[Xmca-l] Re: My Hometown Minneapolis

Mon Jun 8 07:44:16 PDT 2020

Thanks for the information about the Australia protests, Andy.  I haven’t had a chance to look much at them but this motivates me to keep my eyes open about them.  I spent a term, years ago, in Sydney and my office tower mate was a lab technician who tried hard to educate me about differences and similarities about race in Australia and the US.

A lot of us in the US right now are looking with care at the reception and use of studies with claims about police and racism. The study cited is said to be credible  

1. “Because MATH!” as the kids would say;

2. because the author said he didn’t expect the outcome (hence, it must be a rare case of “science” that isn’t fake and needn’t be overturned by executive order);

3. because that bastion of Fake News, the NYT, tricked itself into publishing it

3 a. before the NYT got serious about consistently persecuting the pitiful attacked president T,

3 b. tripping itself up in the glare of its worship of elite colleges and black scholars.

A lot of us on this list are interested in how the immediate is being mediated during these times and in these situations. The deaths and violence  are based on police self-reports. In DC we have a very recent careful and steady ongoing series of attempts to get data from the police (based on our NEAR Act).  It includes stop and frisk (locally known—and denied-- as jump-outs) and other encounters with people in and out of custody. We allocated money for administration, for cooperatively building usable instruments and training in using them.  We allocated funds year after year. We fail miserably at every turn and after every adjustment we make. The police department still does not fully comply. Like when a child fails to get the answer to a single digit addition task we set them, we don’t know if they wouldn’t or couldn’t do it, all we know is they didn’t.  Several independent audits (some prospective, others retrospective) have been attempted of major US city police self- reports with careful identification of the universe of incidents relative to the day’s time passing, within the carefully identified jurisdiction, and closer to the time and place of incidents.  So far, lots of problems and no chance of dismissing worries about accountably using police self-report data.  

Many of us have worked hard to understand how self-report relates to other sorts of data and to practical and theoretical contexts.  Of course, who are we to say anything? We never took into account that people put knees on people’s necks until they died – well, they might kill but they certainly would not lie (by omission or commission) on a self-report form that someone would later code for a study.  And people who shoot a young man with 75 exit wounds might kill but they certainly wouldn’t lie  (by omission or commission) on a self-report form that someone would later code for a study…  We say their names and others’ names. 

Maybe I am just wrong to think, as the saying goes, that the dead tell no lies, but killers, might.

Someone else might bring up convenience samples and all too convenient samples and so on… 

From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Andy Blunden
Sent: Sunday, June 7, 2020 10:41 PM
To: xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu
Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: My Hometown Minneapolis

I am not fully across this issue, but I heard during the commentary on the BLM protests in Australia this weekend, where "black deaths in custody" is the issue, that counter-intuitively deaths of Indigenous Australians in prison is not very much larger than their percentage in the prison population, but their rate of imprisonment is so extraordinarily high (higher than that of African Americans) the result is a shockingly high rate of deaths in custody. And they are imprisoned at far greater rates for the same offences, or even none at all.

If I got this wrong, I will stand corrected.

Andy

  _____  

Andy Blunden
Hegel for Social Movements <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/brill.com/view/title/54574__;!!Mih3wA!XCFPJlrE3W-miqfvnnBUHHRjExgjwMHX58fTdhdHF7CdpFuqOclJ0CpadANq4gMAaTyRAw$> 
Home Page <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm__;!!Mih3wA!XCFPJlrE3W-miqfvnnBUHHRjExgjwMHX58fTdhdHF7CdpFuqOclJ0CpadANq4gPjfFDilQ$>  

On 8/06/2020 4:08 am, Martin Packer wrote:

I should have added that Fryer's original study, reported in the NY Times in 2016, found this: 

A new study <https://urldefense.com/v3/__http:/www.nber.org/papers/w22399__;!!Mih3wA!WNv2OVubdef9Qu11-9OSIA9NJRZrfDvQ9vU0rWYmUvy_G7k_S_IK7D17VF3WG_mnNs6-jA$>  confirms that black men and women are treated differently in the hands of law enforcement. They are more likely to be touched, handcuffed, pushed to the ground or pepper-sprayed by a police officer, even after accounting for how, where and when they encounter the police.

But when it comes to the most lethal form of force — police shootings — the study finds no racial bias.

“It is the most surprising result of my career,” said Roland G. Fryer Jr. <https://urldefense.com/v3/__http:/scholar.harvard.edu/fryer/home__;!!Mih3wA!WNv2OVubdef9Qu11-9OSIA9NJRZrfDvQ9vU0rWYmUvy_G7k_S_IK7D17VF3WG_mBL6zw6g$> , the author of the study and a professor of economics at Harvard. The study examined more than 1,000 shootings in 10 major police departments, in Texas, Florida and California.

Martin

On Jun 7, 2020, at 12:42 PM, Anthony Barra <anthonymbarra@gmail.com <mailto:anthonymbarra@gmail.com> > wrote:

Hi Michael, 

Much of the claim rests in Roland Freyer's 2016 multivariate analysis, groundbreaking at the time (though I don't know the very latest findings on the matter): https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/12/upshot/surprising-new-evidence-shows-bias-in-police-use-of-force-but-not-in-shootings.html__;!!Mih3wA!QV74X_a5vhO5Je-Sp1Sis9dJjBN9K14P5AiPLH-iy4IR0DxrmbT56x14cac5OyWsfMH92w$  <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/www.nytimes.com/2016/07/12/upshot/surprising-new-evidence-shows-bias-in-police-use-of-force-but-not-in-shootings.html__;!!Mih3wA!S18nvB-bJf3z_eNSjHPT3rWUU-YDJmOewUS-_eVjP4nwhyrQvSiFE_5aqUIHnjG437QrnA$>  

I believe Glenn Loury was once his advisor in graduate economics, though I could be mistaken there.

I respect this community and in no way seek to bring dis- or misinformation into it, especially on topics that may require numerous key strokes just to get one's footing. 

Thank you for understanding, and I agree! Let's not argue. 

Anthony

On Sunday, June 7, 2020, Glassman, Michael <glassman.13@osu.edu <mailto:glassman.13@osu.edu> > wrote:

Black men are 2.5 more likely to be killed by police than white men. What makes this much, much worse is that most Black men are taught from very early in life the dangers they face in dealing with police and have strategies set for de-escalation. The first point you can get with a few key strokes. The second point maybe you have to live in the U.S. for.

I do not believe the Loury McWhorter argument is based on any well founded social science.

What I find difficult about this is that XMCA, whose earlier versions was one of the earliest well-functioning communities is being use to proliferate this type of information, or I would say misinformation. The list has always run with minimalist moderation but I wonder if it is possible in this day and age. 

These are observations. I have no desire to argue about this with anybody.

Michael

From: xmca-l-bounces@mailmanucsd.edu <mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu>  <xmca-l-bounces@mailmanucsd.edu <mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> > On Behalf Of Bill Kerr
Sent: Sunday, June 7, 2020 3:59 AM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu <mailto:xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu> >
Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: My Hometown Minneapolis

hi Anthony,

I watched both videos. 

Coleman Hughes argues that the Black Lives Matter movement is based on a half truth. True that the police treat blacks worse. Not true that they murder disproportionately more blacks than whites. The problem with the police is corruption (not being independently investigated) not disproportionate murder of black people.

Glen Loury and John McWhorter teach me the real history of American race, that things have moved on, progress has been made since Lincoln and MLKing, and the importance of identifying the real reasons of black disadvantage, arising paradoxically from the 1960s, and not that racism is the American DNA. eg. the meme that school is a white persons domain arose in part from the bussing movement which gave many blacks a terrible school experience.

There are some parallels in Australia, eg. welfare dependency which is one of the biggest if not the biggest problem for aboriginals here arose from the chain events which followed from the 1967 referendum where they were recognised at citizens for the first time. This led to equal pay which led to aboriginal workers being sacked which led to welfare dependency which led to grog which led to more black on black violence etc. This history has been written, eg. by Peter Sutton, The Politics of Suffering, but is still not widely understood.

Thank you

On Sun, Jun 7, 2020 at 10:38 AM Anthony Barra <anthonymbarra@gmail.com <mailto:anthonymbarra@gmail.com> > wrote:

I'm hearing people talk of cabin fever and itchy scratchy restlessness, and I think that is one unifying thing that almost everyone here can relate to!  What a year so far.

I promise, these two conversations are very interesting, for anyone potentially curious:

First, this one https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hWQmzgiKXQ__;!!Mih3wA!QV74X_a5vhO5Je-Sp1Sis9dJjBN9K14P5AiPLH-iy4IR0DxrmbT56x14cac5OyVEvnxZCA$  <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hWQmzgiKXQ__;!!Mih3wA!XgM3_X1riF_AYwqfZ7zTT0dslCVEzwkmg1Kw-a63ReNKrqh653kZrirxQ_TR4yBatxTfPw$>  featuring Glenn Loury and John McWhorter -- piggybacking on the 1619 Project link that Martin shared earlier today (thanks for sharing that)

and in my honest opinion, this is the single most down-the-middle commentary on recent events in the US, via Coleman Hughes: https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://youtu.be/8C-VrsK93GE__;!!Mih3wA!QV74X_a5vhO5Je-Sp1Sis9dJjBN9K14P5AiPLH-iy4IR0DxrmbT56x14cac5OyVX9WpzHA$  <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/youtu.be/8C-VrsK93GE__;!!Mih3wA!XgM3_X1riF_AYwqfZ7zTT0dslCVEzwkmg1Kw-a63ReNKrqh653kZrirxQ_TR4yB6mIcWCw$>   (as least as far as I've yet encountered).  Coleman shares his perspective as a protest attendee, and also much more than that. 

Somewhat of a warning: there's a fair amount of pain expressed in these videos, but not exactly conventional, as these commentaries do cut against the headwinds a fair amount.  

Thank you,

Anthony 

On Sat, Jun 6, 2020 at 8:43 PM Annalisa Aguilar <annalisa@unm.edu <mailto:annalisa@unm.edu> > wrote:

To the wonderful garden of Us and Them,

I'm not sure why I wrote that, it just seemed to come out. Like the riot of expression that gobsmacked me as I saw this thread extending to 46, including mine, though I know the tapestry is still weaving us and them here and in the streets for a little while still.

To whoever said it, I don't think that it's that people don't like the color of Trump's hair, but his orange-ness, which makes it so strange for him to promote white supremacy. An black star enigma surrounded by a riddle small waving hands wrapped in a spray tan. It should be orange supremacy, shouldn't it?

I also wanted to offer, for those of us who organize peaceful protest, we must also have a bullet-proof strategy (pun intended) to counter violently-intentioned infiltrators. This strategy must have enough cheeky chutzpah to bend the myth that peaceful protesters are namby-pambies with flowers in their hair. Does this exist? Has it been designed?

I have seen people yell down a few no-nos running about by yelling in unison NO VIOLENCE! NO VIOLENCE! It worked. 

NO Vi-Oh-LENCE!

Perhaps it has to do with spacing and cadence, something David might appreciate. 

We learn violence, and then we must unlearn it. Violence is an act of desperation once enough people feel disrespected, if even the number is just one. 

Of course my suggestion may not be the best possible, but I wonder if there is such an on-the-ground ad hoc strategy for aikido maneuvers by peaceful protesters to differentiate themselves from chaotic pretenders and the police who need them to be pretending chaotically, so they can rationalize their dear riot gear.

Now the antifa, on the other hand, have a wonderful moniker, sly and clever how it doesn't weave "fascism" into it fully, the way it is referential in function, like if I were to say, "Don't think of an elepha." They are like crouching tigers and hidden dragons, black ninjas who architect surprise. It's almost performance art. At the same time like watching a pincer move, in action with peaceful protesters, It's a beautiful think. Cornell West wrote recently in the Guardian that if the antifa were not present in Charlottesville he may have been killed. So I wondered about that coupling of forces. Is that what appears to be solidifying in the rhythms of the recent protests? What do other's think?

I can't speak to the looting, as I would never ever do it. I remember coming across the concept or looting when I was challenged by my friends in 7th grade to read all of Gone With the Wind. And that they shot and killed looters on the spot. I supposed that concept too has gone out the window. Not that I'd want to see that mind you, but it is punny. 

There were curfews for a few days, but it's been lifted as of a few nights back. As I am writing this I am hearing helicopters circling. This morning I drove down a street with many business having their windows boarded up. There were no people rioting or anything like that. I think these folks are fearful of having their plate glass windows smashed in the night by a fictitious rioting hurricane, that will just not happen on that street. But then there is no way to see into those shops now. I thought maybe they are just duck-and-covering under all that plywood. Is anyone in there?

I also saw someone had spray painted the words in black drippy spray paint on a white sheet. "White Silence is Violence" and this was hanging in a gentrified neighborhood. It seemed the perfect place to hang it.  

I also wanted to ask the list whether it is only racism that we are protesting? 

There was a tech who came to install my internet today. He is African American. I asked him, "Did you hear about all the protests all over the world? When I heard about it I started crying." To which he said, "Yeah, well but what about the other two guys that were killed? I think all those people came out because being shut in they just have nothing better to do." I said, "Well I understand that's a cynical way to look at it, but maybe it's a sign that something is going to change." He said, "Yeah, maybe it will." And I said, "Let's remain hopeful."

I really appreciated that exchange. Together he and I made an interesting dyad of viewpoints about what is actually going on here. 

My own consciousness about race is exposed here, but I thought the entire point of racism is to reduce people to a construct that is somehow built upon genetic features, like skin color, and then to layer that with this color is better than that one, and even to dehumanize one color from another, ir I should say to create a spectrum of dehumanization, light to heavy. 

Then I thought also that the point is to Eracism, not to perpetuate more of it. 

My next thought was about people with disabilities. They are likely far more oppressed than any other vulnerable group. I don't think we could ever fathom disabled folks rioting in the streets for being killed in many ways the the disabled are, or who have their lives reduced by being institutionalized because of the bodies in which they were born. 

The same might be said about the seriously mentally ill. As a mental exercise take any oppressed group and fill that space. 

I was following the bead of this comparison in my mind to think about how would inclusivity of the disabled in protest be provided in a time like now? (Give we are making room for kids to protest?) Or are the disabled even left behind while everyone else has the privilege to protest?

The only thing I feel might be a conclusion is that we fight for human rights and for non-violence, but also for inclusivity and our innate right to love one another. 

That everyone every single one of us matters. When every single one of us matters, there is no need to distinguish favorites, up or down, left or right. 

That day is not here yet because only some of us matters, and some of us doesn't. 

I'm not big on Biden, but he is one of the first mainstreamers to vocalize that we have an open wound that needs dressing. 

Then I thought how Biden has the privilege of saying that outright where Obama was not. My memory might be incorrect, however, it was only until Fergusen that Obama came out to speak but only in a very circumspect tone, if only that he could not be bridled as an angry black man. 

I wondered if anyone might present an imagination of what positive change might develop out of all of this, if you are able to shush the cynic-within.

Or is my cable internet guy right? The protests are just a holiday, a way to get out of the house because too many of us have cabin fever. 

Thank you all in advance for your contributions.

Kind regards, 

Annalisa

  _____  

From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu <mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu>  <

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20200608/2ae854e2/attachment.html 