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Walking While Black

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Re: Walking While Black

#111
post #82
post #47

North America's attitude towards people of colour, absolutely disgusts me. I simply do not understand why that a country that was founded on on the principles of freedom continues to act this way. The fourth amendment clearly states that all citizens should be treated equally if suspected of a crime, yet this simply does not happen. Yeah, the UK (my homeland) has it's problems, but in the main, racial in-equality is…

You should visit Latin America. Everyone is judged by their skin tone. The darker you are, the more you are regarded as "the help." Parents are excited when their children are born with light skin. My in-laws are all Mexican and I can say that they are far more racist than any US citizen I've met. I'm not even sure it's really "racism." But I do know that it's considered completely normal to think of others this way.

This is also true in China, and to varying extents everywhere else in Asia. Dark skin is an indication of low birth, pale creamy skin is considered desirable.

e.g. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/latest-trend-sweeping-china-lig...

Re: Walking While Black

#112
post #78

This was a wonderfully written piece and a lot of it rings true to me even as a white as you can be person in a smallish state university town in the midwest. But maybe being 6'2" with a big unkempt hobo beard is almost as scary as being black. I too love walking the streets at night. And I too have to not be myself and behave in very conscious ways to avoid being hassled and detained by the police. Police just assum…

I remember one of those very minor study that had a person trying to dismantle a bike lock in a park. Male with dark skin, male with white skin, female with dark skin and female with white skin. The man with the dark skin had people tackle him down while calling the police. The other people on the team that was observing had to rush in to disarm the situation. The white man had people stare and point, but nothing dra…

What does the raw data about these types of crime say though?

I lived near a university and had multiple bikes stolen. If the data points to a demographic in that area, for example where 0% of bikes are stolen by women, why would people in that area react if a woman is working with her bike?

Raw data may disagree with you, but it's impartial and unbiased. (unless you want to argue the collection and recording of data is biased)

Re: Walking While Black

#113
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes it really is a thin line. In my country (The Netherlands) police sometimes check all cars passing a temporary checkpoint. They check if you have open fines, paid your taxes etc. When really expensive cars pass those checkpoints they verify that the owner actually has a job to afford cars like these and if the owner doesn't they can impound the car on suspicion of being paid with criminal money. Statistics h…

A few years ago a (black) rap artist was stopped at the side of the road by police and they basically admitted that this was racial profiling. The artist made some fuss about it on social media, and it appeared in all news broadcasts and talk shows. People were expecting some big commotion about it; but it turns out that the majority of people actually approved of this method. It wasn't racism at work here, it was st…

The partners are always the first SUSPECT and the police do their due diligence to RULE THEM OUT. Even on the 1/10 where the weren't the murderer, the police still intrude on them to try to find the truth. Being a SUSPECT != SENT TO JAIL. The rapper in the story was a SUSPECT, they weren't SENT TO JAIL which makes your analogy not an analogy at all, because well, they aren't anologous. If anything I feel your arguement argues for pulling the rap artist over.

Re: Walking While Black

#114
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to walk home from my friends' house to mine when I was at university in New Zealand, often drunk or high. The police would usually stop and talk to me if they drove past. I always thought of it as a good thing. I lived in a high burglary area (being a student area), so there were a lot of shady characters walking around at night, especially in the back streets. They never actually detained me or even got out o…

The police in New Zealand and Australia seem to be a lot less agressive than their American counterparts. I don't ever hear of stories like the original post come from either country.

I'm a cyclist, and one of the big cycle equipment blogs is DCRainmaker.

He ran a story about a run-in with some Australian cops while on a ride that is just mind-blowing in how different it is from similar run-ins with American police.

See here:

https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2018/03/getting-pulled-over-by-f...

Re: Walking While Black

#115
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember one of those very minor study that had a person trying to dismantle a bike lock in a park. Male with dark skin, male with white skin, female with dark skin and female with white skin. The man with the dark skin had people tackle him down while calling the police. The other people on the team that was observing had to rush in to disarm the situation. The white man had people stare and point, but nothing dra…

What does the raw data about these types of crime say though? I lived near a university and had multiple bikes stolen. If the data points to a demographic in that area, for example where 0% of bikes are stolen by women, why would people in that area react if a woman is working with her bike? Raw data may disagree with you, but it's impartial and unbiased. (unless you want to argue the collection and recording of data…

Being tall is correlated with playing basketball, but you'd have to be pretty dumb to watch a short guy shooting hoops right in front of you and conclude he wasn't playing basketball.

Re: Walking While Black

#116
post #47

North America's attitude towards people of colour, absolutely disgusts me. I simply do not understand why that a country that was founded on on the principles of freedom continues to act this way. The fourth amendment clearly states that all citizens should be treated equally if suspected of a crime, yet this simply does not happen. Yeah, the UK (my homeland) has it's problems, but in the main, racial in-equality is…

You mean like football fans in the UK and across europe throwing bananas at black players?

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/opinion/richard-evans-thr...

Re: Walking While Black

#117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> North America's attitude towards people of colour, absolutely disgusts me. I simply do not understand why that a country that was founded on on the principles of freedom continues to act this way. North america isn't a country. And the US wasn't founded on principles of freedom. Slavery existed back then ( slavery brought to the colonies by the british ). > Yeah, the UK (my homeland) has it's problems, but in the m…

You don't know who is London's city mayor, isn't it ? Well I grant you he's not black. Racism is certainly an issue in Europe, but at least our cops do not gunshot black people for any reason.

The US had a black president for 8 years so I guess America solved racism. /s

Re: Walking While Black

#118
post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few years ago a (black) rap artist was stopped at the side of the road by police and they basically admitted that this was racial profiling. The artist made some fuss about it on social media, and it appeared in all news broadcasts and talk shows. People were expecting some big commotion about it; but it turns out that the majority of people actually approved of this method. It wasn't racism at work here, it was st…

The partners are always the first SUSPECT and the police do their due diligence to RULE THEM OUT. Even on the 1/10 where the weren't the murderer, the police still intrude on them to try to find the truth. Being a SUSPECT != SENT TO JAIL. The rapper in the story was a SUSPECT, they weren't SENT TO JAIL which makes your analogy not an analogy at all, because well, they aren't anologous. If anything I feel your argueme…

Ah, you are correct that there is a missing element to the analogy, and this is it:

The woman lies dead in the murder case. When the rapper was pulled over, there was no case of a Ferrari stolen by a dark-skinned man. The police were not acting on a tip that the rapper was smuggling narcotics in his car. They stopped him for driving while black.

If we want to add the missing link, we then say that the police, knowing the statistics of men who assault and/or murder their partners, stop men at random in society and ask them to provide evidence that their partners are safe and sound.

When put that way, the case is even stronger against stopping the rapper on a "fishing expedition." If men were stopped at random to check whether they had assaulted their partners, nobody would be shouting that "SUSPECT != SENT TO JAIL."

Society would not stand for the notion that all men are suspect for the actions of a few, whether or not the statistics show that men are disproportionally more likely to kill their partners than women, or that the leading cause of violent death amongst women is men.

The very notion of all men being permanent suspects of a crime would rightly be considered abhorrent. And so it is here with people of colour.

Re: Walking While Black

#119
post #82
post #47

North America's attitude towards people of colour, absolutely disgusts me. I simply do not understand why that a country that was founded on on the principles of freedom continues to act this way. The fourth amendment clearly states that all citizens should be treated equally if suspected of a crime, yet this simply does not happen. Yeah, the UK (my homeland) has it's problems, but in the main, racial in-equality is…

You should visit Latin America. Everyone is judged by their skin tone. The darker you are, the more you are regarded as "the help." Parents are excited when their children are born with light skin. My in-laws are all Mexican and I can say that they are far more racist than any US citizen I've met. I'm not even sure it's really "racism." But I do know that it's considered completely normal to think of others this way.

It's completely racism, dark skin color is an indication of non-European (priamrily either African or American indigenous) ancestry, and what you describe is a outgrowth of racism in which Europeans are favorered and the other two groups disfavored.

Re: Walking While Black

#120
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember one of those very minor study that had a person trying to dismantle a bike lock in a park. Male with dark skin, male with white skin, female with dark skin and female with white skin. The man with the dark skin had people tackle him down while calling the police. The other people on the team that was observing had to rush in to disarm the situation. The white man had people stare and point, but nothing dra…

What does the raw data about these types of crime say though? I lived near a university and had multiple bikes stolen. If the data points to a demographic in that area, for example where 0% of bikes are stolen by women, why would people in that area react if a woman is working with her bike? Raw data may disagree with you, but it's impartial and unbiased. (unless you want to argue the collection and recording of data…

And I'm sure that the passersby had data about bicycle thief demographics that they looked at before they chose how to react.
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