Donna wrote:Basically it's like this, because whites make up the majority of the population we can statistically anticipate that they will be represented in prisons, crime stats, or violent encounters with police. But a white person in America just needs to make a few adjustments to their behavior to avoid being profiled by police. The same cannot be said about people whose skin colour is also being profiled as a behavior deficit (read: racial bias). If you're a young black male in America you have something like a 1/1000 chance of dying from police violence. Black men in America have to legitimately think overtime about their safety when it comes to police encounters. White people simply don't have to deal with numbers like that.
I agree with you. On the other hand, we also have to empathize with what the police deal with every day. They are more scared when they pull over a young black man than an old white lady. Is it because they hate black people, or young people, or men? No, it's because statistically young black males make up almost 50% of the murders and violent crime in the USA while making up less than 7% of the total population. If you're a cop, and day after day for years you see violent situations and the same demographic is disproportionately involved, it's very easy to develop prejudice.
That doesn't excuse it, but it does make people understand it. All cops need training every few years to unravel and control their biases. The US also clearly has a crisis of poor young black men involved in crime, and they need to helped, because just jailing them isn't doing it. Rather than spending gazillions on prison time and court proceedings and police, why not use the money to raise african-american families out of poverty, help improve their education etc.