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Comment by pietroglyph | Hacker News Reader

> The real reason the situation can't improve is the people angry about police brutality are misinformed and don't want to learn.

What information are the people angry about the current situation missing?

> It's not about the reality of the situation; it seems like more of a tribal thing.

This seems needlessly dismissive. The “reality of the situation” is that police brutality needlessly kills people frequently, most of the people who are killed are black, the police involved are rarely held accountable, and nothing has seemed to change for years.

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> most of the people who are killed are black

Only about 25% of the people killed by police are black; about 50% are white non-Hispanic.

There's definitely a tribal aspect, and unfortunately most people don't know or don't care about most victims.

That said, if changes inspired by concern for black victims improve the situation for everyone, that would be a good thing. And that seems to be happening, leading to changes like body cameras and perhaps cracks in the blue wall, as more officers seem to be speaking out against it now.

>There's definitely a tribal aspect

I disagree, I think it's historical context. The KKK used to infiltrate the police throughout the south. The police aided and abetted domestic terrorism against black people. There are people still living who remember this. It's not tribalism to point out that you are being targeted based on your race and being sensitive to that threat. If you want to call out tribalism, call out the group that is targeting others based on race. They are the tribal ones.

It's tribalism to ignore the fact that others are affected by the same problem. Police rarely face serious consequences regardless of race.

The historical context may justify the tribalism in some eyes, but it may also blind those eyes to the larger problem that affects everyone.

I guess the difference is that white people don't care as much when a white person is murdered by a cop. We distance ourselves from it and try to rationalize it.

No one is ignoring that. You’re upset with something that isn’t happening.

>Only about 25% of the people killed by police are black; about 50% are white.

And in the US population, around 12% of people are black and 70% are white, so black people are overrepresented in police killings.

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