Black Lives Matter article in Baltimore Jewish Life

ora_43

Thu, Jul 02 2020, 10:19 am

shoshanim999 wrote:

The point was that the number is low enough and comparable to unarmed white deaths at the hands of police, that it doesn't demonstrate systemic racism.

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I can google and find the names of unarmed white people killed by police and their circumstances would be equally horrific.

And the protesters calling to change the way policing works, and the ways police relate to the communities they serve, think that their plans would help reduce the risk for white people, too. Chris Rock jokes aside, the idea is not that police should shoot more white people to even out the score.

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In the case of George Floyd, the cop was immediately fired, and brought up on murder charges.

Actually, murder charges were brought a few days later, after protests had started.

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If cops c'vs murdered a single yeshiva bocher I'd like to think we'd make a big deal about it. No, we wouldn't riot and loot. We wouldn't smash storefronts and assault store owners attempting to protect their property. We wouldn't burn down private businesses that employ us. We would demand justice and move on.

And most protesters aren't doing any of those things, either. Organizers call to stop the violence. But if you have a protest, you can't control everyone who comes. It's not like it's never happened that frum Jewish protests were used as a cover for violence by evil people.

shoshanim999

Thu, Jul 02 2020, 10:20 am

princessleah wrote:

What I was trying to convey above, which only Fox seemed to pick up on, is that magically dropping fathers in to families is not going to solve all the problems.

Think about WHY fathers are missing. The movie 13th on Netflix elucidates this progression very clearly. The system is stacked against black men. Slavery gets abolished. Jim Crow laws are in place. And alongside this, the 13th amendment states: "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."

So, what's the best way to keep your free labor? Large-scale imprisonment of black men. Jim Crow gets overturned, segregation gets overturned.. here comes the 90's crime bill. Cocaine, that's a high-class, dignified, white gentleman's drug. But crack? Crack is whack. Crack is scary. Crack brings crime and violence. Better lock these guys up. (p.s. it's no more addictive than regular cocaine) So where are all the fathers? In jail, awaiting trial, in a backed up justice system, not being able to afford bail, they can take a plea deal but then they're subject to a 3-strike penalty.

The neighborhoods may be impoverished, people don't have good credit and rent apartments, few people are paying property taxes so the schools don't have good funding, so the education is lagging behind their white peers. The Jewish kids in the neighborhood to go private schools. The charter schools pull the truly motivated ones away.

I could go on and on. It is very difficult to break the cycle of poverty, and not just for a specific race, but the history of racism against black Americans is very long and very entrenched. And yes, the north fought against slavery in the civil war, but I grew up in Boston, and there was incredible racism there as well, don't kid yourself.

I'd like to understand what you're saying.

Are you saying that although outright slavery was abolished a long time ago, the system is set up to keep masses of young black men in jail because so many are on crack which lands them in prison. As opposed to the white man who is using cocaine which is considered more high class and does't necessarily land users in jail. You're saying the reason this is done is so that white people can continue getting free labor from blacks in jail similar to when blacks were slaves. Am I understanding you correctly?

shoshanim999

Thu, Jul 02 2020, 11:02 am

ora_43 wrote:

And that point was wrong. The number of cases is large enough to show that unarmed black people are disproportionately likely to be killed by police, and that unarmed white people are disproportionately unlikely to be killed, with a certainty of around 90%.

That's if we look at data for last year alone. Look at, say, the past decade, and the certainty rate goes up.

And most protesters aren't doing any of those things, either. Organizers call to stop the violence. But if you have a protest, you can't control everyone who comes. It's not like it's never happened that frum Jewish protests were used as a cover
for violence by evil people.

I don't think we can argue about indisputable facts. Here are the number of people shot to death between 2017-2019. This includes armed and unarmed.

2017: White- 447
Black - 223

2018 White- 399
Black- 209

2019 White- 370
Black - 235

In 2019 there were a total of 19 unarmed white people and 9 unarmed black people killed by police.

The data indicates that white people are almost twice as likely to be killed by police as opposed to black people. When you consider the fact that blacks and whites commit around the same amount of violent crime, which is where the majority of shooting deaths take place, the data actually shows that cops are more reluctant to shoot blacks than whites.

I get that there are almost 4x as many whites in the population. Again, the overwhelming majority of police shooting occur during violent crimes or encounters. (Of course the media will make a big fuss -as they should- in instances of completely unjustified murders like George Floyd)

ora_43

Thu, Jul 02 2020, 11:11 am

shoshanim999 wrote:

When you consider the fact that blacks and whites commit around the same amount of violent crime, which is where the majority of shooting deaths take place, the data actually shows that cops are more reluctant to shoot blacks than whites.

But we were talking specifically about deaths in police encounters with unarmed civilians. Who were largely involved in non-violent crime or no crime at all. So whether the violent crime rate is equal (and it's really not clear that it is) is irrelevant.

princessleah

Thu, Jul 02 2020, 11:14 am

shoshanim999 wrote:

Yes. What I am saying is that the 13th amendment left a loophole for unpaid labor/slavery. And that loophole was mightily exploited. Former slaveholders wanted to hold on to their free labor so they had a vested interest in keeping former slaves incarcerated. It was in their interest to keep black men warehoused in prisons.

This led to criminal codes that BY DESIGN had harsher punishments for crimes that tended to be committed more often by black people than white people, and you see that pattern all the way through modern times, for example, the punishments for cocaine vs crack use. Whether this was done consciously or not at the time (I'm talking about the 90's crime bill), that is how it played out.
Add to that the fact that felons cannot vote, leading to further disenfranchisement and alienation, you have a group of people out of prison who cannot get jobs and cannot vote to make changes, and are left with simmering anger to be "stopped and frisked" and simmering with anger and resentment at a system that convicted them before they had a chance.

Cheiny

Thu, Jul 02 2020, 11:16 am

ora_43 wrote:

The difference between this thread and the Maimonides thread is stark, and depressing.

Police force Jewish family to abide by hospital rules = anti-Semitism; they would never have done that to black people.

Unarmed black person choked to death by police = come on, it was just one person, it's silly to attach any importance to that.

How many unarmed people do you expect police officers to kill? What number is big enough that it suddenly becomes meaningful?

We're willing to discuss anti-Semitism WAY before it gets to the stage of Jews being choked to death in the middle of the street - shutting down camps is worthy of protest, police going after Jewish kids for completely ignoring social distancing orders is anti-Semitism, police in Israel causing accidental injury to hareidi bystanders during a violent riot is evidence of police hostility to hareidim...

But unarmed black men suspected of minor financial crimes being choked to death in the street, that's not a reason to talk about racism. A 12-year-old black child being shot to death on a playground, that only happened once, let's wait until it happens at least 10 times before we decide to take action. A black man hunted down and murdered while jogging and his murderers walking around free, a black woman shot by police in her own home while she slept - no need to protest that, not yet.

A lot of posters here like to play the "if we were black they wouldn't treat us this way" card. Let's turn that around for a minute. If police killed one yeshiva bachur - just one - if they choked one yeshiva bachur to death slowly, over the course of several minutes, while he begged them to stop, are you going to tell me that Jews would just sit back and take it? Are you going to try to tell me for a single second that there wouldn't be riots?

You act as if it happens all the time to black men. It doesn’t. And continuing to intentionally ignore the fact that they have disproportionate amounts of interaction with cops directly because of the fact that they commit disproportionate amounts of the crime, is disingenuous and shows the fallacy of your position. As to your comparison s to the Jewish community, when Gideon Busch was killed by police, Jews didn’t go out rioting,looting, killing, taking over blocks of city streets, make outrageous demands or threats, as we are seeing from the BLM movement now. Don’t compare the 2.

ora_43

Thu, Jul 02 2020, 11:23 am

Cheiny wrote:

You mean the same Gideon Busch who was attacking police with a hammer at the time he was shot?

Not quite the same as a man accused of using a fake $20 bill being held in a chokehold until he stopped moving.

Don't get me wrong, that shooting was also a tragedy, and part of a pattern of police-involved deaths of mentally ill people. But it's hardly in the same category. There's a reason the BLM protests have focused on the deaths of people who were unarmed and clearly not a threat.

Cheiny

Thu, Jul 02 2020, 11:26 am

ora_43 wrote:

Not worse than an “unarmed” black man who steals the cop’s taser gun, shoots it at the cop, causing him to fall and suffer a concussion. Why are they calling for those cops to be hanged??

southernbubby

Thu, Jul 02 2020, 11:37 am

shoshanim999 wrote:

[u]

The problem does NOT start in poor schools. It starts from the fact that around 72% of black babies are born to single mother homes. Those children are exponentially more likely to dropout of school, not know how to read, become poor, commit crimes and end up in jail.
In fact, there have been studies that a black child born into a 2 parent home is more likely to reach middle class than a white child born into a 2 parent home.

As a side point, most of these poor schools you speak of are in districts with all black and democratic leadership. In some instances the city council is 100% black. It's not as if white people are making poor decisions holding them back.

If the Blacks had wealthy white friends and were welcome in their homes, maybe they would realize that there was an alternative to the family structure that the majority of them have but many will never see it other than on TV.

#BestBubby

Thu, Jul 02 2020, 11:40 am

ora_43 wrote:

[Political post removed, wrong forum - mod]

#BestBubby

Thu, Jul 02 2020, 11:44 am

ora_43 wrote:

Gideon Busch WAS NOT attacking police with a hammer at the time he was shot.

Gidoen Busch was standing at a distance from police, holding a TOY hammer when police shot him. Busch never touched a cop and was not running towards the cops when he was shot.

shoshanim999

Thu, Jul 02 2020, 11:47 am

ora_43 wrote:

In 2019 there were a total of 19 unarmed whites and 9 unarmed blacks killed by police.

Police respond to millions of calls a year. Some of these unarmed cases might involve instances where 2 minutes earlier the victim was fighting for the cops gun, or the victim had a toy gun that looked real, or the victim was resisting arrest. Put all that aside. Are you hoping to live in a utopia world where there are no bad cops, and no cops who make mistakes? 28 unarmed people killed in 2019 (9 black) is around the same amount as the number of people struck and killed by lightning.

Do you feel that killing unarmed black civilians is a systemic problem? What about police killing unarmed white people, is that a systemic problem? Can you name a single unarmed white person killed by police in the last 10 years?

Fox

Thu, Jul 02 2020, 11:51 am

ora_43 wrote:

So what was the problem 50 years ago, when only 24% of black babies were born to single mothers, and black children were significantly more likely to be poor than they are today?

This isn't a chicken-and-egg situation, we know what came first.

Not really. There are a lot of significant scholars and observers who aren't part of that "we." The problem is that gains made by expanding anti-discrimination efforts have been offset by social factors.

Even in 1993, the decrease in black poverty was significantly tied to black married couples, whose income had increased 47 percent between 1967 and 1990, putting their income at 84 percent of comparable white families.

In black households headed by women, progress was stagnant, and they only earned 62 percent of comparable white households. 1990 Census

Recently the media has been filled with celebrations of the the 90th birthday of Dr. Thomas Sowell, one of the foremost economists and social scientists of the last century who has studied these problems. There are literally hundreds of great interviews with him on YouTube, but here's a concise account of many of his ideas along with references: Cato Institute and an excerpt on this topic from a longer interview:

Fox

Thu, Jul 02 2020, 12:04 pm

southernbubby wrote:

Seriously?

Black Americans do not need white friends to tell them how to live.

In fact, black communities do a lot better when whites leave them alone.

If whites must meddle, the ways to improve things are pretty clear:

* Stop normalizing out-of-wedlock births for everyone.
* Make government aid favor two-parent biological families.
* Relax government regulations for businesses and zoning in urban areas.
* Provide some measure of school choice.
* Provide genuine incentives for investors in minority communities.

Will such policies solve every problem? Of course not. But black communities can do just fine if we let them.

ora_43

Thu, Jul 02 2020, 12:21 pm

Fox wrote:

I don't think any of this contradicts what I was saying. I don't deny for a second that single-parent families are far more likely to be poor.

princessleah

Thu, Jul 02 2020, 12:28 pm

Fox wrote:

What flipped the switch on the 2-parent family? Men just stopped caring? Was it feminism?

Fox

Thu, Jul 02 2020, 12:44 pm

princessleah wrote:

What flipped the switch on the 2-parent family? Men just stopped caring? Was it feminism?

Lol! The million-dollar question!

I've read what seems like a gazillion different explanations, and I honestly think the answer is "all of them." There was a perfect storm of social changes -- many of them reasonable or even positive in and of themselves -- that created this.

It should be emphasized that it's not a phenomenon just among black Americans; it's a phenomenon among lower- and lower-middle-class Americans of all races.

Some of the factors:

* The s-xual revolution removed women as s-xual gatekeepers, making commitment less attractive for men.

* Decreasing the stigma of out-of-wedlock birth made it a viable option for women to raise children alone.

* Social benefits rewarded single women versus married couples.

* Increased availability of contraception undermined the inherent "contract" between not-yet-committed couples in the case of an unplanned pregnancy.

* Decrease of manufacturing jobs left men without adequate opportunities to support families.

* Change to a service-based economy left women with better jobs and prospects, making marriage a trickier proposition for men.

* Lack of job opportunities for lower-income men resulted in increased substance abuse, immersion in video gaming, and other pursuits that made them undesirable marriage partners over time.

There are probably more reasons that I've forgotten -- no single factor tipped the scales; it just added up to a disaster. And when the white man has a cold, the black man has pneumonia.