All lives are equal, but some lives are more equal than others.
9 Likes
Sorry, I was wrong. She wasnât shot multiple times - âjustâ once, according to wikipedia.
8 Likes
There is, however, a benefit to that. The many white Americans who have been saying âOh itâs OK the police only shoot black people, nothing to worry aboutâ are now having their noses rubbed in it. It is an important message to convey, though I expect very soon theyâll be asking why a police force employs Somalis.
6 Likes
They already are.
To me this is a cop thing. What are these cops going through that makes them so trigger-happy? Whatâs conditioning them and whatâs being done to fix it? The numbers show racism is a factor, but that white cops also shoot white people sometimes shows itâs not the only factor.
Thereâs that on-line âgameâ a university has where you have to decide to shoot or not shoot a bunch of photos of people with something in their hand. Sometimes itâs a cell phone, sometimes itâs a gun, sometimes something else.
Itâs supposed to show you how hard it is, how little time cops have before they need to decide to shoot. I always lose because I donât choose to shoot often enough.
But I wonder about that. That Thai cop who talked down a man who came into a police station with a knife, for example, and finished by hugging the guy and making sure he got medical attention.
Shooting is not the only option, and thereâs nothing âsoftâ about that Thai cop.
12 Likes
The format of those âgamesâ is pinched directly from psych research on implicit racial bias. The general theme of the findings was that white people are much more likely to shoot a cellphone holder if theyâre black.
8 Likes
Right, because your implicit bias is supposed to tip the scales towards shooting.
IIRC, Malvolm Gladwell tried it and wound up shooting more black people even though he identifies as being black himself.
Not wanting to shoot anyone seems to reduce or negate the effect of any implicit bias, though.
6 Likes
Bias probably relates less to how you identify and more to the context in which you were raised. Gladwellâs background is an upper middle class mixed race family in England and Canada; probably not majority Black neighbourhoods.
6 Likes
This goes back a long way. Researchers in the late 1960s did a trial on the NY subway where actors, black and white, acted out an altercation in which one of the actors drew a knife. Every time it was the white actor, every white person present and subsequently interviewed said it was the black one.
In the early 1990s, in the UK, there was an incident in which a white taxi driver was attacked by two white passengers, one with a knife, and a Nigerian came to his assistance. When the police arrived the taxi driver told the police what had happened, the criminals said the black man had the knife, and guess who was arrested?
The story in this case has a happier ending. The Nigerian was an economics lecturer at the local university, and the altercation was witnessed by someone I know, the widow of an army officer who was involved in a number of local good causes. Late at night the Chief Constableâs phone rang, and when he answered she told him "Your racist police have arrested our Nigerian!"
Sure enough the actual criminals had form and were eventually caught, the lecturer was released. But I suspect that if my friend hadnât been involved the outcome would have been very different.
9 Likes
Also Gladwell is a contrarian who likes column centimetres, there is that.
This is a common problem that people struggle with about authority systems. People who are part of an oppressed group will try to ally with the group in power and will also internalize the ideas of the group in authority, even against their own interests. They also think that if they ally with the group in power, they will gain protection or be able to get ahead.
This why there are women like Phyllis Schlaffley and pretty much every anti-abortion woman out there.
This is why there were Jews in the camps and ghettos who helped the guards.
This is why there is Clarence Thomas.
Just because someone belongs to an oppressed group doesnât mean they donât operate within the system of oppression themselves. Thatâs how it works.
12 Likes
Oh, I told him not to hook his gun to the Clapper!
1 Like
Minneapolis Police also have this situation.
Video not safe for human beings.
Details in a nutshell:
- Police receive a false alarm from a home security system.
- Officer arrives and enters the backyard from the alley.
- The familyâs two dogs come to see whatâs happening.
- Upon consideration, officer shoots the two dogs.
- Officer initially reported that the dogs were threatening him. Unfortunatelly for him, the family had a security camera that disproves this.
- Now officer says dogs were growelling. This part of the his body camera is conveniently silent.
3 Likes