They’re relevant in the sense of history – modern mistreatment is the direct descendant of these past practices.
Slaves were also “treated correctly according to the law” – they were still treated badly. I honestly have trouble believing that you think that someone can’t be both treated badly and treated correctly according to the law, though I believe that most modern mistreatment is actually unlawful but swept under the rug and/or mischaracterized by cops to protect themselves and each other.
Except that I have acknowledged this multiple times – and here I go again: things are much, much better now. They’re still far, far from perfect, and black people are still mistreated.
I’m bringing up the past because of similarities and ancestry (in terms of actions and practices), even if the mistreatment today is much less severe, in general, then mistreatment in the past. But it’s still bad, and still unacceptable.
In some cases this might be true. In others they are getting it wrong. In others it’s impossible to tell because the police may not be being helpful and honest, and may be prioritizing protecting themselves over finding the truth, finding justice, and treating black people with respect.
I agree they have a right, and this is irrelevant to the question of mistreatment, since I’m not claiming that all uses of force by police against those who resist are mistreatment. I’ve said this many times. Irrelevant to what I’m saying.
Where did I do this? Cite the post in which I do this. I think you still are fighting straw-men and not my actual posts. I haven’t defined mistreatment this way.
It’s entirely possible that sometimes the police make a legal and lawful and appropriate arrest, but then at some point in the arrest process or afterwards, use unnecessary force that constitutes mistreatment. Cops don’t get to do anything they want to someone they arrest, and sometimes they go to far. Sometimes cops mistreat those they arrest. Not always, but sometimes.
And yet it still happens. I trust black people.
Some cops have very likely gotten away with killing people in circumstances that should have constituted murder were they investigated properly. I wouldn’t consider this “legal behavior”, but it’s as bad as lynching. I don’t trust that the police and prosecutors always investigate these killings properly – I think this is a significant part of this ongoing problem.
This has nothing to do with any mistreatment I’m discussing – obviously, proportionate responses are not mistreatment.
This is a good example, and it may still be going on in various communities even if there is no specific policy for it. From my readings, black drivers doing nothing wrong are still more likely to be stopped and searched then white drivers doing nothing wrong.
When, collectively, have they been dishonest and inaccurate before? What were they wrong about?
???
What “absurdly broad description”? Where are you getting this?
Where have I said that this constitutes mistreatment? For the record, simply being arrested for crimes committed is not mistreatment.
It was certainly de-facto legal in many communities, with police and authorities tolerating it or even taking part. And I don’t know why you’re comparing it to arrest – I never have. Mere arrest due to criminal actions is not mistreatment.
It’s my belief that this kind of thing is quite common, but very often in the past there was not enough evidence due to collective deceit by police involved (no video in most cases, obviously) and prosecutors tolerated this. In other words, in the many cases in which someone died and the cops who shot him say that he went for a gun or attacked them, they cops would routinely lie to protect themselves. Not in all cases, and not for all cops, but for some, and other cop witnesses would collaborate in this deceit due to intimidation or police culture.
You may be right. I believe that, in the past, it was common for people to exaggerate or outright lie about police mistreatment, and that is at least part of the reason for the vast reduction in the amount of complaints about police behaviour when body cameras are used. It unfortunately appears that they’re necessary to keep both the police and the public honest.
It’s your constant refusal to accept that the public (of whatever race) are blameless and honest to a fault in their dealings with the police that’s so galling, and your repeated claims that people aren’t responsible for their own actions when dealing with the police.
I believe that if someone is being treated badly enough that it should be illegal, but it isn’t, then the fault is with the law, not (necessarily) with the people doing the mistreating. I don’t believe that, for example, everyone who ever whipped a slave knew that they were doing wrong, and certainly for much of that time almost no-one would have considered that they were doing wrong. Times change, morals change, and laws change.
Yes, they are. But your claim is much more than that, it’s that they are systematically mistreated because of their skin colour, despite the fact that such systematic mistreatment has been illegal in the US for 50 years. And that’s why I keep asking you to talk about innocent victims of mistreatment, not criminals, because mistreatment of people because they’re criminals - whilst still wrong - is a very different thing to mistreatment of people because of their skin colour.
And that’s the problem, it’s not similar to the way it was over 50 years ago because, for one thing, it’s totally illegal. It’s not a difference of degree, it’s a fundamental difference in kind, as it is necessarily hidden. The days when a town or a company could say “no niggers here” are long, long gone.
Maybe. But it’s abundantly clear from this thread that people here are deciding the police must be guilty on minimal evidence, and don’t care about truth, justice or respect for the police. You might say the police should be held to a higher standard, but I don’t accept that. Don’t hold other people to a higher standard than you hold yourself, that’s hypocritical. (Not directed specifically at you, from your willingness to actually debate this it’s clear you hold yourself to a high standard of honesty and reason).
I’m struggling to tell what you’re actually complaining about that isn’t already illegal, then, and what you actually consider mistreatment. Eric Garner wasn’t mistreated, and nor was Michael Brown. If police statements are accurate, and the investigation’s still ongoing, then neither was Tamir Rice.
If someone is arrested because they committed a crime, or injured or killed because they resisted arrest or threatened a cop (not as punishment or revenge for, as a result of legitimate force to arrest or defend), they have not been mistreated. Do you agree?
Correct, and I suspect uncontroversial.
All of them? Or more than other people? I don’t trust anyone who speaks on behalf of a group as a rule, and especially not when it’s in their interest to lie. Which is why I’m strongly in favour of police body cams, it will make it much harder for anyone to lie about what happened in any incident.
You may think that because I’ve spoken strongly about the presumption of innocence I automatically believe the police. That’s not true, but what is true is that whether I trust them or not, as the accused, they are the one who’s statement needs to be disproved. Simply saying “I don’t trust them” doesn’t prove anything.
There’s a contradiction here. You say you are fine with proportionate responses, but you don’t trust the people who determine what is or isn’t proportionate. So, basically, we’re left with you trusting one group over another, despite the fact that both have incentive to lie.
Quite possibly. Body cameras should help to prevent that, as with much else.
I didn’t say that, and my response was a standard rhetorical device used to illuminate your leading question that’s impossible to answer fairly.
I’m glad you’ve changed your view on that. Perhaps you could mention it to whoever it was upthread who replied to me with “fuck you” for saying exactly that.
There’s no such thing as “de facto legal”, it was clearly always illegal.
Even if we disagree on why exactly they may be needed, at least we agree that they are needed.
I haven’t done this. Lots of individuals, black and white, don’t behave properly in many circumstances. I’m saying that such behavior is absolutely irrelevant with regards to the issue of police mistreatment of black people. Police mistreatment of black people exists and has nothing to do with the behavior of black people. I’m not talking about lawful and reasonable uses of force, I’m only talking about mistreatment.
I haven’t made this claim once, much less repeated it.
It’s clear that a lot of that is from improved police behaviour, but unless you believe that every single complaint about the police had merit beforehand, the some will have come from less frivolous complaints.
Also from the article -
No stats, but I find it believable.
Here’s an in depth article from what I hope is a reliable source on the efficacy of body cams in general, which I’ve not read all of yet.
Even if I’m wrong, and the entire reason that body cameras reduce complaints is because the police who wear them act better, I’d still fully support them. Both the public and the police will realise that the other will find it much harder to lie about what’s happening, which will hopefully lead to more respect on both sides.
Do you really not accept that both sides can be at fault in a situation? If someone punches a cop, and the cop then beats him within an inch of his life in revenge, both bear some responsibility for the result. In that case the cop far more responsibility, but it wouldn’t have happened without the guy acting illegally in the first place.
This is not victim blaming, it’s blaming someone for the result of their criminal activity.
Example. If you stole my girlfriend, and I beat you, I would have full responsibility. If you stole my wallet and I beat you, you would have some responsibility. Doesn’t change the fact that in either case I should be convicted, but in the latter case you could and should have acted differently, and prevented your own suffering.
Obviously slave owners (those mother fuckers) thought they were doing right by whipping slaves. Lynchers thought lynching was right. And cops who mistreat black people probably think they’re in the right to. I don’t think it matters – it’s wrong, it was wrong then, and it’s wrong now, and considering the way times have change, cops today who mistreat have less excuse than past abusers.
In such cases in which mistreatment is legal (like, say, if just black people are arrested for a certain crime), the fault lies with the law, the lawmakers, and those who institute the law. I was in the military – if I was ordered to mistreat someone, and I obeyed the order, the fault would lie with both the superior who ordered me to do it and with me for obeying the order. So it goes for any cops who continue mistreatment or stand by while it occurs that is ordered by superiors or by police culture.
Such mistreatment was illegal in many places 100 years ago, and it still occurred. It surely occurs a lot less now, but I believe it still occurs.
I talk about both – they’re both unacceptable. It’s unacceptable if a criminal is arrested and beaten to death due to excessive force, and it’s unacceptable if an innocent person is detained and beaten to injury despite doing nothing wrong. But this is the first time that I can recall that you’ve admitted that criminals can actually be mistreated by police – thank you.
It was totally illegal in many places 100 years ago, and it still happened. Police culture, tradition, and local custom can and has overridden law. It still might in some cases.
I disagree on the first point – many such mistreatments in the past were similarly hidden. I agree that such overt and open mistreatment is entirely (or almost entirely) over.
I do hold the police to a higher standard, but I don’t decide they’re guilty on “minimal evidence”. I often don’t accept police findings and investigations – it seems clear, at least to me, that the first statements of police officers often conflict with video evidence. This leads me to be very skeptical of the statements of police officers when no video is present – even though much or most police officers (including my own family members) are honest and decent folks. I think most of these incidents are perpetrated by that minority of cops who are not so honest and decent.
I’m far from convinced about Garner – in my mind, it was clear that he was in serious physical distress long before he actually died, and in my mind the police were negligent. They could and should have reasonably taken action that would have prevented his death without increasing any significant danger to themselves.
From what I’ve seen of the video evidence, the police statements in the Tamir Rice case are not accurate.
It depends on the circumstances. If you are stipulating that the force was not excessive, then I agree. If you’re not, then I disagree, because in some cases I believe excessive force has been utilized against an arrestee who resisted or threatened a cop.
Not every single one, but all of them collectively – meaning that if ~80 to 90% of black people are saying something about the treatment of black people, that is by far the best source for an accurate picture of what’s going on.
When it comes to mistreatment of black people? Absolutely. Black people know more about the treatment of black people then white people or other racial groups, as a rule, in general.
I’m not talking about those who speak on behalf of black people – I’m talking about black people collectively, whose views I’ve gathered from personal interactions, reading about polling, stories by journalists, and the like. The views of most black people in America on things like police mistreatment can be gathered with modern journalistic research (like polling).
Me too.
In general, I don’t trust the statements of a police officer involved in possible mistreatment any more (or any less) then the statement of the accuser/victim or witnesses, unless other evidence comes to light.
I’m fine with actual proportionate responses – and from what I’ve seen, the police have often been wrong about what constitutes proportionate response. I don’t trust them less then the accusers/witnesses, but I don’t trust them more either, barring other evidence.
Okay.
You said “And I don’t believe that this is the first time in history that black Americans have been dishonest or inaccurate about their treatment.” I’m asking you to clarify that statement – when, do you believe, that black Americans (collectively, since that’s what I’ve asserted – if you’re only saying that some individual black Americans at some point have lied or were inaccurate, then this is irrelevant) have been dishonest or inaccurate about the treatment of black people in America?
I didn’t change my view – you had it wrong the first time. If I see posts that I disagree with, I’ll try and post a response.
Yes there is – “de facto” is a well established legal principle, and there have been many practices that constituted mistreatment of black people that were not sanctioned by law but rather by tradition and custom.
In my view, the first guy bears responsibility for doing something wrong – if he was convicted for assaulting a police officer, he bears sole responsibility for his conviction. But he bears no responsibility, in my view, for being severely beaten – any more then 100 years ago a black man would bear responsibility for being lynched for, say, groping a white woman.
Not to me – to me it’s victim blaming because they are victims of brutality. It wouldn’t be victim blaming if you said “he should be arrested and go to jail for assault” – it’s victim blaming, to me, if you say “he bears some responsibility for being beaten within an inch of his life”. In my view, only the brutalizer is responsible for brutality.
It depends, for the wallet thing, in my view. Do you chase me, and we struggle, and in the process of you recovering your wallet you beat me? Then I bear full responsibility. Do you track me down, kick down my door, recover your wallet on my night stand, and then pull me out of bed and beat me after you have your wallet back? Then it’s entirely your responsibility, in my view.
I’m not talking about whether someone should be tried and convicted for the original offence, I’m saying they bear some responsibility for the follow up. For example, if you leave your door unlocked and your car is stolen, you bear some responsibility for that, and it will affect your insurance payout - even though it’s not illegal to leave your door unlocked. Far more so if you commit a crime that leads to you being harmed. I’d be surprised if the courts didn’t see it the same way when awarding damages, should you sue me in this hypothetical.
You need to judge them by the moral standards of the time, not those of today. I’m not going to suggest a cut off date, but there’s been many times in history where whipping slaves was both legally and morally acceptable. There’s no such thing as objective morality, just a consensus at a given time.
I’ve never claimed otherwise, I’ve said I care far less about the mistreatment of criminals than innocent people.
So be sceptical, but remember that unless you have good reason to believe one statement over another all you can say is that you don’t know what occurred. Just because you don’t believe the cop doesn’t mean you can assume the opposite of what he says.
He could have eased his distress by stopping struggling. If someone’s been violent and continues to resist, the police are not being negligent by continuing to restrain him.
All I’ve seen is a grainy video where he appears to reach towards his waist, what else have you seen? Because that video doesn’t seem to prove the police were lying. If he was reaching for what the police reasonably believed was a gun, it seems like clear cut self defence to me.
Which doesn’t mean, to bring the other discussion into this, that the police bear no responsibility for his death, necessarily, but it would mean that they are not criminally responsible.
No, proper research would be by far the best source. What you have is a large amount of anecdotes, that need proper analysis to become real data. Whilst there is obviously some mistreatment of black people, you don’t know without proper research how much of that is due to racism, and how much to other factors, and how much is the same stuff that everybody gets that is falsely being claimed as happening only or mostly to minorities.
That means you know what black people believe is happening. That will presumably be based in part on what is actually happening, but not completely, and it tells you nothing about why they are happening - something essential to know if you want to change things.
If black people say they are being mistreated by cops, and cops say they’re not, it’s pointless to assume that one side or the other is lying. What needs to happen is to understand why the two groups believe such different things about the same events. And you won’t get that by only listening to one side.
Again, body cameras will help with all of this, by making what actually happens in these encounters known.
Which means that you simply don’t know whether or not there’s any mistreatment.
Wrong by your own personal standards, or by the standards set by law and interpreted by the courts? Because it’s becoming increasingly clear that those standards differ massively.
I don’t believe that black Americans are an homogenous enough group that they can be either right or wrong about anything, any more than white Americans or Muslim women. It’s a leading question with no appropriate answer, designed to make me look bad no matter what I say.
You’re avoiding the hypothetical. A strain of argument that you keep making is that the actions of the cops are within the law in many of these cases, and that as long as the actions are within the law, there is no problem, or if there is, it’s the law that needs to change.
I’m suggesting as a hypothetical (without claiming I have proven that it applies to the real life situation) in which all cops are obeying the law, but within the range of obeying the law, they are acting measurably different based on the race of the suspect involved.
In that hypothetical, with no regard for whether or not you think it fairly describes the real world USA of today, are things “OK”? Is there a problem? Should people be protesting and desiring change?
If the law allows measurably different treatment of people based on their race, the law should be changed. I don’t think many people would disagree with that.
What I think you’re actually asking is whether it’s acceptable for measurably different treatment to occur, within the law, to different racial populations without any actual incident being racially motivated. I think that has to be acceptable. What’s the other option, introduce racial quotas for arrests?
I would say that if such differences occur then it’s a problem with society, not the law, and needs to be addressed at that level, which will mean things like improved education, some means of increasing social mobility, better mental health treatment and many other things not directly connected with any interactions between police and public.
How confident are you in that if the video didn’t exist? Say there was just the eyewitness testimony of the person who took the video? Would there have been an indictment?
Further, are you suggesting that this was a unique situation - police shooting someone, then planting a weapon on the body?
Anyway, Smapti said name one case, and I did, so I look forward to his concession.
There are quite a few events that you’ve left out there in order to prop up your bizarre assertion that acknowledging people have a right to self-defense means they have carte blanche to shoot everyone they see.