LogFAQs > #940337405

https://medium.com/@bean1dt/heather-mac-donald-and-the-danger-of-academic-laziness-in-a-time-of-national-mourning-4718ec77735f

Mac Donald continues to cite a report from the Community Oriented Policing Services. She points out that white police officers were less likely than black or Hispanic officers to shoot unarmed black suspects. From the report, this is actually correct. However, she phrased it in a way as to make it appear as though this proves there is no systemic racism in the police force. But the study also says Our analysis shows that the suspects in officer-involved shootings were overwhelmingly Black. That same pattern was apparent in unarmed persons shot by the PPD. Our analysis also shows that threat perception failures (TPF) occur with suspects of all races. Black suspects have had the highest TPF rate (8.8 percent), more than twice the rate of White suspects (3.1 percent). It is clear that the Black community is disproportionately impacted by extreme violence involving the police. So, in fact, what she proved is not that systemic racism does not exist in the police force, but that it is actually more widespread than we usually believe. In other words, the fact that police officers of every race including African American police officers target black citizens is not proof that there is no systemic racism in the police force, it actually significantly enhances the argument.

In short, stats can easily be misrepresented. Seems to be a common thing among far right "political commentators" like Mac Donald.

Of course this doesn't go into the fact that poverty = increased crime. And black poverty in this country is overwhelmingly caused by past oppression and terrorism of black people (slavery, jim crow, redlining, the "war on drugs"). So yeah, systemic police racism is absolutely real.

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https://imgur.com/kkm3QaD