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[GreatJustice]

To be quite frank, I think there's an agenda to divert the issue from being about the police overstepping their boundaries to being about "police vs black people". There are plenty of cases of the police abusing people from all ethnicities and walks of life in American society, but nearly all of the coverage goes to situations where the victim is black and possibly not entirely innocent (eg. the Brown shooting), with the Freddie Gray case being one of the few where basically no argument can be made justifying the actions of the cops. Thus, rather than people overwhelmingly acting to change the system, they're split into two groups that either oppose police violence specifically because it's targeted at blacks, or those who support the police because they see riots on TV, have no connection to the victims, and get scared.

So white suburbanites aren't going to rally in support of these victims because they go "Oh, well its only poor black people that suffer, maybe I'll tweet something in support of them sometime", and thus there isn't enough political pressure to actually change things. Plus, if there is any political pressure, it isn't in the direction of "We need to work together to end police abuse and get some oversight put into place", its "We need to get cops to abuse people more equitably".

[Glowcat]

I think it's important for us to remember the words of a freedom-loving American statesman on the issue of looting..

"While no one condones looting, on the other hand, one can understand the pent-up feelings that may result from decades of repression and people who have had members of their family killed by that regime, for them to be taking their feelings out on that regime..."

[SalmonGod]

Geraldo's face is hilarious

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[Helgoland]

But there are racial gaps that persist even after you account for income geography age education etc. Just straight up racism effects how police treat people even after you control out all the other disadvantages.

That is true to a limited extent - but when 85% of the problem is decaying infrastructure, severe lack of affordable quality food, an educational system that's barely worth the effort of attending, and no avenue out for persons of any color, focusing all your efforts on attacking the 15% that IS racial isn't going to help, and is all too likely to hurt by strengthening the racial divides within the community.

You're ignoring the primary motivator of the riots though, Shonus.  Discrimination by police.  All this other stuff factors into the anger that is being channeled, but police behavior is the spark (or should we say flamethrower) that's lighting that gasoline-soaked bonfire.  Even if you're white and live in a poor/violent community, you still don't have to worry nearly as much as a black person does about being extra-judicially executed, or about facing astronomically higher conviction rates and harsher sentences for the same crimes as a white person.

I'd advocate a Marxist perspective here: It really is all about economics, even if the affected people don't realize it. Where does prejudice come from? There are two sources: It can either be adopted from others' prejudice ('My pa was racist, my grampa was racist, my great-grampa was racist, and I'll be damned if my son won't be a racist too!') or come about as a consequence of incorrectly generalizations  from past experiences ('That one nigger robbed me - I tell you, all dem niggers are dirty thieves!'). The latter is more important than the former, I think - if the latter is absent, the former will die out. So if we remove the problems caused by economic disadvantage, we'll remove most of 'type II' prejudice - and in a generation or two, type I will have vanished as well.

TL;DR: Racism is a problem, but racism is just a result of economic disparities. Removing the economic problems will result in the vanishing of the problems caused by racism.

[SalmonGod]

Not going to disagree that economics is at the root, but I think there's two sides to it that play off each other... what you described is the cultural side of it.  But I also think that the structural side exists as an opportunity to exploit.  Beginning with slavery, but continuing because the cultural side persisted beyond slavery and feeds into other forms of structural racism.

[Frumple]

I'd advocate a Marxist perspective here: It really is all about economics, even if the affected people don't realize it.

I'd recommend a Bloody Obvious perspective here: It's a multivariate problem that has root causes in several different things, with no single sufficient cause. Economics is one of them (and a ruddy major one), but just solving that isn't going to solve all the rest of it. Help, yes, and significantly, but that's just part of the process, not its entirety.

[nenjin]

To be quite frank, I think there's an agenda to divert the issue from being about the police overstepping their boundaries to being about "police vs black people". There are plenty of cases of the police abusing people from all ethnicities and walks of life in American society, but nearly all of the coverage goes to situations where the victim is black and possibly not entirely innocent (eg. the Brown shooting), with the Freddie Gray case being one of the few where basically no argument can be made justifying the actions of the cops.

Judge them by how they treat the least among you, would be my philosophy to that. If we have seen an escalation in police violence in the last two decades, it will be most visibly noticed when being perpetrated against the group they've historically come into conflict with.

If we had seen the kind of widespread arrests and beatings like went on in Baltimore, knowing no racial or socioeconomic limitations, across the whole country, I might agree it's a bit of a diversion toward it being "police v. black people." It just doesn't seem that way. Yes, police abuse of authority and overstepping their bounds has affected many. But if it can be addressed as it relates to black people (illegal immigrants in my mind being the only more vulnerable group than them), it would say good things about preventing it from occurring against everyone else who are already less likely to be a victim of police brutality.

[SalmonGod]

I'll quickly bring up two issues with GJ's post

There are plenty of cases of the police abusing people from all ethnicities and walks of life in American society

Examples do not indicate indicate trends.  There are mountains of statistics regarding how much more likely minorities are to be subject to police violence.

but nearly all of the coverage goes to situations where the victim is black and possibly not entirely innocent (eg. the Brown shooting)

I posit that this is because there is simply more conflict to be had here.  White people get coverage and protest when they're wronged by police as well.  But it doesn't get as loud or last as long, because the backlash is less controversial.  When it happens to a black person, the offending officer can literally get rich off the support he'll receive for his actions, and the public scrutiny over whether or not the victim can be blamed in any way, shape, or form gives the media content that can be sensationalized to feed coverage for a much longer and more intense period.

[Reelya]

I'll quickly bring up two issues with GJ's post

There are plenty of cases of the police abusing people from all ethnicities and walks of life in American society

Examples do not indicate indicate trends.  There are mountains of statistics regarding how much more likely minorities are to be subject to police violence.

One could also use that as an argument that entropy doesn't exist because there are countless examples of particles spontaneously exhibiting increased order. We just have to ignore that for every one of those, there are countless more particles showing increased disorder.

[Zrk2]

I'll quickly bring up two issues with GJ's post

There are plenty of cases of the police abusing people from all ethnicities and walks of life in American society

Examples do not indicate indicate trends.  There are mountains of statistics regarding how much more likely minorities are to be subject to police violence.

One could also use that as an argument that entropy doesn't exist because there are countless examples of particles spontaneously exhibiting increased order. We just have to ignore that for every one of those, there are countless more particles showing increased disorder.

And thus we get to the point where someone starts misunderstanding statistics and it all goes downhill. Don't let's go there.

[Sheb]

I for one think that the focus on 'police v. black' is a great tool to address general police brutality. From what I understand of the American psyche (Keep in mind I'm a filthy Eurotrash socialist here), police shooting criminals isn't exactly frowned upon.

By pointing out that Black Americans are killed out of proportion, it highlight that the killings are not justified (Otherwise, you'd expect equal-opportunity murder), that the killing are a problem, and not just criminals getting shot.

The solutions offered (more training, body camera, better oversight...) are in any way race-neutral (because everyone knows that "abolish racism in PD" is not a feasable policy goal.) so everyone benefit from the focus on police v. blacks.

[Owlbread]

I'm very busy these days but my current drive-by opinions on American politics are as follows: Firstly, vote Bernie Sanders 2016. Never vote Hilary. Write in Sanders if you have to. Secondly I hope sincerely that by finally bringing this to a head the people of Baltimore have led America to a watershed moment where privileged white middle-class Americans won't be able to say that America is a post-racist society. The grinding, third-world level poverty endured by so many African Americans in places like Baltimore cannot be hidden behind things like the huge economic success around its water-front and the gentrification masking the deprivation and pushing the poorest in society further and further away from the areas of success/wealth/power.

[Bauglir]

The grinding, third-world level poverty endured by so many African Americans in places like Baltimore cannot be hidden behind things like the huge economic success around its water-front and the gentrification masking the deprivation and pushing the poorest in society further and further away from the areas of success/wealth/power.

cannot

I see you're an optimist. Around these parts it's surprisingly hard to find people who even remember things that make the status quo look bad, much less care.

[smjjames]

I'm very busy these days but my current drive-by opinions on American politics are as follows: Firstly, vote Bernie Sanders 2016. Never vote Hilary. Write in Sanders if you have to.

Don't make me do a drive-by opinion on Scottish/UK politics, lol.

Really though, I'm just hoping for other democratic contenders to actually announce that they are in the running, meanwhile, the GOP side seems more eager than they were even in 2008 and 2012. I hope the GOP field gets culled faster than it did in 2008 and 2012.

[Bauglir]

Nobody will announce in the hopes of getting the nomination. Clinton's got it locked up. All announcements are publicity stunts by this outrageously early point; it's the situation Romney was in last time around, times a million. That is, the media needs to play up the non-existent competition in order to sell things, but it's all a circus, nothing more. Depressing as hell, of course, that this is where the system takes us, though I haven't got many problems with Clinton in particular.

The real question is the race proper. It's obviously hard to predict without knowing the other half, but it's going to be a lot closer.