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Tag: race

  • I Don’t Care if Zimmerman is a Racist

    I think there’s too much discussion about whether George Zimmerman is racist. I don’t care. I don’t think it matters. What matters is what Zimmerman did (and lest we forgot: suspect, pursue, shoot, and kill an unarmed and innocent Trayvon Martin).

    Part of the problem is the racism is too broad of a label. Since there’s no simple definition, it’s difficult to place the label (well, it’s easy to place the label, it’s difficult to do so accurately). Certainly some people simply hate other people because of their race. And this goes for people of all races. Deep down-to-the-core racism. But to say you have to be this racist to be racist is setting the bar too low.

    I give George Zimmerman the benefit of the doubt and say he does
    not hate black people. But he did behave like a racist. And this begs the question: is someone who
    behaves like a racist a racist? Maybe, but I think it sets the bar too
    high. Everybody has at some point behaved like a
    racist, and a term that applies to everybody isn’t too useful as a psychological or
    sociological concept.

    It reminds me of how some people love saying police are racist. Once I (half jokingly) accused a partner of
    mine of being racist when he said something disparaging about the multitude of petty
    thieves, drug dealers, and junkies milling about Rutland and Barnes in 325 Post
    (back before those blocks were torn down). He got a bit offended and
    said, “I don’t hate black people. I hate these black people.”
    Yes, indeed he did, and not because of the color of their skin. He hated
    them for the content of their character. This was more about class than race.

    Of course many of those quick to judge don’t know police (or any working-class people, for that matter). Blue-collar views are often misunderstood by the smug
    liberal progressive suburban set, especially when it comes to race. When I was at the retirement party for another police friend of mine (who is not known for his liberal progressive beliefs) I couldn’t help but notice
    that there were a lot more black people present (30 percent?) at his house than there probably will be at my retirement party. Now I know it’s a
    cliche to say you’re not a racist because “some of your best friends are
    black.” But certainly it’s better than not having black friends! As a white-collar professor, my professional and personal world is much less diverse (and much more white) than it was as a Baltimore police officer. 

    In the long run I guess I’d prefer to judge people on how they act than try and gauge the depths of their soul. I
    don’t think anybody doubts that had one of Trayvon’s white friends been
    walking down the same street and spotted by the same George Zimmerman, the white
    kid
    would still be alive. Clearly race mattered. And that matters more than whether we call Zimmerman a racist.

  • Gotcha!

    I’m always amused whenever conservatives get to play “gotcha” when some liberal says something politically incorrect, or expresses a belief more in tune with Republicans. Because you know those same conservatives don’t really care about the issue; it’s just a brief moment when they finally get to win a round in a game they never wanted to play (hell, they’re still trying to figure out the rules).

    One again I turn to Ta-Nehisi Coates, who got me thinking about this. He writes:

    I think this sort of thinking is endemic to how the conservative
    movement thinks about racism. For them it isn’t an actual force, but a
    rhetorical device for disarming your opponents…. Even if you have a record of
    calling out bigotry voiced by people deemed to be “on your team,” it
    doesn’t much matter because there’s no real belief in it existing to
    begin with.

    The conservative movement doesn’t
    understand anti-racism as a value, only as a rhetorical pose. This is
    how you end up tarring the oldest integrationist group in the country
    (the NAACP) as racist. The slur has no real moral content to them. It’s
    all a game of who can embarrass who. If you don’t think racism is an
    actual force in the country, then you can only understand it’s
    invocation as a tactic.

    …

    That
    tradition of viewing racism, not as an actual thing of import, but
    merely as rhetoric continues today. To abandon that tradition, I
    suspect, would be cause for an existential crisis.

    And it’s not just about race. The same could apply to global warming and probably a few other things as well.

  • Protesting Black-on-Black Violence

    I’ve written (sarcastically) how nice it is that in the wake of the killing of Trayvon Martin, some conservatives are suddenly very concerned about black-on-black violence. The actual voiced argument goes that blacks (and liberals) only care about black-on-black violence when it comes at the hands of a white person. Of course that’s not true. Just because you refuse to hear something doesn’t mean other people aren’t shouting.

    I wanted to do a post listing some of the protests over the years. Because there really are a countless number of them. But I was too lazy to actually do the grunt work. Luckily, over on his blog, Ta-Nehisi Coates did it for me. It’s worth a look.

    And if you’ve never heard of anyof these protests, might I suggest you ask yourself, “why not?” Perhaps you want to blame the media. Or perhaps you don’t care. That’s your right, I suppose. But it’s not your right to say other peopledon’t care just because you’re ignorant.

  • Couldn’t have said it better myself…

    …on the attempts to justify the actions of Zimmerman because on Martin’s appearanceand social media posts. So I’ll just quote Ta-Nehisi Coates. First there is the interesting case of The Daily Caller, one of the organizations leading the charge to defame Martin. Coates says:

    The Daily Caller is published by Tucker Carlson. Tucker Carlson is a man who once informed us, on national television, that he’d assaulted a gay man for subjecting him to the sort of treatment which nearly all of women-kind experiences hourly. This is not the assumption of a violent handle, or the quotation of rap lyrics it is the admitted commission of actual violence. Moreover, it’s the kind of violence that’s routinely dismissed as pathological in black boys, as well as the kind that had it ever been committed by Trayvon Martin would immediately serve as irrefutable evidence that he deserved to slaughtered in the street.

    Coates continues:

    I would not withhold the life of Trayvon Martin from scrutiny and investigation. When someone claims a vicious assault upon their person–as George Zimmerman has–it is only intelligent to investigate the relevant background of the alleged assailant. It certainly is relevant to ask what, precisely, Martin was suspended for. It surely is important to ask if Martin had a history of violence. Whether or not Martin had a criminal record, most certainly is pertinent.

    But what, precisely, is the relevance of wearing gold grills? What, specifically, is the pertinence of having once given an obscene gesture? Why, exactly, does it matter that Martin’s imagination sometimes ranged into profane thoughts of sex and violence? How does any of this help us understand his killing at the hands of by George Zimmerman?

    Excuse me, Ta-Nehisi, but I’d like to take that one.

    See, some people think they know what Martin was reallylike, something MSNBC will never tell you: Trayvon was just another n****r. So this country, real America, is better off with him gone. Now normally, thanks to all us horrible politically correct un-American non-gun-loving liberals, “These assholes always get away.” Well here’s one who didn’t.

    Zimmerman’s killing of Martin reflects paranoid racist America’s Id. So there’s a greater storyline here, a patriotic battle, a veritable Zoroastrianconflict between the forces of light and dark, good and evil. Martin represents the dark, thus Zimmerman must be on the side of light. And if you believe that, then your Id does contorted cartwheels of logic to justify Zimmerman’s actions. “You see,” blurts Id, “Martin was a thug. A criminal. An asshole. A bad egg. He might have even been looking for a house to break into. I mean, we’ve never found the skittles, have we?!” Id just knowsthis to be true. Maybe can’t prove it, but believes it to the end.

    But, I’m sorry to cut you off, Ta-Nehisi. You were saying?

    It does not–unless you believe that the fact that Martin once gave a middle finger to a camera somehow proves that he is the sort of person who would saunter up to a man who outweighs by nearly 100 pounds, summon the powers of Thor, deck the man with one-shot, and stove him against concrete. We do not draw such conclusions from most teenagers, or even most people. That those who see nothing wrong with labeling a black man as a “Food Stamp President,” would draw them in the case of young black boy cannot be dismissed as coincidental.

    And Coates again:

    I’m sorry that Trayvon Martin’s actual appearance obstructs your inalienable right to scandalize children. That you are forced into cartwheels, and rendered ridiculous, all in the laudable quest to justify bias is the true tragedy, one which pales when compared to an actual death. If I have in any way, contributed to your travails, I hope that some day you will be wise enough, or simply human enough, to forgive.

    To say Zimmerman’s actions were reprehensible but perhaps legally covered by the horrible and deeply flawed Stand-Your-Ground law is one thing. But I find it deeply troubling when people want to see everything through a prism that somehow morally justifies the death of Trayvon Martin.

  • Show me the blood?

    Video of Zimmerman entered the police station has been released. I don’t see any blood. I don’t see any grass stains. I don’t see anybody who looks faintly like they were on the loosing end of a fight. The clothes look neat and unripped and he’s walking well. I don’t see how it coincides with the police report.

    All that said, Zimmerman’s nose is a bloody (or not) distraction. Zimmerman’s condition, though interesting, is irrelevant to the actually issues which matter. Namely that Martin, who was walking home and minding his own business, was shot and killed by a man who remains free. None of those facts, best I know, have ever been disputed.

    Here’s a link to a Sanford government website that offers some answers to many questions.

    Update, April 21: There is some blood. And no, it’s not life threatening. It’s also still irrelevant. And I can’t help but think that perhaps Zimmerman deserved a little ass-whupping for his incorrect pursuit of Martin.

  • Conservatives on Trayvon

    I’m a little shocked to see so many conservatives (on social media, mostly) not exactly defend the killing of Trayvon Marin, but try and turn the tables or say, “what’s the big deal?”

    I’ve heard or read all of the following:

    1) Zimmerman had his nose broken before he shot.

    2) Blacks kill whites all the time.

    3) Holder is a racist.

    4) We only care about this because the victim was black and the killer wasn’t (see #2).

    5) We shouldn’t judge because we don’t know all the facts.

    6) Actually, the Stand Your Ground law shouldn’t apply in this situation.

    All this talk is insane. What people do not understand is that people are most upset not at the crime or the race of the victim, but because the killer of an innocent teenager hasn’t been charged with a crime!

    Why is this so hard to grasp?

    Sure, some who don’t understand the point are just racist. But most, I think, actually just have such a gut reaction to any perceived liberal issue that they just take the other side.

    If, after all, you think the country is at war with liberals and white-hating Obama and socialists and the 2nd Amendment and national health care, you can’t let your guard down just because one innocent kid was killed.

    Why is it so hard to let your culture-war guard down and say, gosh, maybe the NRA and Republicans advocated a bad law and maybe Trayvon shouldn’t have been followed, assaulted, and killed? And maybe the killer should be charged with a crime, to be settled in a court of law.

    Update: If (like many liberals I know) you haveno conservative friends, see this piece for an example of “not getting it” and to learn what the other side is saying:

    Last weekend in the city of Chicago alone, gangbangers slaughtered ten people and wounded another forty. The youngest fatality is only six years old. The youngest person wounded is only one-year-old. Many of the victim were pedestrians sprayed with bullets in drive by shootings. The national news has said nothing about this.

    So why does one shooting in Florida warrant weeks of national news? Why has there been thousands of articles a day, for the last four days, about one single shooting?

    Almost all of the news items about George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin contains a combination of false statements, opinions presented as facts, transparent distortions, and a complete absence of some of the most relevant details.

    …

    I think you will come to the conclusion that the “mainstream” clearly is pushing an agenda. Even when they have to grossly alter and adjust a story to fit that agenda.

  • You Can’t Blame the Police

    I wrote in the New York Times:

    Much — though by no means all — of the disproportionate rate of blacks stopped, frisked, arrested, convicted and imprisoned is a simple reflection of violence in poor African-American communities. Like robbing banks because that’s where the money is, the obvious reason police focus so much of their attention on the young male black community is because that is where the murders are.

    It’s not politically correct to say so, but reality isn’t politically correct. Over 90 percent of New York City’s 536 murder victims last year were black or Hispanic. Just 48 victims were white or Asian. The rate of white homicide in the city (1.18 per 100,000) is incredibly low, even by international standards.

    This is from a greater “debate” titled “Young, Black and Male in the United States.” What’s odd about these New York Times’s “debates” is that they’re not debates. There are eight people contributing (for no pay) independently of each other, none of whom have any idea what the others are saying. This may or may not lead to good points being made, but it is a bit of shame it’s not a real debate.

    Update: And a few stats that didn’t make it in my piece, for reasons of relevancy and style.

    Leaving aside domestic violence, how many of the roughly 1.3 million white women in New York City were murdered last year by a stranger (ie: leaving out the 34 cases of domestic-related violence)?

    Zero. Zero.

    And 31% of domestic violence murder victims were male. Because compared to other locales, in terms of crime New York has a strangely broad definition of “domestic.” In most places domestic violence means you are or have had sex with somebody. In New York it means living under the same roof.

  • A black man catching a cab in New York

    The other day I saw a young black man on the corner of 32nd Street and 6th Avenue with his arm up, trying to hail a cab. He wasn’t particularly well dressed, but he didn’t look like a hoodlum (the same could have been said of me). “How many empty cabs are going to pass him by before one stops?” I wondered.

    The answer: three.

  • Hating the Lovers

    Speaking of issues I thought we had long since decided (like slavery, segregation, suffrage, medicinal bleeding, etc.), a poll found a plurality of Mississippi Republicans believe interracial marriage should be illegal. Forty-six percent oppose, 40 percent support, and 14% are “undecided” (as if they’ve weighed the pros and cons of this timely issue, but still need a few more days to decide). Wow.

    It’s not just the shockingly retro racism of this (and I do wonder how Democrats would fair), it’s the fact that the question asked whether inter-racial marriage should be legal or illegal. I mean, you might be a Small-Government racist who personally disapproves of kids these days who go about miscegenatin’. Okaaaay. Whatever, dude. To find racists Republicans (or in any political party) is about as noteworthy as finding out that NPR might have a liberal bias (not that “the tape” showed this).

    But to want interracial marriage to be illegal, to want your supposedly small-government non-racist Tea-Party Republicans to tell Americans who they can and cannot marry is not just unpalatable and racist…. It just doesn’t make sense.

    Wouldn’t it be nice if one of the Republican candidates for President did something as radical as come out unequivocally in favor of the legality of interracial marriage? I mean, even Clinton had his Sister Souljah moment. But who is daring enough to piss off the base? Of course the candidates could release a collective statement, if they didn’t want to take the risk of, gasp, coming out individually for the right of interracial marriage.

    You know, the Tea Party and Republicans spend a fair amount of time saying they aren’t racist. And it’s nice that they care. And maybe most of them aren’t. But when your Republican party is 98 percent non-black and the majority of your voters in at least one state areracist… you’ve got to wonder.

  • Mistaken-Identity Police Shootings in Black and White

    The death of a Nassau County police officer got me thinking about cases of police officers shot by other cops. There’s the belief out there that black officers are much more at risk of being mistaken for suspects than are white officers. It’s also been said (by me?) that such accidental mistaken-identity shootings almost never happen to white officers. Officer Breitkopf is white.

    So this afternoon I went to the Officer Down Memorial Page. I’ve found the data at Officer Down to be quite reliable and comprehensive. I looked at all deaths involving accidental police shooting of police officers. This does not include officers who were shot and lived. Or officers who didn’t meet Officer Down’s criteria for being killed on duty. But generally when officers get in any such situation, they’re considered on duty. And I wouldn’t expect including those data to change the basic findings.

    I went back as far as 1960 and looked at the descriptions to determine which officers were killed after being mistaken for suspects (ie: not “friendly fire” or accidents–though I should point out that training grounds seem particularly prone to accidental lethal shooting). At least 47 officers have been killed in such split-second cases of mistaken identity. I then looked at the pictures of the deceased officer to judge race (they were all pretty clear cut). I then coded for the circumstances of the killings based on the description given. (So, what did you do this afternoon?) I ended up selected only those killed since 1976 because half of those between 1960-1976 didn’t have pictures. That brought the total number of officers number down to 28 (which was lower than I expected).

    Here are the basic facts:

    Since 1976, at least 28 officers have been shot and killed by other police who thought the police officer was a bad guy with a gun. (Or bad girl. Two officers killed were women, which surprised me.)

    15 of these officers were white; 11 were black; 2 were hispanic. (I was surprised to find that so many white officers have been killed in such circumstances. Before yesterday, I knew of exactly two cases, and one of those was from 1972.)

    3 officers were in uniform (all 3 of whom were white); 22 were in plainclothes. (And there were a few unknowns.)

    19 were off duty before the incident started; 9 were on duty.

    Racially, the only thing that jumps out is that 8 of 11 black officers were off dutyand 14 in 15 white officers who were on duty.

    39% of officer shot and killed in cases of mistaken identity were African-American. But what does that mean? What’s the denominator? Should it be the percentage of black officers? Do we even know what percentage of police nationwide are black? I asked the kind people at the National Black Police Association if they could tell me. I got a quick reply saying they didn’t have such a number handy, but would guess around 10 percent (or 80,000 out of 800,000) of police nationwide are African-American.

    Or perhaps the denominator should be the race of those working plainclothes? Or narcotics (about one-third of cases I could determine involved drug enforement)?

    Or maybe we should look at the race of officers living in higher-crime districts? That seems to be the biggest contributing factor with regards to black officers getting involved in off-duty incidents.

    Perhaps it’s more important to look at the demographics of the area in which the shooting took place? Or the race of the suspects in the incident? Or the race of the police officer who fired the lethal shot?

    Of course most police officers officers are not black, so compared to white officers, black officers are disproportionately killed (about four times more likely) by other police mistaking them for suspects. Is this because police are much more likely to perceive any black man as a threat? Or are there simply more cases in which minority police officers end up in a situations where they’re out of uniform and holding a gun? I, for one, was surprised to see the issue isn’t so, well, black and white.