- 15 Jul 2020 21:44
#15107765
And this is precisely why our discussion on how we define systemic racism is so important. The definition, as the one I cited earlier ("The collective failure of an organization to provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their colour, culture, or ethnic origin. It can be seen or detected in processes, attitudes and behaviour that amount to discrimination through prejudice, ignorance, thoughtlessness and racist stereotyping which disadvantage minority ethnic people."), implies disparate treatment. What you describe is something like disparate impact, although disparate impact is still more restricted than that since mere differences by race are not evidence of disparate impact either. But hey if you want to follow a different definition then don't be surprised to find pushback.
Both are still being investigated, but the case of Breonna Taylor seems less likely to involve criminal responsibility since it's far from clear to me up to what extent the cops could have avoided it while being under fire. Intelligence mistakes also don't seem to be a crime.
Pants-of-dog wrote:@wat0n
1. In this case, systemic racism is a good phrase to describe how a whole system of policies(i.e. the war in drugs, the three strikes policy, bias in policing, minimum mandatory sentencing, private prisons, et cetera) has had a disproportionate impact on people of colour, specifically black people. You are not denying or refuting any of this. Instead, you are arguing over whether this problem fits some definition. Feel free to use some other phrase for a system of government policies that have a racist impact.
And this is precisely why our discussion on how we define systemic racism is so important. The definition, as the one I cited earlier ("The collective failure of an organization to provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their colour, culture, or ethnic origin. It can be seen or detected in processes, attitudes and behaviour that amount to discrimination through prejudice, ignorance, thoughtlessness and racist stereotyping which disadvantage minority ethnic people."), implies disparate treatment. What you describe is something like disparate impact, although disparate impact is still more restricted than that since mere differences by race are not evidence of disparate impact either. But hey if you want to follow a different definition then don't be surprised to find pushback.
Pants-of-dog wrote:2. So this is another example of an unjustifiable killing by police where everyone gets to walk free because it was perfectly legal.
So, we have at least two examples of unjustifiable yet perfectly legal killings of innocent black people who were not doing anything threatening: Elijah McClain and Breonna Taylor. If the system keeps creating situations where innocent people are being killed perfectly legally, then the system itself is wrong.
Both are still being investigated, but the case of Breonna Taylor seems less likely to involve criminal responsibility since it's far from clear to me up to what extent the cops could have avoided it while being under fire. Intelligence mistakes also don't seem to be a crime.