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Comment by throwaway987788 | Hacker News Reader

I don't doubt there is racism but not everything is necessarily racially motivated.

I once was pulled over when I did a cross-country road trip. I was given some bs reason that I cut off a semi truck when changing lanes and that my GPS unit in the car was too high and blocking my view. I'm not a POC and the cop asked tons of questions, wanted to inspect my trunk, called the k9 unit, etc. I ended up also getting a warning. Subsequently the cops followed me for miles which felt like they're trying to harass me and find another reason to pull me over. So these things exist regardless of skin color.

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Cops harassing people because they're bored isn't evidence that cops don't harass people of color because they're racist. The two things can, and very evidently do, co-exist.

Your attempt to dismiss racism as a factor in police actions is a big part of the reason why the police are able to get away with it so much.

Do you have any data that we could use to find out which hypothesis has the most explanatory power? High black crime rates make it difficult to distinguish racial motivations for police suspicion from other motivations. I would love to see arrest rates by race controlled for crime rates.

You would also need to control for unreported crime in non-black races. If the police ignore minor crimes by some races (eg not arresting white people found with small quantities of drugs) while they do arrest black people for the same crimes, or if the police ignore crime committed in white neighbourhoods and focus their efforts on arresting black people, then "black rates of crime are higher" is a fiction that stems from systemic police racism and isn't provably real.

The problem is that you're assuming the system is fair and therefore the statistics that come from it are a reflection of reality. If the system is racist then the statistics will be a reflection of that racism. Until you can demonstrate that isn't the case then using crime statistics as an excuse for police actions will be questionable at best, and actively enabling racism at worst.

> Until you can demonstrate that isn't the case then using crime statistics as an excuse for police actions will be questionable at best

What else can be used other than statistics? Is there some other common frame of reference out there?

Well, among other things, if you simply poll people and ask about drug use, white people admit to using drugs at higher rates than black people but are punished much much less frequently for it.

So there are plenty of ways to acquire statistics and data other than through the biased system you are trying to examine. Think of it like going after a computer system that you suspect has been rooted. Do you want to use the system tools from that system to examine itself? Probably not.

> Well, among other things, if you simply poll people and ask about drug use, white people admit to using drugs at higher rates than black people but are punished much much less frequently for it.

If I recall correctly, there's a few confounding factors there - one is that survey results for "have you used drugs in the past week" show much higher relative use by African Americans than "have you used drugs in the past year". Another is that in other surveys African Americans were significantly more likely to answer "no" to "are you a convinced felon" given that they were actually convinced felons, so the survey results aren't necessarily accurate anyways.

What else can be used other than statistics? Is there some other common frame of reference out there?

Qualitative research eg talking to people. Use empathy and compassion. Don't try to distill everything down to numbers.

"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics."

-Mark Twain

https://www.bing.com/search?form=MOZLBR&pc=MOZI&q=blacks+lie...

The problem with statistics is that you need to take lots of time and care to have all sides fully explain their position and be able to rebut counterarguments with more data. If you do this, you will get to the truth, which is why people who are wrong tend to push conspiracy theories in order to dismiss the data instead of putting forward testable arguments. There is no better (or worse) non-argument than the one that you assert can not be falsified a priori.

Also a big assumption here is that black people dont plead guilty to crimes they haven't committed at a higher rate than the rest of the population.

Ive seen a lot of evidence of black people not being able to fully prove their innocence and taking a plea deal because they would rather spend 6 months in jail over fighting, with the aid of an incompetent public defender, to avoid a 10 year sentence.

With all the corruption caught on officer body cameras in just the last 5 years (planting drugs, killing innocent people, unnecessary excessive force, death penalty/life sentence convictions overturned, prosecutors caught hiding evidence of innocence, etc)... It is safe to assume that this level of corruption (which is in many cases protected by both qualified immunity and prosecutorial immunity) has been going on for decades, heavily skewing black crime stats with false entries.

And police are legally allowed to lie. “I found your fingerprint on the $x” - when they never found it.

Yes, they can lie during an interrogation to make you confess. Not during a trial.

I don't know how you're concluding that I'm dismissing racism. If you bothered to read the first line I said I don't doubt that racism exist. I'm sure some incidents are racially motivated, but at the same time, I disagree that all incidents that involve different races can be blamed on racism.

Can you please point me to the comment in this thread that implies that "all incidents that involve different races can be blamed on racism?" Or are you just interjecting with a non-sequitur for no reason?

How is someone supposed to prove they aren't racist? Shouldn't you need more than, he was an asshole and the driver happened to be black to conclude that he is racist?

Shouldn't you need more than, he was an asshole and the driver happened to be black to conclude that he is racist?

Police officers should be beyond reproach. Their behaviour should be exemplary. If an officer is harassing people that's already enough reason to question whether they're fit for the job, and if there's any doubt whether they're being racist or not then it should be on the officer to demonstrate that they're not (using their record, bodycam evidence, etc). The police have had decades of unquestioning respect from the public and they've abused that privilege. Now it's time for the police to earn that respect back.

> if there's any doubt whether they're being racist or not then it should be on the officer to demonstrate that they're not (using their record, bodycam evidence, etc).

He has no venue to respond. No one even accused him of being racist, besides you. How is he supposed to defend himself, come onto hacker news and write a reply?

The police dept released a statement said they'd review the video and take any action deemed necessary. What you would have them do?

The police dept released a statement said they'd review the video and take any action deemed necessary. What you would have them do?

That, but with an independent third party instead of the police dept. Police are clearly not capable of policing themselves.

> What you would have them do?

Stop murdering or otherwise harassing black people...?

Stop switching cameras off, stop blocking any attempt at creating accountability, stop working for the police.

> Stop murdering or otherwise harassing black people...?

Quick question. How many black people did US police murder last year? Order of magnitude. How many would be few enough for you to say that the police have "stopped" - 100? 10? 1? 0?

My guess is that the actual number is a lot lower than you're thinking, even when counting unintentional things like "police officer made a mistake, shot innocent person" and "pig strangled someone a little too long". Not to say that that's excusable when it does occur, but...

> Not to say that that's excusable when it does occur, but...

The thing that goes after the but is called an "excuse".

Funnily enough, nothing in my comment comes after the "but".

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