The city of Troy, NY passed a law in July which makes it illegal to spit on the city sidewalks.
Since the law was passed 4 people have been arrested, 3 of them black. The law is now being challenged as racist. While I can’t imagine how a no-spitting law could be considered racist (we do all produce saliva), I also can’t explain why 75% of the people arrested thus far are black.
What are your thoughts on this?
Black guys spit on the pavement more than white guys?
4 people is not a large enough sample to make any valid conclusions.
Spitters are disgusting.
I’d say it’s sexist, rather than racist—most women would rather choke to death than to spit in public. I also say it’s about bloody well time they started enforcing no-spitting laws. Jiminy Crickets, it’s disgusting. Now if we could just enforce “No Hideous Unflattering Clothing” laws . . .
**Jackmanii[/b is right. Now, if four hundred people had been arrested, 75% of which were black then we’d have something to talk about.
And spitters make me feel physically ill.
Don’t ever go to China then. Spitting’s a national sport.
Actually, facetiousness aside - Hong Kong and Singapore both introduced anti-spitting laws. In Singapore nobody spits (the penalties are too great) and it’s almost been eradicated from daily life. In Hong Kong, I have observed that older people still spit all the time, but they do it into trash cans.
I’ve been to Troy. My mom’s family is from Troy (My grandmother makes sure to correct me there “We’re from Lansingburg”), and spitting would probably improve the atmosphere there. The law’s not racist, in my opinion.
The most disgusting display of spitting I ever saw was frequently done by a white guy who lives up the street from us. He’d walk down the street, hacking and spitting and making a big production out of it.
Yuck.
(I will say I spit on the street once. I was leaving my dentist’s office-which is within walking distance from my house. I spit out some of the little pieces of filling that were in my mouth. At that moment, my dentist came out of the office and started laughing at me. HEh.)
The law cannot be racist (in this case). However, if 1000 people were arrested and 990 of them were African American, one might want to make the case that the arresting officers were racially motivated. But that’s not the case here - and kudos to the powers that be for making a good law. Damn spitters.
just out of curiosity jjimm, what are the penalties for spitting in Singapore? I’m guessing the words ‘Iron Maiden’ will probably feature in there somewhere 
When I used to run, almost everyone who ran in the winter spat (yours truly not excluded). Because I ran in a predominantly white neighborhood, everyone I saw who spat was white. Would I say more white people spit than black people? No. That would be asinine.
As to the OP, it’s clear that, while the law itself isn’t racist, there’s a lot more than a public health issue going on here. If loitering’s illegal, why not just arrest “unruly gangs of people who block storefronts and sidewalks” for loitering violations? It’s a fairly safe assumption, though, that the odds of a business man in a suit walking to his downtown office who expectorates on the sidewalk, be he white or black, is less likely to be arrested than an inner-city teenager part of a group standing in front of a liquor store.
I have asthma, I tend to cough a fair bit at times, and sometimes I have phlegm. When I have phlegm, I was taught to spit it out, and I do, usually at the base of a tree or plant, or wherever people don’t walk. I don’t think that should be illegal.
It seems kind of preposterous.
the law isn’t racist
the people enforcing the law are racist (maybe, not a large enough sample yet)
the only way to even consider that the law might be racist would be to:
establish that black people spit more than whites and can’t help it, culture dictates that to be a mandinka warrior in the pre-slavery days, one had to spit frequently.
establish that creating a law against spitting was an evil plot by “the man” specifically in order to keep black people down.
Even conspiracy brother (see “undercover brother”) would have a difficult time identifying that racist plot
I have no difficulty believing that the citing police officers might be racist, though.
It’s a racist law? That’s frigging ridiculous. I’m eloquent, I know.
I’m not going to comment on whether arrest is a proper punishment for sidewalk spitting, I’m only going to respond to the above quote from the cited article. Here goes nothin’.
If a parent is concerned about his/her son getting arrested for sidewalk-spitting, perhaps the parent should warn the child that spitting on the sidewalk is illegal as well as gross.
I bet a “Listen, Junior, whether we agree with it or not, spitting on the sidewalk can get you arrested now. Do me a favor & keep your spit off the ground so I don’t have to take a field trip to bail you out, 'kay?” speech might prevent some spitting.
I’d like to remind everyone Eve will be running for president as a member of the Black Tie party. Insiders expect her to name Esprix as her VP. “After all,” said one source who asked not to be named “Why settle for just looking fabulous, when you can be fabulous?”
Eve has promised to reform the nation’s schools, and fight the epidemic of obesity. “Every American has the right to be able to read my books! I vow to make our nation thin and keep it that way! Besides the obviously physical health benefits, all those lean, taughtly-muscled, men excercing in our parks, their bodies glistening with beads of perpiration, will do wonders for our national morale.”
Hear, hear. So I’m walking along, and I, for whatever reason, hack up a big wad of snot, and I’m supposed to… what? Swallow it? Ew. Hold it in my mouth until I can find a Designated Spitting Locale? Double ew. And the rationale for this law is… what? That I might offend someone’s delicate sense of sight? (I notice that most of the supporters here have been saying things along the lines of “I’m glad it’s illegal, spitting is icky.”) Cry me a river. I suppose you can try the “public health” angle, but unless people are actually spitting on one another, I have a hard time seeing an epidemic running rampant through the US because a few people with bad manners are hocking loogies on the curb.
And with regards to the OP, yes, we need more data before we can decry the officers in question as racists.
Jeff
Right. I think that the law, itself, isn’t the problem. Rather, the arrest ratio is interesting. It might reveal not so much that blacks in the case of the spitting law are arrested more but also that blacks in general are arrested more often.
Is there a national shortage of Kleenex, or comparable absorbent tissue, with the aid of which one can dispose of certain phlegmy bodily fluids in the nearest trash receptacle?
If you’re revolted by what your body is producing, think how the rest of us feel.
I’ve thrown-up a few times in my life from swallowing too much phlegm and/or saliva within a given day or period of several hours. It’s only slightly more complex in cases of chronic over-active salivary glands, or mucus production - you cannot sit in a meeting and swallow a gallon of saliva without puking; kleenix isn’t realistic, it’s laughable - the best option is to spit in a cup or can, which would be illegal. I wonder how the technicality of the law defines spitting; it might prove very important to these types of individuals. I suppose they could use suction devices like those air ones in the dentists office; but then you have the problem of being arrested for noise pollution.
It does descriminate people with over-active saliva and/or phlegm production. Anyone who spits should be exported or put to death for breaking that law; there’s no other way to make it rational IMO. I suppose you could chain them to a facility and inject them with drying agents for the rest of their lives.
I have no opinion on whether one race produces more mucous and/or saliva than others. I’ve never researched it. Aparently, it’s now become exceedingly important to determine the city’s lawbreakers. Chop, Chop … get to it!
-Justhink
If someone has a health/medical condition for which they may be expected to spit or otherwise similarly expel fluids from the mouth then they might either use this as a mitigating factor in a court of law or they might reasonably be expected to carry wityh them a supply of tissue or even a paper cup to expel in to.
I can think of no good reason for spitting on the sidewalk other than a bug landing in your mouth, which I would be happy to present in court if it were to come up. Besides, how often to bugs land in our mouths?
In general spitters suck. At least they could finmd a trash can to evacuate in to. I’m personally bloody sick of standing in a stranger’s sputum just because I have the need to walk rather than hover along the sidewalk.