Sure, this has been known for some time.
"Profiling" using statistics and in a general sense is fine, the problem is when it instigates discriminatory actions that result in repression of people for no good reason. The case of Dale Semper comes to mind: A black banker whose career has essentially been destroyed because he was successful enough to own an expensive car. There was also the recent case of the black lawyer treated as a defendant when attending court. No doubt there are many other cases. Statistical arguments can't validly be applied to individuals or particular cases.
Sure - there are many instances where profiling does not work and it can have horrendous consequences. There is human error or malicious intent in a variety of police investigations. There is clear evidence that miscarriages of justice take place and people are convicted based on false testimony, fabricated evidence, police lies etc etc. However, we don't stop investigating, prosecuting or putting people in prison because sometimes there can be miscarriages of justice or racist police officers. I would say continue profiling so you are looking at the groups that are over-represented in crime rates but come up with better systems and training that improves the quality of the encounters between police and the public and relies less on uneducated guesswork, and holds police accountable for poor decision-making. At the same time more investment is needed in communities with high crime rates to improve aspirations and give people an incentive to walk away and not commit crimes
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/damilolas-dad-richard-taylor-and-ex-bad-300615 It's tragic that sometimes the system does not work the way it is supposed to. There have been numerous men of all pigments falsely accused of rape who were investigated and were suspended from their jobs until they were cleared. As i said, my question is do we therefore allow crime rates to rise rather than use profiling because sometimes there is human error or malicious actions? I think we need to have open discussions rather than inadequate measures based on a fear of being called racist.
https://areomagazine.com/2019/08/21/londons-knife-crime-is-not-the-fault-of-the-black-community/Well, statistics can be used to identify and interrogate systemic racism, just as it can be applied to other community issues. However you can't compare statistical results to individual attitudes based on personal experiences and acquired prejudices.
What kind of statistics do you think can identify it? How do you prove systemic racism exists. You can prove individual cases of racism exists where we can show that someone was unjustly or unfairly treated based on race. Profiling is not always unjust or unfair - though to some extent that depends on your perspective and beliefs. If you believe in systemic racism then you will see evidence of systemic racism everywhere. If you don't believe in systemic racism, then you won't. It's a bit like being a theist - if you believe in gods or karma or fate etc you see evidence for god/ karma/ fate everywhere, if you don't believe in one or more of those things you can come up with alternative explanations and you will want objective evidence that any of those things exist. Do we look at records of race hate crimes - again that is problematic because it is subjective: 'Any criminal offence which is perceived by the victim or any other person, to be motivated by hostility or prejudice based on a person's race or perceived race;
Is there any evidence supporting the idea that focus on or discussion of these issues are detrimental? As far as I can see, it is the usual columnists and self-publicists whining on about "wokeism" and the "woke mob" - ie. setting up a straw man to batter.
Yes - I think excessively focusing on pigment is leading to racism, and it is also leading to people being accused of being racist without objective evidence to support the allegation and this is detrimental to people because it causes division and can lead to not tackling crime die to fears of being labelled a racist. Also if people of certain pigments are a low priority for targeted support because they are not dark enough, that would also cause division.
- I thought that quora thread was complete nonsense! - but probably not worth discussing.
Ok you're entitled to your opinion. I disagree based on personal experience, the number of comments all over the internet on fair skin being attractive and dark skin being unattractive, and the huge sales in India of Fair and Lovely cream
https://www.businesstoday.in/current/corporate/rebranding-fair--lovely-unlikely-to-impact-demand-for-fairness-creams-experts-say/story/408172.html Unwarranted civilian deaths will always occur when armed police or soldiers are in close interactions with any population. If groups have been designated as "the enemy" or identified with with the targets of any action it would obviously result in more casualties? I think this is mostly irrespective of the identifies or views of any of the police involved. The answer is to not deploy these armed forces, and find more intelligent ways to tackle the issues themselves.
It's difficult to not deploy armed forces if they are expected to face a threat from armed civilians, given the liberal gun ownership laws in the US. Perhaps better selection, psyche tests, training and repeated drills of responses to potentially armed civilians might make US police less nervous and therefore less aggressive and more confident in their ability to talk their way out of the risk of getting shot rather than shooting first.
Until the expertise and funds exist to execute the above, another way could be that police are increasingly waiting before they show up to crimes so there is no need for them to interact with criminals who might be armed or resist arrest or might have mental health issues and which may result in police having to draw their weapon. The police provide a service of recording the crime, gathering forensic evidence and investigating the robbery, assault or murder after the criminals have left, leaving community members to tackle the actual instance of crime in their community or the factors that lead to crime. That way any accusations of racism could be levelled at the community for calling the police on darker-pigmented criminals rather than at the police.
Hopefully this service results in an arrest eventually, though questioning witnesses or suspects with pigmented skin might leave them with the impression of systemic racism and so if the suspects are pigmented some police are taking operational decisions to not question them in the interests of not jeopardising community relations. It's tricky to know whether it's more damaging to be accused of not tackling crime or being racist. Personally I am ok with being called a racist, as are most of the people I come across with my skin colour - they just don't seem to worry about being called racist as much as some white people appear to worry about it.
If you look at what seems to have happened in places like Rotherham with the on-street grooming and sexual exploitation of under-age teens by groups of minicab drivers and takeaway shop owners with pigmented skin - it appears that the police did not investigate more thoroughly partly because they did not seem to view the exploitation as a priority issue due to lack of resources and because the girls believed they were in relationships with their abusers and that abuse was a normal part of relationships, and also because the police did not want to use profiling to investigate once they realised that members of a certain religio-ethnic community with darker pigmented skin in certain parts of the city, who held certain jobs that brought them into frequent contact with vulnerable girls, were over-represented as alleged perpetrators. An entitled misogynistic belief seemed to have been cultivated in some parts of those communities that some young girls who are allowed out and about unsupervised are available for sex if the opportunity arose, and that these victims were not deserving of compassion or protection. A pigmented prosecutor seems to have found it easier than white officials to make headway in tackling these crimes possibly because it seems we brown people are often less concerned about appearing racist. Perhaps that is why the police are trying to recruit more from ethnic minorities.
https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/rochdale-grooming-prosecutor-nazir-afzal-13271237 IMV It is all down to culture and how it evolves - and how to change and/or progress it.
I agree but obviously culture is not homogeneous and there will be multiple opposing views on which version of culture should be promoted. And what does society do about people who subscribe to a culture that harms their financial self-sufficiency since that argument could easily be applied to anyone who chooses a low-paying vocation or trade or women who aspire to be stay at home mothers or don't aspire to sacrifice family life to chase a lucrative career or earn a high-paying promotion?
Within the black community after emancipation there were people who were interested in academic qualifications and those who just weren't interested, even if that meant they could not get influential jobs or become policy-makers because they lacked the minimum literacy skills. In which case, should we be unduly worried that the pigmentation spectrum or gender spectrum of society isn't being accurately represented in the legislature or judiciary or government or police force? Or are there more useful common-sense metrics to focus on to improve outcomes for members of society?
