Anthem Mania

[Jeff Lebowski]

Read this article:

http://www.tampabay.com/projects/201...ice-shootings/

~800 police shootings in Tampa Bay between 2009 and 2014, blacks shot outnumbered whites 340 to 330 (even though whites outnumber blacks 3 to 1 in that area). And the kicker, only one shooting cop was charged with a crime, which was later thrown out of court.

Argue the effectiveness of the protest all you want. But the impetus behind it is most certainly not nonsense.

I am 100% convinced that blacks get a horrible deal in our criminal justice system, largely due to our stupid drug war. But the broad evidence I have seen on police shootings doesn't support the notion that they are more likely to be shot or killed than whites when you normalize the data. This phenomenon is largely driven by ubiquitous video and social media. I have said all along that Kap should have been protesting mandatory sentencing. That has done far more damage to the black community than police shootings.

[Uncle Ted]

There have been 8 unarmed black men shot by police this year. The protest is a bunch of nonsense.

Yet, the cowboys can't honor five Dallas officers shot by a black man...

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell attacked President Trump for showing a “lack of respect for the NFL” — regarding the president's recent comments criticizing players for not standing during the national anthem — because it violated the “constitutional rights of our players,” referring to the First Amendment.
This comes from the same commissioner who threatened NFL players who wanted to honor both 9/11 victims and five police officers who were murdered in Dallas.
The Dallas Cowboys wanted to pay tribute to the five Dallas officers who were murdered at a Black Lives Matter protest on July 7, 2016. The Cowboys had been wearing a special decal on their helmets that said “Arm in Arm” that specifically honored the police officers — that is, until the NFL stepped in and stopped it.

http://www.dailywire.com/news/21473/...-ryan-saavedra

I guess the NFL wants more money from the government. The government should just take its money to where it is loved... NASCAR.

Edit: Or maybe the NFL just wants it 73 year old "distraction" (aka. tax-exempt status) back?

[Eddie]

In some ways I get what PAC is saying. My son was taught from his very first year playing football, that when someone is hurt on the field, all of the other players take a knee. It was automatic. Almost like telling the dog to sit. Didn't matter where they were on the field or what was going on around them - every kid would drop immediately.

So I can see how taking a knee isn't necessarily a sign of disrespect.

The problem is in the fact that they say they are doing it as a protest. Once you say you are protesting the anthem, then you get people up in arms and forgetting everything else.

In many ways, I like what the Cowboys did. Take a knee, have a moment of silence, whatever. Then stand for the anthem.

In all honesty - I don't care that they are protesting. And I'm not one to freak out at their method. But I agree with those who feel it is a sign of disrespect to protest during the national anthem. I get annoyed at all the twerps in the stands at sporting events who seem oblivious to what is going on and won't put their hands over their hearts during it. Taking the added step of knowing what's happening and purposefully not respecting the flag or anthem - not cool. But whatever.

But let's be honest here - we've moved beyond protesting police brutality. A week ago, 6 players knelt during the national anthem to protest police brutality. This last past weekend, those same 6 players again knelt to protest police brutality. While 194+ players knelt around them to protest Donald Trump.

[Eddie]

There have been 8 unarmed black men shot by police this year. The protest is a bunch of nonsense.

Read this article:

http://www.tampabay.com/projects/201...ice-shootings/

~800 police shootings in Tampa Bay between 2009 and 2014, blacks shot outnumbered whites 340 to 330 (even though whites outnumber blacks 3 to 1 in that area). And the kicker, only one shooting cop was charged with a crime, which was later thrown out of court.

Argue the effectiveness of the protest all you want. But the impetus behind it is most certainly not nonsense.

I heard someone talking on the radio yesterday - obviously in reaction to all of this - about the protests and Black Lives Matter.

Obviously a conservative perspective. But they said that more than 2,300 people have been shot in Chicago this year. The vast majority of victims are Black (around 78%). Meanwhile - there have been 20 officer involved shootings during that same time frame. If Black Lives Matter were truly concerned about Black Lives, maybe they'd worry less about the police shootings, which account for .8% of these shootings, and start asking themselves what can be done to reduce the 99.2%.

It's time to have a serious discussion about all of these issues. In having that discussion, we have to include the fact that Blacks are more likely to be the perpetrator of a violent crime in proportion to their place in the population. But we also have to address the conditions that got us there - and what can be done to change them.

Unfortunately - we get so stuck in the "that's racist" piece that we don't ever seem to make progress.

[Northwestcoug]

I am 100% convinced that blacks get a horrible deal in our criminal justice system, largely due to our stupid drug war. But the broad evidence I have seen on police shootings doesn't support the notion that they are more likely to be shot or killed than whites when you normalize the data. This phenomenon is largely driven by ubiquitous video and social media. I have said all along that Kap should have been protesting mandatory sentencing. That has done far more damage to the black community than police shootings.

Agree with you completely about mandatory sentencing and the drug war disproportionately affecting blacks. But I'm going to need some high-level Pelagius statistics to convince me that the normalized data doesn't show a disparity. This article shows clearly shows the disparity! Blacks were disproportionately shot more than whites, in a white majority area. I'm not sure what variables you could analyze that would completely negate that disparity. Let me freely admit, however, that I dropped out of STAT 121.

If you haven't yet, I would highly recommend reading the article. It is considered groundbreaking, partly because it analyzes one of the biggest sample sizes of police shootings. It's very extensive and informative.

[Northwestcoug]

Just to be clearer, I think police shootings and brutality is a bigger problem than any one ethnic group. It's just that it disproportionately affects the black population.

There is an excellent 2-part Radiolab series based on the Tampa Bay article I posted above. It goes into the extent of the problem, but also highlights a few ways the problem can improve, including innovative strategies of some police groups.

http://www.radiolab.org/story/shots-fired-part-1/

[Jeff Lebowski]

Agree with you completely about mandatory sentencing and the drug war disproportionately affecting blacks. But I'm going to need some high-level Pelagius statistics to convince me that the normalized data doesn't show a disparity. This article shows clearly shows the disparity! Blacks were disproportionately shot more than whites, in a white majority area. I'm not sure what variables you could analyze that would completely negate that disparity. Let me freely admit, however, that I dropped out of STAT 121.

If you haven't yet, I would highly recommend reading the article. It is considered groundbreaking, partly because it analyzes one of the biggest sample sizes of police shootings. It's very extensive and informative.

http://www.nationalreview.com/articl...-causal-effect

The media would have Americans believe that race is the single most important and predictive element of fatal encounters between police and civilians. Yet both the basic data and less superficial analyses than the Post’s show that is not the case. With a few notable exceptions, violent criminal attacks are the best predictor of whom police might shoot in America.

We must look to reasons other than simple racism on the part of the police, who end up holding the ball for a lot of failed systemic issues. A disproportionate share of America’s violent offenders are African-American males, but not because they are black. It is because America has failed its black communities, and those of the vulnerable more generally, for decades. The best predictors of crime are broken families, living in a bad neighborhood, young mothers, and other risk factors known since the 1960s: a lack of education, nutrition, after-school activities, music, art, and other programs that create opportunity.

Amen.

[Eddie]

Agree with you completely about mandatory sentencing and the drug war disproportionately affecting blacks. But I'm going to need some high-level Pelagius statistics to convince me that the normalized data doesn't show a disparity. This article shows clearly shows the disparity! Blacks were disproportionately shot more than whites, in a white majority area. I'm not sure what variables you could analyze that would completely negate that disparity. Let me freely admit, however, that I dropped out of STAT 121.

If you haven't yet, I would highly recommend reading the article. It is considered groundbreaking, partly because it analyzes one of the biggest sample sizes of police shootings. It's very extensive and informative.

This seems to be looking at straight up numbers, but not necessarily the circumstances. Wasn't there a recent study done by a Black guy from Harvard, who said the thing that surprised him the most was that when you control for the situation - Blacks may be more likely to experience police violence, but Whites were actually more likely to be shot?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...=.bf79537f8b12

[Eddie]

http://www.nationalreview.com/articl...-causal-effect

We must look to reasons other than simple racism on the part of the police, who end up holding the ball for a lot of failed systemic issues. A disproportionate share of America’s violent offenders are African-American males, but not because they are black. It is because America has failed its black communities, and those of the vulnerable more generally, for decades. The best predictors of crime are broken families, living in a bad neighborhood, young mothers, and other risk factors known since the 1960s: a lack of education, nutrition, after-school activities, music, art, and other programs that create opportunity.

Amen.

Yup. That's the conversation we need to have.

[SteelBlue]

Wasn't there a recent study done by a Black guy from Harvard, who said the thing that surprised him the most was that when you control for the situation - Blacks may be more likely to experience police violence, but Whites were actually more likely to be shot?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...=.bf79537f8b12

Yes, Roland Fryer's study:

http://www.nber.org/papers/w22399

Here's one from Drexel in response to Fryer's study that comes to a different conclusion:

http://drexel.edu/now/archive/2016/D...-police-force/

[Northwestcoug]

http://www.nationalreview.com/articl...-causal-effect





Amen.

It goes without saying that there are other variables. Yes, blacks are disproportionately affected by societal ills that makes a person more likely to be shot by police. Those need to be addressed. But it is in no way a stretch to say that institutional racism (both police and in the country at large) also plays a role. That needs to be addressed also.

[Jeff Lebowski]

It goes without saying that there are other variables. Yes, blacks are disproportionately affected by societal ills that makes a person more likely to be shot by police. Those need to be addressed. But it is in no way a stretch to say that institutional racism (both police and in the country at large) also plays a role. That needs to be addressed also.

You are conflating issues. I never claimed that there is no institutional racism in the country at large. The question is how significant a role that plays in police shootings vs. other systemic issues. We are expending our energy on the wrong problems.

[Northwestcoug]

You are conflating issues. I never claimed that there is no institutional racism in the country at large. The question is how significant a role that plays in police shootings vs. other systemic issues. We are expending our energy on the wrong problems.

I should have said, I didn't mean to insinuate you were claiming that. I was just responding to the quote you posted. It just seems to me that right-wing quotes like that (even if true like that one essentially is) try to downplay current institutional racism. Most people agree that it was the defining cause of the current societal problems most blacks face. I think it continues to be part of the problem.

[happyone]

let me add my 2 cents

I've personally known too many people who have died for the flag and what it stands for to support what is going on. Out of respect for them, I will always stand! That said they have every right to take a knee, raise a black power fist or stay in the locker room. The players will get boo'd and have to be prepared for that.

I think if we had not made such a big deal last year and Pres Trump would have stayed off of twitter, this too would have passed.

[Scott R Nelson]

Trevor Noah had some interesting things to say about protests by black people. He's black, from South Africa:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-Gx23vH0CE

I also found this interesting, but it was more about Trump. In it he also mentioned how Colin Kapernick got started with the kneeling thing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2kqHuOniv0