I mean, if you take into account that 9/10 times after the fact that a black unarmed guy gets shot, it becomes clear that actually he was armed, and BLM/blacks in general refuse to acknowledge that.. I do wonder how these statistics would stack up
then.Furthermore if you actually think about it for a moment you can even come up with a very credible theory as to why black people are disproportionately shot.
Not to infer that it is right. American cops are extremely trigger happy and I think that is due to two reasons namely
A) improper training, comparatively to European police officers who almost never fire their guns and when they do, accurately fire a warning shot into the sky, or accurately take down a target without killing. The exceptions being terrorists, who are usually killed due to being armed and dangerous. The point of this point specifically is that European cops are better trained, there are better entry standards and educational requirements (for example police academy takes 3 years for a simple street cop) and American cops seem to have knee-jerk reactions in literally every single situation.
B) because America has a dangerous fucking gun culture where every motherfucker
can have a gun stuck in their pocket. Race doesn't matter in this point either because white trash is just as able to carry guns if not
more capable than a thug. Imagine being a cop and approaching a situation with the knowledge that someone
might have a gun. In America this chance is very high. And 9/10 times when they do approach a person that possibly has a gun, it turns out that he is armed.
This video gives some useful insight. Yes it's FOX news but that is besides the point. Just watch it and you'll understand why a country that has a dangerous gun culture has an abnormally higher amount of police violence in general.
Now on to why black people are disproportionately shot. The idea that black people are somehow more violent or something is stupid and anyone that wishes to infer that should feel equally stupid.
But the fact of the matter is that blacks usually live in a lower living standard, namely in the ghetto or the projects. The reasons for this are wide and broad and most easily related to history but I don't think that's really so important in this situation.
Socio-economic status is very low for these people and they are severely lacking in multiple departments such as
A) access to social mobility. Blacks have a harder time moving between social branches. Not many people ever move up from living in the ghetto. Living in the ghetto turns to point C) social acceptance for violence and illegal activities.
B) lack of father figures. Black fathers are often missing. Not a joke, not an insult, this is just fact. This is a self-repeating vicious cycle of lack of father figures too, because if 1 father dips, their son will get a woman pregnant and dip too, repeating the cycle. Lack of father/mother figures has been proven many times to be a big impact on how a child behaves and therefore is, to me, an important factor in fighting the root causes of the fact that blacks enter contact with cops so often.
Social control theory explains why institutions such as family are so important.
Because it's important to recognize the US needs to fight
root causes by looking at where these problems begin and not fight the symptoms. Then again, this is the US, they fight symptoms at literally every problem they face.
C) social acceptance for violence and illegal activities. I mean, you have to wonder why blacks are so often caught up in police shootings, where as other minorities (i.e. Asians or Native Americans) are often not, and I blame a social acceptance for violence and illegal activities. I want to go into this one a bit more, it is quite an important thing to grasp.
Strain theory for example states that, and I quote, 'the inability to achieve a desired goal' is a source of strain.
Now imagine you see people walking around wearing these sick new clothes, or the newest Jeezy's. Naturally you'd want those, especially in a street-setting like so many blacks live in, where materialism > everything. But you cannot achieve these in normal ways (due to your lack of socio-economic status). In laymans terms, you cannot earn money in the legal way (for whatever reason) but want to obtain something, therefore you use illegal means to obtain these items/goals.
-> increase of criminality therefore -> increase in contact with police -> amount of violent/serious crimes means higher amounts of violent contact -> blacks are more likely to get shot.
Now this is just a normal theory and doesn't mean
precisely the acceptance for illegal activities
however anomie and strain is so widespread in the black community that it's seen as 'the normal way to do things' and you can see this is glorified everywhere from black rap music to twitter and other social media.
It's an extremely easy to grasp theory that already explains a lot about why blacks are disproportionately treated either more violently, or face more checks on the street.
D) lack of schooling. Blacks are known to drop out more often, and never complete high school, severely limiting the amount of jobs available to them therefore meaning that this also contributes to their effects on the strain theory.
Social control theory explains why school can be so important to prevent criminality.
EX: Chicago schools are some of the worst schools in the world,
worse than African schools. Therefore kids learn nothing useful and the school spends more time keeping these children in check than actually teaching them something worthwhile.
Government projects do nothing in this department because once again they just throw money at the problem, and don't really do anything practical.
E) bad living quarters.
Should explain what you need to know.Areas that have 'broken windows' are subjectively more prone to being part of criminal activities. Ghettoes/projects often are not the best cared for areas of a city and therefore people are more likely to enter criminality here, enhancing their interactions with the police.
I could go on, and on, about every theory there is. But fact of the matter is also that
almost all of these theories applies in some way or shape to the black community, the same as the latino community.The important thing that I am trying to explain here is not that it's the 'blackness' that causes this (though arguably in some rural areas, it may be skin color, because in rural areas cops are more likely to be racist). It's not even anything to do with being black, it's more about the 'group' and the conditions of that group and it's important to realize that blacks in the US don't really have much to work with and therefore are more likely to enter criminality and therefore enhance their interactions with police for a starter.
Now the cops are a whole other thing and frankly I don't know enough about this because US cops are very different from the European cops. For example UK cops don't even carry firearms. Dutch cops (where I am from) have to file 10 papers for every shot they fire, and there are barely ever shots fired in the Netherlands. Cops here are in touch with the Dutch community where they operate and are somehow connected, so it's less about 'stopping crime and arresting bad guys' and more about ensuring the public behavior is good. They're there to help and not to arrest. That's why they are trained in de-escalation and not in punitive action (though they do that from time to time, but
only after a situation has already escalated). American cops seem to be extremely lacking in this department.
