# Some Thoughts on the NFL Protests & BLM **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 26, 2017, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-thoughts-on-the-nfl-protests-blm/797369 "2017-09-26T19:29:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2017, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-thoughts-on-the-nfl-protests-blm/797369/21 "2017-09-26T23:33:32Z")
> [@Rick\_Kitchen](#): > > And who are those people? [High school kids are now getting in on the action](http://www.ktvu.com/news/some-bay-ara-students-take-a-knee-in-solidarity). Now, this is purely MHO, so feel free to disagree. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2017, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-thoughts-on-the-nfl-protests-blm/797369/22 "2017-09-26T23:37:45Z")
Police or other government misconduct is a big problem but it’s far from the biggest problems. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2017, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-thoughts-on-the-nfl-protests-blm/797369/23 "2017-09-26T23:39:45Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > Police or other government misconduct is a big problem but it’s far from the biggest problems. The biggest problem, of course, is that I can’t get a date. Until this is solved all other problems are comparatively inconsequential and can be utterly dismissed. ---
**Author:** ![bobot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bobot/32/21622_2.png) [@bobot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobot)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2017, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-thoughts-on-the-nfl-protests-blm/797369/24 "2017-09-27T00:16:51Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > Police or other government misconduct is a big problem but it’s far from the biggest problems. Awesome. So people want to work on this, but dammit, it just isn’t the biggest thing. Cool. So what are we working on instead? ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2017, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-thoughts-on-the-nfl-protests-blm/797369/25 "2017-09-27T00:32:28Z")
> [@bobot](#): > > Awesome. So people want to work on this, but dammit, it just isn’t the biggest thing. Cool. So what are we working on instead? Maybe something to make sure white people generally can continue to be comfortable in their privilege and obliviousness? I’m pretty sure that would get the **octopus** seal of approval. ---
**Author:** ![Bone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bone/32/407_2.png) [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2017, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-thoughts-on-the-nfl-protests-blm/797369/26 "2017-09-27T01:51:30Z")
> [@jayjay](#): > > Maybe something to make sure white people generally can continue to be comfortable in their privilege and obliviousness? I’m pretty sure that would get the **octopus** seal of approval. Knock it off. The Pit is where personal shots go. [/moderating] ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2017, 6:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-thoughts-on-the-nfl-protests-blm/797369/27 "2017-09-27T06:42:26Z")
> [@Jake Bullet - Traffic Control!](#): > > I’ve been thinking about the NFL anthem protests and I can’t get over the fact that, however well intentioned they might be, they’re not actually really doing very much. Indeed, given the reactions of various people on my Facebook and Twitter feeds, they’re actively making things worse …is what is _always_ said when people fight for civil rights causes. If only they weren’t being so damn _uppity_, and let their cause go back to being background noise, then maybe we’d decide to start listening to them. Then separately we have the practical issue of every black man between 18-45 (why you picked that age range I don’t know) having to have a camera with them at all times, and _recording_ at all times (after all, if you’re very suddenly apprehended by police, are you going to risk reaching into your pocket for the ON switch?) Finally, and most importantly **we already have** footage of police brutality and shootings. People increasingly carry cameras in the form of cellphones (perhaps you’ve heard of them)? The protests are not about spreading the message that such events _happen_, but trying to make it clear that’s it’s \*wrong \*that they happen and perhaps the officers involved should not always be cleared of any wrongdoing and there should be improved officer training. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2017, 7:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-thoughts-on-the-nfl-protests-blm/797369/28 "2017-09-27T07:15:02Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > (why you picked that age range I don’t know) OK, I got this wrong: you included a justification for this age range. Not a good one IMO (it’s somewhat arbitrary to say below _this_ level of risk you shouldn’t care any more about the risk) but it’s there, so I got that part wrong. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2017, 11:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-thoughts-on-the-nfl-protests-blm/797369/29 "2017-09-27T11:22:47Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > No, more like committing crimes, threatening the police or others, things like that. You could [check for yourself](https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/police-shootings-2017/), if you like. > > Regards, > Shodan I will make a deal with you: I acknowledge that, yes, in a fair number of cases, there are circumstances in which the victims could have behaved differently and perhaps the outcomes might also have been different. But I think even you would agree that there are instances where black people have been killed quite literally for no valid reason at all – Philado Castle comes to mind. Law enforcement in this country has had a history of imposing a racially unjust order upon black Americans, and yet we’re supposed to just expect black Americans to trust them and the system they are upholding. The law says they must cooperate – we get that. But the fact remains, the law inequitably targets black people for prosecution of crimes, and as such the system discriminates against blacks before they have even been arrested by disproportionately policing black communities in the first place. Blacks are policed more than whites. They are trusted less by the police who enforce the law. They are trusted less by the prosecutors and judges who execute the law. And they are trusted less by the majority of jurors who decide guilt or innocence in a court of law. And this is true regardless of whether they are suspects being tried by the system or victims of white perpetrators. ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2017, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-thoughts-on-the-nfl-protests-blm/797369/30 "2017-09-27T15:36:22Z")
Per the Washington Post database the police killed an unarmed black man 16 times in 2016. Spending 282 million dollars to prevent 16 deaths a year is nuts. For that same price you could buy bed nets, or vaccines and save thousands of lives This makes as much sense as buying every man in America a lightning rod hat, a huge expense to prevent a incredibly small risk. ---
**Author:** ![Okrahoma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/90db22/32.png) [@Okrahoma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Okrahoma)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2017, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-thoughts-on-the-nfl-protests-blm/797369/31 "2017-09-27T15:48:22Z")
> [@Jake\_Bullet\_Traffic\_Control](#): > > Also, as a bonus, I reckon it’ll really piss off Trump 1. Why in the world would blacks wearing body cameras piss off Trump? 2. If it is $40 per person, I am sure the big majority of the intended recipients could afford to buy one themselves. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2017, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-thoughts-on-the-nfl-protests-blm/797369/32 "2017-09-27T15:57:51Z")
Besides the fact that everything pisses off Trump? And if virtue signaling is so bad, then why does anyone stand for the anthem? That’s just virtue signaling, too. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2017, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-thoughts-on-the-nfl-protests-blm/797369/33 "2017-09-27T16:09:18Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > No, more like committing crimes, threatening the police or others, things like that. No, more like existing, like Philando Castile, Alton Sterling, or Terence Crutcher, just to name a few. You could [check for yourself,](http://www.cnn.com/2016/12/20/health/black-men-killed-by-police/index.html) if you like. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2017, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-thoughts-on-the-nfl-protests-blm/797369/34 "2017-09-27T16:15:10Z")
> [@XT](#): > > Do you have a cite for this? It hasn’t been my experience. I’m glad you don’t have that experience, but many do. Anyway, [cite](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/crime-courts/body-cameras-win-converts-among-police-officers-beat-n566311), [cite](http://www.wctv.tv/home/headlines/Valdosta-Police-Department-New-Cameras--270069161.html), [cite](http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/baltimore-city/bs-md-ci-body-cameras-20160310-story.html), for just a few Google hits. ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2017, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-thoughts-on-the-nfl-protests-blm/797369/35 "2017-09-27T17:03:18Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > No, more like existing, like Philando Castile, Alton Sterling, or Terence Crutcher, just to name a few. You could [check for yourself,](http://www.cnn.com/2016/12/20/health/black-men-killed-by-police/index.html) if you like. I did check for myself and found that black people are no more likely to be shot or injured in an [arrest](http://injuryprevention.bmj.com/content/early/2016/06/16/injuryprev-2016-042023). In realistic simulations police were three times less likely to shoot black [suspects](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/true-crime/wp/2016/04/27/this-study-found-race-matters-in-police-shootings-but-the-results-may-surprise-you/?utm_term=.ca6c02696586). Police in houston are 24% less likely to shoot black [suspects](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/12/upshot/surprising-new-evidence-shows-bias-in-police-use-of-force-but-not-in-shootings.html?mcubz=0). A [breakdown](http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/08/police-shootings-michael-brown-ferguson-black-men/) of NYC police shootings shows that while whites are much less likely to shoot at police they are much more likely to be shot at and much more likely to be hit when fired at. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2017, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-thoughts-on-the-nfl-protests-blm/797369/36 "2017-09-27T17:05:58Z")
[Other data](https://mappingpoliceviolence.org/) says 3 times the rate. ---
**Author:** ![Dioptre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/278dde/32.png) [@Dioptre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dioptre)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2017, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-thoughts-on-the-nfl-protests-blm/797369/37 "2017-09-28T13:31:40Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > I did check for myself and found that black people are no more likely to be shot or injured in an [arrest](http://injuryprevention.bmj.com/content/early/2016/06/16/injuryprev-2016-042023). > In realistic simulations police were three times less likely to shoot black [suspects](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/true-crime/wp/2016/04/27/this-study-found-race-matters-in-police-shootings-but-the-results-may-surprise-you/?utm_term=.ca6c02696586). > Police in houston are 24% less likely to shoot black [suspects](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/12/upshot/surprising-new-evidence-shows-bias-in-police-use-of-force-but-not-in-shootings.html?mcubz=0). > A [breakdown](http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/08/police-shootings-michael-brown-ferguson-black-men/) of NYC police shootings shows that while whites are much less likely to shoot at police they are much more likely to be shot at and much more likely to be hit when fired at. That isn’t what your sources say at all. You’re misreading the graph (which to be fair, is a poor choice of visual representation for the data it shows). The graph shows that in NYC whites are much less likely to be shot at or hit. ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2017, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-thoughts-on-the-nfl-protests-blm/797369/38 "2017-09-28T14:50:31Z")
> [@Dioptre](#): > > That isn’t what your sources say at all. You’re misreading the graph (which to be fair, is a poor choice of visual representation for the data it shows). The graph shows that in NYC whites are much less likely to be shot at or hit. It says that in NYC whites are 5% of firearms arrestees, 3% of shooting suspects, 0% of people who shot at cops, 12% of people fired on by police, and 20% of people hit by police gunfire. The disconnect is that they are 35% of the population. However, that not the population sampled. The population being sampled is people being arrested. Since black people in NYC make up 68% of the people to be arrested for firearms they are underrepresented at being shot at with only 50% of the people shot at. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2017, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-thoughts-on-the-nfl-protests-blm/797369/39 "2017-09-28T17:05:33Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > I will make a deal with you: I acknowledge that, yes, in a fair number of cases, there are circumstances in which the victims could have behaved differently and perhaps the outcomes might also have been different. But I think even you would agree that there are instances where black people have been killed quite literally for no valid reason at all… Sure - so long as “a fair number of cases” means “the huge majority of times”, we add 'by not committing crimes" after ‘behaved differently’, and “and there exists very little evidence for racism besides a general accusation that it must have been for that” at the end. Then go on to add 'and when police are charged with crimes, it has to be done under the same standard of evidence, includes the presumption of innocence, defendant has the right to counsel, and whatever changes are suggested to the process will apply to everyone, not just police." Then include no money down, free financing for the first year, and [staple on a beak of your own choice](http://montypython.50webs.com/scripts/Series_1/68.htm). Regards, Shodan PS - beautiful plumage! ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2017, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-thoughts-on-the-nfl-protests-blm/797369/40 "2017-09-29T02:58:36Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Sure - so long as “a fair number of cases” means “the huge majority of times”, we add 'by not committing crimes" after ‘behaved differently’, and “and there exists very little evidence for racism besides a general accusation that it must have been for that” at the end. Well firstly, if the number of cases of wrongdoing is small, and those cases where the video evidence seems damning are _not_ the tip of the iceberg, then that’s good. Let’s do our utmost to get the number down to zero. For the second point about race, for me personally I don’t care so much if it’s a race issue; if cops are trigger-happy sometimes, or sadistic, and innocent people are getting hurt or killed then that’s a problem to be addressed regardless. But I’m glad that race is being discussed as we have a government now, and right wing media, that is as brazenly racist as it’s been for at least a generation. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-thoughts-on-the-nfl-protests-blm/797369.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-thoughts-on-the-nfl-protests-blm/797369.md?page=3)