Race and police shootings

[RJ]

I realize this will be difficult since we can't even get people to graduate studying only Language Arts/English, Math, Science, and Social Studies, but we really ought to require a course in basic statistics in order to graduate high school (and I'd also like to se e a HS diploma be a requirement for a voting card, but I digress).

The COVID numbers have been extremely eye-opening to me both in the way that they are reported and int the way that the general public appears to view them. I don't really care about total cases, I care about cases/segment-of-population, percent positives, deaths per positives, demographics of those deaths, etc.

Same thing here.

I've heard people say that various minorities should be "half" the workforce in various desirable roles (doctors, lawyers, executives, etc.). Well (a) how is that going to work when I can't make 50% of doctors latin, 50% native american, and 50% black (not to mention the difficulty in getting to become a doctor). I wonder, though, why wouldn't then 50% of those killed by police be black?

And *then* you have to wonder, how many of those killed needed killing? You pretty much have to eliminate that from the data pool altogether. Once a fucker attacks a cop with a knife and gets himself killed, his race is irrellevent to me, except perhaps in so much as how it relates to percentage of "innocents" killed by police. and, there again, the socio-economic status of those killed is a factor too, like it or not.

Several years ago I read taht Baltimore was listing every "gun death" in the paper. So I looked up that list and started looking up the criminal records of those listed (some people make it too damn easy with the stupid names they give their kids...). I think I got something like 20 or 30 deep without finding someone on the list that didn't have an extensive record. Does that mean that homie deserved to die THAT DAY? I dunno, but it would seem to indicate (again based on his own record and the recidivism statistics) that we're probably better off without him, and we're probably better off without him reproducing.

Good luck. Call me when the NBA or NFL reflects the racial demographics of the United States.

On a more constructive note: what we need in this country is more Black fathers, acting like fathers, and being there for their kids. And a few generations to make an impact.

The smoking ruins that was 14th Street in D.C. and Alexandria VA I rode through with my mother on her way to her job as a Public Health Nurse look about the same as downtown Minneapolis after the riots, looting and burning this summer. That was in the late 60’s and early 70’s.

[rob_s]

Tilting at windmills.

Note my avatar...

[JTQ]

A Prager U, Heather MacDonald video. It's only 5 min long

https://www.prageru.com/video/are-the-police-racist/

[joker581]

In most of these cases, the video tells the tale. You can watch body cam footage(or Cops and LivePD for that matter) and easily figure out how many people of all races end up in altercations and shootings involving the police. They’re idiots who argue, resist, and fight the police. Take race out of the equation and the “why” is plainly obvious.

[Glenn E. Meyer]

I would like to point out that I didn't do the study. I subscribe to a list that summarizes scholarly research on violence and weapons each month. Looking at the articles, I thought this was interesting given the current discussions of the issue. Even if you don't like it, that's not my problem NOR my responsibility to post a literature review of the issue. If you want to see what's up, Google Scholar is great. Enter police, shootings, race and you can see the current literature. Draw your own conclusions. It was for information only.

I also found an article on the effects of simulation training on accuracy and decision making. OMG, I sent it to some trainers I knew.

You have to read things you don't agree with and things you do agree with. If you are in a higher level decision role, you'd better know what's out there.

BTW, if writers screw up, they are and should be challenged. Saying it isn't worth your time, leaves bad info out there.

While this is trivial, I read a military history and the author got something wrong. I wrote him. He said I was correct and it would be corrected in the next edition. Thanked me.

[BehindBlueI's]

I would like to point out that I didn't do the study. I subscribe to a list that summarizes scholarly research on violence and weapons each month. Looking at the articles, I thought this was interesting given the current discussions of the issue. Even if you don't like it, that's not my problem NOR my responsibility to post a literature review of the issue. If you want to see what's up, Google Scholar is great. Enter police, shootings, race and you can see the current literature. Draw your own conclusions. It was for information only.

I also found an article on the effects of simulation training on accuracy and decision making. OMG, I sent it to some trainers I knew.

You have to read things you don't agree with and things you do agree with. If you are in a higher level decision role, you'd better know what's out there.

BTW, if writers screw up, they are and should be challenged. Saying it isn't worth your time, leaves bad info out there.

While this is trivial, I read a military history and the author got something wrong. I wrote him. He said I was correct and it would be corrected in the next edition. Thanked me.

You keep pointing out you didn't do the study and literally nobody here thinks you did or indicated you did. No, it's not worth my time to contact the authors. I do not assume they are innocent mistakes in methodology or in fact any more then I believe "More Doctors Smoke Camels" was a legitimate misunderstanding of statistics and health effects instead of a deliberate and intentional manufacturing of data to present the outcome those writing the checks wanted. I do assume writing the author would be as productive as writing the Committee for Tobacco Research about their methodologies "debunking" the link between tobacco and cancer. And for the same reason.

Note the issues @RevolverRob is having for not being woke enough in academia. I'm sure they'll fall all over themselves correcting issues raised by a non-woke beat cop with no academic pedigree.

[Glenn E. Meyer]

Ok, just want to clarify. About being woke in Academia. When I started to do some research on gun attitudes, I found students very interested. We did that paper on AR attitudes and juries. A student presented a version at a conference and won an award for best Psi Chi honor's society paper. Did the department or school pay attention and play that up? Not a mention. When I was asked to write up a piece on attitudes for The Jury Expert, it became one of their top ten downloads. Ever mentioned in the school PR. Never.

Here's fun. I did a convention paper on some bystander gun attitude research, I took the poster and put it up on the bulletin board across from my office. When I wasn't there my dear colleagues took it down and put in an obscure corner of the building didn't have the courtesy to ask. I put it back on the wall outside my office. It was vandalized. It wasn't a progun poster, it just was straight attitudinal research on a bystander intervention and firearms. Kept on getting scribbles about 2nd Amendment gun nuts.

My chair kept on telling me that the VP didn't like the area. Being a full professor, I could say: So what - to them. I'm sure if I wasn't tenured, I would be in trouble. Funny, faculty did ask me for gun advice. I was buddies with the campus law. I was their terrorist in FOF. That changed with a new chief who didn't like my views on campus carry. I also told the President that (gun hater Aussie) at our public meeting. Went to testify to TX legislature and got on the tube in the big cities and in the big city TX papers. Never a mention in our PR - which would usually cover such testimony. The PR guy gave me the wink on why.

I will note that my 'conservative' gun loving colleagues were markedly silent in the campus gun debates. I can understand that for the untenured but the others ... sigh.

I also noticed that some faculty who spoke all about social justice would violate procedures in hiring for their buddies. Oops.

[JRB]

Ok, just want to clarify. About being woke in Academia. When I started to do some research on gun attitudes, I found students very interested. We did that paper on AR attitudes and juries. A student presented a version at a conference and won an award for best Psi Chi honor's society paper. Did the department or school pay attention and play that up? Not a mention. When I was asked to write up a piece on attitudes for The Jury Expert, it became one of their top ten downloads. Ever mentioned in the school PR. Never.

Here's fun. I did a convention paper on some bystander gun attitude research, I took the poster and put it up on the bulletin board across from my office. When I wasn't there my dear colleagues took it down and put in an obscure corner of the building didn't have the courtesy to ask. I put it back on the wall outside my office. It was vandalized. It wasn't a progun poster, it just was straight attitudinal research on a bystander intervention and firearms. Kept on getting scribbles about 2nd Amendment gun nuts.

My chair kept on telling me that the VP didn't like the area. Being a full professor, I could say: So what - to them. I'm sure if I wasn't tenured, I would be in trouble. Funny, faculty did ask me for gun advice. I was buddies with the campus law. I was their terrorist in FOF. That changed with a new chief who didn't like my views on campus carry. I also told the President that (gun hater Aussie) at our public meeting. Went to testify to TX legislature and got on the tube in the big cities and in the big city TX papers. Never a mention in our PR - which would usually cover such testimony. The PR guy gave me the wink on why.

I will note that my 'conservative' gun loving colleagues were markedly silent in the campus gun debates. I can understand that for the untenured but the others ... sigh.

I also noticed that some faculty who spoke all about social justice would violate procedures in hiring for their buddies. Oops.

Precisely why I don't give a tenth inch of shit anymore about what that world thinks. If I speak my mind, I'm yelled down by that crowd regardless of how thoughtful, composed, professional, or reserved I am. They see nothing wrong with screaming at guys like me and calling me a murderer and a racist because I'm a white guy in the Army. They routinely engage in this shit against anything disagreeable to them despite touting themselves as the champions of free thought, free will, and fairness. If I attempt to comply, there's no end to how I must humble myself to that crowd. No amount of boot-kissing or white privilege bracelets will ever actually allow me to be truly included unless I change my intersectional identity away from being a cis white hetero male.

Which is why there's nothing I can do except go to the voting booth, so long as there's a chance for the voting booth to make a difference.

Back to the topic at hand, I'm fucking sick of people looking at the color of people's skin in shit like this, and not focusing on the profoundly exacerbating underlying cultural values instead. In focusing solely on genetic backgrounds and not the cultural reasons for ugly LEO interactions, they're deliberately manufacturing outrage-worthy bullshit without actually looking at the problem.
At this point, given the political situation in this country, I fully believe this is intentional, known, and deliberate. This is because manufactured outrage in a guise of academia is more valuable to the powers that be than a real solution to these problems.

Ultimately, the 'F the Police' cultural values and refusal to cooperate with routine interactions with LEO's makes OIS's out of shit that often would have been some basic questions totally unrelated to and not at all involving the OIS decedent or injured party.
Broken homes are raising their children on mumble rap and youtube into a narcissistic, self-destructive honor culture that is completely at odds with lawful behavior and peaceful interactions with other people, including LEO's. This is the macroscopic result of that, and genetic background has nothing to do with it.

[Totem Polar]

My sense is that we’ve lost academia for good. I have a recent email in my state U inbox informing faculty of the diversity office’s need to have a diversity liaison from each department, as well as a plan to have every faculty member take diversity training.

As I say, I have the email. I know where this is coming from: in the scramble to deal with absolute budgetary collapse, eg. firing all the department secretaries, hiring freezes on adjuncts, eliminating half the lecturers, etc., the school closed the office of diversity—a VP level directorship position. The students and faculty threw a fit, so they brought it back. If I was the VP/director, I’d be pulling an “Arnold Schwartzenegger” and creating a need that only I could fill, too. So I get it.

But that’s where we are. I’m in a department with over 150 majors and almost 40 specialized faculty that has no secretary to deal with contracts, scheduling and budgetary concerns, among all the other things that the admin assistant used to not get paid enough to do. But at least I’ll get the inclusivity training—assuming that anyone can figure out how to schedule it.

@Glenn E. Meyer, if you thought things were nuts when you were working, you should really try to get a load of the last 7-8 years, in particular. Take a younger colleague that you trust out to lunch in a neighboring town and encourage them to speak off the record. I bet it would be loads of fun.

Thanks for indulging the thread drift, all. Point being: every decision being made in academia is serving the need to secure/retain a shrinking piece of the pie. If some academic integrity can be factored in on top, great, all the better... but it’s not job one. JMO.

[Totem Polar]

Lest anyone think that I’m dogpiling on Glenn—especially Glenn—I’d like to thank you, Dr. Meyer, for being vocally pro 2A during your time in the academy. Nobody else may have spoken up, but a few were undoubtably listening.

Now, academia? I’ll dogpile that again, possibly even this week, since the hits keep coming.