"We are scared as Black people in America. ... Black men, Black women, Black kids. We are terrified."— ESPN (@espn) August 25, 2020
LeBron shared a powerful message on Jacob Blake and what it's like to be African American in America. pic.twitter.com/UOMD7rk7Bd
Ignoring for a moment the issue of whether or not the shooting was justified the simple reality is that the man wasn't shot because he was Black; he was shot for resisting arrest and reaching for something in his car.
Here's a video showing what happens when cops don't shoot someone reaching into their car who was resisting arrest:
If Jacob Blake had simply cooperated with police he'd have been fine. We know this because the other Black person who was with George Floyd didn't resist arrest and was fine. Similarly when the police stopped Rodney King's car there were 4 Black men in it. Three followed police orders and didn't get a scratch. King fought police and had a different outcome.
Larry Elder points out the facts about police in America:
Cops kill 2x as many whites as blacks. Cops kill at least many unarmed whites as unarmed blacks. In USA, 1/2 of homicide victims are black, almost all killed by blacks. #1 cause of preventable death for white males: accidents. #1 cause of death for black males: homicide by blacks https://t.co/k6yOjwcn1u— Larry Elder (@larryelder) August 25, 2020
Honest law abiding Black people know that they're safe in encounters with the law; it's not like it was in the old Democrat run South.
Are there racists cops; sure. Have some tiny number of Blacks, far less than 1 a year, been killed by cops; sure. Have any of those cops gotten away with it? Not to my knowledge.
Look at the cop who shot the high on drugs Michael Brown. His life was destroyed but even Obama's cheerleader, Attorney General Holder, concluded that the officer fired in self defense.
I think it's great that America is now a country where we have zero tolerance for police mistreating Blacks. Lebron is lying to America by pretending otherwise.
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1 comment:
I've got to say I'm disappointed. I would've expected since your big increase in readership you'd put more energy into copy-editing and fact checking but this post has some obvious errors. Maybe this post will be able to answer my question: do you not know how to edit posts or do you just not care to?
Anyways, you said you linked a video of some police encounter video but then you just re-included the same tweet. You also wrote "Have some tiny number of Blacks, far less than 1 a year, been killed by cops; sure." which I assume is not what you meant to write. I don't know what you meant but I'm sure it's also wrong or unfounded.
> Further we all know that Lebron has no reason to fear the cops. But it's mighty racist of him to impute to all Blacks a fear of police.
This is wrong on multiple fronts. I don't know how you think we all know what going on inside Lebron's mind. Celebrities and the rich are not immune from police violence or scrutiny. It's not racist to suggest many Blacks fear the police (he never said "all" and even if he had I think you are familiar with hyperbole).
You quote a tweet that says the deaths by cops of whites and blacks are similar but fail to note that whites outnumber blacks by like 4x.
> Honest law abiding Black people know that they're safe in encounters with the law; it's not like it was in the old Democrat run South.
While racism isn't as bad as in the past even implicit bias still makes life very hard for blacks. Studies show that blacks are arrested at higher rates for crimes they commit than whites in ways that are no explained by other variables (e.g. crime rate). This is also true for stops of cars ("driving while black"). This kind of factor alone would create fear in the black community. Or as one author of such a paper put it "Over time, singling out one race more often for traffic stops and searches erodes community trust in law enforcement and alienates citizens".
> Ignoring for a moment the issue of whether or not the shooting was justified the simple reality is that the man wasn't shot because he was Black
So the issue it that racism or implicit bias increased his probability of being shot. That is not a fair system.
So do you get why Black people are unhappy?
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