
Police, Computing, and Nationalism - petethomas
http://kamaubobb.com/2019/01/police-computing-and-nationalism/
======
jonnybgood
So melodramatic. I'm a black male and I've been pulled over multiple times by
small town cops in places like Texas. Do I trust police? No. Do I fear I'll be
a victim just because I got pulled over? No. Does injustice occur at times?
Yes.

I got pulled over by a small town white Texas cop for speeding (which I was).
I couldn't produce my insurance papers. He gave me a ticket for speeding and
no insurance. Did I try to reason with him? Of course not! You do not reason
with police. That is what the court is for. I took the ticket and went to the
courthouse and had my insurer fax the courthouse proof of insurance. Fine
removed.

Dealing with the police is a lot like fear of flying. Once you understand how
police work, there's not much to fear. The OP really illustrates they don't
understand the police, which leads them to believe that everything the cop
does is only because they're black. A lot of media wants you to believe all
black people in America are nothing but victims. I really hate that narrative.
And the OP is also pushing it despite all their success in life. Is there a
lot of injustice towards the black American community? Absolutely, but we
don't need to live like constant victims.

~~~
bazacko
I didn't hear the author encouraging anyone to live like a victim, just
vividly recounting a fucked-up situation and I totally empathized with him.

I've seen enough dashcam videos to know that there are racist cops out there
looking to escalate situations to the point where they feel justified shooting
a black man. How could the author "understand how police work" well enough
that he wouldn't be fearful in this situation?

------
deogeo
It should calm the author to know being black makes him no more likely to be
shot by the police: [https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/12/upshot/surprising-new-
evi...](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/12/upshot/surprising-new-evidence-
shows-bias-in-police-use-of-force-but-not-in-shootings.html)

But if he's worried about being shot regardless of skin color, things look
less peachy (compared to other countries):
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_killings_by_law_enforc...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_killings_by_law_enforcement_officers_by_countries)

~~~
ianleeclark
This is such a bizarre comment. We know that blacks are over-represented 2x in
police shootings according to
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/police-
shoo...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/police-
shootings-2016/)

This happens because police have a higher propensity of interacting with black
people. So, while LEOs have a consistent rate of shooting people regardless of
race, black people are over-represented in police shootings: in 2016 28% of
police shootings were against black people, yet they only made up 14% of the
population.

It's perfectly legitimate for the guy to feel angst about being shot.

Edit: ignore following piece, I misread what he meant

> But if he's worried about being shot regardless of skin color, things look
> less peachy (compared to other countries)

This just reads like "Hey, stop aggravating for a better life, at least it's
not as shitty as Brazil." You can't just delegitimize people's real, fixable
problems because the same problem is worse elsewhere--in a land far away that
the average person has so incredibly little power of ever affecting.

~~~
deogeo
> This just reads like "Hey, stop aggravating for a better life, at least it's
> not as shitty as Brazil."

Sorry - my intention in linking that chart was to compare the US against other
wealthy, Western nations: ~15x more per-capita police killings than France and
Germany, and 60x more than Poland or the UK.

~~~
ianleeclark
Ahh, okay. I read the "things look less peachy" to mean it's worse elsewhere.
Sorry about that.

------
JudasGoat
As a white American that has been fired upon by the police, I find to make
these things racial, glosses over the other problems causing so many citizens
being killed. From my anecdotal experiance American police are quite racist,
especially in a smaller city or town. I was shot at around 10 years ago and
the shooting I can reconcile as the "heat of the moment". Five police
officer's telling the same lies with the intention of incarcerating me for a
long time is much more difficult to process.

------
freedomben
> _Ironically, I was listening to a story on NPR about Iowa House
> Representative Steve King being stripped of his committee seats for saying
> that White Nationalism and White Supremacy are essential elements of being
> an American Nationalist. There isn’t space in the America of White
> Nationalists for Black men. I was being stopped by a White man in a uniform
> with his hand on his gun who may have been, what Rep. King called, an
> American Nationalist._

> _The second officer was Italian and sounded like he was from New York. In
> any other world, I would have been equally afraid of him. Now, think Eric
> Garner. But, I could tell immediately that he was reasonable and not angry
> at me just for being me. His presence, in the absence of the officer with
> Rep. King beliefs, deescalated the whole affair. I repeated my case to him,
> that the car is new and I could surely sort it out with the insurance
> company._

So, the author is making the assumption that the officer must be racist, based
on the officer's shared skin tone with another racist (Steve King)? That
strikes me as pretty overtly racist itself. Perhaps viewing everything through
the lens of race results in seeing lots of racism (confirmation bias).

Also, I'm a white dude and I've had a nearly identical experience with the
police in California. This is pretty standard operating procedure. It is
definitely nerve wracking, especially when that second cop shows up, but if
they are going to tow a car or make an arrest, it is SOP to call a backup.

Cops are people like any other. Some are assholes, and some are cool. I've had
both types, and yes it's enraging to be patronized and talked down to. I'm
still pissed from years ago when I got a speeding ticket for going 3 over the
limit, and got a lecture about how I wouldn't get there faster if I got in a
wreck. I wanted to point out how idiotic that argument was, as tho it were a
logical certainty that driving 45 I would arrive without incident, but 48 I
would definitely experience a collision. The power differential essentially
means they can and will say whatever they want, and we just have to take it.
Power differentials don't care about your race. Most humans abuse their
authority when they have it. Let's reduce that power differential!

I've had black cops be assholes to me. I don't assume without any evidence,
that just because they were the same color as Louis Farrakhan, they must be
racist against me for my Jewish ancestry.

