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[smeeprocket]

This is the study that say that 78% of the peoples shot by black officiers are black. I never meant that 78% of all black men killed were killed by black officers.

Might want to brush up on your definitions. Short version: all white supremacy is racism, but not all racism is white supremacy (wikipedia links for more reading). You don't hafta believe that the (Aryan/Nordic/Hiberno-Gallic) ethnicity should rule to feel that brown people are all sneaky.

I said white supremacism because that's the one racism that you can fight on the ideological ground (and its variant). If the officier are simply used to have harsher interaction with the black community, but do not actually hold any racist  beliefs, then were're back at the training point. Sensitivity, desecalation, proper rules of engagement, and simply the requirement to identify the threath with reasonable certitude (much, much higher than it is now) are all normal things that all police force should do, and will solve that problem. 

White supremicist is consciously and explicitly racist.

You can also be subconsciously racist. You might think someone looks sketchy or dangerous and not realize that their skin color played a part in that perception until you think about it later, or if you're not the introspective type you might not realize it at all.

You'd do well to remember Hanlon's Razor:
"Never attribute to malice what can be adequetely explained by ignorance"

You cannot get rid of it entirely, but no police force in the world are immune to it. The rules of engagement must be strict enough so that it cannot be a factor.
That and a bunch of training to identify, and avoid that behavior.

It's like you are just making up arguments for racism.

No it will never change and it has to be like this, or you know, as penguin of honor (satirically) posted, the cops will just shoot more white people.

Like there's actually a quota.

I said : your police force suck and is dangerous for everyone as it it. Yeah, I stand by it.

A black person being racist would be akin to a woman suffering from internalized sexism. It happens regularly enough to be a problem.

Yes and no. That is a subconscious bia and have nothing to do with ideology. That's not the same approach, cause and solution.
There are trainings for that but that's not really a root problem, just an effect of either the medias or Pavlovian response.

Also a lot of your suggestions give me the impression that you think that black people contribute to their own stereotypes. Which is wrong. That's not how racism works. It deals heavily with confirmation bias, so even if you had a majority of upper class black people, a racist would see one poor black family with a father that is absent and would just keep thinking that stereotype was a real thing. Hell even if every single black person was ridiculously rich, racists would still hold on to their stereotypes.

Really?
Silly European then, we've been trying for years to build school in poor area, to make violence prevention campain, make college acessible for anyone regardless of income or race and make urbain improvement programs and it was all for naught?

Please tell me more about your magical gettho that allowed a population that have equal rights in the law for about 50 years (if that) to overcome its problem and to have a criminality comparable to the rest of the country. Please do because despite everything we've done, the desendant of the Italian immigration wave in Belgium, that came to work and always have a job, still suffer from lower education, wealth and elevated criminality compared to the initial Belgian, and they (we) came 50 years ago.


It's funny, too because Belgians (and non Belgians) seems systematically racist against the most impoverished ethnicity and not the darkest one. As if, you knew, race doesn't matter and confirmation bias was just a factor in racism. When my mother came it was against Italians, and now it's moslty against Morrocan, my Congolese friends having almost never encountered racism (the congolese community isn't especially poor and is rather well connected).

Why are you being so intentionally obtuse?

An ignorant police officer still will hold bigoted beliefs about a black person. Just because they don't have some ideology they are working off of... I mean, most racists aren't white supremacists. They just hate black people and perceive them as subhuman. Not even consciously most of the time, Their say all kinds of racist shit and then get offended when you call them a racist, they even have a word for it, "playing the race card" because they believe they are treating everyone equally and that it's totally unfounded.

Meanwhile they'll talk about welfare queens and black on black crime to no end.

I don't get a lot of your post, I've been saying the exact opposite of what you are accusing me of saying, Things are definitely not equal here. I don't know, maybe Belgian bigots flip who they hate the most with the season, but in America, there is a a big chunk of the populace that either doesn't like any race that is not white, or just flat out hates black people.

I'm not saying we shouldn't invest in black communities or something, lol, I'm saying racists are going to be racist regardless. We need to confront the fact that they are gigantic bigots and stop that as soon as possible and remove those kinds of people from law enforcement and govt office.

[penguinofhonor]

.

[smeeprocket]

I suspect other countries are just as racist, they just have significantly less targets to point their ignorance at.

Or the targets of ignorance are an altogether different race. I hear arabs are particularly despised in Europe (people here treat them like shit too, so I'm not getting on any sort of high horse.) Also, gypsies. There is an inordinate amount of hate towards gypsies.

I thought that was mostly Islamophobia?

yea bigots don't really differentiate between targets. Like if you really hate Muslims, and a Sikh walks by, you aren't going to stop and go "no man, he's got a turban and a sword, he's cool with me" you are going to see everything you hate. The skin color, the arabic features, the outfit being at all arabic, I mean a bigot isn't going to take the time to differentiate between different fashions in the arabic world or know what christian arabs are wearing this season. He's just looking for anyone different to hate on.

So what, even if racism doesn't translate 1:1 from the US to Europe, it's most likely on a pretty similar level.
But why do you think our police don't really shoot many people, and why is there less violence overall?
That is why I presume Phmcw is arguing this is more of a social problem than a racism problem.
I myself would start with disarming the country, but I know that's off the table.

yea forget de-arming the country. That's a lovely dream but it is not happening. It is so not happening that the things the NRA and such will prevent from going through are just silly. Like we'll have a mass school shooting and they'll be right in the spotlight saying we need to let college students concealed carry at college (and some colleges do allow that per state laws.) Like some dude with a hero complex unloading into a panicking crowd in an attempt to hit a psychopath who is also unloading into a panicking crowd will help things.

Actually, Mexico's problems with guns relates directly to sales made in America and then smuggled across the border. We are responsible for gun deaths in Mexico. Americans don't care about that though because they don't really care about people with brown skin.

Even if your police were racist, they would, I assume, have less people to be racist against and any undue violence against a different race would not add up to the staggering numbers we have.

Also, law enforcement not regularly carrying guns and not being trained to escalate a situation as often as possible probably helps a ton.

[smjjames]

I suspect other countries are just as racist, they just have significantly less targets to point their ignorance at.

Or the targets of ignorance are an altogether different race. I hear arabs are particularly despised in Europe (people here treat them like shit too, so I'm not getting on any sort of high horse.) Also, gypsies. There is an inordinate amount of hate towards gypsies.

I thought that was mostly Islamophobia?

Don't forget the Roma. The ignorant crap Europeans say about them is almost indistinguishable from what racist Americans say about black people.

Aren't the Roma and Gypsies the same people?

[smeeprocket]

I suspect other countries are just as racist, they just have significantly less targets to point their ignorance at.

Or the targets of ignorance are an altogether different race. I hear arabs are particularly despised in Europe (people here treat them like shit too, so I'm not getting on any sort of high horse.) Also, gypsies. There is an inordinate amount of hate towards gypsies.

I thought that was mostly Islamophobia?

Don't forget the Roma. The ignorant crap Europeans say about them is almost indistinguishable from what racist Americans say about black people.

yea I mentioned gypsies. Or is gypsy a derogatory term, one of the women in one of my feminist groups is Roma and referred to hersle fas a gypsy so I assumed it was acceptable.

Seriously, Europeans hate themselves some Romas.

[penguinofhonor]

.

[smjjames]

I suspect other countries are just as racist, they just have significantly less targets to point their ignorance at.

Or the targets of ignorance are an altogether different race. I hear arabs are particularly despised in Europe (people here treat them like shit too, so I'm not getting on any sort of high horse.) Also, gypsies. There is an inordinate amount of hate towards gypsies.

I thought that was mostly Islamophobia?

Don't forget the Roma. The ignorant crap Europeans say about them is almost indistinguishable from what racist Americans say about black people.

yea I mentioned gypsies. Or is gypsy a derogatory term, one of the women in one of my feminist groups is Roma and referred to hersle fas a gypsy so I assumed it was acceptable.

Seriously, Europeans hate themselves some Romas.

I read in National Geographic that it's a derogatory term to some, so, it probably varies from area to area and person to person.

[Owlbread]

Aren't the Roma and Gypsies the same people?

In Britain no. The trouble is we call Irish and Scottish travellers "gypsies" and "travellers" interchangeably, but they are totally different ethnically, linguistically and culturally to the Roma; including the Roma who are native to Britain e.g. the Romanichal. To be politically correct avoid the term gypsy but if you must use it, use it in relation to the Roma. Irish and Scottish travelers should just be called "travellers" or "travelling folk".

[Bohandas]

I suspect other countries are just as racist, they just have significantly less targets to point their ignorance at.

Or the targets of ignorance are an altogether different race. I hear arabs are particularly despised in Europe (people here treat them like shit too, so I'm not getting on any sort of high horse.) Also, gypsies. There is an inordinate amount of hate towards gypsies.

I thought that was mostly Islamophobia?

Don't forget the Roma. The ignorant crap Europeans say about them is almost indistinguishable from what racist Americans say about black people.

yea I mentioned gypsies. Or is gypsy a derogatory term, one of the women in one of my feminist groups is Roma and referred to hersle fas a gypsy so I assumed it was acceptable.

Seriously, Europeans hate themselves some Romas.

I read in National Geographic that it's a derogatory term to some, so, it probably varies from area to area and person to person.

Any term referring to a specific ethnicity, no matter how inoffensive or innocently intended, will be viewed as derogatory by someone.

[XXSockXX]

Even if your police were racist, they would, I assume, have less people to be racist against and any undue violence against a different race would not add up to the staggering numbers we have.

Also, law enforcement not regularly carrying guns and not being trained to escalate a situation as often as possible probably helps a ton.

Our (German) law enforcement regularly carries guns, though our criminals often don't. The police certainly have enough people to potentially be racist against, at least in the big cities, less than in the US, but still. It's not like we have no complaints about racist police. They may be better trained, they certainly aren't geniuses though. Still they very rarely shoot anyone, regardless of race/origin/whatever. They definitely are a lot less afraid to be shot at, because that is very unlikely to happen.

Again, not that fighting racism isn't a noble goal, but it is an even more fruitless endeavour than disarming the US I think, especially concerning subconscious prejudice. People are people after all. Focusing on better standards of life and massively reforming the police and the way they deal with things looks a lot more promising, if getting less people killed within the next decade or so is the goal.

[Levi]

Again, not that fighting racism isn't a noble goal, but it is an even more fruitless endeavour than disarming the US I think, especially concerning subconscious prejudice. People are people after all. Focusing on better standards of life and massively reforming the police and the way they deal with things looks a lot more promising, if getting less people killed within the next decade or so is the goal.

I don't think its fruitless.  Its not the sort of thing people should give up on.  I think its probably still a lot better than it was 100 years ago, so its not like people aren't slowly getting better.

[smeeprocket]

I suspect other countries are just as racist, they just have significantly less targets to point their ignorance at.

Or the targets of ignorance are an altogether different race. I hear arabs are particularly despised in Europe (people here treat them like shit too, so I'm not getting on any sort of high horse.) Also, gypsies. There is an inordinate amount of hate towards gypsies.

I thought that was mostly Islamophobia?

Don't forget the Roma. The ignorant crap Europeans say about them is almost indistinguishable from what racist Americans say about black people.

yea I mentioned gypsies. Or is gypsy a derogatory term, one of the women in one of my feminist groups is Roma and referred to hersle fas a gypsy so I assumed it was acceptable.

Seriously, Europeans hate themselves some Romas.

I read in National Geographic that it's a derogatory term to some, so, it probably varies from area to area and person to person.

Any term referring to a specific ethnicity, no matter how inoffensive or innocently intended, will be viewed as derogatory by someone.

Really, the group in question, and individuals of that group, get to decide what is hurtful or wrong with regards to terminology. So it isn't that anything can and will be regarded that way, it's more that many times, others are not bothering to listen to that minority group or individuals therein with respect to what they prefer. People on the outside don't really get to decide what is hurtful to the people it involves.

I'm a bit perplexed as to why combating ignorance and racism would be fruitless. I mean, if this were slave times, would one then argue that slavery will always exist and we should give up on emancipation and just focus on better treatment of the slaves?

[XXSockXX]

Again, not that fighting racism isn't a noble goal, but it is an even more fruitless endeavour than disarming the US I think, especially concerning subconscious prejudice. People are people after all. Focusing on better standards of life and massively reforming the police and the way they deal with things looks a lot more promising, if getting less people killed within the next decade or so is the goal.

I don't think its fruitless.  Its not the sort of thing people should give up on.  I think its probably still a lot better than it was 100 years ago, so its not like people aren't slowly getting better.

Not saying you shouldn't try, I didn't mean it's fruitless overall, but if you want to have less people killed, you don't want to wait another 100 years. Something like changing the way police is trained and / or monitored for example can be implemented in a much much shorter time, like a couple of years. Admitting that you have a class problem and doing something against economical inequality can be done in a shorter time also.

[smeeprocket]

Again, not that fighting racism isn't a noble goal, but it is an even more fruitless endeavour than disarming the US I think, especially concerning subconscious prejudice. People are people after all. Focusing on better standards of life and massively reforming the police and the way they deal with things looks a lot more promising, if getting less people killed within the next decade or so is the goal.

I don't think its fruitless.  Its not the sort of thing people should give up on.  I think its probably still a lot better than it was 100 years ago, so its not like people aren't slowly getting better.

Not saying you shouldn't try, I didn't mean it's fruitless overall, but if you want to have less people killed, you don't want to wait another 100 years. Something like changing the way police is trained and / or monitored for example can be implemented in a much much shorter time, like a couple of years. Admitting that you have a class problem and doing something against economical inequality can be done in a shorter time also.

But all of that would just ignore the biggest factor.

Police would still overwhelmingly commit excessive violence against black people.

It's not about curing racism, a lot of it is about accountability and their being significant punishments for racist and violent behavior, as well as being fired for this like racist facebook rants and similar things.

The problem is that the higher ups are also racist and will have the backs of the officers that do this, the prosecutors will do their damnedest to not get the officer indicted, juries will favor the officer's story, judges will handle out weaker sentences (when violation like these should be met with harsher punishments than for civilians)

One problem is that our justice system is so intertwined. The dude that is charged with getting an indictment and ultimately getting a guilty verdict if that goes through for the officer, is probably good friends or on amicable terms with him. That prosecutor also needs to have a working relationship with the police in general, all of whom will have the back of this excessively violent racist cop.

It's this long chain of both racism and cronyism that perpetuates itself.

And the police aren't exactly trying to fix it. In the Brown case, 9 out of the 12 members of the grand jury were white. that's the call of the defense, prosecution and judge combined. White juries statistically show racist leanings (very heavy ones,) so that selection was just ensuring a race-based verdict. And also, in grand jury hearings, the jurors will often go with what the prosecution wants, and that prosecutor very clearly did not want an indictment.

And the Garner case, in which there was absolutely no ambiguity at all and everything was very clearly video-taped, resulted in the same thing. Evidence just doesn't matter in the minds of the system when it comes to black people and cops.

[Phmcw]

yea I mentioned gypsies. Or is gypsy a derogatory term, one of the women in one of my feminist groups is Roma and referred to hersle fas a gypsy so I assumed it was acceptable.

Seriously, Europeans hate themselves some Romas.

Gypsies are a problem for which we have very little solution, especially now that all funds have been slashed.
I know a lot of Bulgarians, and a few Romanians, and they explained me the situation pretty thoroughly.


If intergrating Italians in Belgium's society isn't easy imagine what it is to integrate peoples that have been poor and marginals for centuries and on top of that had their social structure destroyed during communism. Add to that that the traditionally minded folks among them have no love for outsiders (why should they?) and don't trust them (again, with good reasons). Integrating them and raising their education and work prospect to ours isn't exactly a cakewalk. It's been done, and some mayors has had great success, it's just very expensive and ask for a very intelligent and involved person in charge for each intergration project.


And no, that's not "confirmation bia" of course they are (much) more likely to steal, beg and "get by" by any means. And every country is refused the cash to deal with its own problem, old migration wave, or even simply impoverished population.
Meanwhile their population is exploding at home. As you can imagine, they are rarely welcome, and situation in Bulgaria and romania is becoming tense.


As for America you're saying "cops shouldn't be racist" like it's the way to solve your problems.
First you're allowing that to result in many, many death because everything else that is worng with your police.
Second solving that particuliar problem is going to be huge.


You've been lied to, basically. One person can succeed by himself, but he usually won't. The American dream allow the best and luckyest to succeed, yes, and it was an improvement in Europe's ols system, where you were born into a position you could never leave, but that's only a fraction of your population. You need luck, skill and you obviously have it much harder if you don't have money to beggin with.


If you want equal opportunity for all (and therefore equal results across all races, classes,... only influenced by talent and a bit of luck) you have to do much much more.
That's why you have so many racist cops. They KNOW they have to face more and more violent black, gypsies, ... criminals depending on which group is at the bottom right now. It's normal, that the way things are set up.


I don't pay half my salary in taxes for the hell of it : we do need the money to make things remotely equitable else the poor and the migrant fall behind (the poor at least usually have a social network they can rely on in some ways). That's why Turks have already catched up a lot around here (they were part of an earlyer wave than in Germany) and that why it's bad that we cannot tax foreign companies.


That's also why I'm more than a bit angry at all the "anti racists" that are for open borders even though we don't have the funds and time to assimilate the current immigration and the "free trade" types (mostly supported by the American governement) that prevent us from taxing large companies and starve us for cash.


In America you have a Black population that have been through slavery, have been discriminated against pretty much ever since, and of course statistically they'll have issues with criminality and education statistically. Even if every white peoples had stopped being racist since the 60's they'd be in a terrible situation.
Repearing the kind of damage their society have been though (total obliteration of any social structure followed by slavery followed by discrimination and segregation followed by living in an unhelpfull country where you must pay for everything including education and healthcare) take time, lot of it, and money, lot of it too.


But no one is safe in America : don't let the white American fool themselves into thinking that "they"  got it good, they don't. The very reason why racism took off in the US was to create that illusion. You must break that.


Divide by race, religion and ethnicity is a very old tactique, and not "a white invention originating in America" as I saw in some American publication, written by an author that forgot to study history or was high on American exeptionalism. It's the oldest trick in the book and was used, well, since history began I think. The Roman did it with great sucess for instance.


In America you can see that some population are permanently settling into misery and dispair, and that's very bad. You'll pay for that later, either in blood or in cash, and probably both.
Racism is a tool used to exploit both part, that what you aren't getting, it's not used to give either privilege, and the peoples at the top know it perfectly well, it's used to make peoples that have only one penny feel rich because "the other side" don't have that. You're falling for an old, old trick.


In general if someone tell you to treat someone differently based on race don't listen to him, even if it's to "battle racism". He's being wrong.

Again, not that fighting racism isn't a noble goal, but it is an even more fruitless endeavour than disarming the US I think, especially concerning subconscious prejudice. People are people after all. Focusing on better standards of life and massively reforming the police and the way they deal with things looks a lot more promising, if getting less people killed within the next decade or so is the goal.

I don't think its fruitless.  Its not the sort of thing people should give up on.  I think its probably still a lot better than it was 100 years ago, so its not like people aren't slowly getting better.

Not saying you shouldn't try, I didn't mean it's fruitless overall, but if you want to have less people killed, you don't want to wait another 100 years. Something like changing the way police is trained and / or monitored for example can be implemented in a much much shorter time, like a couple of years. Admitting that you have a class problem and doing something against economical inequality can be done in a shorter time also.

But all of that would just ignore the biggest factor.

Police would still overwhelmingly commit excessive violence against black people.

It's not about curing racism, a lot of it is about accountability and their being significant punishments for racist and violent behavior, as well as being fired for this like racist facebook rants and similar things.

The problem is that the higher ups are also racist and will have the backs of the officers that do this, the prosecutors will do their damnedest to not get the officer indicted, juries will favor the officer's story, judges will handle out weaker sentences (when violation like these should be met with harsher punishments than for civilians)

One problem is that our justice system is so intertwined. The dude that is charged with getting an indictment and ultimately getting a guilty verdict if that goes through for the officer, is probably good friends or on amicable terms with him. That prosecutor also needs to have a working relationship with the police in general, all of whom will have the back of this excessively violent racist cop.

It's this long chain of both racism and cronyism that perpetuates itself.

And the police aren't exactly trying to fix it. In the Brown case, 9 out of the 12 members of the grand jury were white. that's the call of the defense, prosecution and judge combined. White juries statistically show racist leanings (very heavy ones,) so that selection was just ensuring a race-based verdict. And also, in grand jury hearings, the jurors will often go with what the prosecution wants, and that prosecutor very clearly did not want an indictment.

And the Garner case, in which there was absolutely no ambiguity at all and everything was very clearly video-taped, resulted in the same thing. Evidence just doesn't matter in the minds of the system when it comes to black people and cops.

It's easyer to ask for high standards for everyone than just try to fight a concept as loosely defined as racism. If you can find a white supremacist organisation in your police, go for it, arrest them.

But if it's about bia, fight for standards. Our cops aren't "not racist" they just have an inquiry for any shot they make and go on trial any time they kill someone.