If you think that police are more likely to use force against you because of the color of your skin, why increase that chance further through your own behavior?
Because until recently, "Run like hell" tended to be a safer choice than "Stand there and get beaten up and then arrested and then spend the rest of your life in the system for resisting arrest." OTOH, it has now become acceptable in some departments for police officers to shoot and kill suspects for attempting to FLEE FROM THEM, whether they are suspected of a crime or not.
Didn't you just admit that blacks are more likely to be obnoxious and combative toward police?
No, just in general. The fact that the police KNOW this, however, informs their prejudices and their decision making processes even when they're dealing with a suspect that is not actually belligerent. They start with a threat level already five notches higher than it should be and it escalates from there.
People should be treated equally regardless of race
But they're not, obviously.
So your response is "Well, the unequal treatment is probably justified."
Move along, nothing to see here.
And that's the crux of the problem. You also admitted above they are more likely to flee.
It's hardly an "admission" at all. Police officers in some neighborhoods go out of their way to antagonize residents and demonstrate their complete antipathy for them and their communities. If the cop who pulls up to you in an alley and yells "Hold it right there!" happens to be the same cop who cracked your cousin's skull open three weeks ago over a busted tail light, your first instinct is probably "run like hell."
Hard to play it cool when a suspect doesn't pass up an opportunity to pass up an opportunity but instead keeps escalating.
And yet too many of those situations are escalated BY THE POLICE.
Do you think police officers should be allowed to arrest people on the street for refusing to show ID when asked? I personally don't, and I know a number of constitutional lawyers who would agree to this. But if you go into a black neighborhood in Chicago and ask them if it's safe to go outside without an ID, they will invariably tell you "No."
Would you care to guess why
that might be? Should I commit a further waste of my time asking you if you think there's something wrong when a community is almost as frightened of police officers as they are of gang bangers?
What about antipathy of many blacks toward the police? Calling police 'pigs' and such is not exactly conducive to a respectful relationship.
The term "Pig" originates from the 1950s and 60s tensions at a time when police were WELL KNOWN for targeted harassment and sometimes even murder of black people on the flimsiest of pretexts. That relationship was confrontational almost to the point of armed insurrection, and despite the gains in the civil rights movement it didn't get BETTER during the 70s. In Chicago, that history is VERY well known, and the revelations that "surfaced" a few years ago about police officers torturing suspects, blackmailing community leaders and the "anti-crime" program that helped transform the Vice Lords from an activist movement to a street gang were COMMON KNOWLEDGE for black people in the 1980s and 90s.
Did something happen in the 80s to turn all of that completely around? Did somebody wave a magic wand of sweeping nationwide "police reform" to enact community policing and positive cooperative efforts between police departments and the residents that for two decades they had harassed, beaten and killed under racist department policies? Or did Ronny Raygun's "War on Crime" just give them a new set of code words to bury their original policies in successive layers of marketing and political correctness?
Turns out it varies from city to city. Some departments DID make efforts to reform and repaired frayed relations with their communities. Some stuck to the same oppressive authoritarian policies of the 60s and then stuck an umbrella on top to make themselves look better. Some switched to community policing to the delight of their residents and then swung the opposite direction when a new mayor decided he was tired of this librul handholding nonsense.
The problem BEGAN with the police, and the onus was on them to fix it. But even if it HADN'T started with the police, even if the legacy of their past mistakes hadn't poisoned their relationship with their communities, even if the problem was simply the fact that black people are and have always been a race of assholes that refuse to cooperate with law officers, you know what?
Police officers are public servants, and those assholes who don't cooperate with them are the public. The responsibility is on the police departments, NOT the public, to build a cooperative and trustful relationship with the community and work with members of the community to ensure the safety of all.
So no, a lack of respect for police officers CANNOT and WILL NOT justify police officers responding in kind. The purpose of the police department is to serve the community; if it's
respect you're looking for, go join the Marines
To quote Rachel "Precious" Jaentael, "that's real retarded sir". Nobody wants to ban black people from restaurants, but they should not get extra pass for bad behavior just because they are black either. A white Nicholas Thomas behaving the same way would most likely have been shot as well.
Gonna have to call bullshit. I have seen WAY too many police chases begin this way without escalating into shots fired, especially so since there are witnesses who claim the car was stopped when the shooting started.
The classical liberal notion of "equality of opportunities" has been eclipsed by the "modern" "liberal" notion of "equality of outcomes" and that's a real shame.
My initial reaction was "What the fuck are you talking about?" but then I realized you have no idea what this means and you're just spouting conservative talking poitns after all.
