[Moving] I could imagine black residents of Ferguson being 20% more likely to commit traffic offences, or even 45%, but 400%? That's stretching my imagination. And I know that's an argument to personal credulity, but I also think it's a reasonable one. I'd need to see some fairly solid evidence before I believed it.
It makes perfect sense. Poor people are overall more reckless. Therefore, a demographic that has more poor people will have more bad drivers. Also, you're looking at 200% as likely, not 400%. You'd expect twice as many stops because there are twice as many black people. 4/2=2.
Also, you require to see some solid evidence that they committed more traffic offences. I don't know how you want to source that evidence if a police document that outright states that is not good enough. Meanwhile, you do not cry for "solid evidence before you believe it" to shove everything under the rug of "big bad white man is racist!" With this sort of double standard, we'll never be able to have a constructive discussion.
Doesn't seem that odd to me. I'm not aware of the KKK lynching any asians, either (although I could be wrong)
Right, you need to pick a story and stick to it. Either you're accusing Ferguson police of discriminating against non-whites (or just blacks), or you're accusing them of being a secret society that actively lynches blacks. If you're in the latter camp - frankly, I don't know what to say. I had assumed we're talking about the former.
If you are talking about the former, I would be very surprised if Hispanics were somehow off the hook from the big bad white racist man.
[Investigative] Regardless of the overall number, I'm not sure you can just wave away a 1200% disparity like that. What could possibly explain such a difference? It's not like black drivers are 12X as likely to be found driving drunk, at least according to the statistics.
I'm not waving it away. It's quite possible that about 5% of all stops were caused by racism. In a town as small as Ferguson, this would require a few individuals to have racist tendencies. I am by no means not disputing that racist people exist. I am, however, dismissing as absolutely ludicrous any notions of this being a widespread or commonplace phenomenon in that town.
[Equipment] I actually got the opposite reaction from the amount of equipment violations. The cliche racist cop in Georgia pulling someone over for being black says that his lights are out. It just struck me as stereotypical.
The only way you can be stopped for an equipment violation is if you're committing an equipment violation. Unless you have some data to prove that white people in Ferguson are just as likely to commit those but are let off the hook, I don't see how this could be racist. Again, the simple fact that the poor people of Ferguson are mostly black seems to fit in much better here. Not because it's stereotypical, but because car maintenance costs money, and a notable characteristic of being poor is not having much money.
I've already disputed quite a lot of that, but let's go a step further. What are the warrants for?
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/08/28/1325453/-In-2013-Ferguson-gave-out-10-000-more-arrest-warrants-than-people-in-Ferguson
I know it's not an amazing source, but I trust you won't dispute the raw information
You're talking about a community that just torched up their own town.
(Sure, the recent riot is more violent than previous ones, but we've had three of those in half a year now)
You're talking about a community that causes traffic accidents and then claims that those only happen because someone crossed a red light.
You're talking about a community that destroys itself, and then blames others for its poor state. Does it seem suspicious to me that these sort of people would overall disrespect the law? Gee, I wonder.
We're talking about a city whose second largest source of funds is fines, which also has an above-average poverty rate and a disproportionate amount of blacks among the poor section of the population [...]
Earlier this year, in the series Guilty and Charged, NPR's investigations unit found that the practices in Ferguson are common across the country.
Oh, okay, so you dislike how your courts work. No worries, just don't call it racism when it isn't that.
Even if the officers weren't racist (and neither they nor you have done a great job of demonstrating otherwise)
Yes, I also haven't demonstrated that God™ doesn't exist. Please repent immediately or He™ shall smite you.
You see, it is not my job to prove that there
isn't a big bad white man conspiracy out there to kill all blacks in Ferguson. It's
your job to show that it
is there. So far you showed me data which doesn't show anything unusual going on and branded it as "oh I dunno it looks racist to me". No one gives a fuck if things look stereotypical to you. Either there is a
statistically provable, systematic racism in Ferguson, and many other similar places in America
(in which case I await evidence), or it is not statistically provable, in which case it's an
unfalsifiable hypothesis. In my epistemic system, which is largely based on pragmatism, unfalsifiable hypotheses are not useful, because they do not lead to any useful conclusions about the world that surrounds us. So, if the systematic racism in Ferguson is invisible and functionally ineffective, it may as well not be there.
the system certainly is. They give out fines for everything, and if you can't pay the fines you get a warrant for your arrest. [...] Regardless of what you think of the officers, you have to admit that this is kinda fucked up.
Of course. I'm absolutely not suggesting that Ferguson or the USA at large doesn't have any problems with its legal system. We are specifically discussing systematic/institutional racism, or lack thereof.
Guess who's more likely to be unable to pay the fines? Black people!
Please re-read
my statements about equality of outcome vs equality of opportunity. The fact that black people are statistically poorer has no bearing on this discussion.
Here's a source from Huffington Post [...]
The Huffington Post is not a source I'm going to waste my time with. HuffPo is a content aggregator of comparable credibility to Buzzfeed.
I
could quickly knock together a website, name it the Pizaa Gazzette, and claim that America is a post-racial utopia. It'd be just as relevant to this conversation as your "source".
So, going back to the 4 categories of stops. All of them disproportionately affect black people. 2 of them are difficult, at best, to explain without using the word 'racism'.
Yes, the two smallest ones. Like I said, I'm sure that several racist individuals exist in the police force. That in no way proves any systematic racism.
One of them also suggests racism.
No, you're just seeing what you want to see, and for some reason you appear to be convinced that I need to disprove your unfalsifiable hypothesis.
The last is the result of unpayable fines, which are themselves likely tied to racism.
We are discussing institutional/systematic racism. This means differences in equality of opportunity, not outcome. If you want to cry about the fact that many black people are poor, take it up with someone else.
Are you telling me that isn't suspicious at all to you?
I don't know what I could possibly be suspicious
of. All of your points are easily explained without invoking a big bad racist white man conspiracy. Historical factors, education, economic disparity, attitude, and crime statistics simply fit reality better.