerated fathers, and haveIng received professional training on certain behaviors prior to being allowed to be a mentor, I can tell you that the behavior of always resisting and fighting for every inch of advantage no matter how illogical is a cultural and learned behavior amongst poverty and crime ridden neighborhoods and even criminals. Add drugs and alcohol to the mix that cloud decision making, and you have a recipe for a lot of bad decisions. It’s not just fear. On the other hand, police tactics are poorly designed to prevent escalation ( that is a professional opinion), and there seems to be a lack of understanding that pain compliance will actually cause many struggles to escalate because of simple natural responses especially while under the influence. 

You are right about the nasty loop, but it starts deeper. Poverty breeds violence and crime in the groups that it affects. Violence and crime breed bias against those groups. Bias against those groups lead to disproportionate consequences of crime and violence. This is the crux of the problem. The root of the issue is what needs to be addressed. The focus on the symptoms isn’t getting us anywhere because people don’t seem to want to have the difficult conversation.

As for holes in the data. Anyone skilled in statistics will tell you, unless there is some grand hidden conspiracy, the sample size of the data we do have is enough to confidently guess that unsolved crime is likely to follow similar patterns. Again. Not 100%, but there would have to be some sort of highly intelligent conspiracy particularly good at covering up crime to change the power of the sample size that we do have. 
 

Data shows that 50% of all violent crime is committed by black Americans. Black Americans compose 13-17% of the population. Violent crime is overwhelmingly committed by men. This means that nearly half of all Violent crime is committed by a group that only comprises 6-8% of the population. If that is not startling to you and see where this leads, I don’t know what to tell you. 

Committing less than 50% of violent crime white Americans suffer death at the hands of police in greater numbers than Black Americans. This should be expected because they are a lot more in terms of population. However, all things being equal, death by police should be proportional to a group’s participation in violent crime not proportional to population. This isn’t the case. Black Americans are actually killed by police far less than their portion of violent crime should pan out. I don’t know exactly what is going on here. A serious regression analysis needs to be performed, but the narrative that black men are killed more simply isn’t true in relation to their participation in crime. I know it’s hard to swallow because of the selection of anecdotes that we are bombarded with, but those are the facts from reasonable sources. I can tell you, that the massive disproportion, as a function of Population not participation in crime, is a clearly identifiable socioeconomic and is the root source of the rest of it. That’s where we are at. If we don’t take ownership of why 7% of the population commits nearly 50% of all violent crime, the we will never be able to take ownership of the cognitive bias and problems that are inevitable from such a reality. You can’t solve the justice system, police behavior, fear, any of it without having the difficult conversation. You also can’t have the conversation when the label of “racist” is so easily thrown about. 
 

Youtube and Facebook are horrendously bad sources of information. Even the search algorithms are programmed to follow trends and personal preferences. 

 
 

 

[+Liquid Gardens]

1 hour ago, White Crane Feather said:

The root of the issue is what needs to be addressed. The focus on the symptoms isn’t getting us anywhere because people don’t seem to want to have the difficult conversation.

I don't agree with that much either.  Most treatments attempt to deal with the disease but almost always try to deal with the symptoms, and that definitely does get us somewhere.  I'm all for getting to 'the root' of the issue, but there's not one root here, it is a network of roots, and unfortunately people (not you) use this exact kind of argument to justify not changing anything that would help with the symptoms: 'we don't need to do anything about the police and the judicial system since that's not the real 'root' of the problem'.  Poverty causes all kinds of problems and has never been eradicated and for example has impacts on the efficacy of education; despite that, there are things that can be done that are just focused on improving education for disadvantaged people that do get us somewhere, despite the root poverty issue not being addressed.  One of the primary roots of car accidents is careless drivers; despite it not being the root of the issue, encouraging people to wear seatbelts gets us somewhere despite only addressing the symptoms.   Furthermore there's apparently a lot more going on than simply poverty here since members of other races also have plenty of poor people and they don't have the extent of all these negatives that face blacks.

1 hour ago, White Crane Feather said:

As for holes in the data. Anyone skilled in statistics will tell you, unless there is some grand hidden conspiracy, the sample size of the data we do have is enough to confidently guess that unsolved crime is likely to follow similar patterns.

A grand conspiracy is not needed, anyone skilled in statistics will also recognize confounding variables.  You essentially admit and explain the 'rationale' behind the focus of law enforcement on black communities disproportionate to others.  That disproportionate focus would logically lead to more convictions of black people, even though the same crimes are happening in other communities of different racial makeup but perhaps not being solved proportionally.  For example, statistics indicate that blacks use drugs less than whites, yet the arrests of blacks for drug abuse offenses is disproportional to their population proportion, probably partly due to increased policing, increased searches, and lots of other reasons that are documented on the link I provided.  Because of that, it's not necessarily valid to conclude that blacks use more drugs just because statistics show that blacks are arrested for doing drugs disproportionately, because of these confounders. 

1 hour ago, White Crane Feather said:

Youtube and Facebook are horrendously bad sources of information.

Does the US Department of Justice pass muster?

https://www.ojjdp.gov/ojstatbb/crime/ucr.asp?table_in=2

That shows that blacks are arrested for (<> 'commiting') around 38% of violent crimes, not 50%.

We're probably getting too far afield here from Oversword's topic so I think I'll leave it there.  I encourage you to look through the link I provided concerning racism in law enforcement, if nothing else the sheer mass of them is difficult to disregard.

[White Crane Feather]

19 minutes ago, Liquid Gardens said:

I don't agree with that much either.  Most treatments attempt to deal with the disease but almost always try to deal with the symptoms, and that definitely does get us somewhere.  I'm all for getting to 'the root' of the issue, but there's not one root here, it is a network of roots, and unfortunately people (not you) use this exact kind of argument to justify not changing anything that would help with the symptoms: 'we don't need to do anything about the police and the judicial system since that's not the real 'root' of the problem'.  Poverty causes all kinds of problems and has never been eradicated and for example has impacts on the efficacy of education; despite that, there are things that can be done that are just focused on improving education for disadvantaged people that do get us somewhere, despite the root poverty issue not being addressed.  One of the primary roots of car accidents is careless drivers; despite it not being the root of the issue, encouraging people to wear seatbelts gets us somewhere despite only addressing the symptoms.   Furthermore there's apparently a lot more going on than simply poverty here since members of other races also have plenty of poor people and they don't have the extent of all these negatives that face blacks.

A grand conspiracy is not needed, anyone skilled in statistics will also recognize confounding variables.  You essentially admit and explain the 'rationale' behind the focus of law enforcement on black communities disproportionate to others.  That disproportionate focus would logically lead to more convictions of black people, even though the same crimes are happening in other communities of different racial makeup but perhaps not being solved proportionally.  For example, statistics indicate that blacks use drugs less than whites, yet the arrests of blacks for drug abuse offenses is disproportional to their population proportion, probably partly due to increased policing, increased searches, and lots of other reasons that are documented on the link I provided.  Because of that, it's not necessarily valid to conclude that blacks use more drugs just because statistics show that blacks are arrested for doing drugs disproportionately, because of these confounders. 

Does the US Department of Justice pass muster?

https://www.ojjdp.gov/ojstatbb/crime/ucr.asp?table_in=2

That shows that blacks are arrested for (<> 'commiting') around 38% of violent crimes, not 50%.

We're probably getting too far afield here from Oversword's topic so I think I'll leave it there.  I encourage you to look through the link I provided concerning racism in law enforcement, if nothing else the sheer mass of them is difficult to disregard.

No argument that authority needs constant monitoring and overhaul here. Time and time again in history humans demonstrate how power affects them and their institutions. I’m in awe at those that find a calling to protect others, but power attracts those who have no business wielding it too. Any and all scrutiny of law enforcement and the judicial system would be welcome by me. Group think, and tribal behavior is our enemy and rooting it out wherever it may be is endeavor of society building. 

 

Edited June 19, 2020 by White Crane Feather

[qunaquna]

I think it's simply a waste of time and energy, I think it doesn't work. If you want to make a point and change, you have to do it with lots of money, power or force. If you are insignificant you will be ignored.