Comment by javajosh | Hacker News Reader

Comment by javajosh | Hacker News Reader

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BLM's problem[1] is that it's a national movement about local problems. It's city cops, not the FBI, that kill people with impunity. The presidential election is generally not the right place to take action, IMHO [2].

In any event, it seems to me that BLM should focus on police money, and ways to put that money in the hands of people who feel that killing unarmed civilians is wrong, the militarization of the police is wrong, and who is willing to peel off some of that money to fund wholly independent police accountability policies, and non-police solutions to community problems (e.g. community intervention, mental health, etc.)

[1] I am highly supportive of BLM, but even more so of the implied general movement toward police accountability. Blacks get it more than the rest of us, but everyone is victimized, regularly, to greater or lesser degrees, by a totally unaccountable police force.

[2] Except in the unlikely event that one of the candidates is overtly racist, approves of violent behavior, and even pardons military and law enforcement personel convicted of murder and torture. Of course, such a candidate would never be a problem in the USA. We're too good for that.)

>BLM's problem[1] is that it's a national movement about local problems. It's city cops, not the FBI, that kill people with impunity.

Which happens because black people are overrepresented when it comes to crime, which happens because they are overrepresented in being poor as dirt.

There is racism in the police force in the US, no doubt, but constantly dealing with criminals and seeing a disparity in a race is bound to make people racist. If you were to wave a magic wand and make all racism in the US disappear overnight, new racism would appear in the span of a month because poor people are still poor. This is why I think BLM was headed towards failure from the very start.

I don't know that much about the internal workings of BLM. But I would think the most effective path forward is to become a viable, powerful political bloc, and then use this power to court local establishment politicians. (Heck, in a better time even the GOP would not be immune to the lure of millions of coherent votes!)

This approach won't work because blacks don't vote. Which I frankly don't understand. Even with problematic voter laws, I can't think of a scenario, short of someone pointing a gun in my face, that would stop me from voting. And yet, awhile back in the Abrams race in black turnout in Georgia was like 50%. That is...insanely low, and implies a thick, wide self-destructive streak. It bodes poorly for the community, because if you can't be bothered to help yourself, then what hope do you have of changing your situation?

The biggest problem with BLM making progress is a lack of solutions they bring to the table. The only consistent proposal is to defund the police, which is very unpopular even within the black community. The majority of the black community sees neighborhood crime as a leading issue and wants to see more cops on the street (just with less discrimination and brutality).

Unless BLM can come up with another solution, I don't see them making headway with the black community. That said, other communities may be able to propel BLM agenda into action against the consensus in the black community. Really a bizarre situation overall.

> Which happens because black people are overrepresented when it comes to crime, which happens because they are overrepresented in being poor as dirt.

Have you tried to confirm this hypothesis, by for example looking at studies that examine the crime rate by both socioeconomic status and race?

>Have you tried to confirm this hypothesis, by for example looking at studies that examine the crime rate by both socioeconomic status and race?

This isn't a hypothesis. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_crime_in_the_United_S...

You seem awfully sure. I was able to find only one study that directly compared crime, race, and income group: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/03/23/poor-...

Unfortunately the metric it uses is whether they were ever incarcerated for any reason. Someone hostile to those results would probably dismiss them as due to police racism.

One could try to use homicide and victim surveys as a mostly objective proxy for all violent crime (very difficult and impossible, respectively, for racist police practices to affect), compare that to the violent crime rate of each racial group, and use any disparity to estimate how racist the police and justice system are being.

But then one would risk getting a result one doesn't like.

>BLM's problem[1] is that it's a national movement about local problems. It's city cops, not the FBI, that kill people with impunity. The presidential election is generally not the right place to take action, IMHO [2].

and there are some cities which have done some minimalist attempts to help the situation. I think though it's not a per-state thing. So federal I guess is appropriate but yes so divided from the actual level of government responsible.

>In any event, it seems to me that BLM should focus on police money, and ways to put that money in the hands of people who feel that killing unarmed civilians is wrong, the militarization of the police is wrong, and who is willing to peel off some of that money to fund wholly independent police accountability policies, and non-police solutions to community problems (e.g. community intervention, mental health, etc.)

I think we are divided here. The whole 'defund the police' thing is such a bad approach. If the black community is already interacting with law enforcement so often. Defunding will only harm them.

What's more important to note is there is a problem. There are countless studies and real life examples proving the problem. Even wider, you can clearly prove the bias. Do some action as a white dude and police drive by and nod. Do example the same action as a black guy and you will have a dozen cop cars.

Yet here we are with BLM and they are 99% ineffective. That's an impossible task. In fact like I said in my first post, the only person to have actually done something for them is Trump and he's painted as racist. The democrats who control the government entirely have done absolutely nothing. This is intentional. This is expected. If the democrats solve the problem, blm goes away and then they have to figure out another way to attract the black vote.

So they are intentionally doing nothing.

What I said is not "defunding the police", it's making sure that the people in charge of the money share my (our?) values. We do NOT want cops, judges, or wardens who dehumanize the poor, the black, the accused, or the convicted. Moreover, we do NOT want someone who can't accept the reality of bad cops, systematically bad police departments and justice systems, and who insist that everything is fine. Because obviously it's not.

But you have to give that person power, and that means control of the money. The police chief, sheriff, and mayor are great places to start, but at the legislative level you've got to start funding and testing other approaches.

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