Professor stupidmonkey wrote:
Huffpost Article TITLE wrote:
Black GOP Senator Talks About Being Pulled Over By Police 7 Times In One Year
Being poor is not why blacks are getting pulled over. It is because of the color of their skin.
I've been pulled over as many as 15-20 times in a year. It is entirely about where and when you are driving. Guess what? If you're white, and you're driving late at night in a neighborhood where there's a lot of white drug dealers, you will get pulled over a lot. If you're black, and you're driving late at night in a neighborhood with a lot of black drug dealers, you're going to get pulled over a lot.
The statistical difference is that there are a lot more neighborhoods full of black drug dealers than there are those full of white drug dealers. Additionally, a middle class white man is less likely to be driving through a poor neighborhood with predominately white drug dealers, late at night, while a middle class black man (for a host of social reasons) is far more likely to be driving through a poor neighborhood with predominately black drug dealers, late at night.
There are several real social and economic issues at play here that contribute to this problem. My issue is with deciding to blame the people at the very tail end of that very long set of circumstances (ie: police pulling people over). That cop didn't create the conditions that he has to deal with. He just has to deal with them. I guess my biggest issue with this whole thing is that it's unclear what policy changes people think could be made at the policing level to fix this? Not pull people over? Not respond to calls in predominately black neighborhoods? I'm not sure that's really a good solution to this problem.