"Judging by what I've seen and heard lately, it's obvious that race is once again fueling conversations that have nothing (yet everything) to do with Monday's incident...
"Many people described Burns as a 'dangerous criminal' after reading [the St. Louis Post-Dispatch's] account of his arrests and criminal record... Granted, the man has issues. But if missing child support payments and having police reports filed by ex-girlfriends constitute an automatic butt-whuppin', a whole lot of men in this city better drive carefully tonight.
"Why do police just happen to lose their cool when confronted with unarmed black suspects?"
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With all due respect to Mr. Brown's opnion on this matter, if I lead police on a high-speed chase, once apprehended, I would expect to have the living shit kicked out of me as well. Of course, I'll probably never find out if that's what would happen because I have no intention of leading police on a high speed chase anytime soon.
However, if you were to lead police on a high-speed chase, anecdotal evidence suggests that you would be less likely to have the living shit kicked out of you than I would. Why is that?
Nadir: Please direct us to real (ie, scientific) evidence showing the respective liklihoods of:
1. White cops beating black suspects.
2. Black cops beating black suspsects.
3. White cops beating white suspects.
4. Black cops beting white suspects.
Yes, "anecdotal" evidence indicates that (1) above is substantially higher than (2-4). But anecdotal evidence is very poor indeed. Anecdotal evidence isn't invalid, it just absolutely cannot constitute demonstration of a trend. Anecdotal evidence is very good at just two things: one, suggesting hypotheses for testing by scientific studies; and two, analyzing proposed hypotheses.
Since the news media provides regular accounts of white cops beating black suspects, and few accounts of any other sort of police brutality, this certainly does suggest both a hypothesis (the one that Nadir promotes as explaining this evidence) and the need for a test of that hypothesis.
Here are other questions that a valid scientific study would have to address:
5. The relative liklihoods of press coverage resulting from (1-4) above.
Nadir's hypothisis further predicts that a scientific study would find that white suspects rarely ever get abused, and that black cops rarely ever abuse suspects. Based on my own life, which encompasses about 10 arrests and countless interactions with black people, including during times of police confrontation, I predict that Nadir's hypothesis would be falsified by a scientific study. I further predict that the problem of police brutality is harmed by framing it as a racial issue. Framed as such, those of us who want to eradicate police brutality are limitted drawing support from that population who lables many debatable phenomenon as "racist."
I remember when I was involved in a police brutality situation in Pensecola, FL. I was in a group of about 15 guys, all black (except me). We attempted to gain entry to a white club downtown, with one member of the group using a fake ID. The white bouncer caught the fake (which was the valid ID of another guy in the group), and confiscated it. I was drunk and snatched the fake ID from the honkey bouncer, who responded by attacking me and calling for help. A gang of white bouncers descended on us, and a mellee ensued. Two of the bouncers were off-duty cops, and we all got arrested.
Was this police brutality? Yes, because the snatching of a confiscated ID does not, and cannot, legally sanction a violent attack. The incident blew up in the local media, and the local Nadirs loudly promoted the incident as an act of racism. This incident ran as the opening story of every local news broadcast, and on the cover of the local paper, every day for several weeks. The prosecuter -- who was black -- went for prison time for all of us. The local talk radio shows could not stop talking about it, with the liberal stations angrily lamenting another act of police racism, and the conservative shows just as angrily lamenting hooliganism (the off-duty cops claimed we were drunk and started attacking people in an act of "wilding").
I called into the number one conservative talk show, as the guest for an hour. The hour started with the host railing against us, and promoting me as one of the hooligans. The phones got jammed with calls. Before I got on the air, 100% of the calls were 100% against us, and every caller demanded prison time for us. Many of the callers expressed disgust at this being labled racial.
Then I got to start talking. The first thing I did was declare that the incident was not racial. Then I started talking about how some fraction of police officers of all colors were bullies. I asked the presumably all-white audience to look into their own past, and their dealings with cops. Here's what happened: the host changed his mind ON THE SPOT to our side. Every caller -- 100%!!! -- that called in now supported us. The host extended my stay for the full 3 hours. Callers started giving phone numbers of officials to call in our support, and audience members started calling local officials. I could go on with more details. Taking race out of this issue was both accurate, and effective for the anti-brutality cause.
Six: Your response to this incident reminds me of Nadir's response to the islamic tyrants who want to ban people in free countries from lampooning mohammad. It is true that the people who experiance police brutality are almost always people who are doing something wrong. There are nearly no cases (but some, of course) of a guy like Nadir or me walking down the street or driving sanely and getting visciously attacked by cops. Law-abiding citizens have much more to fear from non-cops than they do from cops. However, I think that you should join me and Nadir in 100% anger for cops imposing violent justice or retrobution on suspects. Surely you just agree that this is a serious ethical violation. And if cops violate that cornerstone ethic, where will it end?
Let's all unite (the three of us) in supporting 100% free speach, and 0% police brutality.
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