@Atelier3 and
@deficiT. Good morning.
Just to thank you both for your posts.
It's posts such as these that restore my faith in the notion that there is still some value in open, honest, intellectual, and rational debate on these forums. Some days I have to dig REAL deep in order to hold onto that notion!
I'm not quoting your posts in their entirety (nobody reads quotes anyway I'm told). But rest assured I've read them both (yesterday already) and given them due thought and ponderance (dunno where this fancy English is coming from this morning but anyway!
).
But that’s a dry numerical analysis that totally ignores the social dynamics of crime, policing, and justice. It would seem to be transparently obvious that in the longer term such a strategy begins to reproduce itself with no increase in justice and potentially no decrease in the overall actual crime rate. For example:
I never considered the ramifications as you have done i.e. I fell squarely into the dry numerical analysis school of thought.
The only thing that came to mind for me (after posting my initial post on this) was that racial profiling could lead, even if inadvertently or subliminally, to racial bias and which in it's turn could lead to outright racism.
As for the rest of your insights: nothing I would have even considered as noted. That's why you're the intellectual and the lecturer and I'm, well, you know!
I suppose I could add (at the risk of shooting myself in the foot of course) that you know the saying: there's lies, damn lies, and then statistics!
I'm speaking purely in relationship to the US, as I understand that different cultures have different social dynamics.
This a good point (in addition to others noted by you also).
General response:
In my defense (or ignorance) things are pretty cut and dried here (and I'm going to use the actual race terms here as I'm sure it's evident that these interactions between us here are not racially motivated). Here: the figures stack up nice. Black majority by far, most law enforcement officers are black, most criminals are black, and more black people in prison and/or getting shot by law enforcement. There's nothing racial about it (but it's taken me a while, as some will know, to come to this realization). I don't (I no longer anyway) discount the socioeconomic conditions and racial disparity either though.
The above being said: we're not exactly immune from narratives being pushed to suit. The farm murder situation is a prime example. The vast majority of farmers are white but in a country where the majority, by far, is black. If you take these incidents in isolation: it's easy to push the race narrative. And some do (I was one of them not that long ago as we know). It doesn't mean that there isn't racial motivation on occasion i.e. I'm sure there is. But if you take the country as a whole: that's a different story and narrative and one that isn't as bleak as some would have the world believe.
And both of your responses had me looking into our drug statistics yesterday (unfortunately they're more anecdotal it would appear i.e. we're not quite as jacked as the DEA here) (not even close and no offense meant to our guys either i.e. resources here are pushed beyond their limits and through no fault of law enforcement agencies either). Anyway. I was hoping (I guess) to make the point that certain races were more prone to using certain substances and therefore could be profiled. My logic being that if you wanted to bust for smack then you'd not go frisking black people. Turns out it's not true. Seems to me anyway that use and abuse here is pretty colorblind i.e. only affordability makes the difference.
Anyway. My point (now) is how do you deal with this in a country where things are not quite as clear cut. Things not as simple as they sometimes seem (especially not to a foreigner and where the only real source of information is mainstream media and we're all acutely aware of the inherent dangers of that are we not)!
Thanks again (the both of you).
In just proofreading the above before posting I reckon I can draw some parallels though. I'll save them for another post.
If you have been around, been 'friends' with a narcissist or had a "relationship" with one, or lived with one you know the signs and he definitely has them, loves the attention, fame, and $ he is getting going on talk shows and hamming it up with his histrionics of "But...but...but...It could have been ME! I took off my mask! (Focus on ME!)"
