Alas, I am not a fan of folk music. But your discussion of train songs reminded me of my favorite: Roseanne Cash’s My Baby Thinks he’s a Train. “🎶Just like a train he’ll always give some tramp a ride.”
Thanks for noticing my comment on "The Mary Ellen Carter" and for recommending another of my favorite inspirational songs - "Another Train". That's a great song to help one survive a long career in corporate America for sure. As long as we are trading songs that lift us, try David Wilcox's "Rise". I imagine a person who has suffered a significant loss and the accompanying sadness as the recipient of this song. And, I can extol the virtues of David Wilcox all day long as a singer-songwriter.
EZ - Totally, totally agree with you on the "Against ‘e-mail us’ forms" complaint. There's no record of your sending. Another peeve of mine with some of those is that (at least on my Google Chrome) there must be some auto email address auto-populate function of which I am unaware that uses an old (now-unused) email address to auto-populate my (now defunct) email address into the automated form. Gah!
“If you like uplift, about a year ago I featured ‘Another Train’ by Pete Morton (A better but slower recording is here) The tempo isn’t bouncy or upbeat, but the song is quietly, forcefully inspirational. You will find there are times when it’s just what you need to hear.” -- Zorn
There's another train. There always is.
Maybe the next one is yours.
Get up and climb aboard another train.
This notion of “inspiration” in Morton’s “Another Train” reminds me of the 5th grade singing select educational songs like this uplifting “choo-choo” song by the Grateful Dead:
Casey Jones
Driving that train
H*** on c******
Casey Jones you better
Watch your speed
Trouble ahead
Trouble behind
And you know that notion
Just crossed my mind
This old engine makes it on time
Leaves Central Station
'Bout a quarter to nine
Hits River Junction at seventeen to
At a quarter to ten
You know it's travelin' again
Driving that train
H*** on c******
Casey Jones you better
Watch your speed
Trouble ahead
Trouble behind
And you know that notion
Just crossed my mind
Trouble ahead
A lady in red
Take my advice
You'd be better off dead
Switchman sleeping
Train hundred and two is
On the wrong track
And headed for you
Driving that train
H*** on c******
Casey Jones you better
Watch your speed
Trouble ahead
Trouble behind
And you know that notion
Just crossed my mind
Drive your train
Trouble with you
Is the trouble with me
Got two good eyes
But we still don't see
Come round the bend
You know it's the end
The fireman screams
And the engine just gleams
Driving that train
H*** on c******
Casey Jones you better
Watch your speed
Trouble ahead
Trouble behind
And you know that notion
Just crossed my mind
Driving that train
H*** on c******
Casey Jones you better
Watch your speed
Trouble ahead
Trouble behind
And you know that notion
Just crossed my mind
Driving that train
H*** on c******
Casey Jones you better
Watch your speed
Trouble ahead
Trouble behind
And you know that notion
Just crossed my mind
Driving that train
H*** on c******
Casey Jones you better
Watch your speed
Trouble ahead
Trouble behind
And you know that notion
Just crossed my mind
And you know that notion
Just crossed my mind
Songwriters: Robert Hunter, Jerome Garcia – Grateful Dead.
In 5th grade we'd sing songs like this with expurgated words that, I assumed then, seemed objectionable to the school administration -- some sort of restriction we were under via our teacher Mrs. Clifford. I always wondered about that and thought of it as silly, but it was imposed on us anyway; I might have refused to sing the songs, but that would no doubt have brought at least a stricture if not something more severe down upon me. Of course, please feel free to delight in the words, "high" and "cocaine" at your own good pleasure.
I found the coffin flop vids as pretty gross. What humor? being portrayed required that the bodies be unidentified. Mixing in from the other discussions going on - how funny does the vid become if it is Officer Preston in full uniform that falls to the ground? Or Adam Toledo falls out of his coffin?
Not funny at all…in fact kind of horrific.
What is bad taste becomes Alex Jones taste if the body is known. Like TV, there seems to be no lowest common denominator for social media.
It's the unapologetic exuberance of the totally bad taste that to my mind pushes it all the way into comedy. Obviously I am in the minority. I feel the same about the Mr. Creosote scene in Monty Python's "The Meaning of Life." https://youtu.be/GxRnenQYG7I
"Undue reverence for police life"....has me seething. These are the people whom you call to risk their lives for you. These are the people with high rates of suicide and depression due to their jobs and, nowadays, the disrespect and callous disregard for their very lives. What other job entails putting someone else's life ahead of your own and knowingly rushing to danger (other than the FD). Whilst others run for cover, cops run towards the danger. How dare you compare these daily heroes with juvenile criminal wannabes. Erase 9-1-1 from your phone and see how you fare.
The commenters like the one you’re responding to, with their permanent anti-law enforcement philosophies, say what they say by design; they are forever mindful of their anti-establishmentarian street cred, you see, and never want anyone for one second to not notice what rebels they are. Trust me, I know the type very well.
Eric, it seems your delight in bad taste still requires an unknown or made up character to be funny.
I doubt you would be laughing at a coffin flop vid involving your family member.
Think of a coffin flop vid where Joe Biden or Donald Trump falls out…I expect the trolls would go crazy and social media would light up with hate comments.
I find bad taste humor to be a dicey area to explore given our current state of affairs. Do not poke the bear - look elsewhere for areas of humor (puns are fun).
However I would never support banning this by the government in say a DeSantis move - let’s say we agree to disagree.
My favorite soporific podcast is The Empty Bowl by Justin McElroy and Dan Gobert. It is “a meditative
podcast about cereal.” Episodes are about forty minutes long. They talk about cereal in a quiet way and they often tell listeners that if you fall asleep listening to them it’s Ok. I frequently miss the end of an episode. Give it a try.
Start at the first one and work your way up. It really doesn’t matter. Oddly, I’m not a big fan of cereal. I think most are wildly overpriced. But I do enjoy listening to these guys talk about cereal. If you want soothing but not dull this is a good choice. Don’t forget to drink the milk.
Allow me to defend the E-mail us form from a business perspective.
We started it to help streamline the issues from the consumer. Too many emails were being sent to us with incomplete information so we could not help the person as easily. We have many products and sell them in many different places. With our form email, we get all the necessary information in one place. That lets us respond more directly and with a specific solution.
Occasionally, we still have more questions and when we do, the email to our consumer comes from a real persons email address.
When I first started the company 15 years ago, every complaint email went directly to me and I directly responded. I wish I could still do that. While I see a log of every complaint, it is not possible for me to respond directly. I am glad I used to get these when we started out. I learned a lot about how to improve our products and got new ideas for new products. I do not play favorites in the company, but I admit to giving the customer service team a little more leeway knowing what they do everyday for us with our most unhappy customers.
JP Clauson - I perfectly understand the reason/logic for the automated forms, but I think that the form should include the functionality that sends a copy of the request/comment, etc. to the sender which includes the email address box of the business. This way, the sender has an email record as to when the form was submitted to the business.
It is hard for anyone who is a member in good standing in America's white community (sorry, but I am obliged to acknowledge such demarcations because they are real and guide or dictate our lives) to accept what Joanie W above said, but anyone who belongs to any ethnic group other than white knows she spoke the truth without qualification. Her view is true to life in America, even in its more progressive redoubts, like Chicago, where true egalitarianism only comes close to have been achieved, when, getting down to the crunch, the statistics say it is unfinished business.
Yes, we all owe a debt of gratitude to law enforcement officers for doing their best to keep the peace and arrest wrongdoers. It is a demanding and sometimes dangerous task; which is why they are paid well to do so. (Most cops retire without ever having had to draw their weapon on duty.) But one's sense of where one stands in the cultural/racial pecking order does determine how one behaves; and as concerns law enforcement officers, that sense is not automatically fair, evenhanded or noble just because one of them puts on the uniform for a duty shift.
Ingrained racial postures are permanent; they don't modify just because one puts on a badge, sorry to say. This is proven repeatedly by ongoing events around the nation where unarmed minority civilians are mistreated or killed by one or more white cops. Proof: We never read of it happening tdo white victims. Consider: Of all the stories of people dying unnecessarily at the hands of cops, how many involve cops of color killing (or otherwise harming) white civilians? It's nearly always (99.9%?) the other way around. This statistic cannot be explained away except by invoking the ugly word "racism," which abides in our culture so broadly that it cannot be overlooked or denied. This does not mean that every single interaction involving whites with non-whites, that non-whites get the worse of it. Only in the preponderance of cases, defying the law of probability.
As a city, as a nation, we are slowly improving on this score; but progress spans generations. What exists can't be ignored or buried. It needs to be acknowledged and aired, for the betterment of all. How long has America allowed the Ku Klux Klan to exist, openly or surreptitiously? Please explain why. And why do shadowy wannabees exist, such as the Proud Boys and random militias and hate groups? Why have the powers that be, mostly in the hands of other whites, not squelched them permanently? These disturbing questions abide, but are never addressed. So the hate groups stay with us.
Thank you Joanie W. for reminding us how far short society still is of living up to our code of conduct on an equal basis.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/investigations/police-shootings-database/ says that roughly half of those killed by police are white, so it does happen an with greater frequency than Blacks are killed. But given the difference in population size, Blacks "are killed by police at more than twice the rate of white Americans." I didn't see an "armed" / "unarmed" breakdown by race, but 83% of those killed were armed and 3% were carryin replica weapons. Only 6y % were known to be unarmed, but let's not suggest that unarmed people don't pose real threats to the safety and even lives of others. I don't see a data set about the race of the officers but you confidently assert that cops of color almost never kill white civilians, so maybe you have other data?
I'm not sure what standards you would apply to ban the Klan or the Proud Boys, or ever what it would mean to squelch them permanently under the Constitution.
It's not clear to me that there is any racial bias in police shootings. Roland Fryer's study in 2016 suggested not, and I think he's doubled down on that conclusion since then, though I'm not positive. (Fryer does note increased rates of mistreatment of black suspects in other ways he can't explain, but not shootings.)
Although blacks are killed by police at a much higher rate than whites, blacks seem to commit violent crimes at a much higher rate than whites -- something that's probably related to police shootings, insofar as crime brings cops -- just as blacks are overrepresented in poverty figures, I'm assuming ACEs (adverse childhood experiences), and a whole host of unhappy social stuff, for lack of a better term. The overall state of black America along all these dimensions is, it strikes me, the overwhelming proximate cause of a number of disparities we are told are due to implicit bias or institutional racism. (I don't discount racist -- indeed, quite systemic and virulently racist -- history is an ultimate or root cause, but I'm really skeptical of the Kendi-ish suggestion that present negative racial disparities amount to systemic racism ipso facto or even very good evidence of such, especially given that history of hundreds of years of racial oppression on this continent.)
In other words, it seems to me that the number of blacks shot or killed by police is -- very roughly -- about what you would expect even if there weren't a single racist thought in a single cop's head. We know that's not true, but I don't think we can rely on the numbers to prove the point.
I'm not surprised to see evidence of progressive innumeracy on this issue. According to the below survey -- not sure how reliable it is -- about half of "very liberal" respondents thought police killed more than a thousand unarmed black men nationwide per year, when the actual number is probably in the low double digits.
I would also like to find data on the relative occurrence of resisting arrest (refusal to comply with orders, struggling, shooting, assault) and fleeing by race and by incidence of police shootings. My guess is that there is a significant correlation to shootings by police of alleged offenders of all races and a higher rate among Blacks for all offenses. Which might contribute to the differential rate of shootings of Blacks.
Here’s a good article citing studies that show implicit bias in police shootings. People are going to believe what they want to believe, I guess. What makes them feel good about themselves. I’ve spent 44 years working in the courts, and I’ve seen the disparities with my own eyes.
I don't think what I want to think because that's what will make me feel good about myself. I appreciate your link. I retain some healthy skepticism. The idea that there is no relationship whatsoever between crime and police shooting strikes me as pretty farfetched and I'm going to need further convincing. I mean, doesn't that seem farfetched to you? Do you suppose that, say, North Shore suburban police departments kill people at the same rate as Chicago police? I'd be surprised.
I'm unable to access WaPo (happy to check direct links to recent studies if available), but it is up to anyone claiming disproportions are mostly due to racism to prove it. The percentages of those arrested for violent crimes and those killed by police are nearly identical by race (50% white, 31% black, 19% Hispanic). It's mostly socioeconomic. For someone to believe otherwise, they would have to believe that if all conditions were otherwise equal between groups, the numbers would still be similar.
Here's a simple question that 98% of people can't answer without looking it up, and explains a lot about the narrative: "Although mostly ruled justified, in recent years on average the police kill 500 white people per year. Can you name 3 of them"?
The Washington Post keeps a pretty good database of police shootings. Since 2015, 3,695 (53.2%) have been white, 1,950 (28.1%) have been black, and 1,300 (18.7%) have been Hispanic. I downloaded the 442 "unarmed" shootings and sorted by race. 197 (44.5%) were white, 155 (35.1%) were black, and 90 (20.4%) were Hispanic.
Thank you for proving my point about people believing what makes them feel good about themselves. As Benjamin Disraeli said, “There are three kinds of lies; lies, damned lies, and statistics.” And with the abundance of publications on line like the City Journal, which Media Bias/Fact Check judges to be a far right publication with only a “mostly factual” rating, people who want to believe that our law enforcement system is not tainted by implicit bias and institutional racism, can find plenty of articles that assure them that what they want to believe is true. The City Journal is published by the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, a conservative 501(c)(3) non-profit American think tank focused on domestic policy and urban affairs. Consulting them on the issue of institutional racism in American law enforcement is like consulting the Petroleum Institute on the issue of climate change, or (several years ago) consulting research funded by tobacco companies on the dangers of cigarette smoking. It is hard and it actually hurts to be self-critical. That’s why so few people do it. That’s why Florida is banning the teaching of what they call CRT. God forbid white people should have to acknowledge that this country has been and continues to be immersed in institutional racism. I don’t expect to change your mind.
Joanie, That's why I stuck with your source. The Washington Post.
I'd never heard of The City Journal, but the FBI shows the same statistics that are in the City Journal tables. I'm sure that won't alter your "far right" argument. Isn't "mostly factual" pretty good these days? Haha
I generally agree with your statement: "People are going to believe what they want to believe, I guess. What makes them feel good about themselves."
Well, your data show that 28.1 percent of police shootings are shootings of African Americans even though they are only 13 percent of the population, and 35.1 percent of unarmed shootings were of African-Americans even though they are 13 percent of the population. That would seem to suggest that there is some form of racism at play in police shootings, either overt racism, implicit bias or both. Unless you believe David Leitschuh’s theory that blacks, “as a group are much more prone to violence” than whites. I don’t believe Mr. Leitschuh’s theory which, to me, is utterly racist. It reminds me of Professor William Shockley’s view that “the US negro is inherently less intelligent than the US white.” You have to give Mr. Leitschuh credit for chutzpah, if nothing else, for the way he openly posts racist opinions.
52% of murders were commited by blacks. And yes, that would seem to suggest that blacks, “as a group are much more prone to violence” than whites. Sorry, just looking at the numbers...
I generally agree with your statement: "People are going to believe what they want to believe, I guess. What makes them feel good about themselves."
I agree with you and JakeH. From a local perspective, there is overwhelming data showing that gun crimes (killings, shootings, illegal discharge, illegal possession) occur at disproportionate rates in Black communities. The murder victims in 2022 are 77% Black and 4% white. Blacks are about 30% of the city population so they are 26 times more likely than any other race to be murder victims and 57 times more likely than whites. It should be obvious that there would be more confrontations with police where there are more gun crimes. One must fantasize that there is a huge number of whites committing unrecorded gun crimes or roaming Black neighborhoods committing murder in order to claim that there is a racially motivated disproportionate occurrence of potentially violent police interactions.
Dave W. states "... a large percentage of our police are Prejudiced and prone to violence". Wow, what a great piece of hyperbole of prejudicial stereotype. I don't imagine you have any data to back up this statement, do you?
FBI uniform a crime reports for the past several years reflect that lacks are the offenders in the majority of homicides and robberies nationally, despite representing just over 13% of the population. So this data would seem to support the statement that waxed as a group are much more prone to violence. So there's a statement that's based out of data, but I'm sure that it does not strike you well, right?
Dave wrote, "I see the death of Adam Toledo equally as tragic as that of Areanah Preston ...." I don't. I see Adam Toledo's death as tragic. I see Areanah Preston's as an outrage. To put it simply, Toledo was not murdered.
I appreciate and agree with EZ's opinion on the reaction to different killings. But it also reminded me of the apparent decline in the acceptance of societal norms. There used to be near universal agreement that justice institutions (the courts and police) were essential to public safety and order. As such, an attack on any of the officers of the court (judges, prosecutors, defenders, police) was an attack on the whole society and a threat to social order. There are many historical and current examples of countries where order and safety were significantly undermined by forces that attacked the justice system. The murder of an off-duty police officer, going about her daily life, represents a complete collapse of respect for the justice system. The more widespread this disrespect or rationalization of it, the less safe and orderly for all of us.
I will restate my opinion of the mayor's 'carefully crafted speech'. The mayor has said he will 'not cut a dime from the police budget', but he did not say that in his lengthy speech. He said nothing about policing in his speech. I think the mayor was using Toledo, Roman, and the people that murdered Officer Preston as examples of people that would not have been 'on the street' in his imagined future of resolved root causes. I think this view is supported by the remainder of the speech after his mentions of Toledo and Preston.
I was also put off by the mayor inserting himself into Officer Preston's story and proclaiming her to share his motivations.
Alas, I am not a fan of folk music. But your discussion of train songs reminded me of my favorite: Roseanne Cash’s My Baby Thinks he’s a Train. “🎶Just like a train he’ll always give some tramp a ride.”
Thanks for noticing my comment on "The Mary Ellen Carter" and for recommending another of my favorite inspirational songs - "Another Train". That's a great song to help one survive a long career in corporate America for sure. As long as we are trading songs that lift us, try David Wilcox's "Rise". I imagine a person who has suffered a significant loss and the accompanying sadness as the recipient of this song. And, I can extol the virtues of David Wilcox all day long as a singer-songwriter.
https://youtu.be/qBJqTdTK4t4
I know that a heart can just get buried
Stone by stone, crushing hope until it dies
Far away, but the message somehow carries
Beloved, it is time for you to rise
Time for you to rise up
With a sudden sense of wonder
Rise up, as the joy comes to your eyes
Rise up from the burden you've been under
Beloved it is time for you rise
TIme for you to rise.
EZ - Totally, totally agree with you on the "Against ‘e-mail us’ forms" complaint. There's no record of your sending. Another peeve of mine with some of those is that (at least on my Google Chrome) there must be some auto email address auto-populate function of which I am unaware that uses an old (now-unused) email address to auto-populate my (now defunct) email address into the automated form. Gah!
“If you like uplift, about a year ago I featured ‘Another Train’ by Pete Morton (A better but slower recording is here) The tempo isn’t bouncy or upbeat, but the song is quietly, forcefully inspirational. You will find there are times when it’s just what you need to hear.” -- Zorn
There's another train. There always is.
Maybe the next one is yours.
Get up and climb aboard another train.
This notion of “inspiration” in Morton’s “Another Train” reminds me of the 5th grade singing select educational songs like this uplifting “choo-choo” song by the Grateful Dead:
Casey Jones
Driving that train
H*** on c******
Casey Jones you better
Watch your speed
Trouble ahead
Trouble behind
And you know that notion
Just crossed my mind
This old engine makes it on time
Leaves Central Station
'Bout a quarter to nine
Hits River Junction at seventeen to
At a quarter to ten
You know it's travelin' again
Driving that train
H*** on c******
Casey Jones you better
Watch your speed
Trouble ahead
Trouble behind
And you know that notion
Just crossed my mind
Trouble ahead
A lady in red
Take my advice
You'd be better off dead
Switchman sleeping
Train hundred and two is
On the wrong track
And headed for you
Driving that train
H*** on c******
Casey Jones you better
Watch your speed
Trouble ahead
Trouble behind
And you know that notion
Just crossed my mind
Drive your train
Trouble with you
Is the trouble with me
Got two good eyes
But we still don't see
Come round the bend
You know it's the end
The fireman screams
And the engine just gleams
Driving that train
H*** on c******
Casey Jones you better
Watch your speed
Trouble ahead
Trouble behind
And you know that notion
Just crossed my mind
Driving that train
H*** on c******
Casey Jones you better
Watch your speed
Trouble ahead
Trouble behind
And you know that notion
Just crossed my mind
Driving that train
H*** on c******
Casey Jones you better
Watch your speed
Trouble ahead
Trouble behind
And you know that notion
Just crossed my mind
Driving that train
H*** on c******
Casey Jones you better
Watch your speed
Trouble ahead
Trouble behind
And you know that notion
Just crossed my mind
And you know that notion
Just crossed my mind
Songwriters: Robert Hunter, Jerome Garcia – Grateful Dead.
For non-c********* use only.
Not sure why you feel the need to expurgate "high" and "cocaine," but OK.
In 5th grade we'd sing songs like this with expurgated words that, I assumed then, seemed objectionable to the school administration -- some sort of restriction we were under via our teacher Mrs. Clifford. I always wondered about that and thought of it as silly, but it was imposed on us anyway; I might have refused to sing the songs, but that would no doubt have brought at least a stricture if not something more severe down upon me. Of course, please feel free to delight in the words, "high" and "cocaine" at your own good pleasure.
I found the coffin flop vids as pretty gross. What humor? being portrayed required that the bodies be unidentified. Mixing in from the other discussions going on - how funny does the vid become if it is Officer Preston in full uniform that falls to the ground? Or Adam Toledo falls out of his coffin?
Not funny at all…in fact kind of horrific.
What is bad taste becomes Alex Jones taste if the body is known. Like TV, there seems to be no lowest common denominator for social media.
It's the unapologetic exuberance of the totally bad taste that to my mind pushes it all the way into comedy. Obviously I am in the minority. I feel the same about the Mr. Creosote scene in Monty Python's "The Meaning of Life." https://youtu.be/GxRnenQYG7I
"Undue reverence for police life"....has me seething. These are the people whom you call to risk their lives for you. These are the people with high rates of suicide and depression due to their jobs and, nowadays, the disrespect and callous disregard for their very lives. What other job entails putting someone else's life ahead of your own and knowingly rushing to danger (other than the FD). Whilst others run for cover, cops run towards the danger. How dare you compare these daily heroes with juvenile criminal wannabes. Erase 9-1-1 from your phone and see how you fare.
The commenters like the one you’re responding to, with their permanent anti-law enforcement philosophies, say what they say by design; they are forever mindful of their anti-establishmentarian street cred, you see, and never want anyone for one second to not notice what rebels they are. Trust me, I know the type very well.
Eric, it seems your delight in bad taste still requires an unknown or made up character to be funny.
I doubt you would be laughing at a coffin flop vid involving your family member.
Think of a coffin flop vid where Joe Biden or Donald Trump falls out…I expect the trolls would go crazy and social media would light up with hate comments.
I find bad taste humor to be a dicey area to explore given our current state of affairs. Do not poke the bear - look elsewhere for areas of humor (puns are fun).
However I would never support banning this by the government in say a DeSantis move - let’s say we agree to disagree.
My favorite soporific podcast is The Empty Bowl by Justin McElroy and Dan Gobert. It is “a meditative
podcast about cereal.” Episodes are about forty minutes long. They talk about cereal in a quiet way and they often tell listeners that if you fall asleep listening to them it’s Ok. I frequently miss the end of an episode. Give it a try.
Well, I have subscribed but the episode titles are just numbers. Have any good ones you want to recommend as starter episodes?
Start at the first one and work your way up. It really doesn’t matter. Oddly, I’m not a big fan of cereal. I think most are wildly overpriced. But I do enjoy listening to these guys talk about cereal. If you want soothing but not dull this is a good choice. Don’t forget to drink the milk.
"Zorn — I’m grateful she gives me permission to use her material. Mary is a treasure."
Agreed.
Allow me to defend the E-mail us form from a business perspective.
We started it to help streamline the issues from the consumer. Too many emails were being sent to us with incomplete information so we could not help the person as easily. We have many products and sell them in many different places. With our form email, we get all the necessary information in one place. That lets us respond more directly and with a specific solution.
Occasionally, we still have more questions and when we do, the email to our consumer comes from a real persons email address.
When I first started the company 15 years ago, every complaint email went directly to me and I directly responded. I wish I could still do that. While I see a log of every complaint, it is not possible for me to respond directly. I am glad I used to get these when we started out. I learned a lot about how to improve our products and got new ideas for new products. I do not play favorites in the company, but I admit to giving the customer service team a little more leeway knowing what they do everyday for us with our most unhappy customers.
JP Clauson - I perfectly understand the reason/logic for the automated forms, but I think that the form should include the functionality that sends a copy of the request/comment, etc. to the sender which includes the email address box of the business. This way, the sender has an email record as to when the form was submitted to the business.
Brilliant idea!
Via email from Ted M --
It is hard for anyone who is a member in good standing in America's white community (sorry, but I am obliged to acknowledge such demarcations because they are real and guide or dictate our lives) to accept what Joanie W above said, but anyone who belongs to any ethnic group other than white knows she spoke the truth without qualification. Her view is true to life in America, even in its more progressive redoubts, like Chicago, where true egalitarianism only comes close to have been achieved, when, getting down to the crunch, the statistics say it is unfinished business.
Yes, we all owe a debt of gratitude to law enforcement officers for doing their best to keep the peace and arrest wrongdoers. It is a demanding and sometimes dangerous task; which is why they are paid well to do so. (Most cops retire without ever having had to draw their weapon on duty.) But one's sense of where one stands in the cultural/racial pecking order does determine how one behaves; and as concerns law enforcement officers, that sense is not automatically fair, evenhanded or noble just because one of them puts on the uniform for a duty shift.
Ingrained racial postures are permanent; they don't modify just because one puts on a badge, sorry to say. This is proven repeatedly by ongoing events around the nation where unarmed minority civilians are mistreated or killed by one or more white cops. Proof: We never read of it happening tdo white victims. Consider: Of all the stories of people dying unnecessarily at the hands of cops, how many involve cops of color killing (or otherwise harming) white civilians? It's nearly always (99.9%?) the other way around. This statistic cannot be explained away except by invoking the ugly word "racism," which abides in our culture so broadly that it cannot be overlooked or denied. This does not mean that every single interaction involving whites with non-whites, that non-whites get the worse of it. Only in the preponderance of cases, defying the law of probability.
As a city, as a nation, we are slowly improving on this score; but progress spans generations. What exists can't be ignored or buried. It needs to be acknowledged and aired, for the betterment of all. How long has America allowed the Ku Klux Klan to exist, openly or surreptitiously? Please explain why. And why do shadowy wannabees exist, such as the Proud Boys and random militias and hate groups? Why have the powers that be, mostly in the hands of other whites, not squelched them permanently? These disturbing questions abide, but are never addressed. So the hate groups stay with us.
Thank you Joanie W. for reminding us how far short society still is of living up to our code of conduct on an equal basis.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/investigations/police-shootings-database/ says that roughly half of those killed by police are white, so it does happen an with greater frequency than Blacks are killed. But given the difference in population size, Blacks "are killed by police at more than twice the rate of white Americans." I didn't see an "armed" / "unarmed" breakdown by race, but 83% of those killed were armed and 3% were carryin replica weapons. Only 6y % were known to be unarmed, but let's not suggest that unarmed people don't pose real threats to the safety and even lives of others. I don't see a data set about the race of the officers but you confidently assert that cops of color almost never kill white civilians, so maybe you have other data?
I'm not sure what standards you would apply to ban the Klan or the Proud Boys, or ever what it would mean to squelch them permanently under the Constitution.
It's not clear to me that there is any racial bias in police shootings. Roland Fryer's study in 2016 suggested not, and I think he's doubled down on that conclusion since then, though I'm not positive. (Fryer does note increased rates of mistreatment of black suspects in other ways he can't explain, but not shootings.)
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/12/upshot/surprising-new-evidence-shows-bias-in-police-use-of-force-but-not-in-shootings.html
Although blacks are killed by police at a much higher rate than whites, blacks seem to commit violent crimes at a much higher rate than whites -- something that's probably related to police shootings, insofar as crime brings cops -- just as blacks are overrepresented in poverty figures, I'm assuming ACEs (adverse childhood experiences), and a whole host of unhappy social stuff, for lack of a better term. The overall state of black America along all these dimensions is, it strikes me, the overwhelming proximate cause of a number of disparities we are told are due to implicit bias or institutional racism. (I don't discount racist -- indeed, quite systemic and virulently racist -- history is an ultimate or root cause, but I'm really skeptical of the Kendi-ish suggestion that present negative racial disparities amount to systemic racism ipso facto or even very good evidence of such, especially given that history of hundreds of years of racial oppression on this continent.)
https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/revcoa18.pdf
In other words, it seems to me that the number of blacks shot or killed by police is -- very roughly -- about what you would expect even if there weren't a single racist thought in a single cop's head. We know that's not true, but I don't think we can rely on the numbers to prove the point.
I'm not surprised to see evidence of progressive innumeracy on this issue. According to the below survey -- not sure how reliable it is -- about half of "very liberal" respondents thought police killed more than a thousand unarmed black men nationwide per year, when the actual number is probably in the low double digits.
https://www.skeptic.com/research-center/reports/Research-Report-CUPES-007.pdf
I would also like to find data on the relative occurrence of resisting arrest (refusal to comply with orders, struggling, shooting, assault) and fleeing by race and by incidence of police shootings. My guess is that there is a significant correlation to shootings by police of alleged offenders of all races and a higher rate among Blacks for all offenses. Which might contribute to the differential rate of shootings of Blacks.
Here’s a good article citing studies that show implicit bias in police shootings. People are going to believe what they want to believe, I guess. What makes them feel good about themselves. I’ve spent 44 years working in the courts, and I’ve seen the disparities with my own eyes.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/07/11/arent-more-white-people-than-black-people-killed-by-police-yes-but-no/
I don't think what I want to think because that's what will make me feel good about myself. I appreciate your link. I retain some healthy skepticism. The idea that there is no relationship whatsoever between crime and police shooting strikes me as pretty farfetched and I'm going to need further convincing. I mean, doesn't that seem farfetched to you? Do you suppose that, say, North Shore suburban police departments kill people at the same rate as Chicago police? I'd be surprised.
I'm unable to access WaPo (happy to check direct links to recent studies if available), but it is up to anyone claiming disproportions are mostly due to racism to prove it. The percentages of those arrested for violent crimes and those killed by police are nearly identical by race (50% white, 31% black, 19% Hispanic). It's mostly socioeconomic. For someone to believe otherwise, they would have to believe that if all conditions were otherwise equal between groups, the numbers would still be similar.
https://www.city-journal.org/article/when-cops-kill
Here's a simple question that 98% of people can't answer without looking it up, and explains a lot about the narrative: "Although mostly ruled justified, in recent years on average the police kill 500 white people per year. Can you name 3 of them"?
Ted,
I had a response I was working on when you posted this. Had not seen that link, but it says more succinctly what I was going to post. Thank you.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/investigations/police-shootings-database/
The Washington Post keeps a pretty good database of police shootings. Since 2015, 3,695 (53.2%) have been white, 1,950 (28.1%) have been black, and 1,300 (18.7%) have been Hispanic. I downloaded the 442 "unarmed" shootings and sorted by race. 197 (44.5%) were white, 155 (35.1%) were black, and 90 (20.4%) were Hispanic.
Thank you for proving my point about people believing what makes them feel good about themselves. As Benjamin Disraeli said, “There are three kinds of lies; lies, damned lies, and statistics.” And with the abundance of publications on line like the City Journal, which Media Bias/Fact Check judges to be a far right publication with only a “mostly factual” rating, people who want to believe that our law enforcement system is not tainted by implicit bias and institutional racism, can find plenty of articles that assure them that what they want to believe is true. The City Journal is published by the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, a conservative 501(c)(3) non-profit American think tank focused on domestic policy and urban affairs. Consulting them on the issue of institutional racism in American law enforcement is like consulting the Petroleum Institute on the issue of climate change, or (several years ago) consulting research funded by tobacco companies on the dangers of cigarette smoking. It is hard and it actually hurts to be self-critical. That’s why so few people do it. That’s why Florida is banning the teaching of what they call CRT. God forbid white people should have to acknowledge that this country has been and continues to be immersed in institutional racism. I don’t expect to change your mind.
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/city-journal/
Joanie, That's why I stuck with your source. The Washington Post.
I'd never heard of The City Journal, but the FBI shows the same statistics that are in the City Journal tables. I'm sure that won't alter your "far right" argument. Isn't "mostly factual" pretty good these days? Haha
I generally agree with your statement: "People are going to believe what they want to believe, I guess. What makes them feel good about themselves."
Well, your data show that 28.1 percent of police shootings are shootings of African Americans even though they are only 13 percent of the population, and 35.1 percent of unarmed shootings were of African-Americans even though they are 13 percent of the population. That would seem to suggest that there is some form of racism at play in police shootings, either overt racism, implicit bias or both. Unless you believe David Leitschuh’s theory that blacks, “as a group are much more prone to violence” than whites. I don’t believe Mr. Leitschuh’s theory which, to me, is utterly racist. It reminds me of Professor William Shockley’s view that “the US negro is inherently less intelligent than the US white.” You have to give Mr. Leitschuh credit for chutzpah, if nothing else, for the way he openly posts racist opinions.
https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/individual/william-shockley
C'mon Joanie,
52% of murders were commited by blacks. And yes, that would seem to suggest that blacks, “as a group are much more prone to violence” than whites. Sorry, just looking at the numbers...
I generally agree with your statement: "People are going to believe what they want to believe, I guess. What makes them feel good about themselves."
I agree with you and JakeH. From a local perspective, there is overwhelming data showing that gun crimes (killings, shootings, illegal discharge, illegal possession) occur at disproportionate rates in Black communities. The murder victims in 2022 are 77% Black and 4% white. Blacks are about 30% of the city population so they are 26 times more likely than any other race to be murder victims and 57 times more likely than whites. It should be obvious that there would be more confrontations with police where there are more gun crimes. One must fantasize that there is a huge number of whites committing unrecorded gun crimes or roaming Black neighborhoods committing murder in order to claim that there is a racially motivated disproportionate occurrence of potentially violent police interactions.
Dave W. states "... a large percentage of our police are Prejudiced and prone to violence". Wow, what a great piece of hyperbole of prejudicial stereotype. I don't imagine you have any data to back up this statement, do you?
FBI uniform a crime reports for the past several years reflect that lacks are the offenders in the majority of homicides and robberies nationally, despite representing just over 13% of the population. So this data would seem to support the statement that waxed as a group are much more prone to violence. So there's a statement that's based out of data, but I'm sure that it does not strike you well, right?
Dave wrote, "I see the death of Adam Toledo equally as tragic as that of Areanah Preston ...." I don't. I see Adam Toledo's death as tragic. I see Areanah Preston's as an outrage. To put it simply, Toledo was not murdered.
I appreciate and agree with EZ's opinion on the reaction to different killings. But it also reminded me of the apparent decline in the acceptance of societal norms. There used to be near universal agreement that justice institutions (the courts and police) were essential to public safety and order. As such, an attack on any of the officers of the court (judges, prosecutors, defenders, police) was an attack on the whole society and a threat to social order. There are many historical and current examples of countries where order and safety were significantly undermined by forces that attacked the justice system. The murder of an off-duty police officer, going about her daily life, represents a complete collapse of respect for the justice system. The more widespread this disrespect or rationalization of it, the less safe and orderly for all of us.
I will restate my opinion of the mayor's 'carefully crafted speech'. The mayor has said he will 'not cut a dime from the police budget', but he did not say that in his lengthy speech. He said nothing about policing in his speech. I think the mayor was using Toledo, Roman, and the people that murdered Officer Preston as examples of people that would not have been 'on the street' in his imagined future of resolved root causes. I think this view is supported by the remainder of the speech after his mentions of Toledo and Preston.
I was also put off by the mayor inserting himself into Officer Preston's story and proclaiming her to share his motivations.
Steven, I'm afraid I am one of those "anti-establishmentarians." BUT I respect that thin blue line we need so much, as do many other liberals.