Yeah. The ultimate goal of such redefinitions is to imply that some groups' problems are inherently more important, more worth addressing. But that's not true. All suffering is suffering.
I don't know. Is going to jail based on your race suffering more or less than not getting into Harvard because of your race? I tend to agree with OP's comment, but one important aspect is left out when talking about things like this: Class.
I'd like to call out your casual mentioning of someone's race being responsible for them going to jail. That's not really what happens - rather that someone breaks the law and goes to jail.
I'm not aware of law-abiding members of any race going to jail (while the article demonstrates that Asians who do everything same as whites or blacks have no chance of getting into Harvard).
> In 2006, the black arrest rate for most crimes was two to nearly three times blacks’ representation in the population. Blacks constituted 39.3% of all violent-crime arrests, including 56.3% of all robbery and 34.5% of all aggravated-assault arrests, and 29.4% of all property-crime arrests.
This paragraph is presupposing that the arrest process is fair to assert that blacks deserve their higher prison sentences.
"From 1976 to 2005, blacks committed more than 52% of all murders in America."
and
"The advocates acknowledge such crime data only indirectly: by charging bias on the part of the system’s decision makers. As Obama suggested in the Martin Luther King debate, police, prosecutors and judges treat blacks and whites differently “for the same crime.”
But in fact, cops don’t over-arrest blacks and ignore white criminals. The race of criminals reported by crime victims matches arrest data. No one has ever come up with a plausible argument as to why crime victims would be biased in their reports."
Lol, I believe that cops DEFINITELY over-arrest blacks. After Ferguson and a huge WAVE of black people dying unfairly at the hands of police officers, you can read a lot of articles online where highly educated black men (ivy league) write about how they get pulled over by a cop once every 1-2 weeks for NOTHING (except for being black).
Think about that, once every 1-2 weeks. I've been pulled over 3 times in my life. Twice for speeding, once for a broken tail light.
1. I'm not sure why you bring up Ferguson when the guy was clearly in the wrong. Ie he got killed because he fought the cop for his gun (which went off inside the car) and then charged at him.
Ie someone who jumps out a 10th story window can't blame the oppressive "gravity" for causing their death.
2. That said, I take your point that educated black men may be unfairly targeted for being pulled over. Yet I don't see how someone being pulled over results in their arrest, let alone conviction of a crime which they did not commit.
That's the issue - not that someone gets pulled over every couple of weeks (unpleasant but hardly life-altering) but that huge number of men are in prison for actually committing crime.
1. As all the controversy shows, he wasn't "clearly in the wrong". Neither was Eric Gardner, that guy who got choked out, nor all the other cases, the names of whom I started to forget because the reporting became so common place, i.e. it was happening all the time.
2. So let's say a white person and a black person in a car have the same rate of performing a crime (let's say smoking marijuana, a harmless pastime enjoyed by all races). Let's say that if a cop pulls you over while you are smoking marijuana, then you will be arrested. Well if a cop is twice as likely to pull you over if you are black, then there will be twice as many black arrests. This is a simplistic model and doesn't even factor situations where a black person gets pulled over, and definitely gets forced out of his car, handcuffed, and searched, whereas a white person might be able to cordially get away with a smile and a "Yessir".
Eric Gardner was indeed a completely different case. His death was an unfortunate accident. The cop did not intend to kill him - he was looking for a way to subdue a very large man. I do agree that under normal circumstances it should be treated as manslaughter (ie unintended killing).
2. Your scenario is missing a very important point. I'm not saying that black arrest rates are much higher, hence this proves criminality.
Rather the rates for being convicted for serious crimes (like murder) is off the charts. Likewise victim reports of the race of crime perpetrators matches the conviction stats.
So basically the innocent black guys who just smoked weed in a car and happened to be pulled over because they're black are not going to jail for it (maybe a fine at most).
