Racism

[Prometheon]

Suppose that, in a particular neighborhood, most of the people arrested for gang activity, drug trafficking and gun violence belong to a particular racial group. Do you think that it is alright or acceptable for the police to randomly stop and search people who belong to this racial group more than they stop and search those from other racial groups?

Edited April 25, 2007 by Prometheon

[ecnarf]

...now imagine she's white.

[shade]

The situation is not that black and white (pun intended for realz).

[Prometheon]

Oh c'mon. No one's actually giving a firm opinion. I don't really have one either, but here's an interesting point I considered:

 

Isn't it descrimination to NOT stop the group with the greater crime % more often? Lets say (just for the sake of discussion) that there are only 2 racial groups: black and white. If there were an equal amount in the neighbourhood, and blacks commited 60% of the listed crimes, isn't it racist to NOT stop them more often? If you're in the extra 10% of whites being searched, aren't you being unfairly stigmatized as being equally likely to be a criminal? How is this different from the already present economic and gender descrimination?

 

Obviosuly there are a ton of other factors to consider, but I'm just playing a bit of devil's advocate.

[Ravenous megin-sane]

it's not racist and to call it that is just stupid.

 

even if the statistics show that more black people in that area are commiting the crimes, doesn't mean a thing. maybe there's more black people than white people.

[ecnarf]

Ha ha playing semantics with an implied assumption.

[Prometheon]

it's not racist and to call it that is just stupid.

 

even if the statistics show that more black people in that area are commiting the crimes, doesn't mean a thing. maybe there's more black people than white people.

Yeah, or maybe the division of wealth is different, etc.

 

But still, the statement remains, and just by reading the original post, would you say "yes" or "no"?

 

Edit at Adam: obviously there will be a ton of assumptions in any sort of statement like this, but my interest is in people's response to the original question, and in the assumptions they are willing to make in order to make that distinction, and, in turn, which assumptions they feel are valid and/or neccessary in order to provide an answer.

 

Edit further: Personally, I feel that if you made the environment 'perfect,' in that the populations of every race were equal, their economic and social opportunities were identical, et cetera, it would be ludicrous to say anything other than "stop them more often," as the only distinguishing factor in that case is race itself, and there are no compounding or hidden variables (that mitigate this conclusion).

Edited April 25, 2007 by Prometheon

[Ravenous megin-sane]

Do you think that it is alright or acceptable for the police to randomly stop and search people who belong to this racial group more than they stop and search those from other racial groups?

most definitely not.

[mrs jesus]

it's not racist and to call it that is just stupid.

 

even if the statistics show that more black people in that area are commiting the crimes, doesn't mean a thing. maybe there's more black people than white people.

he said that there was an equal amount of each race.

 

and if all the crime was being committed by one race i think it makes perfect sense to stop more people of that race.

[Hyphnip]

I agree working under the assumption that I think it's fine for them to randomly stop people and search them. I'm not sure how I feel about it though. there was a time I would've said no but lately I find myself thinking that a lot of murders in Winnipeg could be prevented if cops would randomly search Indians downtown (seriously, I had a friend get jumped and stabbed by a group of them and then less than a week later another guy in the same area was jumped by a group of indians and killed)

[mrs jesus]

feather not dot?

[primetime_deliverance]

There is no doubt in my mind that the right thing to do in this situation is to aggressively prevent crime. If that means targeting groups that are more prone to committing violent crime, I have absolutely no problem with it. It is no different then having extra patrols running in a violent neighbourhood. Winnipeg is a prime example. I am tired of political correctness overriding safety.

Edited April 25, 2007 by primetime_deliverance

[shade]

It is really easy for us to say that racial profiling is acceptable because the majority of us are white suburbanites. If the shoe was on the other foot you would probably be singing a different tune.

 

Yes people have faced a lot of hardships; the story of the Native American

[HoboFactory]

Racism is something that can be seen from so many angles. The one that bothers me a lot is when racism is used as an excuse for things like committing crime. I knew a girl, who honestly believed that the reason her uncle was put into prison for life was because he was black, as opposed to the fact that he was found guilty of a double murder.

[supercanuk]

Racial profiling, what you are describing is wrong, but is a tactic used by the police all the time. There's way too many variables here for you to simplify the issue, are the police officers white? Are they black? Are the people acting out of the ordinary? What's the power of discretion of the police officers viz-a-vi the ability to get redress for arbitrary search and seizure?

 

Racial profiling tends to be more a phenomenon of racism, also, it's a statistics thing. Criminality cannot be reduced to race, there are economic variables, psychological, sociological(in the broad sense), they at times can be cultural (in the early 1800's the use of opium by Asian communities became "illegal" when it suited social control of an oppressed population. This is in Canada btw, so i dont know what it was like in the U.S.

 

But anyway, my point is, criminality has more to do with archaic laws that are a source of social control rather then deviant behavior (a lot of people are in jail on petty drug crimes, not anything violent).

 

So back to the point, racial profiling, again it's not a race thing, it's a statistics thing as well. If you have more police officers, you will have higher crime rates. It's simple statistics, a politician says they have a crime problem, they hire more officers, and there is more crime, because more people are being arrested. It's not that it's necessarily violent, it's just all the little things, remember police officers have to meet a quota, so they have a vested interest in crime control (i.e. conviction and aprehension).

 

So when people say one racial group gets stopped more then another, you have to ask yourself what is beneath this. What are the police ignoring when they're busy focusing time on one racial group? And what are the consequences of this, continued stigmatization of one racial group, and the ommiting of real crime rates of another racial group?

 

Racism is an issue that effects the criminal justice system quite a bit, and racial profiling keeps the status quo that white people, who are generally the judges sentencing people, maintain. This isn't something i think is conscious either, i think the long term stigmatization of the black community has lead to an unconscious racism that people don't like to talk about and therefore continues this presupposition which at its heart is racist.

 

But this is a rant, and i'll leave it at this, but i can tell you as a law student, for a fact, that racial profiling not only doesn't work, because it just ignores other crime, but that it continues a racism of colonial roots that can only lead to continued racism between both races (white and black).

[marx marvelous]

stop people in that neighborhood. everyone knows it's not the color of skin that determines your likelihood to be a criminal, it's whether you're poor or not--that's why there are "bad neighborhoods" and good ones.

Edited April 26, 2007 by marx marvelous

[shade]

Perhaps you should change your username again, we wouldn't want any of your adoring fans finding you out.

[mrs jesus]

Perhaps you should change your username again, we wouldn't want any of your adoring fans finding you out.

heh.

 

5678

[marx marvelous]

bitter alert, code blue!

[shade]

more like bit her alert, code gay!

[marx marvelous]

code shade? i don't get it. ;)

[shade]

ya, I'm gay.

[Dan #3]

The fact that this question was asked is not interesting in any way shape or form. It is perturbing.

[mrs jesus]

why?

 

5678

[Prometheon]

The fact that this question was asked is not interesting in any way shape or form. It is perturbing.

The reason I asked is because it was an item on a research study I was administering a few months ago, and I got a lot of very interesting answers, as well as a lot of complaints about the question itself (what it leaves out, assumptions it makes, etc.) so I figured I'd share.