"Enough" in that you have people on HN saying pretty much that most of the black people who get shot and killed by police deserved it and that black people are stupid violent criminals so it's no wonder they get killed so often, and that if only they were docile and compliant in the face of police harassment they wouldn't get shot so much.
It's fucking weird seeing that stuff on HN, and it's scary to think how those thoughts look in other less restricted forums.
It's the 21st centuary and there's only just a US president prepared to say "black lives matter". There have been a string of killings by police of innocent black people, and juries refuse to convict.
There's a difference between the way you phrase it and the objective fact that most people who are killed by police are in fact people with lengthy and often violent criminal histories. Not all, of course. But most.
First of all, so what? Somebody with a lengthy and violent criminal history still has just as much of a right not to get killed by police as I do. Only if there is an imminent threat to life which lethal force is required to stop should the police use it.
Second, while true it can still be racist. For an example in a slightly different direction, take a look at Sandra Bland. The whole business started when she got pulled over while driving. One could say that it was totally legitimate to do so, because she did in fact commit a traffic infraction. I would say that it's still bad behavior by the policeman and most likely racist behavior, because it was a trivial infraction that tons of people commit every day, often in front of police, and almost never get pulled over for it.
In the case of victims of police shootings being violent criminals, that may be true for victims of all races, but the violent criminal history is emphasized much more for black people. So even if the histories are there for all races, if the histories are only brought up as justification when the victim is black, then the phrasing you object to is still accurate.
A vast majority of the people shot by the police in 2011 were men between the ages 25 and 40 who had histories of crime. Overall, people shot by the police were much older than the typical first-time arrestee. A significant number of the people wounded and killed by the authorities were over fifty, some in their eighties. In 2011, the police shot two 15-year-olds, and a girl who was 16.
The police shot, in 2011, about 50 women, most of whom were armed with knives and had histories of emotional distress. Overall, about a quarter of those shot were either mentally ill and/or suicidal. Many of these were "suicide-by-cop" cases.
Most police shooting victims were armed with handguns. The next most common weapon involved vehicles (used as weapons), followed by knives (and other sharp objects), shotguns, and rifles. Very few of these people carried assault weapons, and a small percentage were unarmed. About 50 subjects were armed with BB-guns, pellet guns or replica firearms.
The situations that brought police shooters and their targets together included domestic and other disturbances; crimes in progress such as robbery, assault and carjacking; the execution of arrest warrants; drug raids; gang activities; routine traffic stops; car chases; and standoff and hostage events.
Women make up about 15 percent of the nation's uniformed police services. During 2011, about 25 female police officers wounded or killed civilians. None of these officers had shot anyone in the past. While the vast majority of police officers never fire their guns in the line of duty, 15 officers who did shoot someone in 2011, had shot at least one person before. (This figure is probably low because police departments don't like to report such statistics.) Most police shootings involved members of police departments followed by sheriff's deputies, the state police, and federal officers. These shootings took place in big cities, suburban areas, towns, and in rural areas. Big city shootings comprised about half of these violent confrontations in 2011.
> you have people on HN saying pretty much that most of the black people who get shot and killed by police deserved it and that black people are stupid violent criminals so it's no wonder they get killed so often
I haven't seen anyone say anything so nasty, but I have seen the FBI's crime statistics:
Blacks make up 13.2% of the population, yet are arrested for 49.4% of the murders (3.7x their share), 32.5% of the forcible rapes (2.4x), 54.9% of the robberies (4.1x), 34.1% of the aggravated assaults (2.5x), 38.5% of the violent arson (2.9x) and 31.9% of other assaults (2.4x). The numbers for whites (77.1% of the population) are 48.2% of the murders (.6x),
Now, it's important to note that the explanation is almost certainly due to poverty and class; class in America being unfortunately highly correlated with race. It's also important to note there are almost certainly structural factors which protect some whites from being fairly arrested and lead to some blacks being unfairly arrested.
Given those violent crime statistics, is it not understandable that people in a potentially violent situation fear more for their lives when facing a random black, who is approximately 6.1 times more likely to commit murder than a random white?
And in fact, adjusted for the racial disparity in homicides, the police are 1.7 times more likely to kill whites than blacks; adjusted for the racial disparity in cop-killing, the police are 1.3 times more likely to kill whites than blacks[1].
'Black people' are not 'stupid violent criminals,' and anyone who says so is a racist idiot. But a higher percentage of black people are violent criminals, and thus it's no wonder that a higher percentage (but fewer absolutely, and fewer adjusted for the higher rate of crime!) get killed for violent crime.
Now, how does one reduce the racial disparity (by reducing the rate of black criminality to that of white criminality, not vice versa, I hope)? That's really tough to answer. Maybe it has something to do with ending the War on Some Drugs, which takes fathers away from their families; maybe it involves basic income, which would eliminate poverty; maybe it involves school choice and/or vouchers, to enable blacks to escape terrible schools and get good educations; maybe it involves using social persuasion to reduce the culture of violence (fat chance when that culture is so highly profitable!).
It's fucking weird seeing that stuff on HN, and it's scary to think how those thoughts look in other less restricted forums.
It's the 21st centuary and there's only just a US president prepared to say "black lives matter". There have been a string of killings by police of innocent black people, and juries refuse to convict.