Michael Brown shooting II

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Tsukasa Buddha said:
Wow, you are able to make these insulting claims without any knowledge or information on the political system or participation or candidates or anything, really. Do you think all black people are lazy? Or just all blacks in Ferguson?
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The assumption that poor black people could pull themselves up by their own bootstraps if they were not lazy pervades the right wing of American politics.

That the metaphor refers to a physically impossible task should tell us something.

A fair society creates a land of opportunity. An unfair society does exactly the opposite. A legal system that milks poor people for revenue helps assure that they will never get out of poverty.
 
dudalb said:
So no path is open to them but to riot and burn down businesses?
SOunds like you are tyring to excuse the inexcusable.
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Sounds like you're trying to beating the hell out of that strawman.

There is no path open to them but protesting. Stop equating it to rioting and looting. They are not the same thing and it continues to distract from the core issue here.
 
Kestrel said:
The assumption that poor black people could pull themselves up by their own bootstraps if they were not lazy pervades the right wing of American politics.

That the metaphor refers to a physically impossible task should tell us something.

A fair society creates a land of opportunity. An unfair society does exactly the opposite. A legal system that milks poor people for revenue helps assure that they will never get out of poverty.
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Know what else pervades American politics? The assumption that blacks are always poor.

Fact is Ferguson was not a poor community and had a median income substantially higher than Missouri as a whole despite being majority black. That may soon change however, since the peaceful protestors burned down and looted enough businesses to make anyone else think twice about locating there either to live or locate businesses.
 
Upchurch said:
Is it worth pointing out that Kestrel never said that black people are always poor?
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He is making the assumption that blacks in Ferguson are poor and have no hope of ever being not poor.

He's just as guilty of racial stereotyping as the "right wing" he is complaining about.
 
WildCat said:
He is making the assumption that blacks in Ferguson are poor and have no hope of ever being not poor.
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Okay, so it wasn't worth pointing out that you are inferring things that weren't actually said. Worse, you're actually adding more straw the longer you go.

WildCat said:
He's just as guilty of racial stereotyping as the "right wing" he is complaining about.
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The strawman you've constructed of Kestrel is just as guilty, perhaps. The important thing is that you get to attack someone (well, something) instead of addressing the underlying issue.
 
[aside]
I was curious about this statement:
WildCat said:
Fact is Ferguson was not a poor community and had a median income substantially higher than Missouri as a whole despite being majority black.
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The media household income from 2009-2013 in Ferguson is $38,685, which is less than that of Missouri for the same time period, $47,380

Other sources on the topic:
http://fortune.com/2014/08/15/ferguson-income-inequality/
http://news.stlpublicradio.org/post/ferguson-numbers
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/ferguson-missouri/

The median income is actually lower than Missouri as a whole, not substantially higher.
[/aside]
 
Upchurch said:
Okay, so it wasn't worth pointing out that you are inferring things that weren't actually said. Worse, you're actually adding more straw the longer you go.


The strawman you've constructed of Kestrel is just as guilty, perhaps. The important thing is that you get to attack someone (well, something) instead of addressing the underlying issue.
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I don't think that word means what you think it means.
Upchurch said:
[aside]
I was curious about this statement:

The media household income from 2009-2013 in Ferguson is $38,685, which is less than that of Missouri for the same time period, $47,380
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I know somewhere in this thread (or its predecessor) different numbers were linked to, damned if I can find it now. Might have been outdated.
 
WildCat said:
I don't think that word means what you think it means.
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I know what strawman means. You're just wrong about what Kestrel said.

S/he never said black people are always poor. S/he was talking about poor black people, which is the intersection of black people and poor people, and subsets of each.

If I'm wrong, it is because Kestrel said it outside the recent current discussion. It certainly wasn't in the post you quoted.
 
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jimbob said:
Here are the official figures for vehicle stops in Ferguson

http://ago.mo.gov/divisions/litigation/vehicle-stops-report?lea=161

As in the report, Blacks are more likely to be stopped, more likely to be searched, less likely to have any contraband found, yet are more likely to be arrested.


|Event|White|Black|
|Disparity Index|0.38|1.37|
|Search Rate|47 / 686|562 / 4632|
|Contraband Hit Rate|16 / 47|122 / 562|
|Arrest Rate|36 / 686|483 / 4632|
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Blacks (in St Louis) are also more likely to commit murder and other serious crimes. Could that account for the disproportionate numbers of stops?

METROPOLITAN POLICE DEPARTMENT, CITY OF SAINT LOUIS
ANNUAL REPORT TO THE COMMUNITY
2012
http://www.slmpd.org/images/2012AnnualReport_D.pdf

From page 23:
Arrests:

Murder
White males: 3
Black males: 106

Aggravated assault
White males: 140
Black males: 746

Weapons offenses
White males: 73
Black males: 686

St. Louis is about 49% black, 44% white.
Most murdered black males are killed by other black males.

Bringing up stops and searches doesn't really show the whole picture, and neither do the numbers I just presented.

Now let's look at the poverty level:

Poor families by family type
Married-couple family (12.4%)
Female, no husband present (77.6%)

Breakdown by races of poor residents (income below poverty level) in St. Louis in percentages
white: about 16%
black: 38 - 39%

Blacks are 36 times more likely to be arrested for murder, and are around 2.3 times more likely to be poor. If a cop is aware of these facts, it is easy to assume that blacks are far more likely to commit crimes.

There are problems on both sides - law enforcement and black citizens. How can one point the finger at one group while ignoring the other? How to solve it?

Disproportionate traffic stops is a very small symptom of a larger problem.
 
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WildCat said:
since the peaceful protestors burned down and looted enough businesses
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The peaceful protestors did not do that, the rioters and looters did.

I realize that you and a few other posters say that not to equate, but to make some kind of joke. But doing so, even as a joke, is very shameful.
 
OnlyTellsTruths said:
The peaceful protestors did not do that, the rioters and looters did.

I realize that you and a few other posters say that not to equate, but to make some kind of joke. But doing so, even as a joke, is very shameful.
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Because the "peaceful protestors" insisted on protesting late into the night thus giving cover for those who used the opportunity to loot and burn.
 
And if you protest peacefully and anything bad happens while you're doing it then you are directly responsible. Is that pretty much it? Plus, these were all blacks, amiright? Don't they all...know one another or...something? :confused:
 
WildCat said:
Because the "peaceful protestors" insisted on protesting late into the night thus giving cover for those who used the opportunity to loot and burn.
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Wait. Are you saying that you feel that the protestors were actually responsible for the riots? And that's you rationale?

I thought you guys were just trolling. I hadn't realized you were drinking the kool-aid.
 
The ironic (and tragic) fact of life is, especially on the local level, where governments have been negligent in protecting the legal rights of African Americans, rioting rather than peaceful protests have sometimes been more effective in spurring local leaders to take action. To move them away from a policy of benign neglect. At least that seems to be the sad lesson learned in the 1960s and 1970s.

Local political and business leaders can live with (and ignore) peaceful protests but a couple of city blocks getting burned down and the local police ducking bullets gets their attention.

I agree that the outbreak of violence in Ferguson robbed the peaceful protests of much of their power. I'm not so sure that in the long run the violence may not prove to have been more effective in getting the changes in Ferguson that the protesters desired. In many ways that is as much an indictment of the local political leadership as it is of the rioters.
 
Upchurch said:
Wait. Are you saying that you feel that the protestors were actually responsible for the riots? And that's you rationale?

I thought you guys were just trolling. I hadn't realized you were drinking the kool-aid.
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I'm saying they enabled it. If there were no "peaceful protests" into the night there would have been no burning and looting.
 
WildCat said:
If there were no "peaceful protests" into the night there would have been no burning and looting.
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That must be an opinion because no one could claim to "know that." You could also take it a step further: if the Ferguson Police Department did not have a long history of mistreating black citizens there wouldn't have been any protests and there wouldn't have been any rioting. Sadly police shoot suspects in questionable circumstances in many places yet there is seldom any rioting as a result. Last summer and fall in New York City there were widespread protest demonstrations over the death of Eric Garner while in police custody and there were no riots.
 
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