While I laud the goals, it's sort of disappointing to see such adherence to the idea that suppressing the expression of racism is going to fix it.
If the additional questions actually do encourage a closer examination of people's thoughts then it might even be effective, at reducing the prevalence of racist opinions rather than only heading off the increase the platform could have been facilitating.
It will involve other people and potentially the police.
So, when someone does report a person as suspicious solely on account of race, and that leads to, say, a police shooting the person - the person that reported certainly shares part of the guilt.
And doubly so if, due to race-only description, police end up targeting the wrong person.
True. Their direct function (one of) is investigating suspicious instances. Period. If the instance turns out to be just a black man walking by their business, they should say "sorry to bother you, sir" and both continue with their day.
This happened to me several times in various countries - police approached me, asked me some questions, ensured I am neither threat not in need of help and we parted ways amicably. The fact that a black person has smaller chance to such resolution than a white person who looks like me is a problem (both from moral and utilitarian standpoints), but it's not a problem of reporting, it is a problem of whoever taking decision on this resolution.
It's a simple thing - whoever is doing a wrong thing, is to blame for the wrong thing. Since when it became a problem to see things like this?
> when someone does report a person as suspicious solely on account of race
Obviously not the case in this discussion. In fact, I would submit it very rarely if ever happens "solely* on account of race. Even the most crazy, vitriolic, hateful anti-black racist does not report any random black person they meet to the police. They may hate them, they may scowl at them - but even these crazed bigots would know police will need something more. Now, there's no doubt that for many people race is a factor - sometimes a major one - but rarely it is the only one.
In the case under discussion, the person was on other's property, while not invited, behaving in unusual manner (not just passing by). Turns out the unusual manner was of innocent kind, probably complicated by mental issues, but again,
> and that leads to, say, a police shooting the person - the person that reported certainly shares part of the guilt.
Nope. Shooting an innocent person is not a reasonable response to a suspicion complaint. And blaming people for unreasonable and unlawful behavior of others is not right. If reasonable person can and should predict this behavior - i.e. if the police in this place is publicly known to be racist and trigger-happy - then the reporter may have some share of the guilt, but then again the first question that needs to be asked is how come everybody knows the police here is racist and trigger happy and it's still not fixed?
> And doubly so if, due to race-only description, police end up targeting the wrong person.
That did not happen in the case we are discussing - while we assume the person was treated as a threat even if he wasn't, there's no doubt and controversy that it was about the same person and there was no mistaken identity.
While race is not a good qualifier alone (too broad, of course), I don't see how removing it would reduce the chance of the police targeting the wrong person. After all, if the person of concern is of certain race, by pointing out the race you reduce the set of potential mistargeting victims to persons belonging to that race, and if you do not mention it at all, the potential set is all people - which is surely a larger set and thus possibility of mistargeting is larger. You can not reduce the probability of mistargeting by making your targeting selectivity worse.
Of course, you can claim race is not enough for identification - and that's certainly true. The police should be trained to solicit more details.
And yet there are numerous stories involving exactly that. For example, people automatically assume that a black person in a yard of an expensive house is not the owner of that house (and from there, that they're up to no good - and call the police). Seriously, just ask around, and listen to what the affected people have to say. It's not a rare occurrence, and it comes from blacks of all walks of life, economic classes etc - the only common factor is race.
>> Shooting an innocent person is not a reasonable response to a suspicion complaint. And blaming people for unreasonable and unlawful behavior of others is not right.
I never said it's reasonable. And yet, by now, everyone in this country should be well aware that the police is behaving unreasonably in these circumstances - and you cannot ignore that when you ask them to come.
For those people who claim that they don't know - what, they didn't watch the news for the past several years? They have never heard of BLM?
So what I'm supposed to do if I feel unsafe when some stranger comes to my house? I can't call the police. I certainly can't defend myself personally - at least not in many places where personal firearms are either banned or severely restricted, and even showing them would be a crime unless there's already a mortal danger. What I am to do if I'm not in mortal danger yet but also don't want to be very soon?
Your solution seems to be for people to stop calling the police, at least until they have definite proof they are in very serious peril (by then it'd be too late, but at least the police would be able to confirm you were right - maybe postmortem, or maybe they'd be there still in time to take you to the hospital...)
My solution is to demand - right now, without waiting - from the police to introduce sane training in conflict resolution, threat evaluation and non-shoot-first responses, and stop shifting blame to the citizens and demand from them to sacrifice their safety because police can't be trusted to do its job.
What you should do before the police, is ask yourself whether the reason why you consider that stranger suspicious is because they're doing something suspicious - or just because they're black, and you don't expect a black person to be in your neighborhood, say. Just mentally substitute a strange white guy. If it suddenly stops being threatening, then don't call the police. If it doesn't, then go ahead and make that call.
All the other things that you say are orthogonal to that. By all means, do demand that police have sane training in conflict resolution, and are not generally trigger happy - it's a very worthwhile cause. But regardless of how soon you demand that, or how emphatically you do so, it won't happen tomorrow. Until then, you have to be aware of the limitations of the existing system, and interact with it accordingly.
BTW, I generally approve of firearm ownership as well as carrying for self-defense, but same thing applies there, even more so than with police. Though the laws in that regard are far more stringent, and the threat of being charged with brandishing for pulling a gun on an imaginary threat is usually a sufficient deterrent - unlike with cops, where the threat is some paid leave, and worst case, a grand jury that will not indict anyway.
Please, don't be pedantic. Police make mistakes, and have their own biases, to boot. If you call them on some random non-white person in your neighborhood, and disaster ensues, you're partly culpable.
> Police make mistakes, and have their own biases, to boot.
You say it as if it's some kind of excuse. It's funny that for reporter have biases is a culpable offense, but for the police it comes out as a defense instead. It doesn't work this way. In fact, random civilians have full right to be wrong, police are (or supposed to be) trained professionals that are paid to be better than civilians at this. So for them to behave worse than a random civilian should be a firing offense, not an excuse.
> If you call them on some random non-white person in your neighborhood, and disaster ensues, you're partly culpable.
Nope. The police function is to protect people. If they instead hurt innocent people, this is their fault, not somebody's that called on their direct and proper function. Their refusal to perform the function is their fault. Just as if you walk on the street and get mugged, you are not "partly culpable", because you could've walked on other street or stayed home - people who mugged you are fully culpable, because it was their choice to do it.
If you assign blame at the wrong place, they only result would be that people that need to change won't change, and you get more of the same problem. Which we are amply witnessing right now.
Should they be held to a higher standard? Yes. But many aren't, and until that happens, thinking otherwise is wishful or naive. If you call the police, and it spirals out of control, you DO bear some measure of responsibility. Not as much as the actual police, but it's not zero, either, especially if your call is racially motivated.
Mugging isn't a counterexample, because the mugger and the muggee have completely opposite desires in the situation. Nobody calls up a mugger and invites them to their neighborhood. Whereas, when you call the cops, you're somewhat in alignment.