Marquette Warrior: Do Black Lives Matter?

Monday, March 02, 2015

Do Black Lives Matter?

It’s not so clear that they do to the activists who use that slogan.



We are not entirely sure that “broken windows policing” is quite as effective as the hype suggests, but there is no question that it’s a policy promoted by people who really do believe that black lives matter.

Interestingly, it seems that rank and file black people (as opposed to the race hustling activists) favor such policing.

Consider, for example, a poll of black people in New York City, as reported by the leftist outlet The Root.
Despite the looming specter of police brutality, which casts shadows over street corners, neighborhoods and homes across black America, 56 percent of black voters in New York City support “broken windows” policing tactics, compared with 61 percent of the city’s white voters, according to a new Quinnipiac University poll.

The controversial policing style frames community disorder and signs of neglect—such as broken windows, littering and loitering—as indicators of encroaching crime that will lead to more dangerous communities and must be addressed with the full force of the law.

In theory, broken-windows policing, and its variants stop-and-frisk, zero-tolerance and quality-of-life policing, are tactics used by officers who are hyperinvested in keeping communities safe, clean and crime-free. In practice, however, they provide opportunities for racial profiling and resulting antagonistic and abusive encounters between law enforcement and people of color.

Interestingly, when participants in the Quinnipiac poll were asked whether police officers should “actively issue summonses or make arrests for so-called quality of life offenses,” including selling small amounts of marijuana or making loud noise, 60 percent of black voters said yes, a negligible difference from the 59 percent of white voters who said the same.

“It’s different where you live from what you see in the media,” said Quinnipiac University Poll Assistant Director Maurice Carroll. “Overall, black New Yorkers are negative about cops citywide. White voters are positive. But looking at cops in their own neighborhood, the support turns positive among black voters and heavily positive among whites.

“Does it improve the quality of life in your neighborhood when police arrest someone for a low-level offense, or does it increase neighborhood tensions? New Yorkers decide for quality of life,” Carroll added.
Contrary to the activist myth, black people don’t see the courts as excessively harsh on criminals. The following tabulation is from the National Opinion Research Center General Social Survey, combining polls from 2008 through 2012 (to get a reasonable number of black respondents).

Click on Image to Enlarge
The numbers show that while blacks are a bit more likely than whites to say the courts are “too harsh” (27 percent as opposed to 10 percent for whites) a robust majority of blacks (56 percent) say the courts are “not harsh enough.” Another sixteen percent of blacks say the courts are “about right.”

Given that rank-and-file black people don’t seem to agree with the race hustlers, how do the politically correct types respond?

The Root went to one Arlene Eisen to provide a politically correct gloss on the findings.
“If [we are to] assume the study is reliable, then you have to ask, ‘What black people?’ Generally, more middle class and professional people will prioritize protecting property,” said Arlene Eisen, the author and primary researcher of Operation Ghetto Storm, a frequently quoted study on the extrajudicial killing of black people. “Then, you need to consider the level of political education of whoever responded to the survey. This includes what a lot of people call ‘internalized racism’—where black people learn a lot of the same views of themselves as whites. Unfortunately, there is very little in the education system and corporate media to counter the hegemonic status of white supremacy.”
Thus politically correct people always end up demeaning the people they are supposedly championing. “Those ignorant blacks,” she seems to be saying, “are anti-black racists too. They just aren’t educated enough to see what’s going on.”

To whom do black lives matter?

To rank-and-file black folks, yes. To people who favor strict law enforcement, yes. To the race hustlers who would rather have a political grievance than to protect black lives, no.

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2 Comments:

Blogger Kirby Olson said...

Klavan is a genius. If he could be Jon Stewart for a year we would get our country back.

2:20 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

McAdams makes several points, I'm concerned only with the data concerning "quality of life" offenses. Lots of questions, plaints, about that data.

“It’s different where you live from what you see in the media,”

"Quality of life" offenses, in relevant part, concerns "criminalizing actual innocence."

From my experience, the crime of "Improper lane usage," is the most guilty of this, that is: criminalizing actual innocence.

I'll be willing to bet that, not only is it "different where you live from what you see in the media," but that it's also different when it's you whose actual innocence is made criminal.

And, certainly, there is no need to surrender the reasoning faculty upon venturing to comment on this blog, so I'll not do so, and mention what is the fact without so many fine words: Police use "Improper lane usage" to criminalize actual innocence and, moreover, cloth criminal interdictions in legal authority which are actually illegal.

Because it is impossible to distinguish "Improper lane usage" from "actual innocence." It is the criminalizing of innocence, and just that.

Certainly there is a canon of statutes that police use to criminalize actual innocence and I want to note that, without minimizing my focus on "Improper lane usage."

Nevertheless, Compared with robust data collection from those whose actual innocence has been criminalized under the guise of "Improper lane usage," as well as those who have fallen prey to illegal criminal interdictions because of that phrase, the Quinnipiac data is meaningless in finding out what people think about nuisance offenses.

It would be a disservice to any Reader if I did not reiterate that the "quality of life offense" data here referenced is nothing but the foolish pursuit of the inconsequential - effluence only - when compared with the data I suggest. It offers the respondent a choice between sinner and saint.

Welp, saint won.

Shocker.

My suggestion: tackle the real pathogen instead of doing what is useless.

Justice Sotomayor's recent remarks only multiply exponentially the need for it, I leave you with those:

Giving officers license to effect seizures so long as they can attach to their reasonable view of the facts some reasonable legal interpretation
(or misinterpretation) that suggests a law has been violated significantly expands this authority. Cf. Barlow v. United States, 7 Pet. 404, 411 (1833) (Story, J.) (“There is scarcely any law which does not admit of some ingenious doubt”). One wonders how a citizen seeking to be law-abiding and to structure his or
her behavior to avoid these invasive, frightening, and humiliating encounters could do so.

Any red-blooded American will agree that "Improper lane usage" makes it impossible to do so: How to think about claims that nuisance laws are robustly supported.

6:05 PM  

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