Hacker News Reader

Comment by rayiner | Hacker News Reader

I assure you that rich white people defecating in the streets will be treated the same way as poor brown people doing the same thing.

View on HN

This is baselessly asserted: rich people consistently receive gentler treatment at the hands of the police for similar crimes[1]. Black Americans get dinged for this twice: not only are they poorer on average than Whites, but are also disproportionately likely to be brutalized or killed by law enforcement[2]. When Black people do die in custody, their deaths are more likely to be characterized with pseudomedical terms like “excited delirium[3].”

[1]: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdf/10.1086/696355

[2]: https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2022/12/22/policing_survey...

[3]: https://www.psychiatry.org/File%20Library/About-APA/Organiza...

Per interaction they are more likely to experience violence per police office but per interaction black Americans are all about equally likely to die to law enforcement as the average.

"disproportionately likely to be brutalized or killed by law enforcement"

Hi woodruffw - what group is disproportionaly likely to kill or brutalize law enforcement? What happens when you correct for that?

I disagree. Rich white people have "a long life ahead of them" which it would be a shame to ruin for "20 minutes of action", so they would be let off without charges or without jail time, while the poor would be sentenced to the maximum penalty allowed by the law.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People_v._Turner

Yeah rich white people never get 39 years in prison for that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvey_Weinstein

They get that rarely enough that it's newsworthy when they do.

So was Brock Turner.

ah yes the just and even handed laws that prevent both the rich and the poor from sleeping under bridges.

Yes, but those low level crimes are much more disruptive to having a safe and orderly society that’s nice to live in.

yes. We truly must crack down on these crimes that so disrupt a safe and orderly society. That said, maybe we're being slightly hasty with bringing in the criminal justice system to deal with this injustice. I think we as a society underestimate the importance of our social safety nets in the crimes of the homeless.

When you stop and think about the bigger picture, clearly it's the food banks that are responsible. By letting the homeless scum of the earth get food twice a week, we give them the feces that will just be maliciously defecated upon streets and in our businesses. Clearly we should be closing them down to preserve a nice to live in society.

> When you stop and think about the bigger picture, clearly it's the food banks that are responsible. By letting the homeless scum of the earth get food twice a week, we give them the feces that will just be maliciously defecated upon streets and in our businesses. Clearly we should be closing them down to preserve a nice to live in society.

So are you opening up your home for a total stranger to relief themselves? Why not? You seem much kinder than us folks. If enough people living in cities with this issue open up their homes to strangers in need, we won't have this issue in the first place.

I will be waiting for the eventual proof that you do so.

Hyperbole requires hyperbole ;)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com