He was saying that because of that data, that I did not disagree with (a quibble, as he rounded up), there would be no difference in arrest rates if drugs were legalized.
He was trying to make it seem as though drug arrests were a minor thing that isn’t worth bothering or thinking about how they may be disportionately applied in a racial manner, and therefore ruin people’s lives in a disproportionate manner based on race.
Even though they only constitute 14% of arrests, they are still the thing that have the highest number of arrests, so not insignificant.
That is the part I was disagreeing on, not the math.
ETA: AS I was not disagreeing with the math, and I put all the numbers out there, all the work needed was to put them into a calculator and divide. I wasn’t really making you “do the work” as there really was no work to be done.
I caught it without the calculator. My impression was that you put a number out around 1.4 million arrests and say that the FBI doesn’t find it to be insignificant. Again, implying that the big number is impressive vs the original claim.
It’s all good. You say a lot in subsequent posts what you did not say or necessarily imply in the actual post. As the reader of the original post, I had no idea what the data you provided supported since you did not make a claim. I was left to guess which put you on the defensive.
ETA: Also, I am not sure he is saying what you claim he is saying. I will leave it to him confirm or deny your claim.
Speaking of city neighborhoods, here’s another timely article from the NYRB about another way that American whites continue to benefit from the legacy of racist policies:
If what you’re suggesting is that white people bear no responsibility for the continuing problems of blacks in America, then sure, any reasonably well-informed person with a low bullshit tolerance would be insulted at being expected to swallow such an egregious lie.
As the above-linked article makes very clear, white Americans spent centuries deliberately, systematically creating and enforcing ways to disadvantage black Americans, and the consequences of those actions still profoundly affect many people today. Anybody bleating about how unfair it is to “blame the problems of blacks on white people” needs to take a good hard clear-eyed look at those historical facts.
Chattel slavery (which permitted the rape and murder of one’s “property”) was legal for the first eight decades of the USA’s existence. Subsequently, for several more decades, thousands of African-Americans were lynched.
YMMV, but personally I doubt whether it makes much difference to the victim that is being enslaved, raped, and ultimately killed whether or not their suffering was brought about in a “planned and willful manner”.
The statement to which you responded noted that no one in affected neighborhoods demanded stop and frisk–which did nothing to curb the distribution of crack, heroin, or other damaging drugs. Calling for efforts to reduce drug use does not equate to calling for stop and frisk.
Who murdered the slaves systematically? No one. They had tangible value as property as cynical as that is. I didn’t say the USA wasn’t racist; I was responding to another quote that they were the most racist society ever which is nonsense.
Uh, no. You responded to another poster referring to the US’s history of “the worst kind of racism” by saying:
Nobody has claimed that the US is or has been “the most racist society ever”. (That particular shitty trophy of shittiness would be very hard to pick a single recipient for, given how many societies in human history have been so massively racist.) What was claimed was just that the history of the US has included “the worst kind of racism”.
And your disagreement with that claim is not very persuasive. For one thing, as LHoD noted, there were plenty of white Americans who did support “planned and willful extermination” of native peoples. And for another thing, it’s a matter of opinion whether and in what way(s) the racism that produces genocide is objectively and quantifiably “worse” than the racism that produces massively inhumane chattel slavery.
Errm, not so fast, there…we’d never fought an open civil war over the right to hold one race in slavery. And what happened to the Cherokee is worse than anythingdone under Apartheid.
So immediately we see your judgement on “worse” is biased. So we should now trust it on “worst”?
Your point was that disparities in crime rates are caused by the police treating drug offenders differently because of race. The fact that 87-86% of arrests are not drug related disproves your theory. Your point about violent crime is a non-sequitur. Since black people commit more of every type of crime except fraud, legalizing almost any crime would have no affect on those rates.
This is a great example of what white privilege is in that it is real and utterly trivial. Because of white privilege a black woman had to changer her hairstyle. She is someone who is in the top 1% of the top 1% of people who ever lived in terms of privilege and yet her having to change her haircut and manner of dress is called a hardship.
I guess you missed the fact that her employers were reluctant to hire a black therapist (which they admitted), since they believed patients were less likely to want a black therapist? And did you miss that they were probably correct, as evidenced by the particularly long time (longer than her colleagues) it took for her to get a base of patients? Did you miss that she didn’t just have to be better than the white applicants, but overwhelmingly better, to have a chance at the position, and even then she was only hired by a hair (again, according to her employers, who were open with her about this)?
White privilege doesn’t mean every non-white person will fail, it just means that there are many additional obstacles that non-white people typically face that white people don’t. A white therapist won’t have to worry that therapy groups will be reluctant to hire them due to their race because they’re worried their race will dissuade patients. A black therapist will have this worry, quite reasonably.
That actually was not my point, nor had anything to do with what I said.
My point is that people’s lives are destroyed disproportionately.
That the kid in the nice neighborhood dealing drugs stays in school, graduates, goes to college, gets a job, and a nice house of his own, and the kid in the “bad” neighborhood gets busted for doing the same thing, gets in trouble with the justice system, which causes problems in school. Even if he graduates, having a drug charge means he is not eligible for any financial assistance, he is not eligible for many jobs that pay well, and even if he has the money, he is not eligible to move into any of the nice places to live.
That “only” 13% of arrests are for drugs has nothing to do with that. Though I would venture to say that if they actually treated the people in the nice areas the same as they treated the people in the “bad” areas, the number of drug arrests would go up quite a bit.
That also in no way addresses the other issues I brought up. That kids in the “bad” area get hassled by the police if they are walking down the street, while the kids in the nice areas just get a friendly wave. Don’t you think that randomly stopping teenagers, and demanding that they line up against a wall so that you can put your hands on them because you know that they are up to something causes those kids to not have that much respect for police?
If a kid is walking along, and for the third time that day (and the umpteenth time that month), a cop stops him and demands that he submit to a search, and the kid, in his frustration, mouths off, or even knocks the cop’s hand away when he is grabbed, getting him a “resisting arrest” or “obstruction” charge, pretty much ruining his life, do you really think that the kid is the one to blame?
I ask this in all sincerity, because I think it explains a lot about differences in viewpoints: were you just being flip in that response, or is that seriously what you took away from that story?
I guessed you missed the fact that she was hired. They hired the best person available for the job, which is how things are supposed to work. What if she had not been hired by that agency? Back to the ghetto to sell crack? Of course not, if she works hard she can get as good a job somewhere else and if she is a good therapist she will be a success. So what she had to wait a couple of months to get as many clients as she wanted, there are people in the world with actual problems.
The point is that she had to make those changes (and modifying one’s hairstyle and professional wardrobe can sometimes involve non-trivial expense, btw) in order to get the same acceptance from clients that her white colleagues already received just on account of being white.
But if you’re demanding instances of white privilege making a much more drastic difference than that in people’s lives, I refer you to my post #285 where a law-abiding young black lawyer damn near got shot by cops just for sitting in his parked car (while black).
From school grades to hiring to housing to one’s actual chances of survival, white privilege is influencing significant racial differences in life outcomes for millions of people all the time. Pretending it’s okay to disregard it just because sometimes its impacts are comparatively minor is merely a desperate attempt at a Hail Mary pass on the part of Team Ignorance.
One drug arrest or an obstruction charge for mouthing off to a cop can ruin someone’s life? You seem to have a very low opinion of black youth if all it takes to ruin their lives is one arrest for a misdemeanor. In the real world what would happen is that the person would not even be charged and would be let go soon after being booked. If a person is charged, they would be pled down to a lesser offense and given probation, and if convicted for a minor offense, they would be put on probation and having the conviction expunged if they keep out of trouble. Even among felons only 41% are sentenced to additional prison time and 27% are sentenced to probation.
The law abiding black man did not almost get shot, he got detained and his car was searched. He assumed with no evidence that it was because he was black. Like the therapist he is just another privileged person whining that something minor happened to him.