# What's Wrong With Black Lives Matter **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 15, 2016, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-black-lives-matter/762879 "2016-08-15T04:58:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 15
**Author:** ![Evil\_Economist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c89c15/32.png) [@Evil\_Economist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Economist)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2016, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-black-lives-matter/762879/281 "2016-08-19T00:27:30Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > It’s certainly a possibility. In all likelihood, it’s at least part of the explanation. But the DoJ report focuses on racism as if it were the sole motive, excluding possibilities like the one I mentioned. It’s not unlike how some politicians still push the idea that women get paid $0.70 for every $1 men get paid. It’s disingenuous to claim it’s because of rampant sexism, but they do it anyways, and people eat it up as if it were gospel. Not that fact-based discussions are in your bailiwick, but what the report \*actually \*says is: Ferguson’s approach to law enforcement both reflects and reinforces racial bias, including stereotyping. The harms of Ferguson’s police and court practices are borne disproportionately by African Americans, and there is evidence that this is due **in part** to intentional discrimination on the basis of race. I bolded the part you missed. Repeatedly missed, given it appears in the document at least 20 times. And in fact is in the title of the section I asked you to read. Sigh. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2016, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-black-lives-matter/762879/282 "2016-08-19T00:29:41Z")
> [@Evil\_Economist](#): > > But why male models? Sorry. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2016, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-black-lives-matter/762879/283 "2016-08-19T00:33:08Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > The DOJ report has a mountain of evidence that racism is involved. They don’t claim that every single digit and fraction of every single disparity is entirely due to racism, but rather that the overwhelming amount of data suggests that racism is involved and a significant problem for this department. > > With this in mind, along with the long history of such mistreatment, it seems rather reasonable that many black people see police officers with great fear and distrust. Way back in post #247 here’s what I asked for: “I’m looking for the strongest evidence they have that the Ferguson PD is rife with racism and that the reason they stop / arrest / fine / convict blacks at a higher rate than whites is because they’re racist SOBs, and not because blacks commit crimes at higher rates than whites. … \*\*Show me where they did an actual statistical analysis of the white vs black crime rate and how they controlled for it when measuring ‘disparate impact’. \*\*” I don’t see that either of you have done that anywhere, or that the DoJ considered disparate crime rates in their analysis. From what I’ve read of the report, there’s a whole lot of references to ‘blacks are 67% of the population, but X% of stops / citations / arrests’-type language. is there anywhere in the DoJ report that says something along the lines of ‘blacks offenders commit X% of robberies / drive-by’s / whatever crime, and yet police stop / cite / arrest them Y% of the time’? It looks to me like the report never really considers or analyzes the effect of disparate crime rates. Can someone please show me where it does? ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2016, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-black-lives-matter/762879/284 "2016-08-19T00:34:53Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > Way back in post #247 here’s what I asked for: “I’m looking for the strongest evidence they have that the Ferguson PD is rife with racism and that the reason they stop / arrest / fine / convict blacks at a higher rate than whites is because they’re racist SOBs, and not because blacks commit crimes at higher rates than whites. … \*\*Show me where they did an actual statistical analysis of the white vs black crime rate and how they controlled for it when measuring ‘disparate impact’. \*\*” > > I don’t see that either of you have done that anywhere, or that the DoJ considered disparate crime rates in their analysis. From what I’ve read of the report, there’s a whole lot of references to ‘blacks are 67% of the population, but X% of stops / citations / arrests’-type language. is there anywhere in the DoJ report that says something along the lines of ‘blacks offenders commit X% of robberies / drive-by’s / whatever crime, and yet police stop / cite / arrest them Y% of the time’? It looks to me like the report never really considers or analyzes the effect of disparate crime rates. Can someone please show me where it does? They absolutely did this, and we cited examples. The stop and search rate vs findings of contraband is exactly what you’re describing. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Economist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c89c15/32.png) [@Evil\_Economist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Economist)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2016, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-black-lives-matter/762879/285 "2016-08-19T00:38:28Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > Way back in post #247 here’s what I asked for: “I’m looking for the strongest evidence they have that the Ferguson PD is rife with racism and that the reason they stop / arrest / fine / convict blacks at a higher rate than whites is because they’re racist SOBs, and not because blacks commit crimes at higher rates than whites. … \*\*Show me where they did an actual statistical analysis of the white vs black crime rate and how they controlled for it when measuring ‘disparate impact’. \*\*” > > I don’t see that either of you have done that anywhere, or that the DoJ considered disparate crime rates in their analysis. From what I’ve read of the report, there’s a whole lot of references to ‘blacks are 67% of the population, but X% of stops / citations / arrests’-type language. is there anywhere in the DoJ report that says something along the lines of ‘blacks offenders commit X% of robberies / drive-by’s / whatever crime, and yet police stop / cite / arrest them Y% of the time’? It looks to me like the report never really considers or analyzes the effect of disparate crime rates. Can someone please show me where it does? We’ve repeatedly told you. I myself have told you at least 6 times. I’ve actually quoted the specific language used in the report. I’ve also quoted the test used for “discriminatory intent,” and showed how it applied in this case. I don’t know that there’s anything more I can do for you. ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2016, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-black-lives-matter/762879/286 "2016-08-19T00:39:10Z")
> [@Evil\_Economist](#): > > Not that fact-based discussions are in your bailiwick, but what the report \*actually \*says is: > > Ferguson’s approach to law enforcement both reflects and reinforces racial bias, including stereotyping. The harms of Ferguson’s police and court practices are borne disproportionately by African Americans, and there is evidence that this is due **in part** to intentional discrimination on the basis of race. > > I bolded the part you missed. Repeatedly missed, given it appears in the document at least 20 times. And in fact is in the title of the section I asked you to read. Sigh. EE, you’re picking up a warning for this one. You cannot insult other posters here in Great Debates. Don’t do it again. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Economist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c89c15/32.png) [@Evil\_Economist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Economist)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2016, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-black-lives-matter/762879/287 "2016-08-19T00:39:38Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > They absolutely did this, and we cited examples. The stop and search rate vs findings of contraband is exactly what you’re describing. Earlier I said his problem #1 was that he didn’t understand statistics. I win! ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2016, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-black-lives-matter/762879/288 "2016-08-19T00:40:44Z")
And for the record: This thread is now on double-secret probation. Everyone just calm down. There’s been two warnings so far. Let’s not have more. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2016, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-black-lives-matter/762879/289 "2016-08-19T01:10:08Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > They absolutely did this, and we cited examples. The stop and search rate vs findings of contraband is exactly what you’re describing. > [@Evil\_Economist](#): > > We’ve repeatedly told you. I myself have told you at least 6 times. I’ve actually quoted the specific language used in the report. I’ve also quoted the test used for “discriminatory intent,” and showed how it applied in this case. I don’t know that there’s anything more I can do for you. Does anyone recall my example of GreenBlueLandia in post #252? Particularly these sentences: “It turns out that the police did 3,000 vehicle searches during the year, and 2,900 of them were in that one particular neighborhood. Most of those searches turned up no contraband.” Your sentence “Despite being searched at higher rates, African Americans are 26% less likely to have contraband found on them than whites” is exactly the sort of result I’d expect from GreenBlueLandia’s neighborhood police blitz. Rather than just searching the really suspicious people like they do in the rest of the city, they’re trying to search as many cars as they can in the bad neighborhood (not because they want to harass the citizens there, but because they’re fervently looking for drive-by shooters), which will drive down their success rate in that neighborhood. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Economist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c89c15/32.png) [@Evil\_Economist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Economist)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2016, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-black-lives-matter/762879/290 "2016-08-19T01:17:56Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > Does anyone recall my example of GreenBlueLandia in post #252? Particularly these sentences: “It turns out that the police did 3,000 vehicle searches during the year, and 2,900 of them were in that one particular neighborhood. Most of those searches turned up no contraband.” Your sentence “Despite being searched at higher rates, African Americans are 26% less likely to have contraband found on them than whites” is exactly the sort of result I’d expect from GreenBlueLandia’s neighborhood police blitz. Rather than just searching the really suspicious people like they do in the rest of the city, they’re trying to search as many cars as they can in the bad neighborhood (not because they want to harass the citizens there, but because they’re fervently looking for drive-by shooters), which will drive down their success rate in that neighborhood. You’re describing a short-term initiative. The DOJ report on Ferguson covered 3 years and explained Ferguson’s anti-black history going back to the 60’s. Short term initiatives to cover a specific issue are probably covered under the “necessary” language in tile VI. Also, while you’re focusing on the greens the blues are killing people unimpeded by police action. Also, you haven’t explained the higher fines the courts are giving to greens, the anti-green emails circulated by the police forces, the disparities in treatments in greens outside of greenlandia, etc etc etc. Courts are capable of looking at all these things and making determinations based on the entirety of the evide3nce. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2016, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-black-lives-matter/762879/291 "2016-08-19T01:22:20Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > What does the “racism” mean in this use of the term “institutional racism”? Is it synonymous with “inertia”, or are you connoting something else? Institutional racism has been discussed on this board on any number of occasions. It is the series of phenomena that arise from people making assumptions that certain groups behave in particular ways or hold certain beliefs or values so that the people making assumptions take actions that result in deleterious effects on people of racial minorities. Institutional racism is not the result of Faubus- or Duke-like hatred of people displayed openly. It is the result of people (of all ethnic backgrounds) relying on false assumptions to make individual decisions that will have a negative effect on people of various races. It is institutional, not personal. Driving While Black can be an example of institutional racism. Not every cop holds an antagonistic racist attitude toward black people. However, the stereotype that a black person would not be found in certain “white” neighborhoods or that a black person driving an expensive car must be displaying drug-related income leads even cops who do not hold antagonistic beliefs to pull over black drivers who are not where they “should” be or who are driving cars they “should not” own. It is what leads prosecutors and courts to pursue and sentence black people for harsher crimes and punishments than they do for white people committing the exact same actions because there is a presumption that the black person just happened to get caught this time while the white person was apparently led astray and only committed this first offense. It is the unspoken (and unconsidered) feelings that many people hold that black people are less contrite than white people when caught, that small black children are being malicious for the same actions judged to be simply a lack of inhibitions when seen among white kids. It works out in the justice system when whites are given more options to avoid criminal records than blacks committing the same actions as noted in this [two part](http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2008/10/race_and_drug_use.html) [report](http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2008/10/in_cuyahoga_county_youre_much.html) from the Plain Dealer. It is the sort of unspoken assumption among a majority people that gave rise to an acceptance of the lies that there were massive numbers of rapes and assaults in the Superdome during Katrina when no such outbreak was occurring. > [@Shodan](#): > > Pretty much the same question. “Black communities” have disproportionately higher rates of serious, street-level or violent crime. Law enforcement therefore (IMO appropriately) pays a correspondingly disproportionate amount of their time and resources “targeting” black communities. The Feds do nothing to target street crime. They simply spend their energy targeting distribution systems. meaning that they are gathering up more black people in nets that will prevent them from becoming gainfully employed, driving the drug cycle further. That may seem appropriate to you, but it is a huge waste of resources for next to no benefit, particularly when they could be spreading out their efforts, inflicting less harm on the black community while making the white community more aware of their own participation in what is often considered a “black” problem. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2016, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-black-lives-matter/762879/292 "2016-08-19T01:30:01Z")
> [@Evil\_Economist](#): > > You’re describing a short-term initiative. The DOJ report on Ferguson covered 3 years and explained Ferguson’s anti-black history going back to the 60’s. Short term initiatives to cover a specific issue are probably covered under the “necessary” language in tile VI. Also, while you’re focusing on the greens the blues are killing people unimpeded by police action. I described it as a an initiative against drive-by shootings because I thought it’d add some clarity to the issue. Maybe talking about [Chicago neighborhoods](http://heyjackass.com/2016-deadliest-hoods/) again will help. While right now, this year, there’s been a horrible rash of homicides in Austin and Englewood which means they deserve an increased share of policing efforts, I suspect this isn’t exactly a new phenomenon. I haven’t made any attempt to check past crime records yet, but if I did, I suspect I’d find that Austin and Englewood were also over-represented in homicides last year, and the year before that, and the year before that, and it wouldn’t really surprise me if I found that this trend stretched back over decades. Austin and Englewood deserve more policing. They _NEED_ more policing than other parts of the city, but the act of policing more heavily in Austin and Englewood is going to skew your department’s stats so that everything from jaywalking citations to police use-of-force incidents to arrests are going to have a ‘disparate impact’ on blacks, because that’s who lives in Englewood and Austin. Your department will have more _Terry_ stops on blacks than whites and the success rate on searches is probably going to be lower with blacks than whites because you’re concentrating efforts on Englewood and Austin. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Economist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c89c15/32.png) [@Evil\_Economist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Economist)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2016, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-black-lives-matter/762879/293 "2016-08-19T01:39:31Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > I described it as a an initiative against drive-by shootings because I thought it’d add some clarity to the issue. Maybe talking about [Chicago neighborhoods](http://heyjackass.com/2016-deadliest-hoods/) again will help. While right now, this year, there’s been a horrible rash of homicides in Austin and Englewood which means they deserve an increased share of policing efforts, I suspect this isn’t exactly a new phenomenon. I haven’t made any attempt to check past crime records yet, but if I did, I suspect I’d find that Austin and Englewood were also over-represented in homicides last year, and the year before that, and the year before that, and it wouldn’t really surprise me if I found that this trend stretched back over decades. Austin and Englewood deserve more policing. They _NEED_ more policing than other parts of the city, but the act of policing more heavily in Austin and Englewood is going to skew your department’s stats so that everything from jaywalking citations to police use-of-force incidents to arrests are going to have a ‘disparate impact’ on blacks, because that’s who lives in Englewood and Austin. Your department will have more _Terry_ stops on blacks than whites and the success rate on searches is probably going to be lower with blacks than whites because you’re concentrating efforts on Englewood and Austin. As I’ve said before a few times now, Title VI has “necessary” language. If it’s necessary to target black neighborhoods because of a rash of shootings there, that’s allowed under Title VI. What’s not allowed is to disproportionately target black neighborhoods in the absence of some necessity. I’m pretty sure this is discussed in the DOJ report, and in fact I’m pretty sure it’s covered in the section I asked you to read. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2016, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-black-lives-matter/762879/294 "2016-08-19T01:41:52Z")
> [@Evil\_Economist](#): > > Also, you haven’t explained the higher fines the courts are giving to greens … I thought I did this in post #276. > [@Evil\_Economist](#): > > the anti-green emails circulated by the police forces No, I haven’t. I don’t want to make excuses for racially-insensitive remarks or jokes. They’re bad and people shouldn’t tell them. … But … I wonder this: would a careful scrutiny of the PD and Court’s communication also turn up some jokes / statements / stories that would be considered sexist or misogynistic? I suspect it would, but it wasn’t a focus of the DoJ’s investigation. Would anyone be surprised if a department both told jokes that demeaned women, but most of their actual policing efforts fell disproportionately on men? Would that show that sexist jokes don’t necessarily translate into sexist policing? Could the same be true of racist jokes? ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Economist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c89c15/32.png) [@Evil\_Economist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Economist)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2016, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-black-lives-matter/762879/295 "2016-08-19T01:45:20Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > I thought I did this in post #276. Your explanation was wrong. The fines were for initial offences for both whites and blacks. This is described on page 69 of the report which I think you mentioned you’d read. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Economist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c89c15/32.png) [@Evil\_Economist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Economist)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2016, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-black-lives-matter/762879/296 "2016-08-19T01:46:57Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > Would that show that sexist jokes don’t necessarily translate into sexist policing? Could the same be true of racist jokes? We have in fact evidence that the opposite occurred. The racist emails coincided with racist policing policies, as are described in the DOJ report. ---
**Author:** ![up\_the\_junction](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/f1d935/32.png) [@up\_the\_junction](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/up_the_junction)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2016, 8:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-black-lives-matter/762879/297 "2016-08-19T08:33:53Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > I think this is a tacit acknowledgement that there are at least two possibilities: 1) that the police are just trying to fight crime in the best way they know how, or 2) that the police are racist a\*\*holes. Am I reading that right? Fwiw, from afar, most of what I think I see in US policing is due to poor initial training, lack of education, poor career development review structures, very poor enforcement of standards. The police killings as reported in media are largely the result of demonstrably poor decision making by people you wouldn’t really want to monitor a mall. Unarmed. Some have been genuinely appalling (like the black kid in the park, the black man lying in the ground with his arms in the air). ---
**Author:** ![up\_the\_junction](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/f1d935/32.png) [@up\_the\_junction](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/up_the_junction)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2016, 9:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-black-lives-matter/762879/298 "2016-08-19T09:46:05Z")
^^^ and to just finish this point; none of that matters very much (the poor training, etc) if you don’t normally interact with the police in your community or social demographic, nor if the police are predisposed towards you for whatever reason in any particular way, but otherwise it matters enormously - to a point it’s difficult to communicate its significance. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2016, 11:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-black-lives-matter/762879/299 "2016-08-19T11:59:25Z")
> [@Evil\_Economist](#): > > Your explanation was wrong. The fines were for initial offences for both whites and blacks. This is described on page 69 of the report which I think you mentioned you’d read. Any response to this, **HurricaneDitka**? Why did Ferguson charge higher fines for first offences for black people? Considering all the other evidence, including the racist emails, isn’t the simplest explanation that there was some racism involved? ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2016, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-black-lives-matter/762879/300 "2016-08-19T12:54:45Z")
> [@Askthepizzaguy](#): > > Wow, that was a fun read. So let’s recap. > > On one side, we have a group of people who: > > 1. Believe that protesting about unjust shootings of black people is evil/stupid/wrong (insert word of choice) because… any of the following: > [INDENT]a) [Black women apparently](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=19554970&postcount=1) [don’t get targeted too](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=19555596&postcount=6) First point - protesting against unjust shootings of black people is not evil, stupid or wrong, and no one has said this. Second point - do you understand how the second cite affects the first? Police shootings are overwhelmingly of males, including black males. Third point - linking to posts and misinterpreting them doesn’t do much to establish whatever point you are trying to make. > [@](#): > > b) [Some protestors](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=19555782&postcount=14) [go too far](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=19557328&postcount=77), therefore we should ignore the issues or the message and call it a wash and that nothing is fixable. No, if BLM activists are targeting white people to beat up, then we should ignore BLM, not the issues. If BLM’s message is to destroy the nuclear family or beat up white people, then we should ignore that message. > [@](#): > > c) They’re not [also](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=19556402&postcount=51) protesting gangs [simultaneously](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=19555942&postcount=22) because gang violence causes more black deaths. (Even though there are [plenty](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=19556270&postcount=37) of marches and [protests](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=19559504&postcount=118) about gang violence, and gang members are prosecuted and put in [jail](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=19555975&postcount=24), meaning it’s already being [addressed](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=19555975&postcount=24) on an institutional level, while police shootings are reacted to defensively by police organizations, and with lies and cover-ups.) BLM isn’t protesting black shootings or assaults against police, and are protesting blacks being shot because they resisted arrest and/or endangered the police and the public. Those shootings get treated the same way as unjustified shootings. Thus, again, BLM becomes an unreliable narrator and discredits themselves as well as the issue in general. Read the title of the thread. > [@](#): > > d) Some police actually do get put on trial for their crimes. (But without [evidence](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=19556119&postcount=31) that the police have resisted allowing, and actively suppress, many walk free.) I don’t know how to parse this. Are you saying that it is racist to acquit police when there is no evidence? Or are you saying that some significant portion of the cases BLM protests involve cases where the police illegally suppressed evidence? If the latter, I will need a cite. > [@](#): > > e) Those being shot are sometimes criminal “[shitbags](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=19556087&postcount=30)” warranting an on-the-spot execution for drug possession or stealing beer, when such actions are not proportionally taken against white suspects (nor should they). If the person was committing a crime, obviously they need to be shot to [death](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=19556315&postcount=39), not apprehended lawfully in similar proportions to white suspects. I guess white people who commit crimes or carry guns are less scary for some [reason.](http://www.dictionary.com/browse/bias) This isn’t quite as silly as the rest of your Gish gallop. Those being shot, and the cases that BLM protest, are usually criminal shitbags. And shooting or subduing a suspect who resists arrest and/or creates a danger to the public (as in the case of Jamar Clark, one of the cases BLM protested in my area) is not an execution. Again, no one on the other side of you has ever said that it was. > [@](#): > > f) They don’t like aspects of the [movement](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=19556253&postcount=35) [itself](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=19563255&postcount=204). Obviously the movement needs to be 100% accurate in defending victims of police crime and never try to defend someone who then turns out to be shot in a justified manner, or [ever](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=19556325&postcount=41) behave unlawfully themselves. Meanwhile, the police need no such flawless record to be defended indiscriminately, and given the annoying or sometimes hypocritical or [inconsistent](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=19558265&postcount=96) nature of a nation-wide movement, versus actual immoral killings, obviously the annoying political movement is worse and the cop killings are ok. Or what was your point? BLM doesn’t have to be 100% accurate. OTOH, if they scream racism instantly upon learning that some black has been shot, and it turns out a good deal of the time that they were wrong, it becomes that much harder to take them seriously. And again, no one has claimed that immoral killings by cops are OK. This is another significant terminological inexactitude. > [@](#): > > g) Unjustified shootings are simply a [narrative](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=19556555&postcount=57) being spun by race-baiting thugs. They’re probably not happening or aren’t happening, and when an example exists of a justified killing, that obviously means BLM should just pack up and go home and ignore the unjustified ones. Your link doesn’t show what you claim. At which point I lost interest in discussing, which I guess is the point of a Gish gallop like the above. Anyway, you’re wrong, your links don’t show what you allege, you are strawmanning your little heart out, and I have seen no indication of your willingness to debate rather than blog. So, having wasted more time on your excessively long and tendentious post, I will simply say Regards, Shodan [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-black-lives-matter/762879.md?page=14) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-black-lives-matter/762879.md?page=16)