Comment by armchairhacker | Hacker News Reader

Comment by armchairhacker | Hacker News Reader

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This is exactly what I think of when I hear "police being racist".

As a white person, I've never had a bad interaction with the police. At worst they are very authoritative, but never obnoxious.

Hearing about black people getting stopped for jaywalking, "loitering", and just generally yelled at, it's not right. Before the famous Starbucks case, I've never imagined someone could get arrested and handcuffed for using a restaurant's public bathroom (I guess technically for "customers only" but that's a dumb rule anyways).

I get the cops' side too, they deal with a lot of actual dangerous criminals (that maybe "look similar" because they're also black men) who have no morals and try to catch them off guard. That can drain empathy and make every situation tense. But that's no excuse for the blatant disregard of black people's humanity. If you can't approach someone both in control of the situation and respecting their humanity, then you're not qualified to be a cop.

I'm a volunteer fire fighter. So, first-responders to most 911 calls are us, unless there's a known violent actor in which case cops are sent.

Realizing that I get to deal with all the thankful people (or tragically heart broken) while cops get to deal with -- frankly -- the biggest assholes around... it doesn't validate shitty police in any way, it just made me understand that the system itself is broken.

The people cops are dealing with (most of the time) should have never gone so long without proper mental/physical health care. Or so little opportunity. Or whatever it is that makes is so you need someone with a gun to show up instead of someone with medical/fire training.

And being American themselves, the cops also don't have proper mental health care. There's just no way for a setup like this to not create a bad situation.

In the Starbucks incident neither man actually used the restroom, rather they were arrested for refusing to leave:

"Two black men walked into a Starbucks in downtown Philadelphia on Thursday afternoon and sat down. Officials said they had asked to use the restroom but because they had not bought anything, an employee refused the request. They were eventually asked to leave, and when they declined, an employee called the police" (1)

The charge of racism rests on the claim that they would not be asked to leave had they been white. But what is the evidence for that claim? Has no white person ever been asked to leave a Starbucks for sitting at a table without buying anything?

(1) https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/15/us/starbucks-philadelphia...

The problem I have with this argument is Starbucks has become so ubiquitous they stand as a meeting place within a community.

What does that mean? Imagine the contrast of meeting inside a posh restaurant and not buying anything, versus meeting at, say a 7-11 convenience store. The first one is not imaginable, but the second seems possible. (Have you ever been in a 7-11? Those workers don’t give a hoot about much of anything. Day old hot dogs on rollers).

If you’re in a private business which has this ‘meeting place’ reputation I think they are more lax with the buy ‘something or leave’ norm. That’s were I find objection with this story.

Of course particular owners, employees, locations, and the behavior of the non-buying guests are what makes the difference between _no harm, no foul_ and nuisance disturbance of the actual paying customers. Devil is in the details.

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