Black Lives Data?

Discussion in 'Race, Religion, Science and Politics' started by Winston Smith, Jul 19, 2016.

  1. Winston Smith

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    i've heard about this book, but I have no opinion on it, as a) haven't read it; and b) I know enough about statistics from a mathematical standpoint (not to brag, but unlike most pundits, I got A's in stats) to know not to take data in American newspapers at face value. She's also got a new book to sell and push, and considering the political and social climate, she'd be a fool marketing-wise not to make the news show rounds and do the hard sell for her text. Just posting as good for discussion:

    Academic research on police shootings and race

    The gist of her argument, in a nutshell, is that the Black Lives Matter narrative is false and that cops are not a deadly force threat to blacks citizens. An excerpt from her article:

    "I am blogging about findings from my new book, “The War on Cops,” this week, following a series of assassinations and attempted assassinations of police officers. Yesterday, I argued that police shootings and other police activity do not evidence officer bias, when crime rates are taken into account. Today, I will discuss the latest academic research on the issue of police shootings and race.

    "The most sophisticated lab study of police shoot/don’t-shoot decisions to date, published this year in Criminology and Public Policy, undercuts the Black Lives Matter narrative about trigger-happy, racist cops. Washington State University researcher Lois James put 80 officers from the Spokane, Wash., police department in highly realistic video simulators of street scenarios. Officers were confronted with potentially armed suspects identical in all aspects, including body language and weapon, except for their race. The test subjects were not told the purpose of the research, which was conducted between August 2012 and November 2013, before the issue of race in policing reached the fever pitch of prominence that it possesses today."
     
  2. OckyDub

    OckyDub is a Verified MemberOckyDub I gave the Loc'ness monstah about $3.50
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    Bully out of control "bad apple" cops are a threat to all US citizens. The discussion needs to begin and end with police and justice reform.
     
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  3. ColumbusGuy

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    A response I can completely agree with.

    I question what that one study shows about police officers from one of the most non-black cities in the US (2.3 percent of population is black). That police department and that population of that city is NOT representative of what is going on in major cities and in other places around the nation.

    Also the problem with the police and profiling and stereotyping(and treating differently/badly) goes beyond blacks- whites or others who are perceived as working class or 'lower class' get worse treatment by the police- class-ism and racism are both problems with the police. Look/be perceived as poor/redneck/etc by the police = greater probability of being treated poorly or with suspicion. Blacks get it from top to bottom, poor to rich, but with whites working class/lower income are suspect while middle class/upper class whites get a pass.

    And I know two people in law enforcement right now and (as you know) racism is a big problem.
     
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  4. Winston Smith

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    Like I said, I have no position on the book. I suppose if I was so inclined (I'm not lol), I'd read and go through the book and the quoted data and methodologies. She doesn't (I'm guessing) seem to have done her own data gathering and quotes a lot of other people's studies, which automatically makes me suspicious. Perhaps if I get a chance I'll pick it up at the library.

    More POC need to understand how to make and counter quantitative arguments (whether well- or poorly-constructed), such as hers without just crying "racism". Part of my day job is analyzing large sets of data, so when people just throw numbers out and run with them without actually thinking and understanding inputs and patterns, I usually just side-eye. Understanding quantitative info makes it easier to counter pundits that make superficial "but the data shows" arguments. In the words of an old Funkadelic song, "You can't miss what you can't measure"...
     
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  5. ColumbusGuy

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    It immediately raised my doubts when I saw the main focus was on a study of the Spokane police. Knowing the demographics of that city( I had to look up the actual % of blacks but I knew it was under 5) I knew that any study there could not be applied to cities and other areas where the police deal with a large number of blacks. The police there are going to deal with 95% of the time non-blacks in criminal situations(even if blacks committed crimes at twice the rate of others...that would still be only 4.6 %) and they are going to have developed ingrained patterns of thinking including possibly that whites are more of a threat than blacks simply because of the lack of dealing with blacks and identifying over time that most of the people they are in dangerous situations with are white.

    What I would find interesting about that city is how the police respond to whites and how they perceive different classes of people(upper income vs lower income) and how they respond to them. I mean how could you seriously conduct such a study in a city that has a black population of 2.3 %?

    (The racial makeup of the city was 86.7% White, 2.29% African American, 2.0% Native American, 2.6% Asian, and 0.6% Pacific Islander, along with 1.3% from other races and 4.6% from two or more races. Hispanics and Latinos of any race were 5.0% of the population)Spokane, Washington - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

    Really you are going to make a study involving race with a police department with this demographic profile? Did this person know enough to even make this association and have this question or (as you stated) did she just gather other people's data? When I see something like this I also get suspicious and wonder how much was this 'agenda driven' where info is handpicked and certain studies quoted to simply back up a predetermined outcome?
     
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  6. OckyDub

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    And yet I'm sure this weak ass study will be touted as "proof" to fit lame false narratives ad nauseum.
     
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  7. ColumbusGuy

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    ^^You ever take a look at these racial/ethnic maps of cities?

    Each dot represents 25 people. per the 2010 census.

    Red = white
    blue = black
    yellow = hispanic
    greenish = Asian

    Flickriver: Photoset 'Race and ethnicity 2010' by Eric Fischer

    around number 85 is Spokane. A sea of red dots-the entire metro is almost all white.

    *interesting maps of nearly all fairly large cities that shows how segregated housing still is. Atlanta at least 'looks' to be one of the least segregated actually with broad areas in the middle with mixed dots. Many northern cities 'look' worse.
     
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