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You don't seem to be arguing that there is widespread police brutality / overuse of force, so we can start there.
In the age of camera phones and body cams, we've all seen a lot of disturbing videos (if we're willing to watch them). Many black victims, many white, many brown. Chris Rock made the joke that if you're United Airlines and most of your pilots are good but there are a few bad apples who fly into mountains, that's not acceptable, and that policing should be viewed the same way. You don't score points for getting it 'mostly' right. What we see by the sheer number of videos is that there are quite a few bad apples, spread out across the country. I've personally watched the videos of police shooting a 20-something exterminator who was crawling on the ground per the cop's order because the cop was jumpy, watched a cop choke two men literally to death despite them not presenting any threat, and read about cops shooting a man to death who was trying to break up a fight (that last one here in Portland). That's just a tiny sample, and those that have been documented. So it's clear to me that police overuse deadly force, and that is something that, on its own, warrants reform, and failing that, warrants public backlash. Cops shouldn't be killing people who pose no threat and doing so is the ultimate violation of our personal freedoms. Period.
Lets say that police brutality is agnostic to color, meaning police do not intentionally assault or shoot a person of color intentionally any more than they shoot or assault caucasion people. What we do know is that police interact with people of color, specifically blacks, much more than they do white people.
Aren't you curious to dig deep and find out why black people are more likely to interact with police? Why is it that 5% of the population (black males) make up 50% of homicides? You could chalk it up to systemic racism, yet in the 40s and 50s, the statistics show that black folk were MUCH better off when it came to crime rates, father absence, homicides etc.... yet they lived in time where poverty and racism was rampant. Isn't that interesting? If we truly loved our neigbor - and specifiaclly black lives, since that is the topic at hand - we would look into this very closely to help our fellow american. Why does mainstream black culture glorify sexualitation of women, drugs, and gang-culture? Is it no coincidence that black america is stuck in a rut when the supposed heroes of black culture are Straight outta Compton and other groups that are straight up immoral people? If all I know is father-absence, drug culture, gangs etc... and my heroes are rappers that glorify these things (yet live in mansions), why would we expect anything to change? Substantially all of the statistics shoes that there is no disparity amongst any race when it comes to police violence....Now, you make a valid point that police interact w/ black people more, yet do not want to address the critical issue of black america. You are not helping your fellow black american when you do this
They patrol their neighborhoods more, they are more likely to stop them for questioning, and more likely to say they fit the description of a 'suspect in the area.' Now, if all interactions, white or black, have the same chance of ending in police brutality, then just on the simple fact that blacks are more likely to interact with police, you can see how blacks are more likely to be on the receiving end of police brutality. This says nothing of intention and speaks only to logic, but you see now how police brutality is an issue of race and racism.
It is an issue of race, i agree. However, it is not an issue of racism. When you say police officers are racist for focusing on areas of concentrated crime (that happen to be predominantly black) you are critizing them for doing exactly what a police officer is supposed to do. You also are disregarding the amount of lives that are being saved by police officers becuase they are concentrating efforts in areas of high-crime. In fact, it's anti-racist to patrol areas of high crime. The systemically-racist thing to do in high-crime areas would be to withhold police presence in those areas. That way, crime/drugs/murders would sky-rocket and innocent black people would die. The presence of police in high-crime areas are protecting the black families that are under imminent danger from criminal activity. There is an article from NYT back in 2011 that criticized Chicago for not concentrating enough police officers in high-crime areas, thus leaving the innocent bystanders out to dry and letting gang activity ran rampant. So no, this is the opposite of racism.
Now lets go one step further. Police are able to use a lot of discretion in enforcing the law, so even though the same laws apply to everyone, application is malleable. I have two brothers who were active duty in the military for over a decade each. Despite routinely driving over the speed limit, and sometimes getting caught, neither ever received a speeding ticket. As members of the military, often being pulled over by former members of the military, the willingness to let things slide is greater. The reason is that when we see someone in a particular light, we're more likely to look for the good in them and be willing to acknowledge an incident as an isolated mistake. That same sense of perspective can work the opposite way. If we read about how blacks make up a fraction of the population but are responsible for half the murders in the country, and we don't have some more impactful experience to overwrite that kind of narrative in our mind, then when an incident occurs involving a black person, that person is more likely to be punished to the full extent of the law. The officer - black or white or other - is more likely to consider that person the rule, not the exception like they do my military brothers. We see this phenomena statistically in the courtroom - blacks are given longer sentences for the same crimes as whites. You can argue with me but you can't argue with numbers.
Ineresting last two sentences. I've heard that but haven't looked into in detail.
Part of your suggestion is that if a black cop shoots a black victim, it can't be racism. Why can't it? Statistically speaking, it's been shown that black restaurant-goers tip black servers less than they tip white servers. Is that not racism?
My point is that none of that is racism. The word racism is being tossed around like candy to cover any misdeed from one race to another. People are bad. Can we just say that? In my life, I've seen a lot of encounters/fights between different races (playing basketball mainly). I'd chalk up about 1% of these instances to racism. The other 99% were a result of the following: pride, anger, egotistical, jealous etc....
Is it more likely to say that white servers must be better than black servers? Is it not more believable that the black cop is affected by knowledge of the same statistics - that blacks are more likely to commit murder than whites - and reacts in a similar way as the white cops?
Unliekly, but this is the type of discussions we should be having. There are many more factors that need to be considered rather than just labeling everyone/everything as racist.
If we resolve the issue of police brutality against the black community, we're likely to resolve the issue of police brutality as a whole. I don't see where the issue is there. Perhaps one day in a distant future, we'll be talking about under-policing, but that is most definitely not where we are today.
The problem is there is no issue of police brutatily against the black community (the stats just don't show it at all). And, yes, people do actually talk about under-policing. The media is banned from talking abuot it after 2012, but there are many high-crime areas that are currently being under-policed. Like I said, the media (prior to 2012) was actually chastising the local governments for purposefully under-policing high-crime areas.