wat0n wrote:Hold on. So do you think these cops in particular, being Black, were trained or primed to believe Black suspects are more likely to require using force?
Feel like you’re continuing to try and carrel the discussion into a kind of interpersonal racism. Which from the outset I said is possible, against the predicted point that somehow being black they are above and beyond such anti-black sentiments. But in this case we cannot prove such sentiment without some great detail about each of the individuals for consistent differences in behavior.
My focus has instead been that they good have great views about black americans but still participate in institutional racist practices as it’s not dependent on interpersonal animosity but participation in institutions and practices that disproportionately target black americans in a possibly arbitrary basis than individual perceptions of blacks. Hence my earlier points that militarization of police relating to areas of greater segregation between blacks and whites.
So do you think these Black cops were moved by racial animus against another Black person?
You'll seriously need to elaborate here. It is indeed possible, but it would need to be proven.
As for the role of history, I think that in this case the US has made a clear and explicit effort to root racism out of its institutions. It's clear from the law and, honestly, recent history.
I can't know whether the cops were motivated by racism based on some sort of animosity specifically to black people and that how they treated Nichols is distinct from how they treated other americans of different races. I presume that they are this nasty in general and it simply hasn't escalated into murder. One of the officers is now being reported for involvement in an inmate being knocked down and hitting his head on a sink when he tried to dispose of a phone or something that they suspected he had. But this is still focusing on policing and racism at an individual level where I am wanting to make more of a link between policies and practices being more aggressive end up targetting black americans in their effect and are in part supported not simply by a sense of objective crime rates but a perception of blacks and criminiality which relates to a history since Nixon. Where there was teh crack epidemic, late night news reporting many murders and such, the crime rate objectively exploded but it also took on racial connotations and is where we get Clinton's super predator, which is the same talking point of previous politicians.
Law in abstract equality doesn’t guarantee anything per the Lee Atwater quote before of how the of a policy can still be racial while its presented in an abstract form.
And there have been efforts but that doesn’t mean things have achieved one beyond institutional racism.
For the context of Memphis itself, while you mentioned the majority are black, that doesn’t mean it isn’t without racial strife. It is one of the most segregated cities by counties in the US.
https://mlk50.com/2021/08/06/do-you-live-in-one-of-memphis-blackest-whitest-or-most-segregated-neighborhoods-read-this-story-to-find-out/They are also predominantly the poorest sections of Memphis.
https://www.cafth.org/racial-disparities/So my tentative claims of systematic racism in the case of the Memphis Police Department are based on the earlier points of how police are more likely to receive military-grade equipment where there is segregation, the idea that crime is often tied to areas of poverty, that policing in the US still has a history of disproportionally targeting and harming black Americans and isn't something we can wash away as being in the distant past. So you could dismiss me as simply not knowing, but I would push back that it isn't unreasonable to suspect that the existence of a SCORPION unit, and the aggressiveness of these officers in this case, isn't from no where but reflects broader trends within policing instititonally which has it's ties to issues of race in the US.
The general question is what made these men feel comfortable to do what they did? This doesn't stand out as an oddity except to the extent they were quickly charged and fired rather than the usual wait time of paid leave. And what is the policing of these officers like? We are now hearing how the SCORPION unit is disbanded, of which these officers were part of. An extremely aggressive approach to crime which is framed as merely having police preceence in high crime areas to deter it and deal with it, but it's not clear that they were not instigating and escalating unnecessary encounters with the public as part of the unit.
It seemed logical in that with an uptick in crime more police presence is the expect response of the police. Yet there are many claims of them using unnecessary force. Why did this occur? Often the idea becomes simply needing more training, needing greater diversity, and all this. But the point now is that it didn't matter that they were black for Mr. Nichols. The concern is how does one change a police culture to be more of a friendly member of the community who keeps the peace rather than a stranger who harasses and hurts the public.
My thought is that the criticism of police culture and practices, being a threat to many black americans who do not commit crimes at all or very minor ones that do not warrant such excessive force is tied to a lot of issues of racial divides in society . The tough-on-crime approach historically emerges with Chief Justice Earl Warren who affirmed many rights of American citizens such as miranda rights, the right to not speak, a right to an attorney during one's interogration under custody and such. Conservatives attacked him so severely that they blamed rise in crime on his decisions, and Nixon had another Chief Justice selected precisely for his opposition to his 'red tape'. This then exploded into a bunch of action movies of the good cop who shoots a bunch of people and doesn't abide by the book because it limits him from catching the crooks. It then carried on through to the 90s, and America has been waging war on aspects of society in trying to force the matter and ignore the social conditions of crime and poverty.
My speculation is the outcome we see emerges in an environment and culture where race is an issue and is tied to policies to be hard on crime but only see crime through the lens of more police and prisons which have exploded in recent decades than they do about how to help communities.
I can imagine this type of argument being used to justify the white man's burden. I mean, even if you regard their desires as corrupted, that doesn't mean you can or should do anything about it.
Yes that is tje knee jerk reaction I expected from not understanding the concept of solidarity or the point if having to be participant to something ti have any meaningful say less one simply moralize. Even the last quote emphasized the population effected articulating the critique even if it originates in concepts outside the community. For example, in an anthropological study there is a big emphasis on being hands off observer. But one woman was asked for assistence from the women in the group she was studying and staying with to resist sexism. She didn’t know whst to do and her professor advised her to not assist. There is a difference from forcing assistance on ones own terms. We call that charity, I give what i want. Solidarity submits yourself to the goals and and means of those you are helping and doesn’t position ones self above anyone. If one can only see assistance in terms of a colonizing perspective than thats an issue within liberalisms sense of freedom from others than emphasizing the social relations which underpin ones means of life.
It would depend on how you struggle, I think. But all revolutions end in Thermidor.
I am thinking in terms of movements that don’t reject the status quo as much as wish to change it.
https://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/pdfs/rawls.pdfClearly the Abolitionists and Civil Rights activists resorted to illiberal means and Rawls cannot bend his conception of liberalism to include the use of illiberal means ‒ civil war, non-violent resistance, boycotts, intolerance towards slavery and racism ‒ to overthrow the dominant consensus and institutionalise a new conception of Right. Liberalism is simply a description of a mode of compromise within an established way of life. The fact is that a new consensus was not established through reasoned argument; reasoned argument came into play only once the goal posts had already been moved. In our times, dynamic justice is the norm. That is, it is generally recognised that the series of new claims to recognition and established social practices which will be called into question is indefinite. Rawls’ liberalism solves nothing in this respect.
...
It would appear that it is reasonable for you to ask me to accept private ownership but unreasonable for me to ask you to accept common ownership. The interests of rich and poor can be mediated in the liberal manner; the poor remain poor and the rich rich of course, but rich and poor can treat each other and free and equal persons and can reach a modus vivendi. Social safety nets, public health and education can all moderate the extremes of capitalism and so long as the liberals can hold sway in the capitalist camp all these things are possible to the extent that those who suffer are prepared to engage in the very illiberal struggle against the ills of capitalism.
...
By committing itself to the domain of fact and seeking overlapping consensus by excluding counter-factual appeal to comprehensive doctrines, political liberalism does not just tolerate such practices but must actively place itself in opposition to emancipatory projects of this kind. Contrariwise, all emancipatory struggles are illiberal. That is a fact.
What I find most interesting about these articles is that the examples provided therein are from over 50 years ago. That alone should tell you something.
But yes, institutions are indeed manned by "people placed in the right positions" which is why the composition of the police is so relevant here but it just doesn't fit the narrative. It did in 1965, yes, but not now.
That's why I think the issue lies in something else. I'd say it's an issue of checks and balances, how do you check police unions after all?
Yeah and with those examples in mind it establishes the historical trajectory of policing, where unless you argue some sort of clean break, which seems less and less tenable with the many high profile incidents and studies that show disproporateionyly of use of violence and arrests on black americans, then why should we not think that police still have an issue in their relationship to black americans and their communities. Not simply as a manner of dealing with crime because black americans don't like crime and are scared of it to and would like help in dealing with it. But when the general public comes to fear the police as a threat to even their own lives, something is wrong.
Indeed, but it's not clear if veterans are more likely to be involved in these incidents. I did however want to raise the other issue, i.e. policing requires far more self control in practice.
It certainly does as it entails very stressful situations and having to keep your cool. The idea is with PTSD, that keeping one's cool is hard as with modern warfare one's threat alertness is way overblown compared to the PTSD/Shellshock of saying a WW2 soldier who sat in a bunker while being bombarded for hours.
Well, this brings another question: Could it be that support for "tough on crime" policies is not, in fact, driven by racial considerations? And, that those protesting in Atlanta are, actually, a minority of the community (overall and the African American community specifically)?
I don't think it always ignores objective criteria such as crime rates as the issue emerged largely in the 80s. However, I do think crime in the US has always had a racial connotation if not explicitly framed racially. Playing upon race was part of Nixon's success in turning the South, and for many Republicans since. But of course the issue of crime in the 90s with Bill Clinton had a lot of support from black Americans but of course there cannot be a consensus on the basis of demographic, only of political ends.
And yet Israeli police doesn't have the same problems American police has, as far as I am aware. As far as I'm aware, this is an American phenomenon (leaving aside Amnesty has no expertise in policing and is using guilt by association. It seems for them the problem is not systemic racism but Jews)
I don't think it's an emphasis on being Jewish but the idea that Israel is developing tactics in a significant conflict which raises concerns of their application domestically in the US. Though I do think it can get speculative as to what specific training there is when there is talk of Kettling and so on for crowd control.
Hence why both are complementing each other.
Indeed, not that body cams are bad, but that it does have it's limitations that the police seemed to be trying to take advantage of with them seeming to be under the impression they could frame it as resisting arrest by shouting show your hands.
"We can't say whether systemic racism explains any particular incident but we know it explains them all". That's how this sounds - like a religion.
This seems stronger than what I can claim. As there seems to be an issue in the difference between ontology, what exists, and epistemology, what one can know in regards here. Best I can point to is factors that signify a trend of systematic or institional racism which inform policies, and practices which are more aggressive in US policing. This isn't seeking out some individual racist with slurs, but about the impact of such larger instititions upon individual actors regardless of how good their intentions may be.
To push it to another extreme, I could similarly make things look ridiculous if I just said of your position that racism doesn't exist, the US is a racial utopia and there exists no case of race informing harsher policing in policy or practice. I don't think your views go that strongly even if they might be suspicious of a claim of racism.
But the uncertainty in an individual case only fixates on interpersonal racism because it cannot consider what is systematic at that level. So what is systematic is the dispproprtionate amount of force, at times lethal, and targeting of black Americans. This combined with the known increase in military gear of police, that based on my earlier post has some studies concluding is supported as a product of racial segregation.
So it's not that it explains every case, and it's also why I don't think anyone is arguing that they know this is some racially motivated incident. Rather what is pre-emptively deflected is the fixation on the officers being black somehow meaning that it is impossible to still be interpersonally motivated. But even ones who claim the possible existence of such I doubt have a means of arguing that they know that it exists in this case. So instead I would emphasize that there is valid reasons to suspect the aggressive practice of police isn't merely from the difficulty of dealing with dangerous situations, but that police themselves are ones escalated small signs of resistance which could be readily subdued with their greater numbers and power into harm and death uncessarily.
Why that is could be the concern about guns? But I think when people talk about policing culture, it can readily appear away from the PR work as a macho side of kicking bad guys asses than professional who takes care of the community. Get cops with the punisher symbol for example.
There is even an approach suggesting that a lot of cop aggression is partly predicted by threats to their sense of power or masculinity so one could relate that to how any sign of resistance is taken poorly and blows up quickly, especially with status effects of colorism meaning that ones place is to be more obedient or prone to disobeying authority.
https://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/pdfs/For%20Ethical%20Politics.pdf#page90
-For Ethical Politics