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Comment by fesoliveira

5 years ago

>Adult people are wholy responsible for their actions. This fundemental fact underpins our whole society.

You say that is solely fault of the individual, but then say that it "suggests that communities are generally more violent and therefore more likely to be policed". So, if it is the fault of each black individual, as you claim is the underpinning of society, why are black communities being more policed?

>This fact along with others (like the behaviours of majority black police departments) can be used to construct in good faith a strong argument that there is no epidemic of police racism.

Being this the case, wherein lies the issue: the black community or the police institution that trains its members to be more aggressive and fearful of black communities? Keep in mind that only one of the two is in fact an institution funded by the public that undergoes training.

The biggest issue with these kinds of arguments is that it does not take in consideration that black communities are marginalized and target of harassment. This is institutionalized in the sense that the training the harassing people receive teaches them to harass and keeps telling them that they will get killed otherwise. This is not present only in the police, but in other facets of society as well. Look at how many videos of black americans being followed by security in malls and store there are on social media. This shows a pattern that keeps happening, and in unfortunately in many situations escalate to injury or death.

> So, if it is the fault of each black individual, as you claim is the underpinning of society, why are black communities being more policed?

Because effective policing means distributing police resources according to demand?

> police institution that trains its members to be more aggressive and fearful of black communities?

It seems perfectly reasonable to be more fearful when going into a more dangerous area. I don't see any evidence that police are somehow less aggressive or fearful when going into areas dominated by violent gangs with other skin colours. Can you point to some official training doctrine that tells police to be fearful of black people? I'm quite sure that has been illegal for a long time.