Racism

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Re: Racism

Postby DissidentRage » 2021-06-20, 22:37

Yasna wrote:
linguoboy wrote:Dude, he was THIRTEEN.

I don't think I'm the one suffering from "moral confusion" in this instance.

A thirteen year old who was behaving like a dangerous criminal. What don't you understand about this fact? The primary blame for this tragedy rests with his parents and his adult friend, who all completely failed this poor boy.


Okay George Zimmerman.
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Re: Racism

Postby Yasna » 2021-06-21, 3:15

Johanna wrote:You do know that this only happens in the US, right? At least in Western countries.

Because nowhere else will a person that age be seen as an acceptable target. Even armed 13-year-olds are usually brought in alive in Western Europe. No matter their background.

Actually, armed American Neo-Nazis are brought in alive after having murdered dozens of people in cold blood, including law enforcement officers, but for some reason it's impossible when it comes to an African-American teenager only suspected of carrying a gun without any kind of confirmation.

Yasna: Giving the worst kind of whataboutsim a face.

I will never understand why people hold such strong opinions about matters they know so little about. First, Adam Toledo was not African-American, he was Latino. Second, Toledo wasn't just suspected of carrying a gun --- he was carrying a gun right up until a second before he was shot. Oh, and he was wearing a baseball cap, running down a dark alleyway, and the height of a (short) adult, so it wasnt clear how young he was.

Third, the comparison between policing in Western European countries and the US is inappropriate because the environments being policed are vastly different. The prevalence of guns and violent criminals in the US makes for a far more perilous policing environment, which means the expectations police officers have as they carry out their duties differ substantially. Shooting deaths of police officers in Sweden are extremely rare, with only one since the turn of the century. In 2019, 44 police officers were shot to death in the US. Adjusting for time period and population, officers in the US are twenty-seven times more likely to be shot to death than officers in Sweden.

This is what Officer Stillman saw one second before firing a single shot at Toledo, in a country where officers are at a 27x higher risk of death from firearm than Sweden:

Image
Last edited by Yasna on 2021-06-21, 3:39, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Racism

Postby Johanna » 2021-06-21, 3:39

Ok, so a brown teenager carrying a gun and running away from the police.

Again, in most Western countries, he would have been apprehended the way white Neo-Nazi mass murderers and cop killers usually are in the US. Alive to stand trial.

Because in civilized countries, police officers go to school for 2.5 to 3 years, not a mere 2.5 to 6 months. And a lot of that training is about deescalating situations and learning where where the actual threat is. Reacting to where you think it is will simply not cut it.
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Re: Racism

Postby Yasna » 2021-06-21, 15:14

Johanna wrote:Again, in most Western countries, he would have been apprehended the way white Neo-Nazi mass murderers and cop killers usually are in the US. Alive to stand trial.

I don't know why you keep repeating this nonsensical comparison. From what I can gather, Dylann Roof was cooperative during the entire course of his apprehension, which unsuprisingly is the single biggest factor determining whether a suspect is apprehended dead or alive. And forget Neo-Nazi mass murderers, a white 16-year old with a toy gun was shot dead by an officer just two months ago.

Because in civilized countries, police officers go to school for 2.5 to 3 years, not a mere 2.5 to 6 months.

The training of Chicago police officers typically takes 1 to 2 years to complete, which comes after the applicant has satisfied the requirement of "having a minimum of 90 semester credits from an accredited college/university, preferably in criminal justice or related fields OR having served in the US Armed Forced for three consecutive years OR having at least 30 semester credits and having served in the Armed Forces for a minimum of one continuous year."

And it's awfully rich having one's country deemed uncivilized by the citizen of a country with an epidemic of bombings.

And a lot of that training is about deescalating situations and learning where where the actual threat is. Reacting to where you think it is will simply not cut it.

Toledo turning to face the cop with a firearm in his hand was an actual threat. I know it's hard, but let's try to hold two thoughts in our head at the same time: 1. Toledo's behavior forced the cop to make a split-second, life-or-death decision and 2. The cop made the wrong decision.
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Re: Racism

Postby linguoboy » 2021-06-21, 16:38

Yasna wrote:
And a lot of that training is about deescalating situations and learning where where the actual threat is. Reacting to where you think it is will simply not cut it.

Toledo turning to face the cop with a firearm in his hand was an actual threat.

He never raised the firearm toward the cop. Meanwhile, open carry protestors walk around with their weapons held in front of their chests and the police somehow manage not to shoot them all on sight.

Yasna wrote:I know it's hard, but let's try to hold two thoughts in our head at the same time: 1. Toledo's behavior forced the cop to make a split-second, life-or-death decision and 2. The cop made the wrong decision.

I don't think anyone's having a hard time holding those two thoughts. The hard part seems to be you holding in your head that the reasons he made that wrong decision have everything to do with how the police in this country are trained, deployed, and held to account (or not, as the case may be). It took years of struggle to even get to the point where we have a video of this encountre. Even just a couple years ago, the cops would simply have lied and said they had to shoot him because he pointed the gun at them and that would be that.
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Re: Racism

Postby vijayjohn » 2021-06-21, 17:56

Yasna wrote:A thirteen year old who was behaving like a dangerous criminal. What don't you understand about this fact?

Here's what I don't understand: Suppose someone gives you a gun. Never mind why. Then the cops show up. The fuck are you gonna do about it? Sit there and shit your pants?
The primary blame for this tragedy rests with his parents and his adult friend, who all completely failed this poor boy.

Yeah, I guess his parents should never have taught him to try to surrender.
I will never understand why people hold such strong opinions about matters they know so little about.

BECAUSE HE WAS THIRTEEN FUCKING YEARS OLD!
Second, Toledo wasn't just suspected of carrying a gun --- he was carrying a gun right up until a second before he was shot. Oh, and he was wearing a baseball cap, running down a dark alleyway, and the height of a (short) adult, so it wasnt clear how young he was.

None of this is an excuse. The cop didn't even have any way of seeing the damn gun.
Third, the comparison between policing in Western European countries and the US is inappropriate because the environments being policed are vastly different.

You yourself just said Sweden has bombings.
From what I can gather, Dylann Roof was cooperative during the entire course of his apprehension, which unsuprisingly is the single biggest factor determining whether a suspect is apprehended dead or alive.

So a mass murderer should be arrested alive and a kid who did nothing but run away from an armed man of a force known to deliberately target POCs should be killed?
And forget Neo-Nazi mass murderers, a white 16-year old with a toy gun was shot dead by an officer just two months ago.

So when did that happen to a Neo-Nazi mass murderer?
Because in civilized countries, police officers go to school for 2.5 to 3 years, not a mere 2.5 to 6 months.

The training of Chicago police officers typically takes 1 to 2 years to complete, which comes after the applicant has satisfied the requirement of "having a minimum of 90 semester credits from an accredited college/university, preferably in criminal justice or related fields OR having served in the US Armed Forced for three consecutive years OR having at least 30 semester credits and having served in the Armed Forces for a minimum of one continuous year."

"They're supposed to be in school for 2.5-3 years, not 2.5-6 months."
"But they're trained for 1-2 years!"
:roll:
Toledo turning to face the cop with a firearm in his hand was an actual threat.

He was not a threat at all and did not commit any crime.

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Re: Racism

Postby Yasna » 2021-06-22, 14:46

linguoboy wrote:He never raised the firearm toward the cop.

Right. That's the crux of the cop's mistake.

Meanwhile, open carry protestors walk around with their weapons held in front of their chests and the police somehow manage not to shoot them all on sight.

Compare the annual number of cops shot at by open carry protesters with the annual number of cops shot at by armed suspects, and then you'll have your answer.

Yasna wrote:I know it's hard, but let's try to hold two thoughts in our head at the same time: 1. Toledo's behavior forced the cop to make a split-second, life-or-death decision and 2. The cop made the wrong decision.

I don't think anyone's having a hard time holding those two thoughts. The hard part seems to be you holding in your head that the reasons he made that wrong decision have everything to do with how the police in this country are trained, deployed, and held to account (or not, as the case may be).

The nature of a split-second decision plus the fact that no two police-civilian encounters are the same means that no amount of training can completely eliminate this category of mistake. Would more training on this type of encounter have reduced the chance of the mistake? Sure, but we don't even know how Chicago police training for this type of encounter compares internationally. I don't know what police deployment has to do with this case, as the police response to Toledo and his friend was unremarkable until the very end. To the question of how might potential accountability have affected how quick the officer was to pull the trigger, that's the realm of pure speculation.

It took years of struggle to even get to the point where we have a video of this encountre. Even just a couple years ago, the cops would simply have lied and said they had to shoot him because he pointed the gun at them and that would be that.

Yes. Body cams and smartphone video are game changers.
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Re: Racism

Postby Johanna » 2021-07-03, 12:43

A police officer was shot and killed just the other day in my county.

The perpetrator was brought in without any drama, he simply got arrested. Despite being in a gang.

He is 17 years old, so legally responsible, and will have to face the courts and all of what that entails.
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Re: Racism

Postby Yasna » 2021-07-03, 15:26

Johanna wrote:The perpetrator was brought in without any drama, he simply got arrested.

So he was cooperative while being apprehended?
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Re: Racism

Postby vijayjohn » 2021-07-03, 19:54

Yasna wrote:
linguoboy wrote:He never raised the firearm toward the cop.

Right. That's the crux of the cop's mistake.

No. The cop had no reason to chase him down in the first place.
Compare the annual number of cops shot at by open carry protesters with the annual number of cops shot at by armed suspects, and then you'll have your answer.

This justifies murdering innocent children?
The nature of a split-second decision plus the fact that no two police-civilian encounters are the same means that no amount of training can completely eliminate this category of mistake.

This is a ridiculous excuse. If you are well-trained, you will not chase a thirteen-year-old down an alley for no reason.
Would more training on this type of encounter have reduced the chance of the mistake? Sure, but we don't even know how Chicago police training for this type of encounter compares internationally.

The US is internationally infamous for the crimes of its police and its brutalization of POCs.
I don't know what police deployment has to do with this case, as the police response to Toledo and his friend was unremarkable until the very end.

It was flawed from the beginning because again, there was no reason to chase Toledo down in the first place. It's not clear there was any reason to chase his friend down, either.
To the question of how might potential accountability have affected how quick the officer was to pull the trigger, that's the realm of pure speculation.

Cops should be held accountable when they murder innocent victims. That is not speculation; that is justice.
Yes. Body cams and smartphone video are game changers.

Yet apparently, they are not enough to show you what is literally happening before your very eyes in the footage.
Johanna wrote:The perpetrator was brought in without any drama, he simply got arrested.

So he was cooperative while being apprehended?

He wasn't chased down and shot without reason, that much is for sure.
EDIT: Oh, and Toledo was cooperative, too. He was rewarded for this by being murdered.

EDIT2: And you know what else?
Even more impactful than increasing the police presence would simply be keeping the repeat offenders off the street, whether that be in a jail or mental institute.

That should include police officers.

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Re: Racism

Postby linguoboy » 2021-07-09, 21:54

From Vox, a deep dive into "race norming" in the medical field: https://www.vox.com/22528334/race-norming-medical-racism. This is the systematic practice of adjusting certain scores (many of which are used to determine what medical treatment someone receives) based on a person's racial classification. The article argues that, in most cases, the underlying science isn't robust and relies more on outdated notions of racial differences between populations than on recent rigorous peer-reviewed studies.

This is in the news currently because the National Football League, after being sued by retired players who were denied compensation for their injuries, recently announced it was going to stop using race norming in determining eligibility for payouts. Up till now, it had systematically assumed that Blacks had lower cognitive functioning than whites. Since the degree of compensation is determined by the difference between a claimant's current score on a cognitive function test and a presumed baseline, Blacks had to score lower in order to receive the same amount of money as retired white players. https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/31554110/nfl-halt-race-norming-review-black-claims-1-billion-concussion-settlement
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Re: Racism

Postby mōdgethanc » 2021-08-06, 5:23

linguoboy wrote:Same. I also don't call myself "woke" or say I'm an "ally" of any particular population. That's really not for me to say. It's up to members of those groups to determine whether they consider me an "ally" or "safe" or someone who "gets it" and I don't expect them all to agree in any case.

Steal away!

I think this is applicable to negative thoughts in general. You can't prevent them from arising, but you can and should ask what might have given rise to them and what you can do to change so that they're less likely to recur.

:y:

A lot of times I think this is deliberate. The more you debate what "real racism" is, the less time and energy you have to actual tackle it. That's a net gain for anyone who benefits from racism.
Damn, good point.
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Re: Racism

Postby Yasna » 2021-08-06, 15:03

Does getting right with contemporary concepts of anti-racism mean reviving one of the state’s most shameful traditions?

The unspoken assumption many advocates of scrapping the SAT make is that cutting the undeserving white population down to size would make these numbers fairer. But white students are also underrepresented, if only ever so slightly, at the University of California: They make up 21 percent of the undergraduate population and 22 percent of K–12 schoolchildren.

There is only one group of students who are “overrepresented,” to use the chilling language of social engineering, at the university: Asian Americans. Twelve percent of K–12 students are Asian or Pacific Islander, compared with 34 percent of UC undergraduates. Aligning enrollment with state demographics would require cutting the share of those students by almost two-thirds. It would mean getting right with contemporary concepts of anti-racism by reviving one of California’s most shameful traditions: clearing Asians out of desirable spaces. [...]

There is an ongoing discussion within progressive politics as to whether Asian Americans are a reliable part of the Black-brown coalition or whether they have been—to use another weird but fashionable term—“whitened.” Does the UC think it’s a good idea, in this era of racism and hate crimes against Asian Americans, to promote the idea that these students are hoovering up an unfair proportion of a precious resource?

These students are not faceless “grinds”; they are teenagers, each one with talents and interests as varied as those of any other applicant. It is immoral, and ought to be illegal, to treat them as a menace to be contained. They happen to be the majority of our highest-achieving students, and they belong at the University of California.
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Re: Racism

Postby mōdgethanc » 2021-08-07, 1:30

Racist anti-racism. :hmm:

My best friend is Asian and has been accused of being "whitewashed" or too white* to understand racism herself. She is not a fan of this behaviour, to say the least.

*"Proximity to whiteness" is the buzzword that you'll hear. Buzz-phrase? Idk.
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Re: Racism

Postby vijayjohn » 2021-08-07, 18:53

Yeah, I don't buy any of this BS. I'm fucking Asian, published multiple papers before even starting grad school (published one before even starting college!), and I still didn't get funding from any of the grad schools I applied to and was rejected by five out of seven.

What too many white people don't seem to understand is that in perpetuating racism, they are ultimately hurting not only those less powerful than them but also themselves. The system is operating in such a way that plenty of Black, Asian, and white people are all being kept out. Making this all about Black vs. Asian is 100% counterproductive and allows this system to continue.

India is casteist as fuck, and this casteism is similar to racism in the US in many ways. However, India has also done a much better job of implementing affirmative action than the US has. When it does, it doesn't just benefit the communities that are discriminated against but rather all communities, including the ones already in power. Why? Because there are a lot of people in the world who are qualified for various jobs but not permitted by the society they live in to actually do them. Keeping such people downtrodden is unwise even in the selfish self-interest of those in power because it prevents professionals from having access to the jobs where they excel. Often, even the most powerful people have no choice but to rely on the inferior skills of someone who happens to also be from their group rather than the downtrodden group precisely because they are upholding a system that results in this suboptimal situation.

I have been to India several times. Every time I go, I visit all my middle-class relatives. Every single one of these relatives has, for example, a house servant and a driver. Many of them also have a guard to make sure the house is not robbed at night (security alarms are not so much of a thing, or at least weren't when I visited). Every such person I have ever met has taught me something new. Most of the middle-class people I met, in or outside my family, never have.

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Re: Racism

Postby mōdgethanc » 2021-08-08, 12:31

vijayjohn wrote:Yeah, I don't buy any of this BS. I'm fucking Asian, published multiple papers before even starting grad school (published one before even starting college!), and I still didn't get funding from any of the grad schools I applied to and was rejected by five out of seven.
:(
What too many white people don't seem to understand is that in perpetuating racism, they are ultimately hurting not only those less powerful than them but also themselves. The system is operating in such a way that plenty of Black, Asian, and white people are all being kept out. Making this all about Black vs. Asian is 100% counterproductive and allows this system to continue.
Based.
India is casteist as fuck, and this casteism is similar to racism in the US in many ways. However, India has also done a much better job of implementing affirmative action than the US has. When it does, it doesn't just benefit the communities that are discriminated against but rather all communities, including the ones already in power. Why? Because there are a lot of people in the world who are qualified for various jobs but not permitted by the society they live in to actually do them. Keeping such people downtrodden is unwise even in the selfish self-interest of those in power because it prevents professionals from having access to the jobs where they excel. Often, even the most powerful people have no choice but to rely on the inferior skills of someone who happens to also be from their group rather than the downtrodden group precisely because they are upholding a system that results in this suboptimal situation.

I have been to India several times. Every time I go, I visit all my middle-class relatives. Every single one of these relatives has, for example, a house servant and a driver. Many of them also have a guard to make sure the house is not robbed at night (security alarms are not so much of a thing, or at least weren't when I visited). Every such person I have ever met has taught me something new. Most of the middle-class people I met, in or outside my family, never have.
Pretty interesting to me. Pretty much all I ever hear about affirmative action is American conservatives whining about it, so it's rare to hear another viewpoint from another part of the world that has done it better.
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Re: Racism

Postby vijayjohn » 2021-08-08, 16:51

One time, this IIT engineer who's a friend of a friend posted a conversation he had with a twentysomething-year-old autorickshaw driver. The driver was studying to get into an IIT himself, quizzed the engineer on what he said he studied, and proved that he didn't know anything. Then when the engineer said he got an MBA and wanted to take a picture with the driver, the driver was like "ew, fuck that." :lol:

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Re: Racism

Postby Yasna » 2021-08-08, 23:40

mōdgethanc wrote:Pretty interesting to me. Pretty much all I ever hear about affirmative action is American conservatives whining about it, so it's rare to hear another viewpoint from another part of the world that has done it better.

FYI, affirmative action in India has been a mixed bag at best.

"India’s reticular caste system poses unique problems. Legions of ethnic groups seek categorization as “backwards classes.” Each locality has its own hierarchy of quotas. Despite its intricacy, government discrimination still produces tension and violence. In Maharashtra, the paramilitary Shiv Sena jealously guards ethnic spoils systems. Successful Bengalis in the state of Assam have encountered violence from aggrieved natives. Scions of the upper-castes have self-immolated protesting quotas that limit their opportunities. Many reserved spots for Dalits (“untouchables”) and other backwards classes either go unfilled—especially in high-skill occupations like engineering—or go to the “creamy layer” (i.e., the most advantaged members of putatively marginalized groups)."
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Re: Racism

Postby vijayjohn » 2021-08-08, 23:41

It hasn't been a mixed bag. It just hasn't been implemented as much as it should be.

In the US, by contrast, it basically hasn't been implemented at all.

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Re: Racism

Postby mōdgethanc » 2021-08-10, 8:57

Of course Quillette is going to be critical of affirmative action and of course affirmative action is always going to be messy and heavily flawed. It's making sweeping generalizations about huge groups, that's always iffy at best. The hope is that the good outweighs the bad. That's the best it can do.
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